Love Virtually

Publication and form

Love Virtually is the English title of Austrian novelist Daniel Glattauer’s epistolary novel Gut gegen Nordwind, first published in 2006. The English translation, by Katharina Bielenberg and Jamie Bulloch, appeared in 2011. A contemporary romantic novel told almost entirely through emails, it draws on the older tradition of fiction made from letters while placing its characters in the everyday world of digital communication. Rather than relying on a conventional narrator to explain what the characters feel, it asks readers to infer their changing emotions from their replies, teasing, silences and disclosures.

The story

The correspondence begins by accident. Emmi Rothner is trying to deal with a magazine subscription, but her emails reach Leo Leike, a man she does not know. He answers out of politeness, and the exchange develops into a lively conversation. Their early messages trade jokes and guesses about one another; in time, they disclose private longings, vulnerabilities and personal concerns. The growing intimacy brings with it romantic and erotic tension, and the question of meeting in person becomes increasingly difficult to avoid.

Yet both the prospect of meeting and the possibility of what might follow unsettle them, so the encounter is repeatedly postponed. Emmi’s situation is complicated by the fact that she is happily married. The connection therefore raises more than the familiar question of whether online chemistry will survive a first meeting: it also brings loyalty, commitment and the consequences of desire into view. What happens when a relationship sustained by words must enter ordinary life? Can the pair’s imagined versions of each other withstand the presence of a real person? The novel uses these uncertainties to keep the exchange moving without reducing the characters’ choices to a simple fantasy of romance.

Themes, background and reception

The book explores how written communication can create closeness across distance. Email gives Emmi and Leo time to compose themselves, choose what to reveal and respond on their own terms. That freedom can encourage candour, but it also leaves room for projection: each may fall in love partly with the person the other appears to be in writing. The medium is at once a bridge and a protective barrier. The novel does not merely ask whether an online attachment is genuine; it asks how intimacy develops when shared routines, physical presence and face-to-face reactions are missing, and what reality may do to an affection formed at a distance.

Its form is central to its effect. Brief exchanges create comic pace, while repetitions, delays and changes in tone carry emotional weight. The conversational style makes the novel accessible and funny, but its lightness coexists with questions about marriage, past relationships, responsibility and self-understanding. Glattauer was a journalist and a regular columnist for the Austrian daily Der Standard. Accounts of his work also note the influence of personal experience, memories of journalism and training in psychosocial counselling on his novels and plays. These connections help contextualize the book’s interest in everyday speech and emotional interpretation, though the available information does not identify a particular personal event as the source of its plot.

Love Virtually is among Glattauer’s best-known works and is notable for making email correspondence the structure as well as the subject of a romantic story. Its sequel, Every Seventh Wave (Alle sieben Wellen), continues the characters’ story. The English edition helped bring the novel to readers beyond its original German-language audience. Glattauer’s literary works have been translated into about forty languages and have sold more than three million copies overall; his writing has also been adapted for radio, theatre, television and film. The book’s lasting appeal lies in its blend of quick, witty dialogue and a question that remains pertinent: when two people know one another chiefly through words, how much of their love belongs to the other person, and how much to the image they have made together?

About the Author

Daniel Glattauer

Life and background

Daniel Glattauer was born in Vienna, Austria, on 19 May 1960. He is an Austrian novelist and playwright as well as a former journalist, and biographical accounts say that he continues to live and work in Vienna. The available material does not provide reliable details of his formal schooling, university education or degree, so a specific educational biography cannot be stated with confidence. His documented professional background includes regular column writing for Der Standard, a national Austrian daily newspaper.

Journalism is one important context for his fiction. It brought him sustained contact with everyday speech and with the ways people describe themselves and interpret others. Profiles of Glattauer also say that his novels and plays draw on personal experiences, memories from his years as a journalist and training in psychosocial counselling. The sources available here do not identify the institution or dates of that training, nor do they connect any specific episode in his life directly to a particular plot. These experiences are best understood as influences on his interest in communication and emotional behaviour, rather than as evidence that his fiction is autobiographical.

Major works and style

Glattauer became especially well known for works built around lively dialogue and intimate exchanges. His novel Gut gegen Nordwind was first published in 2006; its English translation, Love Virtually, appeared in 2011. The book takes the form of an email correspondence between Emmi Rothner and Leo Leike, whose accidental exchange develops into a complicated attachment. Its sequel, Alle sieben Wellen, known in English as Every Seventh Wave, continues their story and is another of his best-known works. A further major novel, Ewig Dein, appeared in 2012. These titles and dates are the principal works for which the material at hand provides clear publication information.

His fiction often centres on romantic relationships and the puzzles of communication, combining humour with a brisk, accessible narrative style. Glattauer has been described as a feel-good author, a label that points to the warmth and readability many readers find in his work. Some critics, however, have considered the novels insufficiently deep. The tension between broad appeal and critical reservations is part of his reputation: his stories are entertaining and conversational, yet they also touch on marriage, desire, loyalty, emotional distance and self-discovery. Love Virtually in particular turns the form of digital correspondence into a way of examining both intimacy and the gap between an imagined partner and a person encountered in ordinary life.

Reputation and influence

The success of Love Virtually and its sequel helped establish Glattauer’s readership beyond German-speaking countries. His literary works have been translated into around forty languages and have sold more than three million copies in total. His writing has also been adapted for radio, theatre, television and cinema, including beyond the German-speaking world. These figures describe the reach of his body of work as a whole, not the sales of a single title. Glattauer is living; the available biographical material records no death.

