While I generally look for qualities like funny, smart and interesting in potential dates, there was a period of time when all I cared about was finding someone who gave good e-mail -- and gave it often. I would share the most mundane details of daily life with near strangers with whom I'd shared little more than a so-so Italian dinner in the brick-and-mortar world.
But danger lurked. After many mishaps, miscommunications and dating disasters, I began to see e-mail less as a handy tool and more as a high-speed way to put my foot in my mouth. "Internet time" has come to mean not only how fast a company can grow and make one an IPO millionaire, but also how quickly a new relationship can sputter, stall and fall flat, or flourish quickly out of control.
My problem started out small -- as such problems are wont to do -- and didn't interfere too much with my work life. The first guy on the other end of the communiques (I'll call him Minute Man because of his high-speed e-mail prowess), had an extremely lenient boss (himself), leaving him much time to e-mail -- say 10, 15, even 20 times a day. Whatever it took to satisfy my urges.
Although it became clear about 10 minutes into our first date that we had next-to-nothing in common, every time that electronic life-support system chirped I raced like a little kid to click, click, click, until I was staring at the contents of his latest gift. Never mind that the message generally went something like this:
Minute Man: "Hey, what's up? How was your Sunday? I spent most of it hung-over hanging out at 'Ye Olde Sportsbar watching the Niner's game."
Stimulating reading it was not. And while I generally prefer the tormented-artist type to the overgrown fraternity boy, I had made the switch to the latter a few months before, due in no small part to the fact that most of the former exist on temp jobs, causing impaired e-mailing regularity. And since e-mail expertise took precedence for me in those days over cerebral stimulation, this guy fit the bill.
After a number of dates and hundreds of messages I admitted to myself that the two of us shared little more than a need to cop a little e-lovin'. Friends intervened and I finally kicked the nasty habit.
But it only took a couple days of uninterrupted work life until I was jonesin' for a fix. When I met my next soon-to-be paramour (a friend of my friend's boyfriend) I couldn't help but notice that he sounded distinctly like a cast member from "Friends" (That is SO not cool.) and he giggled like a schoolgirl. But I couldn't hear that through a computer and I focused instead on the fact that he was a tech geek with almost intravenous e-mail. When he asked, I gave him my @.com and when he e-mailed to ask me to dinner figured "How bad could it be?" and I agreed. (My mother had commandeered my brain.) But before I even went on that first date our relationship shifted into high gear and we were e-mailing back and forth like fiends.
Me: "Get this, today my boss asked me to send personal e-mails to all 453 users who sent us messages about our Back-to-School chats. Fun stuff." Send.
His missives were equally enthralling. I wondered how a new relationship could possibly be so boring, but he was virtually attentive and I figured things would improve after we had a real-life date. I continued in that state for a week and a half, anticipating our in-person rendezvous and hoping I imagined his giggle.
I didn't. I even got to hear it when we kissed, hee hee hee, which we did after splitting a bottle of wine. I realized that despite the hours of online entertainment Mr. Primetime had provided, the only attraction I felt for him in person had to be fermented to exist.
Now I had to end things, which I figured shouldn't be too difficult since I had the benefit of e-mail, that wonderful enabler of passive-aggressive behavior, and we had only gone out that one time.
Wrong. Instead I was about to get caught in a technological web that would conspire to make my extraction from the situation as painful as that of impacted wisdom teeth. And I'd overlooked the fact that although we'd only gone out once, the incessant e-mailing had taken us from honeymoon period to old-married-couple-squabbling status in the span of two weeks. It started when he e-mailed me the next morning.
10:15 a.m. Mr. Primetime: "I had such a great time last night. So, whaddya say we grab a bite or catch a flick this week?"
What to do? I did nothing.
3:00 p.m. My phone rang. "That was SO not cool of you to ignore my e-mail," said the voice on the other end of the line.
I lied: "Yeah, sorry, I've been in meetings all day."
Mr. Primetime: "Meetings? Then, like, how were you able to read my message at 10:23 a.m.?"
Damn. We both used America Online, which means having the ability to check the status of messages, something Steve Case and his buddies came up with for those paranoids who get off on star 69 and caller ID. Apparently Mr. Primetime was one of those.
Me: "Oh -- yeah -- right. Actually ("actually" being code for "I'm thinking of an excuse right now") this e-mailing is cutting into my work. Things are getting stressful here and I've got to stop."
Mr. Primetime: "Stressful? I SO don't believe that and I think being honest is, like, just about the most important thing in a relationship."
And therein lay the crux of the problem, because I think honesty is important in a relationship, too. But beyond our obsessive e-mailing we didn't have a relationship. We'd gone out once. ONCE. After way too much annoying conversation and a few follow-up e-mails (a cyber restraining order would've come in handy) we finally parted ways.
The experience taught me a valuable lesson: E-mail should be the salad dressing of a new relationship-used to enhance flavor. I vow not to drown my lettuce and tomatoes in empty calories from then on. And I do well for awhile.
I start dating Urban Hipster, a graphic artist. He has no interest in killing time with gratuitous e-mails. I see this as a chance to quit my habit cold turkey and use e-mail only for necessity -- scheduling dates and the like.
Thursday, 9:30 a.m. Urban Hipster: "So are we still on for the party tomorrow night?"
10:28 a.m. Me: "Definitely. Sounds fun."
11:15 a.m. Urban Hipster: "Great. It's at some loft and I think we need to dress up."
11:30:20 a.m. Me: "Does that mean you'll be wearing your leather chaps?"
11:30:24 a.m. I slipped. I knew it was only a matter of time. Unsend, unsend!! But of course things are out of my control at this point. Luck and the server are handling my destiny now.
11:35 a.m. I check my e-mail. Nothing.
11:35:30 a.m. I check again. I wait. I pray. I use the watched-pot-never-boils theory and go to the bathroom. I check my voice mail. I call my voice mail at home. I repeat. It's an endless cycle. I'm a whirling dervish, a pagan praying to my cyber god. BRING ME MAIL.
3:15 p.m. I decide he hates me. I sink into a severe depression. I forward the message to my closest friend, looking for reassurance that I wasn't totally off base. She tells me I wasn't. This is why she's my friend.
3:28 p.m. I no longer care. I decide I'll find someone new and I console myself with the thought that I can always run and hide if I happen to see him in public.
5:37 p.m. My little mailbox springs to life. There's a message from him. With an odd sense of detachment I open it.
Urban Hipster: "Hi, got your message, was out of the office all day. Yes, I'll have the leather chaps on. Will you be wearing your feather boa and stilettos?"
I'm relieved, but I realize my nine lives are running low. I decide that with so little restraint and so much potential for disaster I should confine my dating endeavors to the real world. I find what is probably the only guy on earth who has yet to get an e-mail account. I make a date.
I wonder how long it takes to send postcards.