Postcard from New York; Love bytes

NOT SO VERY long ago, the chalky rainbow-hued candy Valentine's hearts that infest drugstores every February contained simple, romantic expressions like "Be Mine", "Dreamboat", "Hug Me", or "I Do." As the tooth- busting sweet re-emerged year after year, decade after decade, the unchanging slogans gave a soothing reassurance of continuity in American Romantic expression. (They also gave credence to rumours that the dusty candy hearts all came from a monster 1906 factory surplus that had yet to be depleted.) This year, however, proof of a romantic revolution has shot off factory belts and the hearts now read "Fax Me", "Love. com", "My e-Male" and "www.Cupid".

New inventions are generally regarded with suspicion, and so for the first few years, the Internet was mistrusted as a visionary accomplice in affairs of the heart. Only last year, reports about love on the web centred on cyber-porn, e-mail infidelity scandals, and sexual piracy by hacker perverts who inveigled gullible correspondents into sinister bondage traps. But past errors have been forgiven and forgotten and now New Yorkers have surrendered unconditionally to computer love connections, just in time for 14 February. This was accidental, of course. Any time a New Yorker logged on to the Net in the last month, he was confronted with a flashing icon at the top of the screen, next to the flashing icon labelled Clinton Scandal, which read "Valentine's Day". Clicking on it, hapless browsers often ordered a dozen long-stemmed roses by mistake, which, once they had arrived, were sent on to love interests they had long been vaguely meaning to give flowers to.

The result in many cases has been a viable couple, and so now, legions of accidental boyfriends and girlfriends are turning back to their desktop Cyranos for further instructions. One site supplies an Internet Kissing Booth, in which a giant pair of red lips plants a smacking virtual kiss on the screen, many have e-mailable birthday, anniversary and Valentine's greetings for cads too cheap or too lazy to buy a paper card, and some provide window-steaming romantic verses for creatively-congested poets. A sample: "Candy kisses, flowers and cards are fine, but on the Internet is where we spend our time." It's not Herrick, but it gets the job done. On a more ominous note, last week, the first Valentine's e-mail chain letter made the rounds; a short sappy love story, followed by instructions to forward it to three people for good luck, eleven people for true love, and twenty people for marriage.

New York's Sidewalk. com has a Love Machine that allows visitors to plot their love quotient on a candy heart graph, which has cash on one axis, love on the other, so that busy New Yorkers can find out how much money they should put where their lips are on the Big Day. If you register three hearts and one dollar sign, Sidewalk will sigh, "Your heart is full, but your wallet's empty," and prescribe museum visits, ice-skating and a shared crepe at a French West Village pushcart. If your quotient is three dollar signs and one heart, you will be deemed, "A free spender but an emotional tightwad," and sent off to buy caviar at Moomba, peignoirs at La Perla and tickets to a high-priced Broadway show. Restaurant suggestions have been finely calibrated, such that a three-heart, two dollar-sign couple gets fireside seats at Danal's or Park Bistro, while the lucky three heart, three dollar signs clink champagne glasses at Flute. Nonetheless, there is a thorn on the Internet rose; as non-cyber lovers already know, Danal, Park Bistro and Flute have been booked for Valentine's Day since last Halloween; so many of the Internet-dependent have been left with a more virtual Valentine's Day than they had planned - which has the potential to produce bang-up non-virtual lovers' spats.