The Great Mate Debate

Posted by:  Sherry Amatenstein
Topic: Do you think you can really and truly “feel” chemistry via email?

At a singles event in Manhattan, blindfolds were issued at the door along with drink coupons. Flirtations were on the menu along with silent prayers issued by the men and women who had no idea if the person they’d been chatting and in some cases feeling up all night were lookers or lemons.

When the big reveal occured lots of people had that initial 'aw shucks' reaction that their companion wasn't a 10. Still the evening had been exciting enough that in most cases numbers were still exchanged. "If I'd been going by her looks I'd never have approached her," one guy told me post-party, adding, "But Georgia is such a beautiful person inside that I'm still attracted.

These potential couples were real to each other - forming connections based on talk, touch, smell, breath - real in a way that's impossible on the net.  As Vix pointed out you can be wooed like Roxanne and grow dependent on those daily e's, thinking no one understands you more than this person you've never actually met... But cyber-communiques alone at best are simulated chemistry.  Yeah a sexy turn of phrase can make your nether regions tingle but it's not live, it's Memorex.

Posted by:  Vix the Over-Educated Nympho
Topic: Do you think you can really and truly “feel” chemistry via email?

I'm really into email. I don't do the phone. I'm a writer, that means I write. Email has the potential to be a great form of communication far beyond "lets meet at le madeleine @ 8." Not to brag, but I do killer emails. They sound just like how I talk in person, complete with tone, rhythm, and goofy jokes. Anyone who can match me this-for-that is Awesome with a capital "A" in my eyes.

I have never dated someone who "gave good email." It is definitely an art, and one that many people lack. Especially guys. Most prefer brevity. Most of my lengthy emails were answered with two sentences. Sometimes two words. Forget capital letters or periods. What, you don't love me enough to punctuate?

One boyfriend ended every other sentence with an emoticon. If I hadn't personally known him, I would have sworn he was gay from all the smiley faces all over the d*** place. Content and length aside, I rarely felt chemistry when emailing boyfriends.

There's one guy I dated a couple years ago whom I got to know through a friend and then first via email. He was witty, charming, and didn't litter his paragraphs (paragraphs!!) with "LOL." I had no idea someone could be charming over email, what a delight!

From the moment we met in person, we both knew there was no chemistry between us. I felt more chemistry the first time I met my puppy. What was wrong about my modern-day Prince Charming? He was good-looking, nice, funny, wrote great emails--where the hell was the chemistry I had been swooning over for weeks? The date ended quickly, we exchanged a few more delightful emails, and yada yada delete.

Later I got to know a guy over email and the phone. The first time on the phone we talked for nearly an hour and a half, cracking each other up the whole time. His emails were so fantastic that I often did Laugh My Ass Off. When we finally met, the chemistry was twice as amazing. Even his one-line emails made me giggly, and I don't go around giggling over any little thing.

Like Margo Z said, so-called chemistry over email it is to be taken with caution. For all you know he's a master manipulator (personality mirroring, for example), pulling a Roxanne, or he's saying whatever he thinks it takes to get in your pants.

Email is no better indication of chemistry between two people than pairing their astrological signs to see if they're a match made in heaven. It's a crap-shoot whether LOL and LMAO feel chemistry beyond a world of XOXO.

Posted by: Dr. Helen Fisher
Topic: Do you think you can really and truly "feel" chemistry via email?

Yes, I think you can really and truly feel “chemistry” through email. The brain system for romantic love can be triggered by looking at a photograph, by hearing a voice, or by reading a letter, too--easily. We can fall in love with people we have never met. Take the teenager, for example, who falls in love with a rock star. In fact, I think email is a fine way to generate that magic. The trouble comes when you meet the person you have been writing. Looks count. As we grow up we build an unconscious list of things we are looking for in a mate, what I call your “love map” and what some other academics call your Ideal Mate Personality Concept. And if you meet someone who doesn’t fit within that template, you have a very difficult time adjusting to their looks and manner. Moreover, when you meet someone in person, you suddenly receive an awful lot of other new information that email can’t convey, like their smell, the sound of their words, their energy level, their social style, their degree of spontaneity or caution, and hundreds of other stimuli. So I think it is a good idea to move beyond email as fast as possible so that you can see if you are expending your precious metabolic energy on the love of your life or a Darwinian dead end.

