Valentine's Day seems a holiday from another time, when couples met at church socials, courted on chaperoned picnics and exchanged flowers and candy as expressions of affection.
Some folks in the '90s still do that, but romance today often must be squeezed into a frenetic life. Flowers bring allergy attacks; no one needs fatty candy. Couples cocoon, singles hibernate. Liars, stalkers and deadly diseases have frightened people away from singles bars.
Love has moved online.
Internet love is flourishing, driven by free personal ads and thousands of chat rooms that are the virtual meat markets of the '90s. Bar-hop in bunny slippers while you watch ER. And forget body image, you can be whoever you want in cyberspace.
Something for everyone
If you're looking for your Valentine online, visit Cyber Romance 101 at http://web2.airmail.net/walraven/romance.htm, a page of links to articles, stories and essays about cyberlove. Can a cyber affair improve your marriage? Is trolling cyberspace for lovers dangerous? Is e-mail the most romantic medium since perfumed stationery? Some think so.
Already have a valentine? Stop by the Love Test at http://topchoice.com/~psyche/lovetest to see if you're really in love and what you expect from a relationship. Or take the Romance Quiz at http://www.godek.com/quiz2.html
In cyberspace, Helen Gurley Brown has been replaced by Alison Grippo, a hip Gen X'er who writes the NetLove column for Your Personal Net at http://www.ypn.com/love
Ms. Grippo surfs personal ad sites as well as cybersex chat rooms and rates them on a 'flirt/dirt'' scale. She even has a NetLove book, The 75 Most Erogenous Zones in Cyberspace.
Ms. Grippo makes little distinction between cyberlove and cybersex, and in her columns http://www.ypn.com/old_flames she has visited places as chaste as Cupid's Network (high flirt, no dirt) to a couple of places I can't name in a family newspaper (no flirt, all dirt).
Like true romantics, cyberlovers rely not on scent and sight but on the power of the word. Love is made in e-mail, and a popular place to find each other online is in the hundreds of Web sites that display free personal ads.
Skewed toward men
One of the Web's largest is American Singles at http://www.as.org, which claims to have 45,000 members worldwide. And like much of the Web, it's heavily skewed toward males - a recent check of ads found 36,980 ads from U.S. men seeking women and 7,215 ads from U.S. women seeking men.
American Singles also doesn't assume everyone is computer-savvy. While e-mail addresses are available on each ad, the site also offers (for a fee) mail, fax or telephone call forwarding (you call the site's switchboard, and it forwards an anonymous phone call).
American Singles is part of Cupid's Network at http://www.cupidnet.com, a site with links to many of the Web's personals pages. From Cupid's Network, you can link to hundreds of sites, including those for gays, blacks, Hispanics, Jewish, Christian, military - even sites for singles with herpes.
Couples looking for a little inspiration should stop by the Love and Romance Master Page at http://www.autonomy.com/luv.htm which has dozens of romantic links.
Feel like dumb Christian, tongue-tied by the beautiful Roxane? Visit the Cyrano Server at http://www.nando.net/toys/cyrano/ to generate a flowery e-mail to your love. (Cyrano will also generate Dear John e-mails.)
And if lonely guys still can't find a date online, they can at least find the Scent, a $20 bottle of odorless pheromone cologne ''guaranteed to attract women,'' at http://athos.phoenixat.com/products/phero.html.
WEB COMPETITION:
This is the last week to enter the first Enquirer Top 10 Personal Web Pages competition. The rules:
You must be a resident of the Tristate region.
The site must be a personal site - no corporate or business sites.
All sites must be in good taste.
You must e-mail me the URL, your name, hometown or neighborhood and phone number by Feb. 15.
E-mail Charles Brewer with questions, comments and suggestions at CBrewer@enquirer.com This column and Charles Brewer's past columns can be found at The Enquirer's Web site, http://enquirer.com/columns/brewer