Finding Love in Cyberspace

There are still "lonely hearts" clubs, newspaper personal columns and old-fashioned "matchmaker" dating services, but the rise of Internet dating has added a number of new twists to the age-old game. On the Internet, you can approach dating with varying degrees of focus and effort, from just hanging around a few chat rooms all the way to signing up with one of the many online dating services.

One of the best-known Internet dating sites is eHarmony.com, which is neck-and-neck with Match.com for leadership of this business sector. With an expensive television and print advertising campaign, eHarmony is promoting its "patented and copyrighted" approach to matchmaking. Much is made of its computerized process for "testing" some 30 areas important to compatibility.

Selling love and marriage

By far the most potent selling points in all these pitches, of course, are the testimonies of people who actually managed to find the "loves of their lives" with eHarmony. Match.com's message is much simpler: Most of its ads can be translated as, "We're better than eHarmony and we don't discriminate."

The Internet can be a handy dating tool in ways both circuitous and straightforward, and nothing is more to the point than the "pick-up" sites, particularly the adult-only chat rooms. These range from inviting and friendly to downright raunchy and in-your-face, so if you are new to the world of Internet dating prepare to be surprised by people telling their most intimate tales.

Alternative routes to "net love"

The fact is, there are also many sites that, although they are not positioned or marketed as Internet dating destinations, do give people with common interests a place to congregate, and wherever people get together and socialize, well, sparks can fly. In fact, people can find love most anywhere if they put the right ingredients together.

And so the tales circulate about love found in cyberspace, such as the two couples that met at a Hurricane Katrina fundraiser after signing up on the Internet, started dating and got married in a dual ceremony. Other stories have romance blossoming at 12-step sites, book-reading clubs, coin collector chat rooms and all manner of emotional support groups.

The lesson is clear: You don't need to sign up and pay for any so-called service to use the Internet for successful dating. Chart a course through the cyber club scene, get involved in groups formed around a favorite hobby or pastime, dial in your webcam for some video chat and get busy making some new friends. The first step to any eventual romance is usually a polite, sincere, "Hello."

After founding his first security firm in 1990, Scott McQuarrie built several security-related companies into regional and national powerhouses over the ensuing years. Since 2000 he has focused his sales and marketing efforts on the Internet, which opened up a virtually unlimited, international market for his flagship product line, EZWatch Pro

The EZWatch Pro brand has come to stand for world-class expertise in electronic security, video surveillance and the myriad technologies involved in both fields. From small houses to gigantic international airports, there is an EZWatch Pro solution to meet any and every residential, business, commercial and government security challenge.