Relationships

Hold On to the Thrill

By Rachel Pomerance

By the time you read this, I will have started a new job — a part-time reporting gig with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But this week involved the readying, which included scouring my closets in search of my Social Security card so I can get paid. Ultimately, I did not find the card and trekked to the agency's office downtown for a renewal. However, the exhaustive search did not exactly leave me empty-handed. I found every scrap of love letters I've ever received.

I'm talking reams of printed e-mails shoved in an envelope that recorded a love-struck version of myself nearly a decade ago — letters itemizing, in cinematic style, all the reasons for his love by a college boyfriend penned on stationery that bore his name and so was probably left over from his bar mitzvah.

I broke open a cedar box (God knows where the key was) to find a will-you-go-out-with-me letter on the large-lined brown paper of elementary school that had been folded and read aloud to so many girlfriends so many times it barely hung together. The best part, incidentally, was his closer: the plea, followed by exclamation marks, not to share this letter with anyone!!

I read these relics like a cynical adult, bemused at the ardor and urgency of the language — and thankful that I've developed the coping skills of adulthood to keep such drama at bay. And then I felt thankful for a different reason.

For the reminder of how thrilling love can be. As we grow up, for better or worse, the newness of experiencing love's terrific leap wears off. Yes, every romance is unique. But after a relationship or two, after we've seen the tides and patterns and pitfalls of love, we're a bit more guarded, skeptical, smarter. Less likely to get swept up in the breathless state of an affair along the lines of Romeo and Juliet, who, it should be aptly noted, were adolescents.

And yet, I'm beginning to think that the intoxication of young love is something we ought to hold on to as adults. Because there's a purity and wonder to those experiences that I think reveals emotional truth. In other words, thank God we're adults, and thank God we were kids. And where it's possible, I say, let's live at the intersection of those worlds.

Meanwhile, some feedback from a friend of mine, Eric Breiner, who grew up here but lives in Los Angeles, in response to my last column, which noted the generic profiles of online dating:

I agree, every personal description seems to include a statement of flexibility. "I love getting dressed to the nines, or just staying on the couch with a movie!" That reminds me of the person that lets me know that intelligence is one of their qualities. No ****, really? Me too!

The quest for the intangible is why your typical online dater is not as focused as they would be face to face. There is no way to assess the intangibles by reading a JDate profile. Instead, prospective online daters seem to have a tendency to view their profile as a marketing opportunity in which they must appeal to as large a demographic as possible. Therein lies the flaw, since we should be searching the narrowest of demographics . . . the one.

Thanks, Eric, for the great insight, and happy dating!

You can reach me at rpomerance@gmail.com.