iMessage shows me Contacts email address

When I want to send a new text, I select the compose/new message and then search for a contact. If I only have the contacts mobile phone number - no problem I can only send the text to that number. But if The contact has an email address - that becomes a choice that you can accidentally select and send your text to. Why? If I wanted to send an email that is what I would do. This is very frustrating and I need to turn it off. Please note - this is NOT me asking how to stop sending texts from my email (there are a ton of answers for that question). That is not my issue. My issue is when I accidentally send a text to someone’s email address which I should NOT be able to do.