Love Virtually (10 page)

Fifteen minutes later

Re:

What if I'd just wanted to show you a few photos of me when I was a child? What if I'd just wanted to drink some whisky or a vodka sour with you—to our health and our groundbreaking achievement of having met at last? What if I'd just wanted to hear your voice? And what if I'd just wanted to breathe in the scent of your hair and skin?

Nine minutes later

Re:

Leo, Leo, Leo, sometimes it sounds as if you're the woman in this set-up, and I'm the man. But I'm convinced it's just a game we're playing at the highest level. I'm trying to think like a man so that I can understand you, I'm trying to see things from a man's perspective, I'm downloading all my mental files that relate to the way men think, including glossary—and all I get is you telling me that I'M the one who's obsessed with sex. I expose the classic male motives for an urgent midnight rendezvous—and you turn it all around and say they're mine. Aren't you the innocent one, Leo! What a shy romantic you are! Why can't you just admit that keeping your virtual finger pressed on my virtual doorbell at 10 o'clock at night had nothing to do with childhood photos. (Maybe you've got a nice stamp collection, too? In which case I'd have been over like a shot . . .)

Three minutes later

Re:

Dear Emmi,

Don't ever talk about men in general when you're referring to ME—it's a demeaning tactic, and often meant spitefully. You can't lump me together with everyone else—I'm too much of an individual—and you shouldn't use the example of other men to infer things about me. It's just such an insult!

Eighteen minutes later

Re:

O.K., O.K., I'm sorry! But look how you've just cunningly dodged explaining your real motive for wanting to see me so urgently in the middle of the night. In your hungover infatuation and need to get laid, Leo, there's no disgrace in trying to pull the old blindfold trick with Emmi, whom you don't even know (although apparently she's not so bad looking). In fact I'm extremely flattered, and you haven't sunk so much as a millimeter in my estimations. It's 1:30 in the morning by the way, time I thought about going to bed. Thanks again for your thrilling offer. Very daring of you. I like it when you're spontaneous. And I also like it when you drunkenly shower me with kisses. Night-night, Leo, with a kiss from me too.

Five minutes later

Re:

I wouldn't try to pull a fast one on anyone, ever.

Good night.

Twelve minutes later

Re:

Just two more things, Leo. I can't sleep anyway. If I really had come over to your place, you don't actually think I'd have made you pay for the taxi, do you?

And if I really had come over to your place, which of the three Emmis on your sister's list would you have wanted? Bubbly Ur-Emmi? Busty Blond-Emmi? Or shy Surprise-Emmi? Because I'm sure you already know that your Fantasy-Emmi would have disappeared for good the moment we met.

One day later

Subject: I.T. issues?

Leo? Your turn!

Three days later

Subject: Break in correspondence

Emmi,

I'm just writing to let you know that it's not that I'm stopping our correspondence for good. The moment I know WHAT to write, I'll write it. I'm in the process of assembling the schizophrenic fragments I've been broken up into over the past few days. I'll write just as soon as I've put all the pieces back together again.

You haunt me constantly, Emmi. I miss you. I'm longing for you. I read your emails over and over again, every day.

Yours,

Leo

Four days later

Subject: Confession

Hello Mr. Leike,

Do you have a guilty conscience? Have you got a confession to make? Is there something I should know? If so, I think I know what that thing is. I've found something dreadful in my in-box. Do you know what I'm talking about? Feel free to unburden yourself!!!

Best wishes,

Emmi Rothner

Three and a half hours later

Re: Confession

What's wrong with you, Emmi? What's that cryptic email supposed to mean? Are you concocting some sort of conspiracy theory? Whatever it is, I've got no idea what you're talking about. What dreadful thing did you find your in-box? Please be a bit clearer! And don't be so damned formal just because you're suspicious!

Love,

Leo

Half an hour later

Re: Confession

Oh most esteemed language psychologist, if it turns out that my suspicions are well founded, I'll detest you for the rest of my life! You'd better come out with it right now.

Twenty-five minutes later

Re: Confession

Whatever it is that's put you in this mood, dear Emmi, your language scares me. I don't want to be a victim of your speculative blind hatred, based as it is on confused thoughts and ludicrous associations in a brain eaten away by mistrust. Either give it to me straight or reassure me you like me!

Because right now I'm furious.

Leo

The next day

Subject: Confession II

On Sunday I met up with a friend of mine. I told her about you, Leo. “What does he do for a living?” she asked me. “He's a language psychologist—he works at the university,” I replied. Language psychology. Sonja was amazed. “What does he do there?” she then asked. And I said: “I don't know exactly. We don't talk about our work, just about ourselves.” And then I remembered. At the beginning he mentioned something about doing a study on the language of emails. That's what he was working on at the time. But then there was no more mention of it. In a flash Sonja's expression darkened and she literally said: “Be careful, Emmi, he may just be analyzing you!” I was so shocked. The first thing I did when I got home was to sit down and start reading through our old emails. And I found the following paragraph from you from February 20: “We're currently working on a study that's looking at the influence of email on our linguistic behavior and—the much more interesting part of the project— email as a medium for conveying our emotions. This is why I tend to talk shop, but in future I promise to restrain myself.”

So, my dear Leo, maybe now you understand why I feel the way I do? LEO, ARE YOU JUST ANALYZING ME? ARE YOU JUST TESTING ME AS A MEDIUM FOR CONVEYING EMOTIONS? AM I NOTHING MORE THAN THE CONTENT OF A COLD PHD THESIS OR SOME OTHER GHASTLY LANGUAGE EXPERIMENT?

Forty minutes later

Re: Confession II

If I were you I'd ask Bernhard what he thinks about it, because I've had enough of you. Besides, any means of conveyance would collapse under the weight of your emotional baggage.

