I Love You, Let's Meet: Adventures in Online Dating

To the extent that Vitzthum's method is descriptive and narrative, the book is a humble and efficient dossier. But in its analysis and commentary the book rises above reportage to the precincts of the humanistic essay. `What does it mean?' and `What does it mean to me?' open up cogent and sometimes brilliant meditations on the nature of human happiness, the social and linguistic construction of the self, and the manners and morals of courtship in the electronic age. The book is wickedly funny in its dissection of the foibles of the hapless and the meretricious in this agonistic merry-go-round, and moving in its reflections on the attendant disappointments. Nor is the irreducible strangeness of looking for love in a computer database lost on Vitzthum, who brings an anthropologist's curiosity to her careful teasing out of the semiotic codes and deep structure of these online milieux, and the lifeworlds they help constitute. Juxtaposing the almost magical potential of the apparatus with the various unsatisfactory denouments (some arising from the daters themselves and some from the medium), Vitzthum evokes the magnitude of exertion, the emotional wear-and-tear, of protracted cycles of optimism and frustration. But among the tales of Sisyphean labor are (true) stories that happen to end well, if not in full fairy-tale glow, at least in ways that are real and authentic in their humanness and particularity. Above all, as she tells us toward the end, the author herself refuses to be crushed or disheartened. In so refusing, it seems to me, Vitzthum is making a reasoned, informed assessment that the potential is there, and that the odds are sufficient to the adventure, if daunting. She claims to persist not rationally but as an act of faith; but such a claim seems evidence of her intellectual modesty. Demonstrably there can be a there there, with Vitzthum's volume a stark and charming guidebook for the journey.

As an experienced online dater, I can say that this book is spot on. I wouldn't say it's a How-To online date book, but it does give a real glimpse into the workd of online dating. Just about everything she writes about I have experienced first hand (except for the gay/lesbian dating). It even made me examine some of the subconscious choices I have made and realize why I did it. Great book!

At first blush, the subject of this book might seem a bit light, but don't be fooled. This is not just a book about online dating--it's about many of life's deepest questions: how we perceive ourselves and others, how we present ourselves to the world, the deep mystery of romantic love, the difficult search for happiness, and ultimately, how we can live out E.M. Forster's challenge to Only Connect. The broad spectrum of personalities and stories makes for challenging, thought-provoking reading, and--in very engaging prose--the author bravely and honestly confronts her own romantic history. Highly recommended.

Even married people and nuns will find these tales from the dating front interesting--I found myself reliving the fun and horror of that world as Vitzthum shared her own story and others, with a twenty-first century spin.

Neither a polemic nor full of accolades, I love You, Let's Meet is a well-reasoned and well-researched book exploring the overwhelming world of online dating. Not everyone in ILYLM finds the love of his life online, nor does everyone encounter sleezy liars out to cheat them of their life-savings. The real-life stories are are at once funny and sad as people just like you and me traverse cyberspace in search of their soul mates. Although written with a voyeur's eye, Vitzthum also takes the plunge into online dating, exploring her own feelings about the trend and what she thinks living online means for the future of romantic relationships. I Love You, Let's Meet is a great combination of philosophical analysis and juicy gossip.