created 2025-04-29, & modified, =this.modified
rel: Love Letters Made Easy - Gabrielle Rosiere
Why I’m reading
I’ve always loved letters, so I love love letters. A letter has the feel of intimate direct communication. Generally, it’s not broadcast; it’s private. There’s effort.
Often when the letter is given, and it is vulnerable, a trust is also made between the two letter mates where the letter will not be shared. You could share but you will not. The bond is deep and physical in the note you hold.
What happens then, is that most of the letters that read, that are historical, are the words of people that have passed. They no longer have any say in the words, or their emotions.
In a way it’s like if I made a note to you, with an awareness I would be gone and we’d never interact again like – “I love your smile.” If we never meet again, it points to sincerity. In my expression, in the most generous reading, I have nothing to gain. I’ll never see you again. I just wanted you to know, that it’s true I loved your smile.
All of these properties (amongst others) make me love a letter.
The Historical Significance of Saving Love Letters
Letters have played a central role in books and plays, like Romeo and Juliet.
Split Nature of a Physical Letter
So we wrote letters to each other, a lot, for more than three years. And I still have them, in a box, in another box. The odd thing is, I only have half the story, his half; he’s got mine. Or maybe he doesn’t, maybe he did get rid of them, a long time ago; I really hope he did destroy them. I haven’t looked at his letters since we broke up half my lifetime ago; but I can’t bring myself to throw them away either … I, however, very rarely write letters now.
NOTE
In Letters to Milena all we really can read are what remains of Kafka’s letters. We don’t see Milena’s to the same extent as they are lost, as Kafka’s would have been.
What is a Love Letter
The object will be limited to “ordinary writing” – Love Letters as words written down and exchanged with someone else where the intent of the written message is, at least in part, to convey romantic love, intimacy, affection or sexual interest.
Goes over proliferation of platforms for dating.
rel:Words
SWAK - Swealed with a Kiss
EGYPT - Eager to Grasp Your Pretty Toes
INDIA - Intercourse Needed Day I Arrive
0410E - Oh, For One Naughty
Culture matters, as each culture has its unique “emotional dictionary.” As such, Letters are culture objects and indicate how a culture works in society.
People ”do culture” - it’s an agentic force and a study of action. It is dynamic.
Defines Romantic Love - “the wide range of expressions and practices of affectionate attraction between people distinguished from other types of love, such as between family members or friends.”
10 Unusual Terms of Endearment
Looked up the reference here
- Petit Chou (Little Cabbage, French) - doubled as chouchou for darling. Over the years, many French children have been told that boys were born in cabbages and girls in roses.
- Chuchuzinho (Pumpkin, Portuguese) - Portuguese word for squash is is chuchu.
- Tamago gata no kao (Egg with Eyes, Japanese) - Oval eyes are considered attractive.
- Terron de azucar (Lump of Sugar, Spanish) - similar to sugarcube.
- Buah hatiku (Fruit of my heart, Indonesian)
- Ma puce (My Flea, French) - sweetie, one theory relates to humans and fleas, and the intimate process of removal.
- Ghazal (Arabic, Gazelle) - In poems, men can die of love-sickness from a single glance from a Gazelle.
- Chang noi (Little Elephant, Thai)
- Chen yu luo yan (Diving fish swooping Geese) - Related to two stories, one where geese flew over a beautiful woman, and forgot to flap. Or a woman looking at the pond, and was so beautiful fish forgot how to swim.
- Golubchik (masc) / golubushka (fem) (Little Dove, Russian)
Epistolary Pact - norms about what’s contained in letters. Specific forms of address, and farewell which determine the tone of the relationship, encouraging familiarity or establishing distance, as well as frequency of correspondence, length, handwriting, and the sacrifice made to maintain regular and substantial correspondence.
Possessions as extended selves (objects that reflect one’s identities) and as memory markers.
Thought
This idea of the extended self as a collection of elements: how does it relate to my collection of letters and postcards? They are curiosities, but in this idea stolen parts of memories and selves of people long gone.
Or secondhand items given new life. Imagine I have a childhood doll, which is given to a new child. Does this doll act as an extended self to both of us?