His enduring standing rests on his ability to make familiar emotional situations engaging through conversational form, comic timing and romantic tension. Love Virtually remains a particularly recognizable example of the email novel: its correspondence makes digital communication both the mechanism of the plot and its central subject. The book’s appeal extends beyond the question of whether its characters will meet. It asks how trust and attachment can grow through words, and whether the relationship created in writing can survive the demands of shared reality. That combination of popular storytelling and reflection on changing forms of human contact has helped keep Glattauer’s work visible among readers internationally.

StoryFlow

From Wrong Address to Intimacy

This thread traces how an accidental email address becomes the channel through which Emmi Rothner and Leo Leike build an emotionally consequential relationship.

The Correspondence as Love Story

This thread follows the transformation of witty email companionship into an online romance whose emotional force repeatedly outpaces the characters’ choices.

Emmi’s Changing Sense of Self

This thread traces how Emmi Rothner’s written persona becomes a way to express desire and vulnerability that her settled daily identity has kept out of view.

Knowledge Graph

Emmi Rothner Leo Leike Marlene Bernhard Mia Lechberger Bernhard Rothner Mia Pamela

Knowledge Graph

Storylines

January 15

The First Cancellation Email

[Emmi Rothner](entity:character-recall-character-emmi-rothner-3a89503d94f6) began a series of attempts to cancel her [Like magazine](entity:object-recall-object-like-magazine-f79fb3d3da75) subscription by email. Her messages went unanswered because she repeatedly wrote to a private address that differed from the magazine’s address by one letter. Her increasingly angry complaint finally reached [Leo Leike](entity:character-recall-character-leo-leike-8a39d09b0594), who corrected the address and joked that he was the third person to mistake him for the magazine. The accidental contact established the small spelling error that would bring the two strangers together.

Nine months after the first cancellation attempt

The Christmas Greeting

Emmi’s mass [Christmas](entity:time-recall-time-christmas-a573265d0167) greeting reached Leo’s inbox. He replied with mock gratitude for the round-robin message, and Emmi explained that he had entered her contacts by accident and should be deleted. Their teasing continued over several quick emails. Leo devised a more imaginative holiday wish, and Emmi admitted she was impressed; a minor mistake had become the beginning of a personal exchange.

Thirty-eight days after the Christmas exchange

Another Mistaken Complaint

A fresh bill from [Like magazine](entity:object-recall-object-like-magazine-f79fb3d3da75) prompted Emmi to write another furious complaint, again sending it to Leo by mistake. Leo recognized her and asked whether she had received some more bad days. Emmi apologized and explained her chronic “ei” typing error, describing how her left hand still inserted an extra letter before an “i.” Leo was amused by the vivid explanation and asked how long it had taken her to write it, shifting their accidental correspondence toward curiosity about one another.

Minutes after Emmi’s explanation of her typing error

The Twenty-Second Dispute

Leo guessed that Emmi had dashed off her account in twenty seconds, praising its speed and energy. Emmi challenged both his guess and his humor, then revealed that she designed websites and asked whether his work involved email professionally. The exchange exposed their contrasting habits: Leo analyzed language, while Emmi wrote with quick, self-conscious wit. Their banter also made clear that neither was content to let the other’s assumptions go untested.

Four days after the typing-error exchange

Leo’s First Portrait

Leo explained that Emmi’s emails seemed to gush: quick, confident, energetic, and deliberate. He admitted that his own sense of humor was poor and that his life felt chaotic, then invited her to write again if she happened to err into his inbox. Emmi confessed that her earlier email had in fact taken only twenty seconds and praised Leo’s ability to see through her. His reading of her style became their first sustained attempt to imagine a person behind the messages.

Eighteen days after Leo’s portrait of Emmi

The Language Psychologist

Emmi returned to tell Leo that Like had finally stopped sending her the magazine. She had searched for him online and wondered whether he was a professor, while also asking whether his humor had improved. Leo explained that he was a communications consultant and university assistant in language psychology, working on email and emotional communication. He suspected that Emmi wrote younger than her actual age, and she seized on that remark as a puzzle she wanted him to solve.

Later on the day Leo described his work

The Age Guess

Leo guessed that Emmi wrote like a thirty-year-old but was about forty-two. He based the estimate on her magazine subscription, her [Christmas](entity:time-recall-time-christmas-a573265d0167) greeting, her name, and the polished completeness of her sentences, then added speculative details about her height, hair, and shoe size. Emmi enjoyed the audacity of his portrait even as she challenged its logic. Leo’s playful deductions gave their correspondence a new intimacy: each was now trying to make the other visible through language alone.

The day after Leo guessed Emmi’s age

Names Without Surnames

Emmi proposed that they drop each other’s surnames and told Leo she had reread his emails. She praised his willingness to engage with an unknown woman while expecting little in return, but questioned his assumptions about age, names, and language. She revealed that the Like subscription had been a gift for her mother, undermining one of his clues. Their playful argument over how much a writing style could reveal became a recurring feature of their growing bond.

