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On a chilly late autumn night, with the one-year anniversary of my foray into Internet dating looming large, the two-and three-dimensional worlds finally seemed to come together. Three weeks earlier, I had begun a correspondence with a painter whose letter writing was spectacular (we exchanged 110 emails in three weeks—a record). In person, the physical attraction was undeniable; there had even been sparks on the tennis court. On our third date, we met at a dark romantic lounge, where our unrestrained mutual lust almost got us arrested.

The next day he backpedaled. "I'm afraid I have to put things in a holding pattern," were the actual words of email number 111—words that sent me reeling away from my computer and into a fetal position on the bed, unable to believe that our relationship would not be moving forward. "The events of the past three weeks are swirling about," he wrote. "I want to let them settle before I move."

"Dear Whoever You Are," I wanted to respond. "What have you done with the man I was with last night? The one who made me promise that I would make love to him within the next 24 hours? The one who was felled by my 'defenseless eyes and reluctant smile'? Where are you holding that man? I'll negotiate his release."

Instead, I dug my own grave. I peeled myself off the bed and composed email number 112. "Dearest S.," I wrote, "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't devastated." Instead of playing it cool, I came totally clean.

"Last night, when I arrived at the lounge, I saw you and began to fall in love with you," I typed. I sent two more similar emails into the irretrievable realm of his inbox before I realized he wasn't going to respond. (Perhaps he had decided that silence was the most gracious option.) That week, I was forced to acknowledge that, although he'd revealed a lot about himself in his 60 emails, there was obviously much more that he hadn't. I also learned that I was hopelessly incapable of reading between the lines.

Long came Winter again, and with it a comfort level that made me a bit, well, uncomfortable. I had come far enough in my epistolary output (432 emails) that I was finally beginning to run out of literary steam. I began to self-plagiarize, pasting descriptions of myself from old emails into new ones. (To my credit, I was often upfront about it.) My literary flair still seemed to be effective, but I was starting to feel ashamed of my Internet persona— the one that was clinging so tenaciously to the possibilities of this realm, despite all evidence that a fantasy is just that. After all this time, I no longer felt that giddy knot of expectation in my stomach at the sight of a new message in my inbox.

A few weeks after my one-year anniversary, I received a note from a photographer who'd recently found himself single after two long-term relationships. I was the first woman he'd contacted through the personals. After a few spotty emails, he chose to call me. "I'm really not good at email," he said. "I'm more of a talker."

"Fair enough," I told him.

"I've never done this before," he said. "I'm not very good at it."

"When you become good at it," I said, "it'll probably be time to give it up."

The next day, I gave it up.