[turquoisevar]

This won’t help you, but might help others in a similar situation:

If a sender starts a new conversation based on your name and they happen to have your email stored in your contact card as well, and the email is registered with iMessage, it’ll favor iMessage via email over SMS the first time, unless your number is specifically chosen[0] and then it’ll remember that preference for subsequent times

This doesn’t happen when there’s already a conversation going based on your phone number in the contact card, even if that phone number used to be registered with iMessage (in that case it’ll switch to SMS) or if the phone number is typed in manually or the sender searches you with the phone number.

You can of course, as recipient, also select with which email addresses and phone numbers would want to be reachable via iMessage.

To me this seems like good idea reservation and generally desired behavior because it prioritizes a richer messaging experience over one that is basic and you l, by virtue of enabling receipt of iMessages via email, essentially advertise that you’re able and willing to receive iMessages.

0: https://ibb.co/VV9hvxF