Three days after Emmi’s message about names

The First Silence

When Leo did not write for three days, Emmi told him that she had begun to wonder why and felt that something was missing. Leo replied that he had written to her daily but deleted each draft because his interest was becoming stronger than their anonymous correspondence seemed to permit. He insisted that it was wise to assume they would never meet, lest their exchange become ordinary chat-room flirtation. Emmi rejected the idea that a man would not want to know what a woman looked like, and pressed him to explain what he wanted from their connection.

The day after Leo admitted his interest

The Virtual Vacuum

Leo described their correspondence as a vacuum in which they knew almost nothing about each other, while constructing imagined versions from hints and refusals. He admitted that he was seriously interested in Emmi, though he suspected the feeling depended on keeping her inside his inbox. He asked directly whether she wanted him to continue writing. Emmi answered with emphatic enthusiasm and asked how he could know there was a clear reason for his interest without knowing what it was. Their exchange established both the exhilaration and the limits of their electronic intimacy.

Two days after Emmi asked Leo about his interest

The Paris Story

Leo broke his self-imposed distance by telling Emmi about [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e). Their five-year relationship had repeatedly ended and restarted, with each believing the other was the great love of their life mainly when separation threatened. Marlene had found another man, a Spanish airline pilot, and Leo had tried to win her back by proposing a [Christmas](entity:time-recall-time-christmas-a573265d0167) trip to [Paris](entity:location-recall-location-657453741ed3). He sent a desperate message declaring that he wanted to marry her, then waited for her reply with his life seemingly suspended around the email alert.

December 19, during Leo’s failed Paris appeal

The Wrong Christmas Message

At the moment Leo expected [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e)’s answer, the message that arrived was Emmi’s earlier [“Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”](entity:expression-recall-expression-merry-christmas-an-2e14f5261c04) greeting. The accidental greeting became inseparable from the collapse of his [Paris](entity:location-recall-location-657453741ed3) plans and explained his earlier hostility toward round-robin emails. Emmi recognized the importance of the confession and promised a serious response. Her subsequent analysis argued that Leo’s pattern was to desire a woman most at the beginning or end of a relationship, and she wondered whether he had ever been married.

The day after Leo explained the Christmas message

Emmi’s Seven Questions

Emmi sent Leo a seven-part analysis of his relationship with [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e), accusing him of pursuing love mainly when it was slipping away and asking whether he had been married. She recast her [Christmas](entity:time-recall-time-christmas-a573265d0167) greeting as the message that had effectively announced the end of his relationship. Leo rejected her assumptions, told her he had never married, and admitted that his correspondence with her had partly served as therapy after Marlene. Emmi apologized for the attack but disclosed that she herself was married, a revelation that changed the stakes of their exchange.

One week after Emmi disclosed her marriage

The Married Correspondent

Emmi reopened contact with a casual remark about the weather, then apologized for her earlier harshness. She explained that her cynicism was playful rather than resentful and said she was happy in her marriage, while showing genuine interest in Leo’s former partner. Leo said her being married did not trouble him because he had never intended to know her beyond the screen. He wondered why a happily married woman would invest so much in a personal exchange with a stranger, and what her husband made of it.

After Leo returned from Bucharest

The Crush Confession

Leo came back from a conference to find Emmi’s angry messages accusing him of abandoning her because she was married. He answered that he had never wanted to meet her or know her appearance, and that he imagined his own version of her regardless of her marital status. Emmi admitted that she had a crush on him and liked him very much. She described a harmonious marriage with [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) and two children, but said she did not want to discuss her husband further. Her confession made the emotional contradiction of their relationship explicit.

The day after Emmi confessed her crush

The Recognition Game

Leo proposed that they visit [Café Huber](entity:location-recall-location-caf-huber-252e87366fba) at the same time without openly meeting, each trying to identify the other among the crowd. He claimed he could pick Emmi out, though he did not want to know her appearance in any lasting sense. Emmi accepted while fearing that seeing each other might destroy their correspondence. They agreed to preserve the uncertainty by not revealing their identities afterward, turning the prospect of a meeting into another carefully controlled game.

Several days after the recognition-game proposal

The Midnight Wine Invitation

Emmi invited Leo to share a glass of wine online and confessed she was already drinking. When he failed to answer that night, she sent further messages and went to bed imagining his company. Leo apologized the next day, explained that he preferred white wine, and described how alcohol had been a point of conflict with [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e). Emmi reacted with jealous concern that he might be spending the night with a new woman, while insisting that his imagined version of her should be enough.

The following evening

The Prague Jealousy

Emmi tried to find out where Leo had spent the previous night and whether he was seeing someone. Leo teased her for her jealousy but maintained that their private correspondence belonged to the two of them. Their planned recognition game was postponed when Leo announced a trip to Prague with a friend and her partner. Emmi urged him to go to Rome instead and revealed that she would soon take a family skiing holiday, including her husband and children.

During Emmi’s skiing holiday

The Pajama Messages

Leo sent several messages asking whether Emmi was online, whether she could still write, and whether his new pajamas were the problem. His repeated attempts to reach her revealed how much he had come to depend on the daily exchange. When Emmi returned, she said the family trip had been real and good enough, while her fixation on an unseen correspondent felt wrong. She called their connection a fantasy affair and asked whether they should stop, though she still wanted to know about the pajamas.

