Much of our understanding of history comes from handwritten letters. I’m thinking about the love letters sent by Alexander Hamilton to his wife Eliza. Or Martin Luther King’s letter from Birmingham Jail, which became a touchstone of the Civil Rights Movement. And of course the confidential “have you ever touched it” note in Sixteen Candles that forced Sam Baker to admit her sexual naivety but also piqued Jake Ryan’s interest and set true love into motion. At least 16-year-old true love.
Letter writing is an art! And sadly, we’ve lost it.
All the famous epistles mentioned above were written before cell phones and emails made handwritten letters obsolete. If those letters were written today, Hamilton would’ve sent Eliza an eggplant emoji, Martin Luther King would’ve tweeted a prayer hands emoji, and Sam Baker would’ve confessed her sexual inexperience in a private Snapchat that Jake never saw.
Which is fine, I guess. Communication evolves. We use the tools at our disposal to say what we want. But a hundred years from now, historians won’t have a record of our texts and snaps. All our sexy/romantic emoji correspondence will be lost forever. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, considering we’re writing these messages from our phones while we’re pooping.
But if I’m being honest, I think it’s kinda sad that historians will look back at this moment in history and they won’t find any love letters. They’re gonna think the greatest courtships of our era took place on the back of bathroom stalls. (Because if we can count on one eternal truth, it’s the timelessness of bathroom graffiti.)
And while “Here I sit, brokenhearted…Tried to shit, but only farted” is a poignant piece of bathroom poetry, it’s not the same as a flowery, passion-filled love letter.
Which is why Gleek wants to celebrate the good old-fashioned handwritten love letter. Stop wasting your most romantic thoughts on electronic correspondence. Put those words down on paper. In ink, dammit!
You know that annoying thing people say when they catch you staring: “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Well, this is me saying: “Write a letter, it’ll last longer.” Commit, people!
Here’s a tip: the hornier your love letters are, the more likely they’ll make their way into history books. Yes, you’ll also have to do something historically relevant to merit a mention in the first place, but that’s a minor detail. Write the most romantic, flowery, erotic prose you can muster. And hey, if you want to really get kinky, consider writing a love letter on a typewriter while naked on your bed. Like this guy!
You may or may not get laid. But when historians find your love letter, they’ll think you scored. And really, having people think you had a banging sex life is all that matters.