Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 22, 1993 TAG: 9312210165
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: EXTRA1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Nancy Bartley Seattle Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
They were a kayaking aerospace engineer; a computer systems analyst and father of two; an attorney with a love for opera; an accountant and father of one; and a soft-spoken young doctor who enjoys running.
All, despite the probing eye of a camera beaming their images to the Oprah Winfrey show's estimated 14 million viewers, rated high on the vulnerability scale. It was a potent mix.
Oprah, matchmaker of the moment, encouraged women interested in meeting the five to write. And write they did.
About a week later, she drove a forklift carrying 60,000 letters onto the set of her TV show. There were women who wrote songs and women who sent fish ("I'm quite a catch!"). There were photos of women in bikinis and women in ball gowns.
And, to the satisfaction of an audience aflutter over the notion of real-life love stories unfolding before their eyes, each man's choice was revealed. Jeff, the young doctor who alone received 40,000 letters, was a new national heartthrob, Oprah said.
It was talk TV at its giddy best. According to show spokeswoman Colleen Raleigh, Oprah's "Sleepless in Seattle" program was one of the most popular of the new season, with ratings several notches higher than the norm.
Not surprising, given the nation's preoccupation with romance.
In the '90s, the Noah's Ark syndrome - the desire to go through life two-by-two - prevails.
Today, with 39 percent of the nation's adult population single - 33 million men and about 40 million women - the Big R has hit the media mainstream.
Both men and women are reading books like the best-selling romance "Bridges of Madison County," watching movies like "Sleepless in Seattle" and dozens of love-themed TV shows, and placing and answering classified ads at a steady clip.
In fact, the SM/NSTD (single male, no sexually-transmitted diseases) looking for the SF/NSTD of his dreams, once the turf of the alternative press, can be found in newspapers as mainstream as The Seattle Times and The Washington Post.
The theme is also evident in the popularity of romance-hero pinup calendars, dating services, matchmakers and vacations earmarked for singles.
There are a number of theories why.
"I think the romances we see now are a break from the serious issues we have to deal with today. A kinder, gentler emotional world is something we long for from time to time," said Dr. Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington.
In a tough economy, two paychecks are better than one; monogamy cuts down the risk of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS; and when relationships are all they should be, they're emotional havens in a stress-filled world.
According to Schwartz, the romantic tales of the '90s are like the sweet romantic tales of the World War II years, which by the time the politically charged '60s and '70s came around, seemed without substance and beside the point.
Dr. Laura Kastner, clinical associate professor in the University of Washington's psychology department, agrees.
"We need more `up' movies right now," she said.
While in the '40s Hollywood offered "Meet Me in St. Louis" with Judy Garland and "State Fair" with Dana Andrews and Jeanne Crain, today it offers "Sleepless in Seattle" (which grossed $44 million in its first 11 days), "The Bodyguard," "Ghost" and "Pretty Woman."
" `Pretty Woman' would have been the airhead material of the '60s," Kastner said. But it's embraced in the '90s because "we want to believe in love right now. Love is the ultimate happy ending. The more alienated we become from each other, the more we yearn for that connection of romance. We want to believe that perfect love can be maintained. As the divorce rate and domestic violence rate goes up, there is this desperation to believe love works."
Romantic fiction has been at the forefront of the trend. Today 46 percent of all mass-market paperbacks are romances. While romantic tales date to the days of Shakespeare, today's romances are considerably different from Kathleen Woodiwiss' "The Flame and the Flower," which launched the paperback romance genre in the '70s.
Rape is no longer acceptable. Women are stronger, and instead of always being of wealth and privilege, may be ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. They may have stepchildren, a sexual history, a past.
Some, like Sandra Brown's "French Silk," about a lingerie company owner who is suspected of murdering a televangelist (the love interest is the prosecutor), are being made into TV movies.
Many are national bestsellers, like Woodiwiss' "So Worthy My Love" and "Forever in Your Embrace" and Julie Garwood's "Saving Grace," about a victim of domestic violence.
While the average romance reader is 39, has a 50 percent chance of being college educated and has an annual household income of $40,000, according to the American Booksellers Association, men are reading them, too.