Posted by:  Margo Z
Topic: Do you think you can really and truly “feel” chemistry via email?

Okay, kids… pencils sharpened?  Circle the answer that makes the most sense to you:

MensaBoi34 can write a coherent sentence using proper grammar and punctuation.  Occasionally, he lets loose with a zinger that makes you laugh out loud.  Thoroughly dazzled by his online verbal skills, you agree to meet for a rousing game of Scrabble® over gingerbread lattés.  Do you:

A:        Ponder the precise mix of offbeat literary names for your future children before the first date (“Kerouac if it’s a boy, Ayn if it’s a girl.”)
B:        Exult to all your friends that you’ve met The One!  And he can SPELL!!!
C:        Reserve judgment until you see if the guy can talk for an hour without latté gunk collecting in the corners of his mouth.

SultrySuze29 has no picture posted online.  However, she describes herself as a blonde Lisa Kudrow type, is in your preferred age range, and judging from her wittily nuanced e-mails possesses an IQ higher than lettuce.  She’s promised to send a recent picture from her weekend in Cabo as soon as she gets the disc back from the photo place.  You’re tempted to throw caution to the winds and ask her to meet you for drinks, sight unseen.  Do you:

A:        Rationalize that it’s no different than the times you’ve gone out with someone based on a photo from ten years and forty pounds ago.
B:        Chide yourself for being shallow and immature for valuing looks over substance.
C:        Hold out another few days for the promised full body shot, since time is a non-renewable resource.

SilverFox43 is being a bit coy about whether he’s 43 years old, or was born in 1943.  If it’s the latter, it would be a deal breaker as you’re still in your thirties and not interested in dating a man who will be on Medicare by your next birthday.  His photo shows a trim, good looking, silver-haired man on a ski slope that he assures you is from his trip to New Zealand this past July.  Do you:

A:        Agree to have dinner with him because what the hell, even if he is 64, he might be perfect for your Aunt Cassandra.
B:        Convince yourself that if he’s still athletic enough to ski year ‘round, his chronological age shouldn’t matter.
C:        Press him one more time for his date of birth – and if it’s still not forthcoming, assume he’s actually in his seventies, hoist the red flag and move on to someone more straightforward.

FunnyLady38 looks to be the whole package: cute, bright, never-married, AND she shares your passion for Libertarianism, silent films, 1970s muscle cars and pistachio ice cream.  You are both non-practicing cultural Catholics who grew up in small towns in the Midwest.  It’s uncanny – the things you have in common.  This was clearly meant to be!  She detests talking on the phone, however, and would rather just pick a place to rendezvous.  This makes you a bit uneasy, as it breaks one of your cardinal rules of online dating.  Do you:

A:        Blot out the memory of the woman whose laugh was even more obnoxious than Horshack’s on “Welcome Back, Kotter” and go for it.
B:        Persuade yourself that the connection you share online will only grow and deepen once your eyes meet.
C:        Charm her into a quick call to make sure she can handle your unbelievably hypnotic, sexy voice.

Answers: All Cs – for Caution, a modicum of which will save you many future dating horror stories.

Posted by: Aly Walansky
Topic: Do you think you can really and truly "feel" chemistry via email?

This one is super easy for me -- of course you can feel chemistry via email!

Suave as we may attempt to appear, the truth is, most of us are still the same shy guys and gals we were in grade school. Initial meetings and conversations are hard: We get hung up on our looks, their looks, body language, our breath, their breath, whether they will judge us for not knowing the difference between a brew and a hop...

The internet provides a great opportunity though to put our best self forward without a lot of the in-the-moment anxiety. Say something dumb? Hit the delete key and try again. As if we could do that in *real* conversations. With some of the fear and inhibitions out of the way, conversation will flow better and easier, and chemistry can become apparent. Is it necessarily an indicator that it will transcend to real life? Maybe not. But it's a sign that the potential is there to be tapped.

