Places like New York or Tokyo abound with museums, art galleries, movie houses, universities, and large pools of single people who hope to meet the same. Something else, however, awaits those looking for it—more opportunities for adultery than in small towns. And it is the same with the Internet. It isn’t just that straying wives and husbands can use those identity-stripping computers in Finland to make swap shopping easier. More importantly, the Internet teems with bright, funny, people who hate convention, including, in some cases, marriage.

For a stretch, a support-style mailing list came across as a Peyton Place in cyberspace. A man and a woman met there. He told her he would be leaving his wife and children. She spent that weekend with a third member of the list; after the original man publicly confessed, she popped up out of the blue to give her side. If anyone doubted that computers could bring people together in person, this was proof positive in the worst way. Most members of the list were horrified. They pleaded for Peyton Placers to go offline. Clearly the Internet does not turn people into saints—it just makes it easier to do what comes naturally, good or bad.

But some context, please. The same Net could bring together old-fashioned romantics. As shown by the Smith-Olson pairing, the Net could actually strengthen traditional values among those who so inclined.

Besides, much of the illicit action on the Net was by the mutual consent of husbands and wives. When I ventured into a seamy area called alt.personals.poly, I saw an ad posted by a swinging couple from Florida. “I am 6′3″ brown haired, considered attractive,” said Hank*, the husband. “She is 5ʹ0″ busty, blonde, blue eyes, very pretty. We’re not weird or disturbed or wanting to beat people, hahaha. We are very sensual, passionate, and are good at ya know the fun stuff.” Was this the ’Bahn that Bill and Al had in mind for us? Not quite. But it wasn’t as if some pervert was cheating on his wife and hiding behind an anonymous server while lusting for a nineteen-year-old coed who was new to both life and the Net. Although I did not condone Hank’s swinging, I actually felt a little sorry for him after he wrote me a short but touching letter: He told how a woman had stood him up and the Missus. Better luck next time, Hank.

Suppose, however, that a man and woman had been married for fifteen years and had two children, he was a straight-arrow programmer type, she was funny and sexy, he introduced her to the Internet, and she got crushes on men whom she befriended over the wire—a marriage just might fall apart because a stranger might actually fly in from out of town wanting to get to know her in a biblical way. Such was the case of Phil* and Jayne*. While I have scrambled the details of the story, it is entirely true in spirit. They lived in Cincinnati, and Bill worked as a programmer and an Internet administrator for his employer. He had arranged for his wife to be able to dial up the office computer from home and send and receive e-mail. That, as we’ll learn in a moment, was a key fact.

In many ways Phil and Jayne were a contrast. He could “readily repair my hurt emotions when it comes to betrayal, be it from friends, or from my wife.” Phil held himself to the highest of standards no matter how low-minded the rest of the cosmos was. Jayne, on the other hand, was wild and loved to party and speak up. “She can drink anyone under the table,” Phil said. “She has a loud voice and a happy disposition. She can talk to anyone and make them feel at ease. She is a joy to be with. A blonde with striking blue eyes. She has the attitude of a redhead but we never fight. She rarely sports a smile, but when she does, it is radiant. She has an excellent body, but she keeps on thinking it is not quite desirable. She has gone in for plastic surgery because of her low self-esteem.”

For some years in her life, Jayne suffered from another problem—stodginess, of all things. Taxiing children around, nagging them to do their schoolwork, playing the good mother, had made her too conservative. Phil wanted the old sparks back. So he introduced her to “an e-mail friend of mine who had been a catalyst for many parties as well. I hoped this would spur her into action.” It did. She began a love affair over the Net. “I often ran to the computer room after getting home from work to find Jayne engrossed in some letter writing. She would immediately cover the screen and ask me to leave. I could see the discomfort in her face. This was one of my clues to ask around and to check up on what might be happening. I caught them in the act in a swank hotel.” For the sake of the children, however, Phil forgave her and did not divorce. He even revived his friendship with his e-mail friend.