"I think what's interesting about `Bridges of Madison County' is that men have read it and liked it," said Ellen Berscheid, a professor at the University of Minnesota. "This goes along with a lot of things. The whole women's liberation movement has liberated men, too, to show the softer side."
"We've become much more adept at marketing fantasy," said Schwartz. "A lot of women out there are having trouble dealing with the world as it is. Many don't feel they're going to get what they want in real life. They may live in a world where men don't conform to their needs for tenderness and the only place they can get it is on `Oprah' or in books or movies."
The fantasy man "is only looking for one woman. There is no competition. No doubts. He will find you and will change your life forever."
The media-spun illusions make love seem brighter during exotic vacations than back home over the breakfast table; book-cover heros more exciting than the humble soul in the fishing hat; and matchmakers magicians capable of bringing fantasies to life.
Dianne Bennett, who runs Mutual Admiration, an introduction service in Hollywood, specializes in filling fantasies, particularly for older women who want to meet younger men.
She recently searched Moscow and St. Petersburg to find a young Russian composer for a wealthy woman in search of a mate. "I found exactly what she wanted. She met me there and she went out on dates with the top 20 candidates."
The woman's choice is the tall, slim Vladimir, 35. She's 55. "We're submitting a fiance visa and expecting him in two weeks," Bennett said.
When "everybody is very specific, in a way, it makes my job easier. I question my clients until I get a clear picture of the person they are seeking. I want to deliver what they are really looking for."
Seattle's Ken Palmer, 72, delivers fantasy.
As a gentleman host for the Royal Cruise Line, Palmer, a retired accountant, is dancing his way around the world in a setting as perfect as the sheen of his dress shoes, the paper crispness of his white dinner jacket and the sensuousness of his samba.
His job and that of the other six or so hosts is to dance with the older, single women passengers, many of whom haven't danced in years. While as a host he cannot show any one guest too much attention or become romantically involved, he can - and has - made contacts who became friends offshore. He, like other hosts, has had offers of marriage.
Kastner believes fantasy's success is linked to our view of relationships.
"If you look at the institution of marriage, we're asking more and more of our relationships today. Fifty years ago a woman married to have someone to provide for her and a man married to have a family. Now we want equality, good sex, good communication and common interests."
In 1950, the wife had her bridge club and the husband was a workaholic who played golf on Wednesdays.
"Today, women divorce their husbands for being workaholics," Kastner said.
Untested love, like the affair between the Midwestern housewife and the National Geographic photographer in "Bridges of Madison County," appears better.
It's the love-is-blind phase when "you are absolutely perfect." And the reason is, "because I don't know you very well," she said.
No matter what the age, according to Jeff Ullman, author and founder of the dating service Great Expectations, the interest in love never dies. "Anybody in the trenches of love knows how very aggressively singles are looking for the love of their life," he said.
"Baby-boomers are older. We're not going to do the same thing we did in our 20s, when we did singles bars and ski pickups. There is a tremendous emergence of people willing to pay to find love. The new romantic reality of the '90s is that to get love, you have to have a strategy."
And, with Oprah's help, they did.
John, the computer analyst who spoke candidly about the importance of support groups for widowed people and their children, was filmed at the Empire State Building with his sons and Jill, a mother of two from Rolling Hills, Calif.
The Orlando, Fla., woman, whom aerospace engineer Jim chose, had a sparkling laugh and came to Seattle to do Pike Place Market and the Space Needle.
A pretty blond choral director joined attorney Bill, 46, in an opera date.
A 26-year-old South Carolina woman who claimed she saw J.R. on TV and fell in love with him instantly met him for the first time on the set, where he presented her with a stuffed animal.
And Dr. Jeff was introduced on the show to sweet-faced Nancy, a young widow from Atlanta who touched a familiar chord in him when she wrote of her longing to sleep, hoping to see her lost love in her dreams.
Just what the pop culture ordered: Happy endings.
Two weeks later, Joan Rivers, on her show, matched up five men with women in the audience, reinforcing the marketable message: There's someone out there for everyone.
by CNB