apparently Gmail now requires you give them a phone number?

I have a few Gmail accounts with "darkoshi" in the name, which like my other "darkoshi" accounts such as this Dreamwidth one, I don't want associated to my legal name and address.

So I don't believe I've ever entered a phone number for those accounts. Whenever their pages have prompted me to enter one, I've chosen the option to skip it.

I have these Gmail accounts set up via IMAP in my Thunderbird, so I'm still able to receive and send mail thru them.

I logged into one of these accounts without a problem today via the web. But when logging into another of the accounts (in a fresh browser window with cookies cleared, like always), after entering my email and password, I was prompted to verify it's me by entering my recovery email address, which I did. But then it prompted me to verify it's me again in another way:

"Verify it's you. This device isn't recognized. For your security, Google wants to make sure it's really you. Enter a phone number to get a text message with a verification code."

This smacks of downright deceit to me. Entering a phone number doesn't let them verify it is me, as I've never given them a phone number before. I can only presume Google wants to have a phone number associated with my account, and this is their way of obtaining it.

I am quite annoyed that they don't instead simply say "We now require a phone number to be associated with your account. Please enter one."

I still wouldn't want to enter one, but at least they'd be being honest.
Gmail didn't even send a verification code to my recovery email address to verify that I can access it; they only made me enter the email address to show that I know what it is.

What they did send to both the email account that I'm trying to log in to, as well as the recovery email account, is an email saying:
"Critical Security Alert. Sign-in attempt was blocked. Someone just used your password to try to sign in to your account. Google blocked them, but you should check what happened."

Yes, I used my password to try to sign into my account, DUH.

https://www.wikihow.com/Bypass-Gmail-Phone-Verification
"It is no longer possible to create a new Gmail account without verifying a mobile phone number."

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/114129
"To help protect you from abuse, we will sometimes ask you to prove you’re not a robot before you can create or sign in to your account. This extra confirmation by phone helps keep spammers from abusing our systems.
Note: To verify your account, you need a mobile device. "

So I think I will have to stop using Gmail for my Darkoshi accounts.

But what email providers let you be anonymous and don't require a phone number?
I'm ok with it being a paid service, if I can pay anonymously; that may be reason for me to try out bitcoin. Although bitcoin's not really anonymous, is it?

So I just don't know.

::sigh:: It's always something.

Now I spent hours researching that instead of what I wanted to spend my post-midnight / pre-bed time on.
But GMX mail and ProtonMail look like good contenders.