You’ve got m@il: A carefully worded email can be a great way to snag a date

While online chats, text messages and even FB posts and tweets have been explored aplenty as tools for flirtation, the humble (but effective) email receives far lesser attention. Quite apart from being closest to the old-fashioned letter (with the added benefit of being received by the object of your attention in under a minute) it also allows you to express far your personality without seeming too intrusive.

So how can you use email to snag a date with that guy/girl you’ve been eyeing — and what are the rules for a flirtation carried on over email? “Don’t send multiple emails; don’t be over-persistent and make sure your emails are short and sweet,” is author Ira Trivedi’s advice.

Ira, who recently penned India in Love (which, as the name suggests, is about Indians and love), feels that in recent times, a person’s “e-voice” has become as important as their real one. “In this day and age, having a charming virtual personality (and looking good on Skype/FaceTime) is becoming an important part of the game!” Ira points out and adds that email is especially advantageous when the person you’re interested in, is initially resistant. “Email then can be a nice way to communicate in a non-intrusive way. In the olden days, you’d do it with letters, but emails are obviously more quick and efficient!” she says.

Model-turned-actress Hasleen Kaur also feels that the great advantage email has (over other new-age forms of communication) is that it can make for a non-threatening start (to future interactions). “Emails are a great way to start interacting, if the person at the other end trusts you enough to respond,” Hasleen says. “Building up a romance over email is interesting, but you need to go about it the right way. For instance, in writing to a woman, you definitely do not want to come across as a creep or stalker!”

The rule of thumb, advises etiquette expert Rukhsana Eisa, is to go “old school” with your approach.

“Stick to the letter- format. Make sure you run a spell check, use grammar well. Start the conversation on a formal note, and then take it forward depending on the response. You can always start a conversation over emails and then take it to the next mode of communication if you wish,” she advises. “Think about how you want to word your email. You can communicate without being intrusive.”