Digitization of Love
A trained archivist spent hours typing 283 text messages manually into a computer spreadsheet from the early stages of her romance, pre-smartphone.
She’s not unique. People have the desire to archive love as expressed on digital platforms.
- a woman has a file folder where she puts encouraging texts from her husband
- a box of letters from her college boyfriend, from their time apart.
Leah Perry – From Love Letters to Facebook messages: Has Technology Ruined Romance?
- substitution of flowers with clicks of a button
- declaring relationship status
- daily communication changes with connection reducing “alone time and privacy in a relationship”
ICT – Information and Communication Technologies
Between (2013) - South Korean app allows users to send each other messages, pictures and digitized pictures and includes a faux-wood virtual memorybox where couples can save their digital exchanges to look at later.
Digital Paper and Love Letters and Cultural Objects
What seems more likely to get lost: an email saved in the cloud or a paper letter stored in a box in a basement?
Thought
This is actually a complex question. Retrieval of a letter from a box in the basement, is easy – a relatively stable environment, finite space.
Though the cloud has the persistence (you aren’t guaranteed this, but there’s redundancy of data) – Impenetrable Lists, make the noise of all of the emails you have ever had drown out what you are seeking. (often search for an old email will lack hooks to find it again.)
Russ Belk Theory of Extended Self
Digital possessions are found to be almost but not quite the singular objects of attachment that their physical counterparts are.
rel:Extended Self
Hollow hands clasp ludicrous possessions because they are links in the chain of life. If it breaks, they are truly lost. - Dichter 1964
Different weights:
Storing the text of an email love letter on an online server might seem safe in the event of a house fire. On the other hand, most individuals have a more difficult time throwing away a paper greeting card than they do deleting an e-card, at least emotionally.
Physical notes are stored (68% saving letters, 73% saving romantic cards) while Snapchats and other formats only 6% of the sample.
Thought
Text: Is the love letter in fatal decline because of new digital technology? This calls to mind the death of the slow dance. It feels like these things that I’d wish to do, have died, at least popularly? Well I still like the slow dance, and maybe it can still be done with a willing partner, even be wrapped into the swirl of the fast gyrating dance on a time scale of its own, in the midst of bodies.
Interrupted Presence
For most people who have loved ones which they communicate regularly, small communications occur when they are part. The dichotomy of sync and async communications are made messy.
Thought
Maybe it’s too romantic, but I feel the ideal love letter is not this every day back and forth (though there is definitely love there too.) Not even referring to love letters here, the best messages are involved and attentive (even a concise blip, quick message – can be emotionally resonant and has an involvement beyond the length.) They are so focused in a way that they are out of step with time.
Perhaps the letter’s purpose epistolary intent is the main element, just in new forms of messages. The defining traits of a letter, such as open salutation by hand, are in decline.
This change in letterness has included a requirement that time needs to be compressed. There is seduction in brevity. But there is also seduction in claiming that the love letter is dead, because to do so reinforces the cultural notion that romantic love must be communicated in written form, and must be represented with physical objects that are reinforced as meaningful in popular culture and economic exchange (Illouz 1997).
Physical mementos are more likely to be encountered “stumbling upon” than intentional recollection
These stored physical objects of affection, are often not frequently re-visited. It is an occasional thing (accidentally when doing other things, during organization, and while reminding of the good parts of a relationship.)
Working-class individuals in romantic relationships communicate less than their middle and upper-middle-class counterparts, especially in face to face communication. Verbal communication is part of the identity of both men and women of the upper middle class.
Survey “Is handwritten communication fading from romantic relationships?”
- response, yes – digital love letters have ease, speed, ability to converse in real time and have as much meaning as handwritten letters.
- assets of written were “tangibility, sacredness, rareness, tendency to promote thoughtful communication”
- cons were “cheesy, hokey and old-fashioned – not necessarily more meaningful than digital communication.”
Thought
Ease, speed and ability to converse in real time – to me are detriments.
Ability to promote thoughtful communication, yes.
Cheesey, hokey and old-fashioned, …also yes.
Space Matters - Where and How Letters Are “Curated”
rel: Survey of Being Lost
One person is upset because they do not know where the love letters from their now deceased high school dating partner are.
