Love all a-twitter

Long before Victorian poet Robert Browning wooed Elizabeth Barrett with a love letter disguised as a fan letter, cave dwellers may have been carving their hearts' yearnings into stone walls. ("You're the one I want to forage berries with 4-ever, xoxo.") Today, would-be lovers possess speedier means of satisfying their desires than wall painting or letter writing. It's not uncommon for many romantic relationships to begin as "elationships"-innocent or not-so-innocent IMs and texts along the lines of "meet 2nite?" Nonetheless, whether you save them, reread them or immediately delete them, emails and texts are the Internet era's version of the epistolary romance.

For Martha, a single, 31-year-old publicist based in Toronto, a work-related email kicked off an intense "elationship" with a man more than 10 years her senior who lived in another province. “His first message was work-related, so I answered it,” she explains. “Then he wrote me back with some light banter, so I kept up my end of the conversation.” As the months passed, their daily online chat, interspersed with games of online Scrabble, became more personal. “We ended up telling each other about our lives. I was going through a rough patch with my family, so I confided in him.”

While there was no explicit declaration of love, just flirty and confessional emails,  Martha — like any single girl on the lookout for Mr. Right — spent a great deal of time wondering if their email connection represented a real-life romantic connection. She didn’t have to wait too long to find out: About six months later, they met in person. He was in town on business, so they met for drinks. But from the start, all did not go well. The effortless intimacy they’d shared via email made their inperson chit-chat feel forced by comparison. Moreover, Martha was struck by their lack of physical chemistry. “In my mind’s eye, he was younger — even though I knew his age — and sprightlier. But when I saw him in person, he looked tired and older.” She became fixated on his “old man” shoes — they had Velcro clasps — and his paunch. The age difference, which hadn’t been an issue online, suddenly dominated the meeting. To make matters worse, he was unshaven and had bad breath.

Whether you save them, reread them or immediately delete them, emails and texts are the Internet era's version of the epistolary romance.

“It was a shock,” says Martha. “I realized that the photos he’d been sending me were either just his best angles or from 10 years earlier. It didn’t really matter, but it took some getting used to. It was like meeting an approximation of who he said he was, who I thought him to be.” Though she never told him — and they’ve never discussed it — for Martha, that disastrous meeting put the kibosh on months of simmering romantic potential.

“Some people call it hyper-personal — when you’re emailing and disclosing personal things quickly,” says Michael Norton, an assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School in Boston who has studied the habits of online daters. “People feel they have this strong emotional bond, and then they meet and it’s bizarre…they don’t know the person well yet have felt very close.” According to Helen Fisher, an anthropologist and author of Why Him? Why Her? Finding Real Love by Understanding Your Personality Type, email exchanges are just the first in a number of interactions, or “escalation points,” that mark the development of any relationship. “Relationships run on messages: They’ve got to be accepted; they’ve got to be returned,” she says. “All along the way, there are escalation points [in a relationship] and breaking points. So, basically, these people got through the first stage, which was the email stage; they found the person enormously intellectually interesting and funny and compassionate. But they just didn’t make it to the next stage, and those physical stages — actually looking at the person — are exceedingly important to the development of romantic love.”

Laura-Lee Bigongiari, 32, who works in human relations and lives in a suburb of Toronto, wasn’t looking for love or friendship when she signed up for an online language course more than a year ago. But, quite unexpectedly, she found both. “We were both studying German, and he saw me — on the site you have a little profile picture — and sent me a message one night. It was one o’clock in the morning, and I got this message that said ‘Studies going well?’”

That friendly query kicked off months of long emails and texts — and they weren’t talking about German grammar. “We started chatting — sending messages back and forth. I’d say that almost instantly, we realized we had so much in common. We clicked right from the get-go.” Their emails were vibrant sharing sessions that covered the gamut: They talked about home renovations, art and their shared love of travel. An offhand mention of her love of tea resulted in the arrival of a package of flowering jasmine green tea a few weeks later — “his first romantic gesture,” says Bigongiari.

FInd more on what happens when "elationships" do work out

Don't forget to check out our summer style contest!