The day after Emmi questioned whether they should stop

The Meeting Embargo

Leo asked to preserve their [Café Huber](entity:location-recall-location-caf-huber-252e87366fba) recognition game, arguing that a meeting might make it easier to end their impossible affair. Emmi agreed to meet the following Sunday and proposed an email embargo until then. They discussed the need not to make the encounter conspicuous, then continued exchanging small, flirtatious messages despite their agreement. Their inability to keep even a brief silence showed how thoroughly the correspondence had become part of their routine.

The Sunday after the meeting embargo

The First Café Encounter

After the agreed afternoon at [Café Huber](entity:location-recall-location-caf-huber-252e87366fba), Emmi admitted that every man who might have been Leo seemed physically unattractive to her. She described a stocky, hairy man at the bar and feared that he was the writer she had imagined so differently. Leo reassured her that the man was not him, then asked whether the disappointment would end their correspondence. Emmi said she had not seen anyone who matched the way Leo wrote, exposing how strongly her imagined person had outgrown the ordinary faces around her.

The day after the first Café Huber encounter

Leo’s Three Candidates

Leo explained that he had been at [Café Huber](entity:location-recall-location-caf-huber-252e87366fba) and described three women he believed could be Emmi: a petite, brisk brunette; a cool blond; and a shy brunette with an exotic appearance. He said all three were attractive, but the first seemed most like the woman who wrote to him. Emmi recognized herself in the description and pressed him for clues about which man he had been. Leo used questions about siblings and his tall blond sister to lead her toward the truth, while refusing to identify himself directly.

The day after Leo described the three candidates

The Sister’s Reveal

Emmi identified herself as one of Leo’s three candidates, and he confirmed that she was the original, “Ur-Emmi.” The next day she realized that the handsome man she had seen with the blond model at the bar had been Leo’s sister, Adrienne, rather than a lover. Leo explained that his sister had helped him observe the women without revealing himself. Emmi was relieved that he was not the hairy man she had feared, though she could barely remember what he looked like. Their game preserved uncertainty even while confirming that they had occupied the same room.

The evening after the sister’s reveal

The Fourth Emmi

Emmi asked which of the three women Leo would fall in love with. He refused to choose, saying that he thought instead of a fourth Emmi, his own imagined correspondent. The distinction reassured her that his attachment was not simply a preference among physical candidates. When she later complained of a bad day, Leo asked what had happened. Emmi began to recognize that the anonymous relationship had become a source of emotional dependence, not merely a clever game about appearance.

The day after Leo spoke of his fourth Emmi

Emmi Asks to Stop

Emmi told Leo that she was becoming addicted to his messages and could not spend each day waiting for a man who had seen her without approaching her. She questioned whether he wanted only the written version of her and whether he would ever risk meeting the real person. Leo replied with four direct questions about whether she wanted to meet, why, what she expected to happen, and whether her husband should know. Emmi said she did want to meet him, but avoided a clear answer about telling [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181), widening the tension between curiosity and loyalty.

Minutes after Emmi agreed she wanted to meet

The Question of Betrayal

Leo asked whether Emmi would cheat on her husband. She objected to his moralizing and said that a happily married person did not have to report every meeting to a spouse, but she still would not say plainly what she would tell [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181). Leo inferred that she was seeking adventure, while Emmi insisted that she only wanted to look her email partner in the eye. Their disagreement made the moral ambiguity of their planned encounter unavoidable and revealed how each used questions to probe the other’s limits.

Five days after Emmi’s request to meet

The First Meeting Canceled

After a week of silence, Leo reappeared and agreed to meet, explaining that his mother had died. Emmi immediately offered to see him and support him after the funeral, and they arranged to meet the next evening. Leo canceled the meeting on the day it was planned, saying he would explain later. The promise of an encounter had been transformed by bereavement, but his withdrawal also left Emmi unsure whether she had been used as a temporary source of comfort.

The day after Leo’s mother’s funeral

The Funeral Evening

Leo explained that he had spent the evening with [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e), who had also attended the funeral and had been close to his mother. He said she could unlock difficult parts of his family history, and that he had needed to talk to her. He admitted that he and Marlene had come close to sleeping together. Emmi responded with anger and felt rejected by his last-minute cancellation, while Leo accused her of prying into private matters and using sex as a weapon in conversation.

The day after Leo described the funeral evening

Leo’s Second Voice

Leo told Emmi that she was not just anybody to him: her voice had become a second voice inside him, turning his solitary inner monologue into a dialogue. He feared that meeting would destroy the unanswered questions and illusions that sustained their exchange. He imagined that an in-person encounter would cause them to pour out their histories until the magic disappeared. Emmi countered that their messages already concerned private life, and confessed that she cared about whom Leo slept with. Their connection was now explicitly intimate, though still mediated by the screen.

Three days after Leo’s account of his second voice

The Three-Day Email Break

After a brief pause, Leo resumed contact and said he had been thinking about Emmi constantly. She had not experienced the pause as a break; she had spent it watching and waiting for him to return. They arranged a midnight wine rendezvous by email. Leo asked whether [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) would be home, and Emmi described their separate rooms and independent routines, while insisting that their marriage remained a shared life rather than a set of locked domains.

Midnight after Leo and Emmi arranged their wine rendezvous

The Drunken Midnight Confession

Leo drank heavily while waiting for Emmi and sent increasingly disinhibited messages. He asked her to come over, said he wanted to kiss and feel her, and described his entanglement with [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e) as possession rather than love. He also spoke of his mother’s death, his absent father and brother, and his childhood feeling of being overlooked. Emmi stayed in the exchange, encouraged him to talk, and heard him declare that writing to her was like kissing with the mind. His intoxication revealed desires he normally tried to contain.

