Two in particular deserve emphasis. First, paradoxically, are the benefits of physical distance. In a sex-besotted culture, with modesty and restraint in tatters, we should welcome any intervention that might replace them or at least slow things down, placing lust under wraps so that intimacy and love might first emerge. The idea is as old and anthropologically deep as the Garden of Eden story, where the introduction of the fig leaf, mutually sewn by the newly sexually self-conscious pair, humanizes the sexual situation by changing its normal condition from “ready” to “not.” With the fig leaf, an obstacle is symbolically presented to immediate gratification of lust. By covering up ugliness and adorning beauty, clothing also allows the imagination to embellish and love to grow in the space provided by the restraint placed upon lust, a restraint opened by shame and ratified by covering it up. When, in the presence of love, clothing is eventually removed, the mutual and willing exposure of sexual nakedness will be understood by each partner as a gift to one’s beloved, and it will be received gladly and without contempt.
Kant captured and extended this point, economically and profoundly, in his commentary on the fig leaf:
In the case of animals, sexual attraction is merely a matter of transient, mostly periodic, impulse. But man soon discovered that for him this attraction can be prolonged and even increased by means of the imagination – a power which carries on its business, to be sure, the more moderately, but at once also the more constantly and uniformly, the more its object is removed from the senses. By means of the imagination, he discovered, the surfeit was avoided which goes with the satisfaction of mere animal desire. The fig leaf . . . – rendering an inclination more inward and constant by removing its object from the senses – already reflects consciousness of a certain degree of mastery of reason over impulse. Refusal was the feat which brought about the passage from merely sensual to spiritual attractions, from mere animal desire gradually to love, and along with this from the feeling of the merely agreeable to a taste for beauty, at first only for beauty in man but at length for beauty in nature as well.8
In place of the psychic and emotional distance once provided by modesty or restraint in the presence of sexual attraction, physical distance bridgeable only by being available online to speech provides a way to remain, at least for a while, unavailable offline to touch. This at-least symbolic barrier to precipitous and sticky entanglements provides opportunity to get to know someone’s soul, without the distractions of fetching bodily beauty or the arousals of “chemistry.” That the slow, safe, disembodied nearness of cyberspace can play such a role was well illustrated in the cheerful movie You’ve Got Mail, an Internet update on the epistolary romance in Ernst Lubitsch’s classic movie The Shop around the Corner. Unlike the older movie, restraint not being what it used to be, the characters played by Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are each cohabiting, but unhappily, with someone else. In real life there is keen enmity between the two, yet their spontaneous, patient, warm, anonymous yet heart-to-heart disclosures as virtual friend to virtual friend enable each to gain sympathy and admiration for the other; and their gradually maturing intimacy, fueled by a generous imagination, makes love possible when they finally learn each other’s real identity.*
I do not want to exaggerate the kinship between the fig leaf (or true modesty) and the Internet. The former is an activity of deliberate withdrawal and reticence, undertaken with intuitive wisdom divining higher possibilities. Using the Internet is, in a sense, the opposite – an advance into disclosure, albeit from safe and uncommitted distance. But both cases permit imagining someone admirable to love and be loved by; both cases make it possible for psychic and emotional distance eventually to be overcome by emerging trust and nascent love. (On this matter of distance, more later.)
The second genuine benefit, not to be dismissed, is the possibility of successful matchmaking. Long ago, and even now in certain more traditional cultures, the matchmaker was an indispensable member of the community. To be sure, marriage was differently regarded, connections to family and larger community were crucial measures of suitability, and love, if anyone fell into it, came later. The marriage broker, usually older and wiser, worked not by science but by intuition and prudence, and in the best case was a good judge of compatibility. Looking beyond superficial triggers of erotic attraction, she had an eye for those qualities of character, class, religious attachment, and economic prospects that are more germane to the durability of any match than long blond hair, sculpted abs, or “chemistry.” Nowadays, expectations regarding marriage have changed and, except in very closed and settled communities, no one has the necessary firsthand knowledge to match prospects well. But given the high divorce rates, arranged marriages today could hardly have lower batting averages than the ones the young people are contracting all by themselves. Moreover, compatibility still ranks higher than sex appeal as a bellwether for marital success. Thus, it makes sense to proceed on the assumption that it is better to fall in love with someone who has first been screened and selected as a likely match, than to try to discover, under the glow of passion, whether you are well matched with someone you believe you have fallen in love with – especially under the present circumstances in which there are no boundaries or courtship rituals to discipline eros.
In the 1980s and 1990s, people began matchmaking for themselves, as it were, in the personal columns of newspapers, giving self-descriptions that were generally less individuating than the ads for used cars. Efficiency was improved with the advent of online dating services, where photographs can easily be added and where speed and interactivity make the self-selling process seemingly more efficient – though, no doubt, more open to false advertising and predation. A big step up, in my opinion, are the more professionalized and more marriage-oriented matchmaking services, of which eHarmony is one of the most popular and apparently most successful.
Psychologists for eHarmony construct a personal profile on the basis of an extensive, wide-ranging questionnaire in which the client describes himself or herself – personal characteristics, emotional temperament, social style, cognitive modes, relational skills, values, beliefs, interests – and describes also the attributes and qualities deemed important in a potential partner. A computer algorithm matches profiles around a series of measures “scientifically” shown to correlate with happiness in marriage, and then the computer gives you the names of persons, in your chosen range of geographic proximity, with whom you are likely to be highly compatible. It is all handled very discreetly, with respect for privacy, and guidance is also available for how to proceed, slowly, in making the early email contacts. On average (I learned from speaking with an eHarmony scientist), a client will receive two or three such matches at a time, up to twenty or thirty per week. The service functions solely as a winnowing screen, to locate people worth your meeting; it finds prospects you could never reach; it saves time and decreases the likelihood of failure. It assumes, not foolishly, that it is just as easy to fall in love with someone compatible as with someone not: first eHarmony, then chemistry – a revisionist sequence, to be sure, but one more nearly approaching “rational love,” one that promises duration and stability if not equal fireworks. Once you get the names, the rest is up to you. Should love or friendship develop, it is likely that the partners will soon more or less forget that the Internet played any significant initiating role.
We old-timers may shrug our shoulders, repelled by the cold-bloodedness of it all, the very antithesis of love’s ability to liberate us from calculating self-interest and self-preoccupation: “And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they were in his eyes like but a few days, because of his love for