One person feels relief when her past romantic partners’ love letters are destroyed in a plumbing disaster.
There’s a theme of personal, sentimental decluttering – an explosion of the minimalist, tidying literature in the market.
Kondo advises people to ask themselves as they pick up each object, “Does this spark joy?”
Thought
I can’t place myself here. “Does this spark joy” seems aggressively cheese ball and lacking.
I’m sentimental, and will keep things, but also I devalue objects at times.
I am either completely arbitrary, or react consistently by a unbeknownst thread; I’ll hold this tiny physical sliver of you, all the rest of my life. I’m not sure why.
Cooled Objects
Half of respondents say letters are stored in hidden places. This not only means it may be looked at less often, but also that it may be rendered even more meaningful because its hidden location can connote a private sacredness.
Women save more mementos and communications than men, but men revisit more often. Men keep their belongings “on” surfaces rather than putting them away.
Time Matters - Social Construction of Time and Memory
Love letters represent a generational change. Someone writing letters on hotel stationery that chronicled the location of his travels.
New technologies have an obsoleting impact on those without proper skills, and with the speed of change it is nearly impossible to stay current.
People aged 55 and older disproportionately used paper, letters and notes at the early stages of romantic relationships.
There is one exception, Post-Its
While Post-Its were not invented until the late part of the twentieth century, it seems as if little paper notes given to a new romantic partner are as popular in today’s relationships as they were in those that started decades ago, at least during the early stages of a relationship.
Thomas Theorem
As framed in sociology’s Thomas theorem, by defining situations as real, they have real consequences. How someone remembers the past shapes how they view their present and their futures.
Thoughts
There’s some contemplating here about Books and people who decide that a real book is only a physical book.
Though there are benefits to virtual books, what is intriguing about a physical book is that it is purely what it is, a physical book. It is understood.
With our world of virtual books I believe underlying it is the belief that the e-book actually isn’t present, or access can be revoked. It’s almost a cipher or stand-in of a book, propped up by incomprehensible digital strings and relationships.
This is compounded by the normal e-book marketplace (not pirated) or reader OS, which “handles” the book (once again, the ownership here is unclear like when a book is removed from availability, along with the mechanisms of its operation.) The ground, though arguably more resilient than a real book (your library exists independently of the reading device), can feel unsteady if you are used to a physical book, which generally is what it is.
Public Signification of Private Communications
Digital messages exchanged, some of which are saved, form the building blocks of modern digital relationships.
Thought
First messages are my favorite to revisit after ages and ages. When I barely know you, and you barely know me – but when we live all we’d become.
We are looking at ourselves as different people.
Is the letter actually important, or are there more fundamental aspects of epistolary which might be enhanced by new developments?
Public display of love Hyong Yi honors late wife’s memory by handing out 100 paper letters to strangers, that spanned their relationship. Spawned100LoveNotes on twitter where people share reminders with people they love of how much they mean.
Carrie Jenkins (2017) says, “romantic love is not straightforwardly an individual or private matter.” Literal elements in society shape a definition of love played out in romantic comedies, love poems, and song lyrics.
A New Conceptual Framework
Should people be afraid of LLM robot monster who becomes a substitute lover who dehumanizes the world?
Author proposes “a framework that defines the fears surrounding the digitization of love letters, with the central fear of defined as losing cultural values associated with contemporary Western conceptions of romantic love.”
“Fear about the potential for losing love letters is really about what powerful cultural values would be lost if certain elements of love letters went away.”
| Love Letter Element | Cultural Value Feared as Result of Digitization of Letter |
|---|---|
| Personalization | Individualization and self-interest |
| Pace | Time-taking, patience, and depth in a hectic world |
| Preservation | Individual and collective legacy and longevity |
| Privacy | Preservation of public-private boundary and intimacy of monogamous dyad |
| Place | Storage of cherished possessions in secure, important and accessible locations |
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Personalization - a love letter as defined by something to show the unique traits of the person sending it (writing style, or inside joke, or storage container or decoration.) In digitization, less elements of the “person” are present. From Remember The Hand by Catherine Brown, autographs gain power due to idiosyncrasies of the human hand. “Fearing the loss of personalization that may be due to the digitization of love letters serves to reinforce powerful cultural values such as individualization and self-interest.”
