Death by Pen Pal

Is our addiction to constant rom-comms ruining our chances of finding love?

I cannot think of anything worse than hearing about somebody’s day before I am invested in them. I don’t think anybody on earth truly wants to hear about a human’s day unless they love them in some capacity. Until I care about you, I only want to hear about your hopes and your dreams and your aspirations. I only want to hear about your values and your biggest fears and your toxic traits (the ones you are willing to admit, anyway). But, to be clear, I don’t want to hear these things via WhatsApp. I absolutely don’t want them to come to me via Instagram direct message (or Snapchat if you’re born after 1995). 

Do you remember your French exchange pen-pal? Remember how monotonous it felt going back and forth with dear Marie; writing about allé-ing au MacDo, joué-ing au tennis or dansé-ing in la discothèque? For a start, these hobbies were lies in pre-rehearsed sentence form. (I come from health freakish parents who only allowed me to snack on sunflower seeds and raisins, I have terrible hand-eye coordination and there is absolutely no way I could have blagged my way in to a nightclub at 14.) 

I chatted to someone at a work party recently who met her husband over 35 years ago. Their love story played out over two consecutive years at the local pub on Christmas Eve. The first year, they had a festive snog and went their separate ways; dated other people (without the assistance of our friends Bumble, Hinge and Tinder) and got on with their lives. The following year, they were back in the same place and both happened to be single again. Another kiss, an exchange of landline telephone numbers and the rest is history.

This is this kind of love story that would have me draft up my first Nancy-Meyers-style screenplay. Until, that is…