A second man, however, cuckolded Phil a few years later, and like the first, he was an alcoholic. “He would hound her,” Phil said, “and send copious amounts of e-mail, call her from wherever he was regardless of how distant. He had an attitude that ‘no one can tell him what to do, even if it is an affair.’” So Phil, despite his forgiving nature, did what many red-blooded men would have done in his place as a local Internet administrator. He deleted their electronic mail from the office system. “The second affair rekindled after the lover’s wife left him,” Phil says. Lawyers successfully pried Jayne and the man apart.

“She has ‘fallen’ into love with other people on the Net,” Phil said, however, “and some have even taken the trouble to fly in to meet her.” Fortunately the moon and the stars and the hormones weren’t right. So where on the Net did Jayne hook up with these winners? Alt.sex.wanted? No, Phil said—rec.humor. And he actually feared rec.humor more than he did the plain, sex-oriented areas of the Net, because it might pave the way for a relationship based on more than carnal impulses.

I asked, “As a local Net administrator, do you think that people on the Net play around more or less than does the general population?”

“About the same,” Phil said. “But there are a lot more insecure personalities acting out an alternate personality on the net. This will often lead, I think, to more misunderstandings. Someone can appear to love you a lot, over e-mail, but cannot carry through in person.” And then Phil came up with another fascinating insight, which could also apply to some relationships on the Internet between single people. He observed that certain Netfolks really didn’t care that much about the men or women at the other end. Rather they used electronic mail as a diary. “Jayne cherished the e-mail she got from one of her lovers,” Phil said, “but in person he is a lying, cheating, and abusive drunk with a far more shallow agenda.”

Phil and Jayne were doing what they could to repair the damage. The two had undergone marriage counseling. “Stop trying to think so much,” Phil was told. “This makes you appear to be walking on eggshells, making it harder for Jayne to be honest with you.” I hoped the counseling would work. As if her infidelity weren’t enough, she now cried because she might have contracted the virus that causes AIDS. “One of her lovers has slept around a lot and shot up drugs,” Phil said. “He hasn’t seen a doctor in ages because of his alcoholic tendencies, and on one occasion he has said he could have the HIV virus. I assured Jayne ... we will handle any result from the test one day at a time.” The same thought might apply to his life with Jayne. One day at a time. In the future, I hoped, she won’t be so secretive about the dots on her computer screen.

I promised to update you on Greg and Sue. In late May 1995 Greg told me they were still moving ahead, except that they’d decided it would be much easier for her if they lived in the States. He would arrive at the Kansas City airport on Wednesday, July 12, at 11:11 P.M. on American Airlines. “My parents know,” he said. “On the surface they’re bitchy about it—well, Mum is—but underneath they’re cool with it. Especially my dad. He wants to come too.” The older Smith had taken his family to Colorado years earlier during a teacher-exchange program.

“Work?” Greg went on. “Heck, I can do a lot of things. My preference would be systems administrator or network maintenance or even Internet guru-trainer.”

Jokes about Adelaide’s sleepiness notwithstanding, Greg would miss life down under. He cherished “the laid-back nature of Australia. I spend a lot of time talking to people, and in 99 of 100 cases, the shopkeeper will take time out to have a chat about something going on in the world. People are so open and friendly, gosh darnit. I mean friendly, not lazy.” He would hate to give up, too, the summer days at the sea, the music festivals of Adelaide, and the programs of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (“it’s government funded and turns up some really cool and alternative stuff”). He would also miss Australian Rules Football. “Mostly that’s an art form,” Greg said. “Unlike NFL, every player has to be able to do every other player’s job. There’s no offense or defense, and it’s such a quick game that offense can turn into defense in the blink of an eye.”

E-mailing me on a rainy, thundery day—from “America’s Heartland soon to be changed to America’s Flood Plain”—Sue wrote: “Thoughts and hopes? Well, I think the one thing I’ve had to struggle with lately is facing up to the fear that we won’t get along. I know there’s a chance. I’ve pretty much come to grips with it, so I think that’s a good sign. I think we’ll work it out. I hope we will, but that’s yet to be foretold—I’m just looking forward to finally meeting my best friend.

