Amidst the usual, bureaucratic flood of my university's email, an announcement from the School of Political and Social Inquiry piques my attention: Professor Catherine Waldby of Sydney University will address the topic of “Banking Time: Egg Freezing, Internet Dating, and the Negotiation of Future Romance”. I quickly learn from this email that non-medical egg freezing – also known as social egg freezing – has been around for only, roughly, the past five years. Waldby's field research (“interviews with both clinicians and women who have banked their eggs”) raises “broad issues about the relationship between sexuality, reproduction, and the political economy of everyday life”. In particular, egg freezing seems to offer

The sociological lingo of this email announcement may be a little dry, but you can guess what, by now, I am thinking: What a great idea for a contemporary romantic comedy! All the necessary elements for a modern take on this genre are there: women who want to have children, but are hampered by their non-lasting, “iterative” relationships (i.e., one partner after another) begun on the Internet, and who, after weighing up the various emotional and economic factors, opt for a “technical solution” via a new, easily buyable option. Perhaps, in the end, there will be a random, non-virtual encounter with a potentially non-iterative partner. Or perhaps not.