The brilliance of You Got Mail’s nostalgia is that it manages to look back and ahead all at once. In our world of sleek MacBooks and tinkling ring tones it’s easy to forget that in 1998 the opening title’s boxy graphics and that dial-up internet cacophony were innovatively sexy. Chat rooms, email, and instant messaging were still exciting; the Internet was a new way of connecting, a way that could simultaneously mimic the charming practice of letter writing and imagine a world of new possibilities. It seems unlikely that we’d remake this story again with our current dating tech. Online dating sites essentially made an industry of the idea of an email romance. Dating apps made it even more “efficient” with swiping and to-the-point profiles. I know some friends who have had long conversations on apps before meeting the person they matched with, but I know more who have deleted Tinder after too many “What’s up” messages or been heartbroken when ghosted by a guy they were messaging because (as is the deal with dating apps) he was having a better conversation with someone else. In 2014, a BuzzFeed writer tried to prove that the kind of witty correspondence we see in You’ve Got Mail doesn’t go well on Tinder by sending her matches bits of emails from the movie. Some matches went along with the conversation, but many were confused and turned off by the messages. Admittedly, though, it is a little weird for a woman to follow up an introductory “Hey” with an anecdote about a mysterious neighborhood bagel truck.

But when I re-watched the movie, I was struck by how little I thought about the correspondence premise. The scenes I most looked forward to were not when the characters were typing adorable musing on their computers or telling their friends about their dreamy email buddy. The best parts are when Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly are on the screen together—usually arguing and eventually falling love. No matter how clever the script or romantic the plot, this movie wouldn’t be so beloved were it not for Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. By 1998, America knew their chemistry was unmatched. Nora Ephron knew that she needed that chemistry for her leads, and not only for box office appeal. The audience had to root for Kathleen and Joe to end up together, not just the disembodied Shopgirl and NY152. In the last twenty minutes of the movie, when Kathleen and Joe are becoming friends, it seems inevitable that they would have fallen in love with each other without the emails, had they not been professional enemies. That’s what makes the story feel serendipitous.

I have loved writing letters my whole life. I find it far easier to write my feelings than to say them aloud, and I cherish receiving others’ words that I know they took time to craft. But a long-term romantic relationship needs and yearns for more than carefully composed sentences. It’s why NY152 and Shopgirl want to meet each other. It’s why even as she’s about to meet her mystery correspondent, Kathleen is falling in love with Joe while looking for produce or “spontaneously” having coffee together. There’s a safety and romance to their disembodied anonymity, but there’s another level of tenderness when they become familiar.