“Where we’ll live is a little uncertain. I’m still making the rounds of apartment complexes, trying to pick one that I like, that I think he’ll like, and that is central to work and school.

“Telling people about Greg and me is a little tricky. Most of the people I work with understand the basic concept of the Internet, but don’t really understand the idea of love at first talk session. I’ve pretty much just told people I met Greg through friends. It just makes things a lot easier, seeing as how I don’t have to explain things over and over again. Maybe it’s a cop-out, but everyone knows how committed I am to Greg regardless of how we met, and that’s the important thing.

“My father remains in the dark,” she said. “My mom and I had a big discussion about things and she felt that was the best way to handle things with him. I’m just taking things one step at a time and dealing with them as they come. I don’t want to throw it all in his face. He’s still my daddy and has the best interest of his baby girl at heart.” Earlier I’d told Sue that the hassles would vanish when she met Greg, and she had agreed. “’Cept maybe the fact Greg will be the tallest one at family reunions *grin*. We’ll all be arguing over whose side of the volleyball net he’s on. Mine of course. :-) *grin*.”

Sue brought me up to date on work and school. Recently she’d switched jobs and was now a file clerk for an appliance company where the pay was higher and the boss friendlier. “I can pretty much study during the slow periods, which helps a great deal, *brandishes her grade card*. Got it in the mail today—all A’s. I’m framing this sucker—I actually pulled an A in algebra!”

Her net.lover was getting a cc of the note to me. “Oh, Greg,” she couldn’t resist adding, “I did some rearranging for you today. I think you might be able to have a drawer or two in the dresser *grin* just kidding. I cleaned my room today and vacated one-half of my drawer space, a major accomplishment almost tantamount to the A in algebra. Just don’t look in the closet.”

Redirecting the note back to me, Sue said: “I’ve always been up front with Greg about who I am and how I look and how I act and all that stuff. There’s going to be a lot of rough edges we’ll need to smooth out, but I’d say we’ve got a strong foundation to build on.” Concluding, Sue said she had undergone a round of antibiotic-hormonal treatments for an ulcer and gained weight. “The bad news is the weight gain that went along with it. Least now I have the bust to fill out my bathing suit.”

A few days later I heard from Greg. Uh-oh. “To put it bluntly,” he wrote, “I am not a happy camper.” I hoped I hadn’t offended him. He and Sue had given so much of themselves by sharing their letters with me. As I read on, I found out the true reason for his dismay. It wasn’t an ever-curious writer, or parents, or friends, or professional colleagues: Greg had graduated from school and was doing fine with temporary consulting work. “Visa—problem, big problem. My visitor’s visa has been denied on the grounds that I have insufficient reason to return to Australia. The upshot of this is that our wedding and my travel plans have been severely disrupted, delaying us by anything upwards of about two months—gawd, I hate the sound of that. I talked to Sue on the phone last night-her morning, and we’re confident we can make it through this.”

In character Greg was using the Net, and specifically the newsgroup alt.visa.us, to help him cope with the visa’crats.

“It makes no sense to me that the U.S. government won’t let in someone with a college degree that’s in demand in this country,” Sue wrote, “and who speaks English with such a sexy accent.”

She had one last update later in June: “There’s one thing you have to change in your chapter, and it’s just one line. I went to the oncologist and he said I’d had enough tissue regeneration that was healthy to give me some hope of being able to have kids. So I guess I just might get to explore the world of labor pains and stretch marks after all. Ugh.

“And I know this sounds cheezy, but would you mind altering names?”

I was happy to oblige.

“The press here in Kansas City,” Sue said, “has an absolute field day with stuff like this. A guy got a mail-order bride from Russia a year or so ago, and they had a five-part segment on his life story in the paper and on the news. I’d just rather not be looked at as someone who had to go to a whole other country to find a date. Which is how my father puts it *sigh*.”