Personalization does happen in digital world, and can offer more intimate exchanges. Geographic separation can now be more intimate. “Those who require pen-and-paper formats to meet the criterion of personalization may believe that seeing handwriting and other evidence that someone physically touched an object that is now in their hands makes it feel more person-like.”
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Pace - Those who believe that digitized love letters should count as love letters may suggest that there is evidence of a desire for thoughtfulness and slowing down even in digital platforms.
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Preservation - Expressing mistrust of the security of different platforms (paper can burn; electronic files can vanish) reveals the power of fear of losing stories and the value of security of important objects
Thought
Regarding Pace, the fact that it is a shared channel of communication is also something to consider (all text messages, share a space and time – they are located on a list on your phone, your brother below your college friend). Though in the past letter writing was a primary medium, it now is not.
Retroactively, it becomes novel again and its own. You can write love letters, to one person.
Privilege and the Fear of Love Letter Loss
Thought
This is quite a good section at the end of the book, and almost comes as a bit of a twist, asking us to think deeply on “privilege” of letter writing, particularly with Consuming Romantic Utopia - Eva Illouz in mind.
This book itself costs over $100 hardback though.
I have to think on it further. It could be digital messaging, is being presented in a too positive way. The potential for harm feels worse in digital writing.
Author is afraid of the lack of understanding of cultural forces as people evaluate their lives, and invisible privilege.
Social class imparts people’s lives with access to culturally accepted (and sometimes expensive) markers of romantic love (e.g. dates, travel, polished and educated communication styles).
But, one may correctly assert, it is not as if it costs a lot of money to write a letter, fold it, put it in a stamped envelope, and mail it (it also doesn’t cost a lot of money to send a text).
Some groups—especially affluent individuals, or individuals who do not perform shift work, for example—have greater access to being able to take time when they want it, or to having control over their own time.
The potential for digital communication to allow for quick exchange may lessen the divide between groups whose aim is to express romantic love to a partner.
Thought
I understand these points, and have independently considered of them – such as conceding to difficult devices as a playful thing because I can dedicate time to thinking about it.
But I also feel the heart of things here, and that creative difference (maybe even greater creativity) is accessible and perhaps even truer with less, or actual economic difficulty.
The people providing these tools/apps/websites, are the ones handling the communication and profiting off the use. A piece of paper with your words on it is a more direct passage to yourself.
Those cheap, paradoxically monetarily expensive displays of love aren’t the correct path.
In terms of the definitional element of preservation, having a legacy (and ensuring its longevity via documentation) is valued. But it is valued at the same time all past stories have been selectively curated over time. Think of all of the groups throughout history whose stories have been rendered silent or invisible because their writings either did not exist (because of unequal access to literacy or the right to write) or were not preserved (because their stories were not defined as valuable to preserve)
Thought
I do wish these voices could be heard. All should at least be given the choice of how they want to speak/write, and where.
Digitizing romantic communication, once saved, is not kept in a basement closet. And it may succumb to the same historical foibles of being lost or rendered unimportant by virtue of someone labeling them as such. But the capacity to share and save more messages from more kinds of people may make missing love stories less likely.
Thought
These digital communication surfaces, will likely be consumed/sold/scraped by the owners of the tools, and made into an LLM message. It could, in some instances be better to be forgotten.
Stephanie Land
“minimalism is a virtue only when it’s a choice, and it’s telling that its fan base is clustered in the well-off middle class.
Finally, I didn’t address much in terms trauma or sexual violence via acts of sexual aggression, bullying, or harassment that can occur under the guise of “romantic communication,” whether it be saved sexting photos used in revenge porn, online shaming or harassment of a former partner in public places such as Facebook, or the use of written communication in damaging ways in legal disputes involving partner loss, estrangement, or abuse. This limitation, thus, renders my work in jeopardy of romanticizing romantic love, which runs counter to my aims. While I acknowledge my tendency to focus away from relationship woes, doing so allows for the isolation of ideas that form the basis of the conceptual framework I apply. This, I hope, can serve as a starting point for others interested in related topics to test its application beyond the heart-shaped boxes under the bed.