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T A B L E++T A L K

Deadbeat moms: Is there such a thing? Join the debate in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

The mother of all years
By the editors of Mothers Who Think
A mom's almanac of the sad, silly, serious and sublime stories that made news in '97
(12/23/97)

Family myths, family realities
By Stephanie Coontz
A string of lurid cases this year drew attention away from the real challenges that confront American families
(12/23/97)

The Abandoned Newborn
A poem by Sharon Olds
(12/23/97)

I'll be home for sushi
By Debra Ollivier
An expatriate longs for the ersatz holiday spirit of her Los Angeles childhood
(12/22/97)

Catholic school bad girl
By Joan Walsh
Why was I the only one at my grammar school reunion who didn't remember me as a bully?
(12/19/97)

Word by word
By Anne Lamott
When everything in your life goes wrong at once, something big and lovely is about to get born
(12/18/97)

ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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BY EVE GLICKSMAN | Believe me, I'm the last one you'd expect to tout the marvels of technology. To me, hardware is hammers and nails, and a laptop is where you sit a child. But that was before I went online last year -- before I discovered cyberdating.

Since then, it's been Allan in Toronto, Larry in Brooklyn and Mark in Phoenix. There's been a witty London stranger and a banker in Mexico City. A physician in West Palm Beach and computer wonks from South Jersey to Zurich. All met through the Jewish Singles Forum on Compuserve.

Call me a cyberslut. While in more earthly venues I'm reserved and sometimes shy, sitting in front of a monitor brings out my anima, the femme fatale within. This is my medium. The verbal finesse of a practiced writer is hard to resist online. During a live computer chat, you exchange private one-on-one banter as your partner's responses roll down the screen. You can dazzle chatmates with a clever word here, coy repartee there. Most are bowled over simply by my typing speed.

As a single gal pal explains the appeal, e-mail relationships offer the intimacy-challenged man "the illusion of closeness, without the reality." I have much younger suitors whose romantic ardor I discourage and invitations from overseas that are sweet, but impractical. And no cybersex please, not even with the charmer from Cleveland who proposed marriage during our first two-hour chat.

With a little daring, literary charm and a primitive 1988 hard drive, I've found I'm only a keyboard away from adventure and intrigue. If there's a spark during a chat, you can trade e-mail addresses to continue the correspondence or arrange a future online rendezvous ("Meet you at 10 p.m. Wednesday, in the singles forum"). With a select few, I've shared phone numbers -- the ultimate trust.

My most incredible online experience so far was meeting Phil from Montreal. After one e-mail exchange, I had a nagging hunch. Was there an otherworldly chance he was an engineering major at a Penn State frat in the '70s with reddish hair?

"Yep," came the reply, amazed and bewildered ... followed by a second back-to-back e-mail dated 20 minutes later. "Was I quiet and did I live in North Halls?" BINGO.

While we had only dated about four times over the course of two college trimesters during 1974-75, Phil became a born-again friend. We began a rapid succession of e-mails, filling each other in on the missing 22 years.

Our paths had taken similar turns so there was a certain postmodern poetry about it. Both of us went on to Ivy League graduate schools -- he to Yale, me to Brown. We both lived in Washington, D.C., and Center City, Philadelphia, at various times. Phil went to Canada to teach at McGill University and then started his own business as a computer consultant. I also spun out on my own in 1985 as a freelance writer. Now in our early 40s, neither of us had ever married.

He recalled hardly anything about our long-ago dates except that he thinks he tried to kiss me once and it was like "kissing a wall." So he THINKS he tried to kiss me? Well I remembered more than that -- at least enough to embarrass both of us. Phil pleaded "selective amnesia."

N E X T+P A G E: "He's not 'Mr. Wonderful' but ..."