Over the nearly two decades since my play opened, the style of finding romance has changed.
The flies deteriorated over time, the researchers found, affecting their chances of living another day and of finding romance, both of which declined as they got older.
And then there are the princes themselves, one each from India, Sri Lanka and South Africa, who have been taken to Brighton for this wholly staged, fairly congenial exercise and assigned the task of finding romance within three weeks.
But the growing popularity and acceptance of online dating over the last eight years doesn't mean that the odds of finding romance have increased dramatically.
The movie has tender, compelling moments, with themes of romance and sex and of finding life's meaning through loss and change.
But even as cyber-matchmakers here grow e-dating conferences and invent netiquette for the ethics of finding romance or dissuading cyberstalkers, this engine of moving parts raises a lot of questions.
Hardly a moment goes by without someone's remarking on Henry's handsomeness and general adorability, which suggests that "Big Eden" may be less a dream of finding perfect romance than a simpler, but somehow more touching, fantasy of simply being accepted.
On the evidence we have, people pursuing neo-traditional paths to romance have a solid chance of finding, well, neo-traditional forms of happiness, and people taking a more career-minded path are more likely to see their careers benefit … but at the expense, potentially, of other areas of life.
We all hear the honk and run away in hopes of finding a major romance and adventure and grandeur, and good luck with that, and meanwhile, life is good.
Over 22 years, Kooser has discovered a startling variety of ways to invert and enliven the vocabulary of romance, finding tender implications in even the mustiest Valentine's symbols.