The morning after the midnight wine exchange

The Morning After

Emmi asked how Leo felt and told him she had liked his open, ardent messages. Leo responded later with a late-night invitation to his home, saying he wanted her to come over and offering to pay for a taxi. Emmi pressed him to explain what he expected to happen. Leo admitted he did not know, while insisting that they would understand once they met. His urgency frightened her because it seemed driven by grief, alcohol, and a desire to replace [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e) with an immediate physical encounter.

Late that night after Leo invited Emmi over

The Blindfolded Refusal

Emmi imagined the conventional seduction that might follow their meeting and rejected the idea of a blindfolded, attachment-free sexual encounter. She recognized that it could offer Leo temporary intimacy and her a secret adventure, but argued that it would reduce their complicated bond to a familiar male fantasy. Leo said he might only have wanted to show her childhood photographs, drink with her, hear her voice, or smell her. Emmi remained skeptical but admitted she was flattered by his desire and liked his spontaneous drunken tenderness.

Three days after the blindfolded invitation

The Study Suspicion

Emmi remembered Leo’s earlier research project on email and emotional communication and feared that he had been analyzing her as a subject. After rereading their old messages, she confronted him with the possibility that their intimacy was merely material for a thesis. Leo reacted angrily and told her to ask [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) what he thought. Emmi then sent a long, vulnerable message explaining that she could be more spontaneous with Leo than in daily life and that she wanted the man behind his words to become flesh and blood. She begged him to reassure her that their correspondence was not research.

Eight days after Emmi’s long confession

Leo Returns from Amsterdam

Leo returned after a trip to [Amsterdam](entity:location-recall-location-ff526395fd98) with [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e), where they had made another brief attempt at reconciliation. He fell ill with pneumonia, and Marlene cared for him like a reluctant nurse; their reunion ended with a dignified separation rather than a new beginning. Leo told Marlene about his online obsession with a happily married woman and said Emmi listened, challenged, and supported him. He admitted that he wanted to keep writing and eventually meet her, while also explaining that he had left the email study because it had become too personal.

The evening Leo returned from Amsterdam

Emmi’s Family Fortress

Emmi described her home as a world Leo could not enter. Her furniture seemed to object to his presence, and she explained that her marriage to [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) was loving and durable, with a shared history, music, theater, friends, and children. She insisted that Leo must remain outside that family world if she was not to lose him. At the same time, she called him her other world and confessed that she needed to live and feel beyond her domestic life. The boundary she set also testified to the depth of her dependence.

The day after Emmi described her family fortress

The Mia Matchmaking Plan

Emmi urged Leo to stop dwelling on [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e) and suggested that he imagine doing with her what he wished he could do with a new partner. She then introduced [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52), a single, attractive friend whom she believed would suit him. Leo resisted the proposal, saying he was tired of meeting women and that his sister regularly introduced him to models of the same idealized type. He also relayed his sister’s warning that meeting Emmi would end their relationship, which made Emmi wonder who would choose to end it.

The day after Emmi introduced Mia

The Mia Arrangement

Emmi explained [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52)’s history of disappointing relationships and argued that she was ready to meet a decent man. Leo recognized himself in Mia’s reluctance to make an effort, but said that an actual meeting might be too much work for both of them. Emmi described Mia as admiring her stable marriage and suggested that Leo might appeal to her precisely because he valued messages over sex. Leo objected to being set up with her, but eventually agreed to meet if Mia herself wanted to do so.

The day after Leo agreed to meet Mia

Leo Calls Mia

Emmi contacted [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52), who agreed in principle to have coffee with Leo but wanted him to call her himself. Leo asked for Mia’s number, then traveled to a conference in Budapest before arranging the meeting. Mia later told Emmi that Leo had called and was polite, shy, charming, and pleasant to listen to. Emmi was surprised that he had followed through and framed herself as his fantasy figure, while wondering whether he would be happy to have her join their meeting.

Late May, after Leo’s conference in Budapest

Leo and Mia Begin Dating

Leo told Emmi that he and [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52) had met on Sunday and then gone out for Italian food the next evening. He described their encounter in physical detail, emphasizing that Mia was present in a way an email correspondent could not be. Emmi asked whether they had clicked, but Leo deflected the question and said he was too tired to continue writing. She suspected that he was hiding the progress of their relationship and felt that his descriptions had pushed her toward the margins of their former intimacy.

Three days after Leo described his meetings with Mia

The Hailstorm Exchange

Leo opened a conversation about a violent hailstorm and the changing weather. Emmi rejected the meteorological small talk and demanded to know what was happening between him and [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52), especially why they were keeping their dates quiet. Leo said they had met four times and needed time to understand their feelings before discussing them with others. Emmi called his answer the worst email he had ever sent and ended the exchange in anger, exposing her jealousy and his growing investment in a physical relationship.

Five days after Emmi cut off the conversation

The Rivalry with Mia

Emmi returned, saying she missed the earlier Leo and had asked [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52) to treat him as taboo. Leo confronted her with the ultimatum she had given Mia and asked whether she was angry because she had lost a virtual possession to her friend. He explained that Mia existed physically beside him while Emmi remained an imagined figure. Emmi answered by describing her piano, deliberately making part of her real world tangible, then admitted she was sad that Mia seemed to be separating them rather than bringing them closer.

