Net Escape Virtual Romance A Deceptive Substitute
Katherine Simmons may not be a household name. But her fictional story, and variations of it, may be a cautionary tale for these increasingly wired times. Katherine, it seems, ventured onto the Internet, first as a hobbyist, then a correspondent, and finally as an adulteress. In “E-Mail - A Love Story,” the heroine has discovered a detour from her troubled marriage, and with it, a whole new set of virtual troubles.
Why is e-mail so provocative? How has the Internet’s most widely used service become the online danger du jour? Consider the following scenario:
Michael and Laura meet at a party. Both are married, in their 40s, with several kids between them. Upon introduction, they find that they hold nearly the same position at rival software companies - they are technical editors. In the course of conversation, they uncover other similarities. Their homes in adjacent towns are of similar vintage and style, and plagued by similar problems - roof leaks, ceiling cracks, faulty wiring. They are amused by the string of common details, pleased to have met.
The following Monday, a message appears on Laura’s computer screen at work. “Great to have found a kindred spirit,” Michael wrote. And so began the exchange of notes that would include household tips, commentary and musings. At times, one of them would wax philosophical: Said Michael, “My son claims that since we moved into this house, all I talk about is death and home repair!”
Laura, taking Michael’s lead, would gingerly respond. She wrote about the recent, unexpected death of a friend - a more serious note, striking for its contrast to roof leaks. The correspondence, by now almost daily, flowered easily among various tones and topics.
But three weeks into the exchange, Laura realized she could barely picture Michael. He was tallish and fair, but she could get only the broadest outline; he was all blur, no definition. She realized she had never shaken his hand, had coffee with him, seen the inside of his car. Even Michael’s voice had totally escaped her. All that she knew was in words, dozens of notes, and even they lacked the hallmark gesture: In e-mail, there is no handwriting, no signature to know someone by.
Nor was the correspondence augmenting something else. Michael and Laura were not friends first, or business associates; they had no prior ties - nothing to fill in the void or flesh out the exchange. They were stripped of everything but their very well-dressed words.
And in time, those words were becoming increasingly direct. One editor to another: “That sentence you just wrote takes my breath away!” Laura replied. And with that single, brief exchange, they had crossed over the line. What they didn’t realize was how or why it happened, or what, actually, had occurred.
In their cybervacuum, they had managed to remove all forms of context. Left to language in its barest form, they were professing love for each other’s words. Trouble is, language provides access; it wants only to connect. In cyberspace, loving another’s words, disembodied, without framework, can be tantamount to loving the person.
Unwittingly, Michael and Laura had begun trading love letters.
On closer examination, though, they may not have been love letters at all. This was an intoxication of words, of access between virtual strangers. But it was access without foundation, inroads without a map. They had stumbled into a virtual intimacy, mistaking it for the real thing.
Michael and Laura no longer correspond. When they run into each other at parties, they’re cordial. But the lesson about language, for two people who daily manipulate words - that’s what they took with them. After the somersaults their words had created, the silence, the blank screen, came as a welcome relief.
MEMO: Joan Silverman is a free-lance writer from Boston.