Love Letters

So, it's Valentines day today and a question that not a call girl asked me "Have you ever used writing as a means of seduction?" got me thinking. Initially I thought no I hadn't, maybe the word 'seduce' made me think in too formal a way, it made me think of 'wooing' and 'love letters', archaic notions from a more cultured age.

The love letter. Along with Cupid, it's the most celebrated byword for love in popular culture. And it's also one that most would agree is slowly dying too.

(Another one of these is the lost art of the mixtape, hardly anyone makes them anymore - which is crazy. Picking out the right balance of amazing new music - and for new read 'unheard', not whatever Pitchfork has tipped to be big news - with which to woo your intendeds ears is a really intimate and meaningful gesture. Tunes with lyrics which say for you what you're too afraid to and all tracklisted so they flow perfectly by theme, genre, tone - all in the pursuit of making their heart melt is an under valued pursuit I think)

It's undeniable that the physical medium of the love letter is of course dying out, but I think that its spirit is actually flourishing. Whilst the love letter is being held under and drowned beneath a sea of digital messages, it's this very sea which nourishes it's evolution and continuation. A bit like Obi-Wan (Yes, I realise I just lost half of any female audience there with a nerdy Star Wars reference, but hey).

I've touched before on how I think online dating is a good thing in that you get to actually converse on quite a meaningful level, it's not like in a bar where it's just shallow posturing. So going back to not a call girl's question of have I ever seduced anyone with my writing, I realise that yes: I've pretty much exclusively 'seduced' people with my writing.

And I don't think this is special to me at all. We all do. Be it texts, facebook, email or twitter: today we have more means of communication and therefore 'seduction' available to us than ever before. More opportunities to interact with the mind of another, each offering their own narrative tone: emails to say deeper things with eloquence, texts just to let them know you're thinking of them or for gruffly worded messages that lets them know exactly what you want to do to them, or pictures sent that say more than words can.

On a simple level, sure - I've had it with girls where I've been flirty, leading to pictures, cyber sex on instant chat etc. which has all laid the way to us meeting up and to us becoming fuck buddies for a little while maybe.

But the last couple of girls I've had anything serious with, I've enjoyed chasing and getting to know them by a written correspondence - a campaign of intellectual muscle flexing and fun. You know the feeling, you send a message, and you sit waiting. Wondering if she'll find your joke funny, whether she'll pick up on your subtle reference to a film or something obscure, if she'll answer your question with something that teaches you something, surprises you. I love that journey of discovery with someone so much. That red notification pops up on facebook, you click and it all gets resolved, resetting the interaction and inviting another opportunity to connect.

So whilst the love letter may be dying out, I think a long drawn out campaign of love letters is becoming the norm. Rather than a few grand standing gestures - a stoic over the top soliloquy, we're more likely to win someone over with a thousand kisses.

The girl I was seeing before K was initially at least, not too interested in me I don't think. But then after weeks of messages, banter, insightful conversations and everything else, she was. We met, got on like a house on fire (as we had already) and went out for a few months. Although K was into me from when we started talking, it was a similar thing - in fact K said she was almost scared to meet me because the person she felt she had got to know over messages was so good she was worried I'd not be able to live up to him in real life. I think at the end of it all that was the problem.

Maybe the pen is mightier than the sword...