So I want to make a new account to start sharing my art online and use this for social media accounts and such. Now I'm trying to create this new account, but I'm running into some hurdles.

First, I absolutely despise the fact that Google is so needy for your phone number. I've been looking into work-arounds, but none of the ones I found seem to work for me ("make one through Youtube" I run into the same issues; "skip phone number" there's no skip button; "give a recovery email instead" there is no option for this)

Another thing is that when I first start the account creation, there's the bit "Use an email address or phone number" where it clearly states "Enter any email address or phone number *you own* to create a Google account". When I enter my current email, it gives the error "That username is taken". Like, yes? Cause it's an existing account that I own, like you asked?

I don't understand, I feel like such a f*cking idiot please help lmao

(I'd add screenshots but apparently that's a nope so yay)