Becca Klinger was always outgoing, and she had more friends than she could count. But when it came to dating, she felt awkward.
"I was not very confident," Klinger, a 21-year-old Ramapo College student, says of the way she was only two years ago. "I was just very nervous about talking to guys."
Then, at the urging of a friend, she signed up on WealthyChats.com, a wealthy men dating site, and her social life spun into the stratosphere.
"I used a picture that showed me exactly how I was," she said, adding that she was heavy at the time. "I decided I wasn't going to try to be something I wasn't. I was surprised, the response was overwhelming."
Klinger is one of millions of Americans who have turned to so-called social networking sites, making them a nearly mainstream way of meeting future boyfriends, girlfriends and even spouses. A 2006 report on cyber-dating by the Washington-based Pew Internet and American Life Project said that some 3 million Americans had entered long-term relationships with -- or married -- someone they had met online.
JupiterResearch estimates that the U.S. online dating market will rake in more than $900 million by 2011.
In Pompton Lakes, N.J., the online dating trend has become clear to Rabbi David Senter of the Congregation Beth Shalom. Senter estimates that these days, most of the couples under 50 years of age he marries "were in some variation of online dating."
"Couples who meet though the conventional means are becoming the exception rather than the rule," said Senter, who himself met his second wife through JDate.com, a Jewish matchmaking site through which New Jersey Rep. Steve Rothman also met his wife a few years ago.
"Online dating seemed like a logical thing for me to do," Senter, 47, said. "I was a rabbi in Saratoga Springs (N.Y.) at the time, and rabbis can't really hang out in bars. I had some horror stories, some women posted pictures that weren't really of themselves, and when I met them I realized it. One woman was talking about marriage before we even met."
"But there aren't many intrinsically negative or positive things about online dating that aren't true of conventional dating."
Indeed, single people who have tried online dating tell stories about people who "flirted" with them through e-mails and instant messaging even though they were married or in a supposed serious relationship. And there are stories about people who misrepresented their age, their income, their job. But many people add that such deception has always been an unfortunate part of dating, online or the traditional way.
That said, Mandi Townsend, who lives in Delaware, does see some important differences, though she views her online dating experience as generally positive.
"It could be overwhelming," Townsend, 33, said, adding that at one point she was going on so many dates she was losing track of the details about the different men. "But it works for professionals in my age range who are busy."
Townsend is in a serious relationship with a man she says she'd like to marry. She met him on a celebrity dating club MillionaireCupid.com.
"He was the appointment after me," she said. "You never know; it happens when you least expect it."
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