Here's Why Old-Fashioned Love Letters Are the Best

We're happy to present this excerpt from one of our favorite sites, The Date Report. When was the last time you penned a handwritten love letter?

My parents first met at a wedding in 1986, long before either of them had access to the Internet, much less their own email accounts. At the time, my mother was living in Los Angeles and my dad was in New York, and so they embarked on a long-distance relationship by necessity. My dad would go on to send my mother dozens of real, old-fashioned love letters, written in pen on paper and sent across the country via the U.S. Postal Service. She's kept every one, and today they're no worse for the wear than when she first got them in the mail nearly 30 years ago. Because the thought of a 30-year-old email isn't nearly as romantic, here are eight reasons why you should abandon your love emails, love texts, love Snapchats, and lovestagrams in favor of the old-fashioned love letter.

In an age when all our correspondence is typed out, it's becoming increasingly rare to see someone's own words in their own handwriting, on real paper (and not just a scribbled signature on a restaurant check). I don't know what half my friends' handwriting looks like. This is sad. Extra credit if you write your love letters in cursive. Everything is sexier in cursive.

The best and worst part of my day is checking my mail and the subsequent realization that I have to throw away all of my mail, because it is all Valpak coupons addressed to "Current Resident" and takeout menus addressed to "Current Resident" and electric bills addressed to me (!), which is only exciting until I realize it is, in fact, an electric bill. Among the few pieces of mail that outrank money-laden birthday cards from my grandparents, love letters are aces. They don't even have to contain money.

There's something incredibly romantic about the enduring permanence of a physical love letter. I don't want our love to live in some forgotten corner of my email inbox, or float off into the Internet ether. I want it to live in something I can hold in my hands and pore over and stow in my nightstand.

You know how you send off those carefully written texts that strike the perfect balance of flirt and wit, then spend the next four hours checking all your devices for a response? There's none of that with an old-fashioned love letter. By definition, the most nerve-wracking part of sending a love letter is praying the post office doesn't lose it before it gets to your intended recipient.

To see the rest of the reasons, head to The Date Report: 8 Reasons Old-Fashioned Love Letters Are the Best

— Christina Chaey

Check out more great stories from The Date Report: