New techno-twist mimics romance

Ladies, has your boyfriend suddenly begun to text or email you with deliciously romantic one-liners? Perhaps he’s turned over a new leaf and is working on his poetic side. More likely, he’s adopted GirlfriendKeeper, one of the newest iPhone applications. It allows him to get lost in a project, TV show or a nap, without worrying that you will become miffed because he forgot to call, or neglected your birthday or anniversary. GirlfriendKeeper never misses an opportunity to remind you how much he cares.

Designed for the romantically challenged, busy or absent-minded man, GirlfriendKeeper is easy to use. All he has to do is adjust a couple on-screen meters for "relationship level" (from "strangers" to "married") and "contact frequency" (from a distant once-per-month to a smothering every-other-hour). Then he keys in basic statistics: your email address, phone number, birthday, your eye color and anniversary. That’s all there is to it.

After that, the iPhone will send you one of thousands of randomly generated personalized email and text messages, signed with his name. For example, "Teresa, You are so beautiful. Just wanted to let you know I am thinking about you. -Jeff" or "Carol, The last 187 days have been the best of my life. Looking forward to the next 178 before our first anniversary. -Al." Your response to “his” message will be delivered to his email inbox.

All he has to do is keep up with the message history, so that so that he can respond to conversational topics that “his” love notes inspire.

GirlfriendKeeper was inspired by Evan Beard, whose goal was to keep his girlfriend happy when he was too busy to connect with her. He did market research by running the romantic messages by his mother and girlfriend, who must have had a mathematical bent.

Although this twenty-first-century version of “Roxanne” is humorous, many women wouldn't want to settle for love letters generated by a 99-cent iPhone application.