Posted by: Amy Spencer
Topic: Do you think you can really and truly "feel" chemistry via email?

I've got a short answer for this one: Nope.

Just know that I'm talking specifically about meeting and getting to know someone by email, not about emailing someone you've already felt chemistry with in person. I say this as someone who used to go on lots and lots and lots of online dates. Some were great, some were lame, but what I learned was that the level of chemistry I thought we had on email prior to meeting had virtually nothing in common with the chemistry I felt with them in person.

God, I remember one guy I bantered with for weeks until all hours of the night. We talked like we were in love already, and I was giddy about the late-night conversations I imagined we'd spend our lives having, you know, once we met. And then...we met. What did I feel? Nothing. Nada. In person, we were like two awkward strangers in an elevator that two five-hour dates did nothing to spark.

This is not to say that online dating doesn't work—because it absolutely does. I've seen it work. I have three close friends who married their online mates, and more friends who are relationships with guys they met online. But the way I see it, the emails you share with someone aren't about discovering chemistry, but about making sure your potential dates are at least compatible, and on a similar wavelength. A girl who wants a literary, wine-loving type will find out pretty quickly over email that a potential date prefers Playboy, hockey games and Hooters. Email is a perfect fact-finding tool. But it won't, in my opinion, dig up real chemistry.

It makes me think of Macolm Gladwell's book Blink, and how we don't give our brains enough credit for how receptive and hard-working they really are. Our brains can pick up so much from that instant, 5-second meeting in person that reflects decades of what we know we want or don't want. Sure, it picks up on someone's looks. But it's also about their voice. Their posture. The way they walk. The way they move their hands. The way they laugh. The way they smile, or ask questions or put their hand on your back as you walk through a doorway. I think all these teeny, tiny, little things are like the 0's and 1's in a computer formula for our brains—they're the things that add up to whether we feel there is chemistry there or not. And I think it works best in person.

Email is a fantastic way to find someone you're compatible with. And who knows, that same person may turn out to be someone you feel chemistry with as well. But don't make the mistake I did: Don't confuse email compatibility for real chemistry. Don't spend weeks building up your dates before you meet them in person (and, um, telling all your friends you think you've meet The One because he writes the funniest little haikus...), because you're always going to fill in a question marks left over after email by assuming you'll have fire-hot, smokin' chemistry.

If you like 'em on email, make a date, the sooner the better, before you have a chance to analyze it too much. Then you can discover all those fun question marks in person and let chemistry do its thing the best way—i.e. the human, uncomputerized way— it knows how.

Posted by: Evan Marc Katz
Topic: Do you think you can really and truly “feel” chemistry via email? 

If you realize that writing an email is pretty much the same thing as talking – you’d be hard pressed to conclude that there is no such thing as email chemistry. Before the Internet, legions of people fell in love through letters. And while email doesn’t hold a candle to ink and parchment, it can still be a very personal form of communication.

Presuming you embrace email, you’ve probably been met with the heightened expectations that accompany lengthy email exchanges. I’ve fallen for women that I’d never spoken to on the phone, just because our frequent correspondence made me giddy. After all, witty banter is witty banter, regardless of whether it’s spoken or written. And verbal people will be always be turned on by a turn of phrase, a pithy insight, or a dirty come-on. If words couldn’t communicate feeling, why would we ever bother to read for pleasure?

So yes, I will say with no hesitation that there can be a strong feeling of chemistry via email.

And at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean a thing.

Because what everybody ELSE calls chemistry is that magical, ephemeral, intangible, hormonal rush that you can only get in the physical presence of another human being. And no matter how much email chemistry you’ve got going on, if the physical part isn’t there, it doesn’t amount to jack squat.

Take it from a guy who has written over five hundred online dating profiles: there’s the advertisement and there’s the product.

If the two don’t match up – if the words don’t go with the pictures – nothing else makes a difference.

Still, I sure do love a woman who can make me tingle with a text message.

Posted by:Sherry Amatenstein

Topic:Recently some schools banned hugging and “extreme displays of public affection” – what impact do you think this will have on kids and teens, as they become adults?

