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Today is Valentine’s Day. For the happily married among us, it’s probably not that big a deal. Because when you have someone you love, who you’re doing life with, every day is Valentine’s Day. Things are different for singles looking for love: Those who’ve never experienced holy matrimony. Those who once were married but – for one reason or another – sadly parted ways with their spouse. Those who have lost a beloved husband or wife to illness or other tragedy. As I reflect upon Valentine’s Day, I am reminded of a sermon I heard a couple years ago while...

Posting the most flattering picture possible alongside one’s profile may seem a legitimate part of the internet dating game. But if new research is to be believed, those who try to level the playing field by using photos which disguise their worst features could be wasting their time. According to a university study, women can still identify a physically attractive man just by reading his profile. It found good-looking men were able to convey their confidence and attractiveness in their written self-description – and that women volunteers were able to recognise their beauty without being shown the lonely heart’s accompanying...

[Dating websites distort the very core of interpersonal relations and turn love into a consumer product ] The internet is changing the way society communicates, processes information and knowledge, and configures its relationship towards authority. Some of these developments are exciting and challenging, but in one particular sense the internet poses a fundamental challenge to the way humans interact. The following criticism and concern regarding online dating is not at all intended as a criticism of good and heartening personal stories – I, too, know people who have met their significant other through online dating. Today, internet dating has become...

A woman in Seminole County was raped by a University of Central Florida student she met on the online-dating website Match.com, according to the Sheriff's Office. The victim, whose name and age were redacted from arresting documents released Tuesday, told deputies she met 22-year-old Aaron Floyd on the website on Thursday. The two exchanged emails and cell-phone numbers, an arrest report states. The report says Floyd asked the victim questions that were "sexual in nature," and which made her uncomfortable. However, she eventually agreed to meet Floyd at a restaurant in Sanford on Friday, deputies said. According to the report,...

Online dating is nothing new, but the $1.8 billion industry is growing—and diversifying—by leaps and bounds. There are dating sites for cheaters, dating sites for millionaires, and dating sites for Christians. The are dating sites for specific ethnic groups, dating sites for divorcees, and dating sites for age groups. Now, there are even dating sites exclusively for virgins and abstinent singles. WeWaited.com and WeAbstain.com are catering to singles on the dating scene that are looking for someone of the opposite sex that holds the same values. While WeWaited.com targets virgins looking for other virgins to date, WeAbstain.com focuses on singles...

he online dating sites Match.com and OkCupid can now add another happy couple to their list of successful matches: themselves. IAC's Match.com, which owns a family of dating sites including Chemistry.com, People Media, and SinglesNet, purchased OkCupid for $50 million on Wednesday. Unlike the subscriber-only Match.com, OkCupid offers its services for free, supports itself through advertising, and generally attracts younger singles who connect with the site's hip, Digital Age ethos. What does the corporate marriage mean for the future of online dating?

A Bachelor: I am not ashamed to say that I cried like a baby through the entire Bachelor wedding last night. It was romantic and fun, and I was really happy for Molly and Jason. I just wish ABC had taken a bit more of a back seat, and let us to feel more like we were at a wedding, rather than watching a television show. I love Chris Harrison but seriously, he was just in our faces. There was too much recapping, too much Chris Harrison. When he stopped the wedding during the vows for a commercial break, I...

A local woman's relationship started with love letters, fancy restaurants and lavish trips, but ended up in court where the man she thought she loved faces criminal charges. Marietta Egan claims the man of her dreams promised to invest her money, but ended up romancing her with it. She says she lost her retirement nest egg. And, now she's speaking out to help save other women from the same kind of heartache. SNIP "There was major, roses constantly, gifts, perfume, getaways," said Egen. Egen took years off from dating after her husband died to raise her son and met Lukens...

So, this is “progress?” eHarmony, a Christian-targeted dating website, gets sued by a gay man demanding that the business match him up with a same-sex partner. The New Jersey Attorney General intervenes on behalf of the gay plaintiff and forces eHarmony to change its entire business model. To be clear: The company never refused to do business with anyone. Their great “sin” was not providing a specialized service that litigious gay people demanded they provide. This case is akin to a meat-eater suing a vegetarian restaurant for not offering him a ribeye or a female patient suing a vasectomy doctor...

IMAM E-DATE FROM HELL By JANON FISHER January 27, 2008 -- A Wall Street stockbroker fears for her life after she rebuffed a Brooklyn imam she met on a Muslim dating Web site. In an explosive $50 million lawsuit that blows the lid off the wacky world of Muslim dating in New York, Cherine Allaithy alleges the religious leader promised he would make her one of four future wives and boasted of a cousin in al Qaeda. When she dumped him, he trashed her reputation in the Arab press. The imam, Tarek Youssoff Hassan Saleh, 42, says Allaithy is a...