Later that night

The Jealousy Confession

Emmi confessed that she had not wanted Leo and [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52) to become a couple, even though she had arranged their meeting. She imagined Mia as physically unlike herself and admitted that Leo’s attraction to her felt like a rejection of Emmi. Leo denied that he was lusting after Mia and challenged Emmi to stop reducing their bond to sex. Their argument made plain that the matchmaking had been driven by more than generosity: Emmi had wanted to test what Leo would say about another woman while keeping his attention for herself.

During Leo and Mia’s early dating period

The Secret Encounter

Leo and [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52) eventually explained that their first meeting had been shaped by Emmi’s arrangement: both felt like pieces in a game she had set up. They became allies in discussing Emmi and resisted the roles they thought she had assigned them. Out of defiance, they slept together once. They enjoyed the encounter, but it was not the beginning of a romance; they understood that they could not keep sleeping together against a third person. Their brief relationship exposed how Emmi’s virtual attachment had begun to influence real relationships around her.

Two days after Leo described the encounter with Mia

The Brake and the Farewells

Leo admitted that he regretted meeting [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52) because the experience had bound him more closely to Emmi, and said he needed to tidy up their relationship. Emmi demanded that he either apply the brakes or stop speaking in hesitant formulations. They jokingly enacted the braking metaphor, then sent increasingly empty, perfunctory messages while claiming to have stopped. Their inability to end contact showed that even the most trivial greetings and good-night exchanges had become indispensable to them.

Several days after Leo and Emmi tried to stop writing

The Portugal Departure

Emmi told Leo that she was leaving for a two-week family holiday in [Portugal](entity:location-recall-location-portugal-c1898be9735e) and asked whether he would still be there when she returned. She was willing to accept even empty messages, provided they remained in contact. Leo promised he would be there but suggested that the break might help them. Before she left, Emmi asked whether he had lost interest. Leo answered that every email from her still made his heart pound, reassuring her that their attachment had survived their failed attempt at distance.

Eight days into Emmi’s Portugal holiday

The Holiday Check-In

From an internet café in Porto, Emmi sent Leo a brief update about the family: one child was ill and her daughter had fallen for a Portuguese surfing instructor. She told him only six days remained and warned him not to start anything with [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e). Leo had not written during the agreed break. When Emmi returned, she asked where they could go from there. He listed continuing as before, stopping, or meeting, and Emmi immediately chose the possibility of an in-person encounter.

The day Emmi returned from Portugal

The Erotic Dream

Leo told Emmi that he had dreamed erotically about her, though he had not clearly seen her face or body. He said he had felt her and known her through the way she expressed herself. Their exchange became flirtatious and sensual, with Emmi pressing for details and Leo insisting that his desire was attached to her identity rather than to an imagined body. The dream gave their abstract connection a more openly physical dimension without resolving their fear of an actual meeting.

The day after Leo described his dream

The Second Meeting Request

Emmi said she was alone because [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) had taken the children hiking and urged Leo to meet her. Leo hesitated, arguing that their relationship was already at its ending point and that a real encounter could only move backward from the emotional intimacy they had built. He predicted disappointment, embarrassment, and the loss of their shared history. Emmi mocked his pessimism by comparing it to the much larger tragedy of daily species extinction, then insisted that he always painted things black. Their disagreement left the meeting unresolved.

Two days after Leo’s pessimistic account of a meeting

The Missed Evening

Leo asked whether Emmi wanted to drink wine with him, but she was going out with [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52). He accepted the explanation, then questioned whether she could meet him while [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) was nearby and whether a real affair would threaten her marriage. Emmi accused him of hiding behind the danger of her husband rather than admitting that he feared a meeting. Later, after a miserable evening with Mia, she wrote to Leo feeling lonely and grateful that he had answered. Their correspondence again became a refuge from her ordinary life.

After midnight on the night Emmi returned from Mia

The North Wind Conversation

Emmi described how badly her evening with [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52) had gone and said that she wanted to come home to Leo. She asked what he thought of her marriage, and he called it smoothly functioning, prompting her to question whether he considered that an insult. When Emmi said she wanted to hear his voice, Leo offered to call her answering machine. They arranged to leave each other messages the following evening, turning their relationship toward the first exchange of actual voices.

The evening after Emmi asked to hear Leo’s voice

The First Voice Messages

Emmi and Leo recorded messages for each other and then listened to them. Emmi found Leo’s voice smoky and unexpectedly bold, while Leo was startled by her warm, erotic-sounding delivery, especially the way she pronounced ordinary words. As they commented on each other’s voices, Leo drank and became increasingly uninhibited. He said he had been reading Emmi’s messages in [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e)’s voice, and that hearing her had made the written person distinct from his old relationship. The recordings gave their imagined intimacy a new sensory reality.

Late on the night of the voice messages

The Second Drunken Invitation

Leo became drunk again and begged Emmi to come to his home, offering to kiss her and smell her skin while promising that they would not have sex. He asked whether a voice, a sniff, or a kiss counted as cheating and pleaded for one night together. Emmi did not come, but she told him that being with him was astonishingly good and that she had grown used to it. The next morning she reported that [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) had suffered a circulatory collapse and was in hospital, bringing her sharply back to her family responsibilities.

