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senders, find four emails from Mrs. Rothner—a correspondent highly esteemed for her way with words, ease of expression, and bullet points. Feeling like a defrosting Romanian snow bear I’m looking forward to some nice, soulful, witty, heart-warming lines. I open the first email with a sense of euphoria, and what do my eyes alight on first?
    â€œASSHOLE!” What a great feeling—thanks for the welcome!
    Emmi, Emmi, Emmi! You’ve been doing some great hypothesizing again. But I must disappoint you. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest that you’re “happily spoken for.” I’d never intended to get to know you better, better than this electronic correspondence could allow. Neither have I ever wanted to know what you look like. I’m painting my own picture of you from the messages you write. I’m constructing my own Emmi Rothner. Your main features appear the same as they were when our contact began—it would make no difference whether you’d had three disastrous marriages, been happily divorced five times, or whether you become cheerfully “unattached” again on a daily basis, and are wild and single on Saturday nights.
    Whatever the case, I’m sad to see that contact with me is wearing you down. And there’s one thing I don’t understand. Why is a happily married woman (of indeterminate age) with size 6 1/2 shoes, who’s not at all frustrated by men—an ironic, witty, charming, and self-confident woman who’s fazed by nothing—so keen to correspond with an unknown, sometimes grumpy, crisis-prone professor type, who’s damaged by relationships and has a poor sense of humor? Why is she willing to chat about so many things that are so intensely personal? What does your husband make of it, for that matter?
    Two hours later
    Re: A lovely message from Emmi
    First things first: Leo the Snow Bear is back from Bucharest! Welcome home! Sorry about the “asshole,” but it seemed the obvious thing to say. How am I supposed to know that I’m dealing with someone not of this earth, who’s not in the least disappointed when he discovers that his trusty and politely sarcastic correspondent is already spoken for? Someone who’d rather create his own Emmi Rothner than get to know the real thing? If you would allow me to be the tiniest bit provocative: however convincing your fantasies, my dear Mr. Language Psychologist, your creation can’t hold a candle to the real Emmi Rothner. Was that provocative? No? Thought not. I fear it’s quite the opposite: it’s you that’s winding me up, Leo. You have this unorthodox and yet unerring way of making yourself appear more and more exciting: you want to know everything and at the same time nothing about me. Depending on your frame of mind on any given day, you express either your “serious interest” or your pathological lack of interest in me. Sometimes that’s heartening, sometimes irritating. Just now I’m heartened, I have to admit. But perhaps you’re one of those solitary, repressed, (Romanian) wandering gray snow wolves who can’t look a woman in the eye. A man who has a terrible fear of real-life encounters. Someone who is forever constructing his own realms of fantasy because he can’t find his way in the living, tangible, real world. Perhaps you’ve got a genuine complex about women. I’d love to ask Marlene about that. You don’t by any chance have a telephone number for her, or for the Spanish pilot? (Joke! Don’t go off in another three-day huff.)
    It’s just that I’ve got a crush on you, Leo. I like you. I like you very much! Very very very much! And I just can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to know what I look like. I’m not suggesting that we should see each other. Of course we shouldn’t! But I have to say I wouldn’t mind knowing what you look like. It would explain a lot. I