Warning sounded over 'flirting robots' by Ina Fried Those entering online dating forums risk having more than their hearts stolen. A program that can mimic online flirtation and then extract personal information from its unsuspecting conversation partners is making the rounds in Russian chat forums, according to security software firm PC Tools. The artificial intelligence of CyberLover's automated chats is good enough that victims have a tough time distinguishing the "bot" from a real potential suitor, PC Tools said. The software can work quickly too, establishing up to 10 relationships in 30 minutes, PC Tools said. It compiles a report...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A 48-year-old man entangled in an Internet love triangle built largely on lies was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison for killing his rival for the affection of a woman he had never met. Thomas Montgomery, who posed as an 18-year-old Marine in online chats, pleaded guilty in August to gunning down Brian Barrett, 22, in a parking lot at the suburban Buffalo factory where they worked. The motive was jealousy, investigators said. Both were involved online with a middle-aged West Virginia mother —who herself was posing as an 18-year-old student. -snip-

"Sometimes the names alone provided hints as to the prospects for a lasting relationship. Somehow gunilla_luvs_prozac didn’t seem quite ready, whereas cum2mama was if anything a little too ready. Messages from hysterical_hilda, katsb4men and imeldamarcos were similarly binned. But diligent research eventually brought its rewards as I discovered that beyond the mundane Majas lay clusters of intriguing Tinas, Linas and Sabrinas."

An Australian sheep farmer who sought love over the internet was instead kidnapped and held hostage for 12 days after his African "bride" turned out to be a group of machete-wielding gangsters. Des Gregor, 56, flew to Mali with the promise of a dowry of gold and marriage to "Natacha", reportedly a Liberian refugee in her twenties, following a whirlwind affair over the world wide web. But when he stepped off the plane, men claiming to be the woman's relatives took him to a flat in the capital, Bamako, where he was robbed, bound and threatened with having his limbs...

PHILADELPHIA — A man who faked being a doctor, an astronaut and a spy to dates he met online was convicted Wednesday of two counts of sexual assault but acquitted of raping several women who accused him of drugging them. Seven women, six of whom Jeffrey J. Marsalis met through the Match.com dating site, told similar stories of blacking out or becoming unusually intoxicated during dates from 2003 to 2005. The jury reached its verdict on the fifth day of deliberations that were so contentious jurors were overheard shouting at each other earlier in the week. He was acquitted of...

Luigi is living the American dream. He’s finally saved up enough money to come to America — the land of freedom and opportunity — to pursue his lifelong goal of owning and operating his own pizzeria. Based on his grandmother’s old family recipe, his pizza pie quickly becomes known as the best in town. Bruce is hungry. As he strolls down the boulevard, he decides he’s got a taste for Chinese food. Bruce walks past three Chinese restaurants and goes into Luigi’s. Bruce has seen too many episodes of The Sopranos, so he doesn’t like Italians. “I’ll have an order...

A lawsuit filed by a Northern California lesbian against dating service eHarmony represents the types of excesses of the gay movement which do so much damage to their efforts to achieve public acceptance. According to the Reuters article linked above, eHarmony "has long rankled the gay community with its failure to offer a 'men seeking men' or 'women seeking women' option."

Like a lot of the women on dating Web sites, Lynn divorcee Carol Cormier was looking for love. What she found turned out to be too good to be true, and now she’s on a mission to save other singles from being ensnared in a shockingly widespread online romance scam. “The only thing I tell them is you opened up your heart and a jerk fell in,” said Cormier, 57, who almost lost thousands to a Nigerian who used a phony model’s photo to woo her and then tried to bilk her out of her savings. Cormier says she’s one...

MIAMI, June 30 (UPI) -- A lawyer has sued a Florida-based Web site claiming he was defamed on Don'tDateHimGirl.com. The site allows women to vent about ex-boyfriends and spouses and, presumably, to warn others about their exes' nasty habits. But Todd Hollis of Pittsburgh says his former girlfriend published false and malicious information about his health and sexual habits. "When you have to explain to someone that you don't have herpes or that you are not a dog or that these accusations are malicious and false it really bothers you," Hollis told the Miami Herald. "You feel awkward when you...

...Recently, a couple of our close male friends told us about their experiences with the other major category of online dating scam---the Russian would-be oh-so-loving and devoted girlfriend scam. This one is nearly ubiquitous across the net. Apparently, there's something in the water in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine that produces blond women of surpassing devotion, all of whom are eager to stand by their man... and pretty much any American man will do. Their real goals differ from woman to woman, but there are a few broad categories: --I want to escape my crappy former Soviet Republic, even if it...