The day after Bernhard returned home from hospital

Bernhard’s Letter

[Bernhard Rothner](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-rothner-788ca9957080) secretly wrote to Leo, asking him to meet Emmi and end the torment of their unseen relationship. He explained that Emmi had entered his life after his first wife died, helping him rebuild a family with Fiona and Jonas, and that he feared Leo’s idealized presence was pulling her away. [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) admitted that he had found and read the printed email correspondence, then suffered a collapse and hospitalization after reading it all. In an extraordinary act of surrender, he gave Leo permission to sleep with Emmi once, believing that physical reality might break Leo’s superiority and return his wife to their family.

Four hours after Bernhard sent his letter

Leo’s Refusal and Pact

Leo answered [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) with shock and said he could not promise to meet Emmi. He later proposed a confidentiality pact: he would not tell Emmi about the letter if Bernhard promised never to read their emails again. Bernhard agreed, then renewed his request for a meeting. Leo refused to answer and told him that he should have spoken honestly with his wife much earlier. The secret correspondence had now drawn Bernhard directly into the relationship, even as Leo tried to protect Emmi from learning what he had done.

Fifteen minutes after Leo’s message about his work trip

The South Tirol Excuse

Leo told Emmi that he had returned from Cologne and was about to take a few days away somewhere south. Emmi immediately suspected that he was preparing to see [Marlene](entity:character-recall-character-marlene-7bd79d7ae38e), but Leo denied it and said he needed a break from himself. Emmi continued writing during his absence, saying that his messages made her happy and that she felt lonely without him. Her account of a painful evening with [Mia](entity:character-recall-character-mia-f4a5d7eefe52) and a stable but routine marriage showed that the email relationship had become central to her emotional life.

The day after Emmi’s final message during Leo’s break

The Boston Decision

Leo announced that he would move to [Boston](entity:location-recall-location-boston-aded649f4602) in a few weeks to lead a university project for at least two years. He also declared that he would end their email contact because Emmi had a family and he could not spend his life loving a woman who existed only in his inbox. He described her as an imagined presence he had kept separate from the physical world and said that he wanted to meet a woman conventionally, beginning with sight and voice rather than words. The decision marked a deliberate attempt to dismantle their virtual relationship before distance made it permanent.

The day after Leo announced Boston and no contact

The Comic Farewell

Emmi rejected Leo’s melodramatic farewell, mocking his image of blowing away the keyboard and demanding a more fitting ending. She suggested that they meet, at least as a joke, to round things off. Leo accepted the proposal seriously and said he wanted one final encounter before leaving. He expected the meeting to bring insight, relief, clarity, and a proper conclusion, while Emmi questioned whether it would be funny or merely another way to prolong their attachment.

The morning after Leo proposed a final encounter

The First Meeting Refused

Emmi told Leo she would definitely not meet him at [Café Huber](entity:location-recall-location-caf-huber-252e87366fba), objecting that it was a place for coworkers or chance acquaintances. Leo countered that they were exceptionally well qualified to be chance acquaintances. As his tone became more impersonal, Emmi asked whether he was trying to make the ending easier by disparaging their story. Leo admitted that he was forcing himself not to invest more emotion and insisted that the meeting was the only conclusion he wanted.

During the argument about whether to meet

Bernhard’s Second Appeal

Emmi challenged Leo to name what he wanted from a final meeting and listed possible versions of how she might remember him, from disappointing stranger to irresistible lover. Leo refused the categories and said she would see him as he was, or as she chose to imagine him. [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) wrote to Leo again, saying the marriage was in crisis and asking him to meet Emmi and stop writing to her. Leo did not reveal Bernhard’s message to Emmi, but the plea underscored that their private exchange had begun to threaten the household she had insisted was secure.

Three days after Bernhard’s second appeal

The Final Meeting Agreement

Leo repeated that he wanted to meet Emmi and argued that her family commitments did not erase the meaning of their relationship. Emmi initially treated the meeting as a likely disappointment, while Leo insisted that he wanted to see, hear, and observe her in person. After a period of hesitation, Emmi agreed to risk the encounter and asked when he was free. They settled on the following evening at Leo’s home, with Emmi choosing the place. Their correspondence moved from an abstract possibility toward an imminent physical meeting.

The evening before the planned meeting

The Farewell Questions

Emmi asked whether either of them might want sex and whether they would feel good afterward. Leo answered that he might want it but did not have to show it, and predicted that Emmi would know where she belonged after seeing him. Emmi challenged his certainty and asked whether he was still in love with her. Leo replied that he was very much in love and terrified of losing her. Their explicit admission raised the emotional stakes of the next day beyond the language of a harmless farewell.

The morning of the planned meeting

The Blind First Kiss Plan

Leo proposed that Emmi enter his apartment in darkness and let him kiss her once before they raised the blinds. Emmi agreed to the ritual, though she worried about whether she would like his kiss and asked him to describe how he kissed. They spoke of what might happen after that first kiss, what Emmi should wear, and how long the blinds might remain down. Leo also began trying to explain that [Boston](entity:location-recall-location-boston-aded649f4602) was not what she thought, but Emmi told him to leave explanations for later and focus on their meeting.

