Cyber love and disasters: Elizabeth Cohen’s The Hypothetical Girl
There are more than 2,500 online dating sites in the U.S. and more than 5,000 worldwide, according to Online Dating Magazine.
The Internet has opened up worlds of opportunities for people who are shy, or for those would never talk to each other in the light of day, said Elizabeth Cohen, author of The Hypothetical Girl (Other Press), which launches August 4.
Cohen’s debut short story collection shows how complicated, quirky and bizarre online dating can be. Although the sites try to help singles efficiently sift through the non-compatibles, it is impossible to escape the unexpected. This could be a good or bad thing as Cohen portrays in The Hypothetical Girl:
“I am, Charlie said, “an ugly man, I hope that’s not a problem for you.”
“I am actually a shallow woman and who cares that you are ugly. I hope that’s not a problem for you.”
The humorous and touching stories range from an affair to exchanging love poems online. A woman pretends to be an actress while her date, unbeknownst to her, lied that he was an Icelandic Yak farmer. A dear and polar bear have a misunderstanding chatting online, and a woman opens a door on her chest and argues with her heart about finding love.
“I’m not really a funny person, but in this book, I don’t know, I suddenly had this funny bone. It surprised me, because I was really depressed at the time,” said Cohen, of Plattsburgh, New York.
The Hypothetical Girl debuts on August 6. Cover design by Chris Welch
While writing The Hypothetical Girl, Cohen was in the midst of a divorce and tried online dating. “I didn’t find anyone I liked, but I had such a great time looking at all of the profiles people would post. I found them really interesting, creating, and inspiring. I started thinking about all the different people I thought I wanted to be in my life.”
The stories came to Cohen in the middle of the night and would stalk her through the day. Cohen doesn’t hold back either, detailing a date that goes brutally wrong, but leaves it up to the reader to determine the woman’s fate. The reader is taking a quiz and has the option to choose three different endings. Against her boyfriend’s advice, Cohen left the story in. Her editor told her to trust her instinct, which was to write about the good and the ugly parts of life.
Cohen listed Mary Gaitskill, “the mother of all hilarious short story writers,” Susan Minot, Nicole Krauss as a few of her favorite authors.
Prior to writing short fiction, Cohen had always written nonfiction. She teaches memoir writing for the Gotham Writer’s Workshop and creative writing and English at SUNY Plattsburgh. She was also a reporter for the Press & Sun-Bulletin, the New York Post, and the New York Times, covering everything from women’s issues to education, features and trend pieces.
Today Cohen is writing a midlife memoir for Random House. She likened The Hypothetical Girl as an “illegitimate child,” because her focus was supposed to be just the memoir, but she could not ignore the muse.
Cohen cautioned that anyone dating online should meet the person on the other end in a public place, during the day, and ensure that at least two people know his or her whereabouts.
“That being said, I think two people do fall in love all the time,” she said. “People say you really meet their spirit and minds first and that’s kind of cool. Two things could happen, you’ll fall in love with their spirit and it won’t matter what they look like, or you could be disappointed.”