Oh, she had finally told. I wished I could see her father’s face when Greg actually materialized in K.C. In the most direct way Fred Olson* might understand how fortuitously the Net had enlarged his daughter’s range of choices. What counted wasn’t her finding a man, but the best man for her—whether he was next-door or an ocean away.

So that was how matters stood with Sue and Greg as the presses were about to turn. I pondered the visa problem. Damn the feds. Already the ayatollahs of the Senate had been trying to turn the Internet into Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, while the crew in the White House was crusading to make the Net more snoop-friendly. Now Washington was getting in the way of both a romance and a more definitive ending to my love chapter.

As I typed those words I was listening to a RealAudio replay of Senator James Exon pushing his censorship bill on the Senate floor—an outrage that could harm not only net.sex but net.love, given the major danger of abusive enforcement. I loathed the man’s voice. The bullying selfrighteousness struck me most of all. Exon’s tone was too close to that of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy, the anti-communist zealot from Wisconsin. In a very narrow way I regretted that the Cold War was over. Now the bigots and bullies could focus on domestic troublemakers. Listening to the digitized Exon, I heard him say that a Nebraskan football coach had cheered him on. I reflected. Perhaps the senator and the coach could do a RealAudio broadcast from the locker rooms and show that in their territory even the after-game talk was G-rated.

My thoughts drifted. RealAudio reminded me of another recent wrinkle, The Internet Phone, which let Netfolks talk all over the world for free if they paid flat rates for Net service. What a joy this might be for people like Greg and Sue in the days before they rushed into each other’s arms at the airport.

There were a few catches. You needed a deluxe Net connection, alas, which Sue lacked.

So she and Greg would still have to reach out and touch type to each other.

That wasn’t so bad, actually. They were saving their e-mail, and someday the files would remind them of all the promise, all the anticipation, that the Net had held out for them in the form of each other.

Although I tinkered with The Internet Phone, I preferred electronic mail, just as I’d normally favored international Morse code over voice during my amateur radio days. Now that art might be lost. Code didn’t matter as much on the airwaves as before. The U.S. Coast Guard was phasing it out. Any future SOS would apparently be in bits and bytes rather than in dots and dashes, assuming the initials remained at all. What would also perish—writing on screens, eventually? Just what would happen to typed words on the Net?

Whether seriously or just as a discussion provoker, a Seattle columnist had imagined the following: “It’s the year 2020; your daughter Emily is nine years old and she can’t read or write. Is this your worst nightmare about our schools come true? Nope, Emily just doesn’t need to read or write anymore.” That, of course, was exactly the kind of nightmare I’d had on my mind in proposing TeleRead. We needed graphics, not just words; but surely we could do better than the Emily scenario.

I’d asked Avodah Offit for comments on net.love rather than on the effects of the technology in general, but she couldn’t help warning about the almost inevitable transition of the Net to sounds and images for all.

Delighted by the renaissance of writing on networks, she’d e-mailed me: “I think two-way TV will bring us down to earth. It will be a loss rather than a gain to those of us who enjoy using our imaginations and our writing skills. Right now we all have an opportunity to use the literacy that humans have spent thousands of years developing.”

That was how I felt, too, whether the topic on the Net was romance or gerbil care. An old pop lyric came to mind: “These are the good old days.” I wondered about the Snubbites and how they would have felt about Greg and Sue and the many others the Net had brought together; about the leather-jacketed kids up in Nova Scotia who, for the first time in their lives, were looking forward to writing, however rudimentary the elite Snubbites might have considered the children’s prose; about all the love letters that might go unwritten if TV-centric politicians let Emily and friends live out their lives as illiterates without electronic books or keyboards or equivalents.

Some things were forever worth our being reactionaries in an enlightened way. Literacy was one of them. We mustn’t ever let the romance and civility of the written word die on the Internet.

Once again I recalled some e-mail Sue had sent, in which she had not meant to be profound but was. Sue the cancer survivor had reminded us of the need to enjoy both Life and Net, and I wanted similar thoughts to grace the screens of many lovers, in many countries, and for many years. “*hugs greg* hold your horses sweetie,” she had written, “I’m typing as fast as I can....”