Monday, October 7, 2002		Feature

An old flame cyber-walks into your life...and ruins it
Polly vernon

TWO months ago, via the medium of friendsreunited.com, I got e-mail from the man who completely monopolised my life for 18 long months in the late eighties. One brief torrid affair, an introduction to the work of The Smiths, a couple of angst-addled love letters and I was consumed in that desperate, immense way you really only can be when you’re 17.

He went back to his girlfriend after a week. I stalked him in a low-level way for the next month or so and ultimately had to content myself with chucking non-reciprocated wistful glances his way across a smoky sixth-form common room for a long, long time. Thirteen years later, out of the blue, he emailed me the following message: ‘I remember you.’

As re-introductory e-mails go, it was devastating. Flirty, dark, slightly sinister. I was — understandably, I think — entranced. For a brief 48 hours, I ignored the fact that I was 31 and in a seven-year relationship with a sweet, sensible man, and a mortgage and a vintage leather sofa, and contemplated replying.

‘I remember you, too,’ would have been OK, if unimaginative. Or, ‘My life’s really cool now.’ Or, ‘I’m ageing terribly well.’ But, because I’m well adjusted and not particularly whimsical and I know which side my bread’s buttered (and also because I checked out his entry on the Website and discovered his girlfriend had recently given birth to their first child), I didn’t reply. And, though I haven’t deleted his e-mail and allow myself occasional late-night thrills by re-reading it. I know I never will.

By all accounts, though, a lot of other persons don’t always exhibit my commendable maturity and restraint.

Next month, the UK counselling service Relate (formerly known as Marriage Guidance) will launch an online counselling service. The marriage guidance group estimates that one in 10 relationships falls apart because of the Internet and its opportunity for easy-access infidelity. Further, a considerable percentage of these illicit relationships are of the friendsreunited-old flame variety. So, they reason, the best way to target those most vulnerable to online dalliances is with online guidance. "It’s a way for people to make contact with us without interrupting their lives," says Relate’s Lynn Barnett, who is overseeing the project. "It’s a way for them to feel more comfortable asking questions, and asking for help - particularly younger people. Particularly men."

Relateonline will almost certainly do brisk business. The rekindled love affair is the relationship phenomenon of the moment. One recently conceived Website — oldflamesreunited.com — caters specifically for those attempting to re-contact lost loves. It’s extraordinarily popular. ‘The response has been far beyond our expectations,’ says Rik Still, co-creator of the site. ‘Subscriber numbers have doubled in the last two weeks alone. We are acutely aware of the risqué nature of this venture but, clearly, people are keen to track down past loved ones, for whatever reason.’ Anecdotal evidence of the disruptive potential of friendsreunited accumulates. In July, the Private Lives column in the London-based Guardian newspaper featured a letter from a 53-year-old woman who was considering meeting up with her first love, who e-mailed her through the site. She’d been married for 27 years. Last spring, Shirley Bell left her husband and three children a mere two weeks after re-establishing contact with Steve Morgan, her childhood lust object, via friendsreunited. ‘I was stunned when Shirley sent me an e-mail, and cannot believe that two weeks later we were back together again after all this time,’ rejoiced Morgan. ‘It’s like something out of a Mills & Boon novel.’ (Shirley’s husband remains understandably reticent on the subject).

Two of my closest friends have recently been distracted from their husbands in a minor way by the emailed attentions of senior-school exes. Another had to deal with his girlfriend meeting up with her first love for dinner. One evening was enough to convince both parties that they shouldn’t stay in touch.

It isn’t hard to understand why the old flame is such an alluring, emotive proposition. When compared with the irritations and grinding domestic realities of the relationships we’re actually having, there’s something divinely fresh and unspoiled about revisiting a past love. In theory, at least. Plus, you don’t just get lust with an old flame. You get nostalgia. You get an overwhelming sense of yourself as a younger, less jaded, more lascivious you.

According to Martin Lloyd-Elliott, chartered psychologist at London’s Eden Medical Centre, the psychology of the rekindled affair runs deeper than that. ‘For some people, the passage of time romanticises and fictionalises the past relationship,’ he says. of that process is the idealisation of the lost other. And there’s so much mythology in our culture about the ideal other, anyway.’

Whether or not it’s possible to contact an old flame with pure motives is unclear. In theory, there are positive experiences to be had. Closure and emotional absolution, for example. An honest desire to know how someone you once cared for is getting on.