Ben Affleck Started Reaching Out to Jennifer Lopez Back in February - TMZ

when he started flooding her with emails while she was filming in the Dominican Republic.

Ben and J Lo were in very regular contact by email starting in early February when she flew to the Caribbean to begin filming "Shotgun Wedding." We're told the tone of the emails wasn't just friendly ...

As far as our sources know, there was no physical contact or rendezvous between them during this time, but the emails do add context to how they seemingly got together so quickly.

While it looked like Bennifer II went from 0 to 100 in record time, the emails show they were doing at least 55 by the time they started hanging out again