ON-LINE Romance on the net
If your idea of romance is scribbling your name on some scrappy card every
14 February, it's time for a rethink. There’s a whole world out there of beautiful shared moments, ways of showmg you care, and, if you type in ’romance’ to your search engine, mail- order brides, romantic novelists and even Romantic languages. To find true romance you must sift through these decoys and let the power of web-love envelop yOu.
Where better to start than www.loveangelquest.com? Prepare for floral writing, a fetching purple backdrop and pretty flowers. Then there’s the content. This is a guide to keeping the passion alive in your relationship, and if ’skipping hand-in- hand together’ or listening to Celine Dion does that, more power to you. More worrying is the author’s suggestion that you call your lover from work and say, ’I love you and miss you. Can’t wait for you to get home and get naked.’ In an open-plan office creating this kind of 905st could spell the end of a promising career.
lvlovmg on to an even sadder site, www.1001waystoberomantic.com is essentially excerpts from author Gregory JP. Godek’s book of the same name. You’re in for a treat With suggestions coming under headings like 'Neat Stuff’. While ’sign your letters “forever and a day”’ and ’strive to be an A+ couple’ wrll make you want to retch, ’shoot your TV’ sounds like it’s got the makings of a truly rock ’n’ roll night in. Unless TV means transvestite in which case this is murder, plain and simple and not to be rated highly in the romance stakes.
By the time you get to ’buy matching his ’n' hers T-shirts’ you’ll be in desperate need of some light relief, so log onto www.rom101.com. Here
yOu'II find this month’s Top Ten Most Romantic Phrases, features filled wrth insight such as ’Why Guys Act Macho’ and most useful of all, the Random Pick-Up Line Generator With over 300 tried and tested phrases, including ’Is that a ladder in your tights or a stairway to heaven?’.
Moving swrftly on, if you’re feeling a little insecure about yOur current romance check out www.lovetest.com where you’ll find numerology, thermometers and even fortune tellers helping discover if you’ve got any chance of success. Sadly the horoscope compatibility test said of my current relationship: ’Why bother? This Will never work.’ Best to find out sooner rather than later I suppose.
l .1. ~ ..2-/ The original
love test
In search of consolation I happened across www.romancetheweb.com. Here you’ll find links to loads of other sites, including cyber-chapels, real life stories and ’romantic free stuff’ (mostly just screensavers with titles like ’Bikini Girls’).
Finally a glimmer of hope comes with www.loveblender.com, which perhaps we could regard as the ’thinking person’s guide to romance’. With poems, sonnets, clips of Casablanca, photography and even dialogue from Annie Hall, it mercrfully offers no adVice whatsoever, except in the ’Blend-o-matic’ section where the voices of everyone from Mark Twain to Calvin & Hobbes have their say.
(Louisa Pearson)
Totally wired
The World Of The Web
A History Of Sexuality
www.isis.aust.com/stephanwritirigs sexuality/
This is qurte a fascmating series of essays documenting sexuality throughout the ages. Everything is in here - from back in the old days when sex hadn’t been invented yet, through Victorian sex (when it had been invented, but everybody denied it), through the sexual revolution of the 60s (when everyone was inventing and reinventing it like rabbits) and beyond.
'I Love You' In 100+ Languages wwweu.spiritweb.org/Spirit love-you.htm|
This is a site for those romantics going abroad on holiday this year. Just swat up here and deliver the phrase at the opportune moment. Ideally suited to those planning a round-the-world trip, what could be more romantic than saying it in 100+ countries? Although I would maybe think twrce before saying ’Chuu shiteyo’ in Japan.
Cyrano Server www.nando.net/toys/cyrano.htm|
Or for those romantics who could maybe do with a helping hand, this site will help you out. It will construct a love letter in the style of your choosing and send it as a card to your loved one. Or it will even help you out if you want to break up with someone. Ah, touching! Or as Homer Simpson put it ’Welcome to Dumpsville, baby. Population: you.’
Sensual Celebrations
www.g|asswings.com.au/sexual/ celebrationshtml
This deals with the kind of thing that you wouldn’t be seen dead buying in a bookshop - beekeeping. No — ’You Know What’, but instead of burying sex under a blanket of shame, it encourages us to celebrate it. Encompassmg many aspects of sex, health and relationships, and there’s even Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale.
INTERNET
internet@list.co.uk
he Sunflower doubts: sends them both email ' that . \'_
GOT A MATCH!
Secret Admirer wwwsecretadmirercom/
However, if you have a secret amour but haven’t quite plucked up the courage to ask them out, then more
3 help is at hand. Anonymously ask
them out with this serwce, which will send the apple of your eye an e-mail, and if they’re keen you’ll get one back. Only when you’ve both agreed does your identity get revealed. It doesn’t guarantee they’ll turn up, but the hard part’s done.
The Love Calculator www.|ovecalculator.com
They don’t tell you how it works, but apparently it does. Bang in the names of two people and mystically it works out your love match rating - weird science, or what? The only drawback is that Ann Widdecome works out as the perfect partner to quite a few names I typed in. So it either doesn't work properly, or Ms W is a goddess.
Housekeeping Monthly 1955
www.fortunecity.co.uk/olympia/
hornblower/lOZ/mbitf.htm
This did the rounds a while ago, but
for those of you who didn’t see it, here
it is. It’s an allegedly true extract from
i the magazine, a feature called ’The
Good Wife’s Guide’. As funny as it is unbelievable. But guys, as soon as
you've read it, forget it quickly. We live
in a better world now. (Steve Blair)
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