An eight grader gets detention for hugging friends at school - this because school officials fear a sexual harrassment charge by a peer.  The ‘hug offense’ was committed while comforting a friend who'd recently lost a parent  - clearly grounds for having the (school) book thrown at the perpetrator. At least she didn’t get expelled, the fate of kindergartners “caught” kissing each other on the cheek.

The message this sends to students - shooting and knifing good; hugging bad.

Yet studies have shown that a high percentage of babies “raised” in orphanages wither away before the age of two if they are starved for tactile communication.

Oh, well. Stiff upper lip and all that. A British politician was recently labeled ‘Hug-a-Hoodie’ for daring to suggest affection might be a potential solution to antisocial behavior. Sure, ‘cause the solutions we’re presently using work so well. 

If only society really did go to the apes.  In Mexico when two bands of spider monkeys meet, they hug the 'enemy' to diffuse tension and aggression. Bet if those monkeys spoke human they'd channel Entourage's Ari Gold: Can't we all just hug it out, bitch?

Cold Topic: Do you believe in love at first sight? Have you experienced it – and was it “the real thing” or lust?
Posted by: Vix the Over-Educated Nympho

The question from last week has left me feeling unsettled. (And, um, not just because this article is way overdue... it has been mentally marinading, jeez.) Many of my fellow writers on the panel touched upon the "shouldn't have but did" situation of falling for someone out of misguided love/lust.

Been there, done him, and I want to point out one key factor: no matter how wrong the person was, something, some sort of undeniable attraction was at work. That is called chemistry, and it takes more than a nice set of tits to explain it.

There are many types of chemistry both inside and outside the world of dating: emotional, psychological, physical, intellectual, personal, and probably more that are beyond the grasp of categorization. An ideal mate embodies all of these, but sometimes all it takes is a helluva lot of one to spark something between two people. Once the big spark settles down, all the other layers start becoming visible.

One of my favorite lust-at-first-sight stories is about a Puerto Rican semi-professional boxer I met at the gym. We dated casually and had a fantastic time together. What first attracted me to him (okay second, I admit I noticed his rock-hard arms and tattoos first) was how in tune he was with his body when he worked out, and I don't mean like those douchebags who check themselves out in the mirror constantly and grunt a lot. The level of focus, discipline, and drive was awe-inspiring to a newbie like me who felt lost inside my own body.

With a few boxing sessions he taught me how to push my body far past what I trusted it to do. We talked about where we came from and where we wanted to go with our lives. Our brief time together was the start of finding a direction after years of feeling disconnected from my own life.

The chemistry was far more intricate than "I thought he was hot." It may have started there, but his body is not why I remember him years later.

 

Posted by: Evan Marc Katz

Topic: Recently some schools banned hugging and “extreme displays of public affection” – what impact do you think this will have on kids and teens, as they become adults?

There are two different things that are going on here:

Hugging.

Extreme displays of public affection.

Until I get a definition of “extreme displays of public affection”, I have to assume it means anything more than kissing in the hallways. And while I’ll admit, I haven’t been to high school in – gulp - 17 years, I wouldn’t think that heavy petting and oral sex were so prevalent as to need a “banning”.

I mean, I know kids move faster these days – but do they really do it in public?

I’ll admit remember being jealous of some of the more popular guys who experienced a greater amount of PDA in high school. But I don’t remember seeing anything that was remotely “rated R”. So either I’m severely underestimating the extent of this problem, or I’m thinking that schools need to loosen their ties a bit.

I was inclined to say, “let kids be kids”, but I think it’s more about letting people be people. This isn’t the same as two adults getting it on in the copy room (which, frankly, is okay by me, too); this is prohibiting two hormone-infused teenagers from making out in the parking lot. And while being publicly cheesy may not be conducive to a studious environment, I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that Our Children Are Being Left Behind because of a little hallway PDA.

And while I don’t think there is any radical impact of stifling your romantic impulses during school hours (it would, after all, prepare kids for the workplace), I think this is an attempt to legislate something that that should not be legislated. Affection. Warmth. Hugging.

Next thing you know, you’ll tell me they’ve banned breast cancer awareness T-Shirts.

Paging George Orwell...