The evening of the planned meeting

The Last-Minute Cancellation

Emmi prepared to go to Leo’s home, but [Bernhard](entity:character-recall-character-bernhard-abb487334181) used the name “Emmi” rather than his usual “Emma” when telling her to have fun. The small change in address struck her as if he had seen through her thoughts and knew that she was going to meet Leo as a different version of herself. She went upstairs and could not send Leo even a brief explanation. She felt that her soul had vanished from the screen and admitted to herself that she loved him, but the recognition of what was at stake stopped her from leaving. The meeting that had been arranged with such care never took place.

Immediately after Emmi tried to email Leo that she could not come

The Returned Message

Emmi attempted to write that everything was too much, then deleted the message. Her next email was returned automatically because Leo’s address had changed and could no longer receive mail. The abrupt system notice turned her private crisis into a permanent-seeming silence. She had failed to meet Leo and could not even explain why, leaving the relationship suspended at its most intense point.

Three weeks after the address change and over the following months

The Repeated Failed Contacts

Emmi continued sending greetings and questions to Leo’s old address, each time receiving the same automated notice that her messages would be deleted. She joked with the supposed systems manager, asked for Leo’s new address, and wondered whether he was alive, still in [Boston](entity:location-recall-location-boston-aded649f4602), or writing to another woman. Her messages conveyed both anger and desperation: she could tolerate his relationships or his distance, but not the thought that he had fallen in love by email with someone else. The failed attempts made the no-contact period feel like an active absence rather than a clean ending.

Three and a half months after Emmi’s plea for contact

Leo Returns from Boston

Leo finally replied that he had been back in the country for less than a week. He wished Emmi a Merry [Christmas](entity:time-recall-time-christmas-a573265d0167) and a Happy [New Year](entity:time-recall-time-new-year-3081c4d3858f) in the middle of summer, then signed off with a farewell that sounded more like a retreat than a return. Emmi asked what the message meant and then accused him of making her a burden. Leo answered that she could never be a burden because he carried her as an idealized part of himself, but said that his physical life had moved on and that he had met someone in [Boston](entity:location-recall-location-boston-aded649f4602).

The day after Leo returned from Boston

The Pamela Revelation

Emmi accepted that Leo had begun a real relationship but asked for one final hour face-to-face, arguing that a meeting would give their intimate non-encounter a fitting conclusion. She wanted to hear him say her name and see his face before the correspondence became only memory. Leo answered with the name [Pamela](entity:character-recall-character-pamela-05f0d95797ac), correcting Emmi’s guess that his new partner was called Cindy. The small, teasing correction softened the distance between them, and Emmi admitted that she liked him for it despite feeling weak and hurt.

The day after Leo revealed Pamela’s name

The Café Huber Agreement

Leo agreed to meet Emmi in a café. Emmi proposed [Café Huber](entity:location-recall-location-caf-huber-252e87366fba), the place where they had once tried to recognize each other without speaking, and asked whether he would send his sister again to observe her. Leo promised to come alone and said they should meet because both wanted a fitting conclusion. Emmi remained suspicious of his sudden resolve and asked whether he felt anything at all; Leo described his feelings as stored in locked trunks and closets, governed by common sense.

The following day

The Saturday Appointment

Emmi agreed to meet Leo at [Café Huber](entity:location-recall-location-caf-huber-252e87366fba) on Saturday at two. She joked about how she might approach him, then apologized for the teasing and confirmed that the plan worked. Leo warned that he was not especially exciting to look at or to watch while talking or breathing. His self-deprecation revealed the fear beneath his resolve: he worried that the person who had mattered through words would disappoint when made visible.

Two days before the Café Huber meeting

The Two-Day Wait

Emmi sent a final message before Saturday, promising to sit apart from the crowd and wait for Leo to identify her. She repeated the three descriptions of the possible Emmis and asked him to try to recognize her. Leo replied that she had made it easier than she intended: he had long believed she was the brisk, petite first candidate. Emmi welcomed his amateur psychology, while warning that any of the three women might appear in real life.

The day before the scheduled meeting

The Last Argument Before Seeing

Leo explained why he believed Emmi was the first candidate, citing how she had selectively praised or dismissed the traits of the other two women. Emmi teased him about his fixation on large breasts and asked that they avoid discussing appearance, [Pamela](entity:character-recall-character-pamela-05f0d95797ac), and unrelated private matters when they met. She wanted the hour to be about the two of them and said she wanted to watch Leo speak, listen, and breathe. Leo admitted he had a cold and feared that his face would not live up to his words. Emmi answered with a sharp message that she understood his fear, then claimed that what he meant to her was already evaporating.

Late on the night before the meeting

The Meaning of Us

Leo tried to clarify that what Emmi meant to him mattered deeply, and that he wanted to continue meaning something to her. He framed the thought in a chain of recursive propositions, making the intensity of his attachment visible through its very difficulty to state plainly. Emmi was moved and thanked him, saying that no one had ever expressed such a thought to her. They reconfirmed the two o’clock meeting at [Café Huber](entity:location-recall-location-caf-huber-252e87366fba) and began counting down the remaining hours, alternating between excitement and attempts to lower expectations.

The morning of the scheduled Café Huber meeting

The Final Countdown

Emmi and Leo exchanged brief messages as the appointment approached. Leo repeatedly warned that he was ordinary, while Emmi said it was too late for him to manage her expectations and confirmed that she would come. They asked whether each other’s messages were the last before the encounter, then admitted they were both excited. Their final exchange ended with Emmi welcoming Leo to the world of real-life encounters, leaving the novel at the threshold of the meeting rather than showing what happens there.