Love Virtually (2 page)

You asked about my sense of humor, unfortunately. It's a sorry state of affairs. To be witty, you have to find at least one thing about yourself that's remotely funny. I can't think of anything about me that's funny at the moment, to tell the truth—I feel utterly humorless. When I look back at the past few days and weeks, all laughter escapes me. But that's my personal tale and it has no place here. Thank you, in any case, for your refreshing manner. It's been awfully nice corresponding with you. I believe all your questions have now been answered, more or less. If you happen to err into my in-box again, I'd be delighted. Just one request: Please could you cancel your
Like
subscription now? Or would you like me to do it for you?

Best wishes,

Leo Leike

Forty minutes later

Re: Open questions

Dear Mr. Leike,

I have a confession to make: actually, my “e” before “i”-mail didn't take me longer than twenty seconds. But I was irritated that you'd presumed I was someone who just dashes off emails. It's the truth, of course, but you had no right to know it before now. Still, even if you have no sense of humor (at the moment), you obviously know a lot about emailing. I'm impressed that you managed to see straight through me! Are you a professor of literature?

Best regards,

“Bubbly” Emmi Rothner

Eighteen days later

Subject: Hello

Hello Mr. Leike,

I just wanted to tell you that the folks at
Like
have stopped sending me their magazine. Did you have anything to do with it? You could email me sometime, by the way. I still don't know whether you're a professor. Either Google's never heard of you, or it knows how to keep you hidden. And how's your sense of humor these days? Mind you, it's carnival time. No competition there then.

Best regards,

Emmi Rothner

Two hours later

Re: Hello

Dear Ms. Rothner,

I'm so glad you've written back—I've missed you. I was just about to get myself a subscription to
Like
. (Beware, my humor is germinating!) And did you really Google me? How flattering! But to be honest I'm a little disappointed that you think I might be a “professor.” You see me as some old fart, don't you? Stiff, pedantic, a know-it-all. I'm not going to bust a gut trying to prove to you that I'm quite the opposite; that would only be embarrassing. But I may be writing like someone older at the moment. And I suspect that you write like somebody younger than you are. As it happens, I'm a communications consultant and a university assistant in language psychology. 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.

I hope you survive the carnival festivities! My impression of you is of someone who must have quite a collection of false noses and party horns. :-)

All the best,

Leo

Twenty-two minutes later

Re: Hello

Dear Mr. Language Psychologist,

Now it's my turn to test you (as if I haven't been doing so all along): which part of the email you just sent me do you think I found most interesting, so interesting in fact that I urgently need to ask you about it?

And here's some useful advice concerning your humor: the sentence “I was just about to get myself a subscription to
Like
” was promising—or so I thought! But when you added “(Beware, my humor is germinating),” you botched it, sadly: you should have just left that out! I liked the bit about the false noses and party horns. We've clearly got the same nonsense of humor. But trust me, I do recognize irony when I see it—spare yourself the smiley!

All the best, nice chatting with you.

Emmi Rothner

Ten minutes later

Re: Hello

Dear Emmi Rothner,

Thank you for your humor tips. You'll make a funny man out of me yet. And I'm even more grateful for the test! It gives me the opportunity to show you that I'm not (yet) the “self-opinionated old professor” type. If I were, then I would have guessed that the most interesting part for you must have been: “We're currently working on a study . . . email as a medium for conveying our emotions.” But I'm convinced that you're most interested in this: “And I suspect that you write like somebody younger than you are.” Now you're forced to ask yourself: “What makes him think he's right?” And then: “How old does he actually think I am?”

Am I right?

Eight minutes later

Re: Hello

You're one hell of a guy, Leo Leike!!! And now you can come up with some good reasons why I must be older than my writing makes me sound. Or, more to the point: how old is my writing? How old am I? And why? If you manage to solve this puzzle, you can tell me what shoe size I am too.

All the best,

Emmi

P.S. I'm enjoying this.

Forty-five minutes later

Re: Hello

You write like a thirty-year-old. But you're around forty, let's say forty-two. What makes me think I'm right?

A thirty-year-old doesn't read
Like
on a regular basis. The average age of
Like
subscribers is around fifty. But you're younger, because you work with websites, so you could be thirty or even a fair bit younger than that. On the other hand, no thirty-year-old sends a mass email to clients to wish them “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” And finally, your name is Emmi, i.e.,

Emma. I know three Emmas and they're all over forty. Thirty-year-olds aren't called Emma. It's only people under twenty who are called Emma again. But you're not under twenty, or you'd use words like “cool,” “wicked,” “lush,” “totally,” “awesome” and suchlike. And you wouldn't begin sentences with capital letters, or write in full sentences either. But most important, you'd have better things to do than chat with a humorless man who might or might not be a professor and be interested in how young or old he thinks you might be. Another thing about “Emmi”: if your name were Emma, and you wrote as if you were younger— perhaps because you felt much younger than you were—you wouldn't call yourself Emma, but Emmi. In short, my dear Emmi Rothner, you write as if you're thirty, but in fact you're forty-two. Am I right? Your shoe size is 6. You're petite, bubbly, and you've got short, dark hair. And you gush when you speak.

Am I right?

Good evening,

Leo Leike

The next day

Subject: ???

Dear Ms. Rothner,

Have I offended you? Look, I don't know you. How am I supposed to know how old you are? Maybe you're twenty, maybe you're sixty. Perhaps you're six feet two inches tall and weigh 220 pounds. Maybe your shoe size is 14 and you've only got three pairs of shoes, made to measure. And to afford a fourth pair you have to cancel your
Like
subscription and keep your website customers happy by sending them Christmas greetings. So please don't be angry with me. I had fun guessing; I have a hazy picture of you, and I've tried to convey this to you in exaggerated detail. I really didn't mean to offend you.

