I have written exactly one letter to my partner. He wasn't my partner when I wrote it; we had just broken up, a commitment to apartness that endured for roughly three weeks last year. I had written a goodbye note to my previous ex, which I never gave nor intended to give to him but had hoped would give me closure — tie a neat bow on that relationship by crystallizing my gratitude for it, and signal the start of my unfettered single life. That wasn't quite how it worked out (words can only do so much to cauterize what distance and perspective are required to heal), although it helped. But the letter I wrote longhand to my once and future partner last year I brought to the bar where we were meeting mutual friends for our first outing as an ex-couple, meaning to deliver it to him to thank him for our time together and mark its end with a resolute ballpoint period. I was proud of the letter. I had captured opinions and regrets and appreciation I hadn't been able to express before. But then, we flirted. It felt nice. I left the letter in my bag. We got back together.

And so the constant volley of texts and Gchats with him began again, I haven't felt the need to write him at any length since, and the only letter I've written to my partner remains the one I wrote when he wasn't. Now, when we see each other in the evening, we already know how the other's day went and what's on the other's mind. We've shared in real time the play-by-play of this frustrating phone call, that hallway run-in, this pesto chicken sandwich on ciabatta — the benefit of recounting what we ate for lunch being that then, we can both enjoy two lunches. The evenings are for color commentary, but the reporting has been done. You could argue that swapping these snippets of information as we process them engenders intimacy. It does, in a way. And I wouldn't give it up: It's comfortable and encouraging. But even as the reflexive cataloging of events enabled by texting and instant messaging makes long talks and phone calls and emails and letters seem unnecessary, even tedious, it doesn't replicate what they can do.