Leo

Five minutes later

Re: Confession II

You can go on the counterattack if you want, but don't think my concerns about being exploited by a language psychologist have gone away. So please be straight with me.

You owe me that much, Leo.

Three days later

Subject: Leo!

Dear Leo,

The last three days have been horrible. On the one hand I've been terrified—yes, it was a real panic attack—that you've been using me all along for some study, and on the other I'm plagued by the awful misgiving that I might have done you an injustice. Perhaps my rash accusations have destroyed something between us. I've no idea what would be worse: to have been “betrayed” by you, or, in an attack of blind suspicion, to have bulldozed the refuge of our mutual trust which we've so lovingly and carefully built up.

Dear Leo, please try to put yourself in my shoes. I must confess I haven't had such an intense emotional exchange with anyone for a long time. I'd never have believed that this was possible. In my emails to you I can be the real Emmi, in a way that I can't be at any other time. In what we call “real life”—if you want to be successful, if you want to get on in the long term—you always have to come to some kind of compromise with your own emotions: I can't overreact NOW! I have to accept THIS! I have to ignore THAT!—You're forever having to tailor your emotions to the circumstances, you go easy on the people you love, you slip into your hundred little daily roles, you juggle, you balance, you weigh things up so as not to jeopardize the entire structure, because you yourself have a stake in it.

But with you, dear Leo, I'm not afraid to be spontaneous, or true to my inner self. I don't need to think about what I can tell you and what I can't. I just natter on blithely. It does me so much good!!! And that's all because of you, Leo. That's why you've become so essential to me: you take me just as I am. Sometimes you rein me in, sometimes you ignore things, sometimes you take things the wrong way. But your patience, the fact that you stick with me, shows me that I can be who I am. And, if you'll allow me to blow my own trumpet a little, I'm much more gentle than my emails might lead you to believe. Which means that someone out there likes the Emmi who lets herself go, who couldn't care less about making a good impression, who insists on drawing attention to her shortcomings—yes, Leo, I'm jealous, yes, I'm untrusting, I'm a bit neurotic, and I don't have a particularly high opinion of the opposite sex, nor even of my own—now I'm losing the thread. Where was I?—But someone out there likes the Emmi who makes no effort to be a good person, who plays up weaknesses that would otherwise be suppressed. He's interested in Emmi as she really is; he likes her precisely because she's aware that there's so much of herself she cannot reveal to others, this bundle of moods, this harbor of self-doubt, this jumble of contradictions.

But it's not just about me, Leo. I think about you all the time. You've occupied a few square millimeters of my cerebrum (or maybe it's the cerebellum, or pituitary gland, I've got no idea where my thoughts about someone like you are based). You've effectively set up camp there. I don't know if you're the same person as the man who writes to me. But even if you're only a part of that man, you're still very special. Your lines to me and my interpretation of them yield up the kind of man I now suddenly realize does actually exist. You've always written about your “fantasy Emmi.” Well maybe I'm less willing to content myself with a “fantasy Leo,” to have someone I'm so fond of confined to my imagination. I want him to be made of flesh and blood and stuff like that. And he must be up to meeting me. I know we're not at that stage yet, but I think we could come closer to a meeting through our writing. Until we get to the point where we're standing face-to-face. Or sitting. Or kneeling. Whatever.

Take this email, for example. I find it appalling that you might be analyzing its contents word for word in order to gain some kind of scientific insight, or quoting sections of it to show how or by what means emotions may be conveyed, or worse, how emotions may be aroused in others, how to write in a way which sucks someone in emotionally. I could scream in agony at the very thought!! Please tell me that our correspondence has nothing whatsoever to do with your research. And please forgive me for having thought such a thing. I'm the kind of person who has to assume the worst: it's how I build up my defenses against my worst fears being realized.

That's the longest email I've ever written to you, Leo. Please don't ignore it. Please come back. Don't strike camp and move on from my cerebral cortex. I need you! I . . . cherish you!

Your Emmi

P.S. I know it's sooo late, but I'm convinced you're still awake. I'm sure you'll check your emails again tonight. You don't have to answer me now. But maybe you could just write one word to let me know you've got my message? Just one, is that O.K.? Or you could make it two, or three if that's easier. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please

Two seconds later

Out of Office AutoReply

I AM AWAY AND WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CHECK EMAIL UNTIL MAY 18. FOR URGENT MATTERS PLEASE CONTACT THE UNIVERSITY'S INSTITUTE OF PSYCHOLOGY. EMAIL: [email protected].

One minute later

Re:

That's the pits!

CHAPTER FIVE

Eight days later

Subject: Back!

Hi Emmi,

I'm back. I was in Amsterdam. With Marlene. We made another attempt at it. A brief attempt. After two days I was in bed with pneumonia. I found it really embarrassing; she spent five days shaking a thermometer and giving me bittersweet smiles. She was like a nurse in her thirtieth year of service who hates her job, but who tries not to blame her patients for it. Amsterdam was the opposite of what I had expected—not a fresh start, but a familiar ending, fairly routine after all these years. This time we separated with dignity. She said that if I ever needed anything she'd always help me out. What she meant was something from the pharmacy. And I said, “If you ever imagine you can't live without me, and if I convince myself that I can't live without you, I suggest we come back to Amsterdam for a few days to show ourselves just how wrong we are.”

I told Marlene about us too. She reacted as if this was more serious than my pneumonia. I said, “I'm obsessed with a woman on the Internet.” She said, “How old is she? What does she look like?” I said, “No idea. Between thirty and forty. She's either blond, brunette, or a redhead. Anyway, she's happily married.” She said, “You're sick!”