Best wishes,

Leo Leike

Two hours later

Re: ???

Dear “Professor,”

I like your humor, it's only a semitone away from chronic seriousness, which is why it sounds particularly skewed!! I'll write again tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it already!

Emmi

Seven minutes later

Re: ???

Thanks! Now I can sleep peacefully.

Leo

The next day

Subject: Getting to know each other

Dear Leo,

I'm going to leave out the “Leike” from now on. And you can leave out the “Rothner.” I thoroughly enjoyed the emails you sent yesterday—I read them several times. I want to pay you a compliment. Isn't it exciting that you can get involved with someone you don't know, someone you've never set eyes on and probably never will, someone you expect nothing from, of whom you can't be sure that you'll ever get anything halfway adequate in return? That's very unusual in a man, and that's what I like about you. I just wanted to tell you that up front. Now, a few points:

1) You have a full-on Christmas-round-robin-email psychosis! Where did you pick that up? You obviously find it deeply offensive when people say “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” Fine, I promise I'll never, ever say it again. I'm amazed, by the way, that you think you can deduce my age from the way I say “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” If I'd said “Merry Xmas and a Cool Yule,” would you have thought I was ten years younger?

2) I'm sorry, Leo the Language Psychologist, but I find it a little unworldly and fuddy-duddyish of you to say that a woman must be over twenty if she doesn't use words like “cool,” “lush,” and “awesome.” Not that I'm desperate to write in a way that might make you think I was under twenty, but can you really tell?

3) You say that I write like a thirty-year-old, but that thirty-year-olds don't read
Like
. Well, let me explain: the
Like
subscription was a present for my mother. So what now? Am I now younger than I write?

I'm going to have to leave you to ponder this. I'm afraid I've got an appointment. (Confirmation class? Dance lesson? Manicure? Coffee? You choose.)

Have a nice day, Leo!

Emmi

Three minutes later

Subject: (no subject)

One other thing: you weren't so far off with the shoe size. I'm a 6 1/2. (But no shoes please, I have all the shoes I need.)

Three days later

Subject: Something's missing

Dear Leo,

If you don't write to me for three days 1) I begin to wonder why, 2) I feel like something's missing. Neither is pleasant.

Please rectify!

Emmi

The next day

Subject: Sent at last!

Dear Emmi,

In my defense I confess I've written to you every day, it's just that I haven't sent the emails. In fact I've deleted every one of them. I've reached an awkward stage in our correspondence, you see. She—this Emmi with size 6 1/2 shoes—is beginning to interest me more than befits the nature of our correspondence. And if she—this Emmi with size 6 1/2 shoes—says from the outset, “We will probably never meet each other,” then of course she's right and I agree with her. I think it's extremely wise to work on the assumption that we will never meet in person. After all, I don't want our correspondence to descend to the level of chat-room drivel or lonely-hearts banter.

O.K., now I'm going to press send, so that she—this Emmi with size 6 1/2 shoes—has at least one message from me in her in-box. (The message isn't that exciting; it's only a fraction of what I wanted to write.)

All the best,

Leo

Twenty-three minutes later

Re: Sent at last!

Aha, so Leo the Language Psychologist doesn't want to know what Emmi with size 6 1/2 shoes looks like? I don't believe you, Leo! If a man's talking to a woman and can't see her, of course he wants to know what she looks like. Not only that, but he wants to know right away. Because then he'll know whether he wants to keep talking to her. Isn't that the case?

All best,

Emmi, size 6 1/2

Eight minutes later

Re: Sent at last!

That was more hyperventilated than written, am I right? I don't have to know what you look like if you give me answers like that, Emmi. In any case I have you here before me. And I don't need the psychology of linguistics to achieve that.

Leo

Twenty-one minutes later

Re: Sent at last!

You're wrong, Mr. Leo. I was as cool as a cucumber when I wrote that. You should see me when I
am
hyperventilating. By the way, you seem not to be answering my questions out of principle, am I right? (And what do you look like when you say “Am I right?”) But if I may come back to this morning's email salvo, nothing seems to make any sense. What I think you're saying is:

1) You write me emails and then don't send them.

2) You're gradually getting more interested in me “than befits the nature of our correspondence.” So what does that mean? Is our correspondence not purely based on our mutual interest in complete strangers?

3) You think it's wise—no, you even think it's “extremely wise” that we'll never meet. I envy you your passionate devotion to wisdom.

4) You don't want chat-room drivel. So what
do
you want? What should we be talking about to prevent you becoming more interested in me than befits the “nature” of our correspondence?

5) And finally—given the likelihood that you won't answer any of these questions—you said that your last email contained only a fraction of what you wanted to write. Please feel free to write the rest, and I'll look forward to every word! Because I like reading your emails, dear Leo.

Emmi

Five minutes later

Re: Sent at Last!

Dear Emmi,

It wouldn't be you without your 1) 2) 3) lists, would it? More tomorrow. Have a nice evening.

Leo

The next day

Subject: (no subject)

Dear Emmi,

Has it occurred to you that we know absolutely nothing about each other? We're creating virtual characters, piecing together identikit fantasies of each other. We're asking questions that are never answered, and that's part of the charm. We're toying with and endlessly provoking each other's curiosity by refusing point-blank to satisfy it. We're trying to read between the lines, and soon I expect we'll be trying to read between the letters.

Each of us is trying desperately to build up an accurate picture of the other. And at the same time we're being meticulous in not giving away anything fundamental about ourselves. What does “anything fundamental” mean—it means betraying nothing at all; we've yet to say anything about our lives, about our everyday existences, about the things that might be important to us.