A Love Letter to Love Letters

By Patricia Patnode

My grandfather wrote my grandmother love letters when he was serving in the Navy during the Korean War. My other grandfather similarly poured his heart into mailed prose from the battlefields of Europe during World War II. After my parents’ first date in the 1990’s, my father— a party-bro at the time-looked up my sweet mother’s address in the phone book and wrote her a letter asking to see her again.

The relationships and marriages in my family tree were often sparked by male chivalry. So, my question is, where have all the love letters gone? Where are all the strong yet sentimental men?

Today, such gestures are the exception rather than the rule. Nicole Kidman’s interview, in which she gushes about the old-fashioned romantics of her husband Keith Urban, comes to mind.

“For every single night he’s away, he leaves me a love letter,” she said. “Every single night of our relationship..” 

That intentionally is nice, and other couples should take note, but this isn’t the type of love letter I’m talking about. Sending a love letter when you’re already in love and in a committed union is sweet, but inherently less risky. A love letter from a man pursuing a woman is a different beast. 

Today, sentimental notes exchanged in early courtship have been largely replaced by short text messages. Text messages are often immediately screenshotted, shared with girlfriends, and then dissected and overanalyzed to the point of exhaustion. This evolution isn’t entirely terrible, it’s just the result of quicker communication — a tradeoff.

Before cell phones, texts, and even convenient calling, letters were simply how people communicated. Quite a bit of thought would go into a note sent to a potential lover. You needed to conjure up a written monologue with entertaining bits and questions to be answered in order to necessitate a reply. Now, I barely know where to buy stamps. I’ve certainly never received a love letter through the mail.

“What’s more disposable? A paper love letter or a text message. Why e-mail a full emotional statement when, instead, you can text a totally insignificant and ambiguous half-considered phrase?,” Vogue lamented in 2014.

Time passes more quickly when you’re texting a crush. There is less time to think between messages and less time to space out getting to know one another when it’s been established that you’re both often available to chat. That mystery is missing now. The closest we come today is, perhaps, a delayed strategic reply to a love interest’s text. Even then, the delay only ranges from a few minutes to (at maximum) one day— and that’s probably only if you’re trying to play hard to get with the man you’re texting.

Emails and texts can be intimate and foster deep connections, but they are inherently different because of the time delay. The anticipation and, perhaps, anxiety that come with sending one’s words via post creates a romantic tension that we’ve largely lost.

With the proper encouragement, I think a man who is really interested in you would be happy to pen a simple letter. Dropping hints like, “I think it’s so romantic how love letters in Jane Austen’s Persuasion were so important,” or “Isn’t it sweet that my [xyz relative] wrote to his wife when they met..” Organically starting a conversation about relationships or something tangentially related could also do the trick. Even posting screenshots of love letters that the America’s founders wrote could be useful.

Men need the opportunity to be masculine, to be romantic, to put in effort. Leaving a gap by pulling away a bit is one way to differentiate yourself from our modern, default state of eternal availability and immediate response.

Maintaining mystery and fostering longing, especially in an early relationship, is an important dance step that we need to revive. 

Letters provide a tangible and heartfelt way for couples to communicate their affections, desires, and vulnerabilities to one another, deepening their connection and fostering intimacy. There really is something special about going to the effort of obtaining paper and an envelope, thinking about what you write, and then hopefully mailing that little piece of your heart. In our world of instant communication, reviving the art of writing letters is an important way we can transcend the digital realm and enrich our relationships, at whatever stage they may be at.

Patricia Patnode is a columnist at The Conservateur and a Junior Fellow at the Independent Women's Forum. She can be found on Twitter @IdealPatricia.