During the initial stages of a romance, e-mail becomes both a blessing and a curse. E-mail flirtations increase in frequency, and the infatuated recipient can mull incessantly over every abbreviation and bit of punctuation. Phraseology can prompt tortured late-night conversations with empathetic friends, analyzing the minutiae of flirtatious e-mail etiquette. When he opened his note with the line “Hey there cutie” did it mean anything special—or is he just a player? When he ended his note with a nonchalant “see you later” was it a profession of his true love, or a casual blow-off? Why didn’t he sign his name at the end of the message? What is the deeper meaning behind his punctuation, capitalization, and abbreviation? What about “e-motions,” those little smiley faces of all sorts?

My friend Katherine engaged in such tortured over-analysis when she and her current boyfriend, Ryan, began the dance of e-mail flirtation. Ryan jotted and mailed to Katherine an inspired poem containing references to both microeconomic theory and brazen behaviors. She attempted to decode his hidden messages. For the rest of the semester, nightly e-mail conversations ensued between the microeconomics homework partners. A year later, written flirtations and hilarious semi-tawdry exchanges led the way to an actual romance. Partially, thanks to e-mail, Katherine and Ryan have been dating happily for a year.

More than written flirtations, e-mail also encourages the exchange of little gifts. In the age of mp3s and picture sharing, e-mail provides a medium for testing the waters of new relationships with cost-free presents. Before we considered ourselves a couple, my boyfriend Brian and I engaged in little exchanges. Upon the receipt of the Eagles’ “Witchy Woman” my roommates declared that the romance was dead based upon the secret message Brian must have intended when sending me that song! Yet a month later, Brian sent me a photograph of a dozen roses for Valentine’s Day … followed by the biggest teddy bear I had ever seen. E-mail and real life melded perfectly, and the relationship is going strong to this day.

But real life and “e-life” don’t always work together so nicely. While e-mail can provide a safe medium for flirtation, a crucial element of communication is lost when human emotions are translated into computer code. A warm smile and enthusiastic intonation can’t really be captured in characters on a screen, and panic can creep into a relationship if messages change in style or decrease in frequency.

As a friend Rajiv shared, “let’s just say that technology not only brings people together … but it has also reduced the time required to break people apart.” Other friends concur: “E-mail seems to be a way for some guys to get OUT of actually talking to you about how they feel—kind of hiding behind the computer screen.” Face-to-face confrontation becomes unnecessary when the computer provides an easy escape.

But let’s assume you’ve made it past the tricky initial stages of a relationship and have entered the land of couplehood. What role does e-mail play in long-term relationships?

The Long Term Relationship

What might a long-term couple say about the wonders and drawbacks of e-mail in their relationship?

Katherine insists that in the age of e-mail the seriousness of commitment is gauged by one thing: passwords. “Couplehood” often entails shared e-mail passwords. “In its own silly way, sharing passwords can prompt feelings of intimacy and trust,” believes Katherine.

However, a deteriorating relationship can be harmed with something as small as a password change. Rob asked his new fling Liz not to e-mail him, because his girlfriend Leslie had his password; meanwhile, Liz felt hurt because a no-email policy seemed to be Rob’s attempt to squelch their relationship. On campuses all across America, scenes like this are reenacted every day as e-mail gains even greater stature.

Still, for some couples e-mail benefits can be great. Kirsten insists that e-mail allows her to share feelings with her boyfriend of almost two years, Abe. “Sometimes I can write about my feelings better than I talk about them. E-mail has let me share some important things with Abe that I might not have been able to say to his face.”

@mixedmessages.com

So where does this leave us? Does e-mail lead to over-analysis of the details of budding romances? Or does it prompt us to be more introspective and really understand what a person wants from a relationship?

In reality, e-mail’s biggest problem is that it is so neutral. Humans are complicated creatures who add emotional baggage and secret messages to a technical stream of computer code. What we need to remember is e-mail’s neutrality. Instead of becoming caught up in decoding the hidden intent behind a message, let’s step back from the keyboard and remember the depth and complexity of real human relationships.