DATING in the NEW MILLENNIUM

I am a m/f seeking a m/f, ages 18 to 40." There it is again, on yet another Internet browser, pop-ups and screaming banners advertising love and companionship as far as the mouse can click. \nIn the age of Ebay and e-mail, when the average Web surfer can pay their bills, shop for groceries and discover a must-have original 1977 "Star Wars" figurine in a few clicks, it's no wonder that dating has become an Internet surfing game -- a game that the Web browsers are all too thrilled to encourage singles to play.\nOnline dating is currently a $313 million dollar industry, according to JupiterResearch analysts. Nielsen//Netratings, an Internet analysis site, printed that popular personal sites can attract millions of Web surfers in a single month. Yahoo! Personals attracted 4.9 million surfers in October of last year, while close competitor www.match.com drew visits from 3.9 million in that same month. It seems many Web savvy adults prefer the anonymity of a computer screen to a rowdy bar scene. Even college-aged adults have joined the bands of Internet browsers, searching for love in cyberspace.\nJunior informatics major, Adam Licht, 20, was initiated into the world of Internet dating from a young age. Licht received an "eCrush" e-mail from a Tennessee web surfer, revealing he had a secret internet admirer. Licht met his Tennessee admirer and ended up dating her for a few weeks. \nSince that brief introduction, Licht has met approximately two dozen girls over the last four years. Once an eCrush browser, Licht has broadened his horizons by frequenting college sites like www.collegehook.com and www.facethejury.com. He appreciates the opportunity of getting to talk to the girls first before meeting them face to face. \n"In my experience, all first impressions are entirely physical. Meeting someone online takes physicality out of the equation," says Licht. \nHowever, physical appearance is not entirely taken out of the equation. Along with the detailed profiles that Internet daters post in the hope of finding a perfect match, most also upload flattering pictures of themselves. Nearly every personals' site encourages users to post such eye catching JPEG files.\nThe www.love.com homepage consists of a line of photos with several attractive looking, smiling individuals and the organization's tag line: "Search to your heart's content." \nAnother site, www.americansingles.com, frames its homepage with user photos in snapshot fashion, urging their users to "Jump start love lives." \nBut what happens when online daters "digitally tweak" a photograph to create extra flattering images of themselves? \nIU senior and member of the GLBT speaker's bureau, Matt Brunner, 22, has had over 20 dates as a result of his Internet browsing. Brunner has also discovered exactly what happens when potential dates misrepresent themselves, physically or otherwise. \nAfter chatting with one potential date, Brunner agreed to meet him for dinner. Once in his date's car, it was glaringly obvious that the picture Brunner had received was more than a little digitally embellished. More than taken aback, Brunner politely requested to be taken home after dinner was finished.\n"It just goes to show that Internet dating is not totally perfect," says Brunner, "But that is one of the chances a person takes when meeting people online." \nThat is not the only chance individuals take when meeting potential dates online. Besides the obvious dangers that come with meeting strangers, singles must also be wary of web surfers who post themselves as "single." According to Nielsen//NetRatings, 11 percent of the Web surfers who frequent personal sites are married. \nSenior journalism major, Pamela Trumbo, 21, dated one such personals user earlier this year. Having originally met online, the two became a fast couple after meeting in person. In fact, their relationship was ideal until the day when Trumbo received a call from her boyfriend's very upset wife. The stunned and disturbed Trumbo simply ended her relationship with that phone call.\n"Actually, I laugh about it now," says Trumbo, when reflecting on the awkward situation. \nSo with all the risks, why do single people keep clicking their mouses in hope of finding someone? \nFor starters, the allure of anonymous dating was not invented alongside the Internet. While not exactly popular on this campus, adults have been placing personal ads in newspapers for more than 30 years. \nProfessor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Paul Hollander examined the phenomenon of personal ads when considering the trend toward Internet dating in his journal article, "The Counterculture of the Heart."\nHollander mused that personals, while material for the modern sociologist to study all of the facets of human interaction, also display difficulty in finding suitable companions. Personals could be a mere tribute to modern hectic lifestyles. \nBut Hollander also recognizes that personals are extremely specific, with listed desirable traits in potential companions and explicit expectations about these companions. In short, people say what they want and for how long. Like flattering Internet dating photos, personal column writers only reveal the best characteristics of themselves.\nPerhaps it's this similar laundry list of attributes that draws college students to longer and more in-depth Internet dating profiles. \nLicht said that he's been online for so long that he knows profiles fall into types. According to Licht, there are girls who capitalize every other letter of their online name, and thus are dismissed by Licht as "slutty." Then there are girls who only post a picture in their bikini, without the benefit of a profile, and are similarly dismissed for lack of imagination. \n"But somewhere in there, there is a small percentage of girls that are genuinely interested in meeting people," says Licht, "And that have IQs greater than their shoe size." \nBrunner began searching online for other gay students in the area, but now sees other benefits in online dating.\n"If you are online, you can take your time getting to know a person," says Brunner. "And there will already be a profile you can look at, to see if this person has the same interests as you do."\nSo the question is: does Internet dating ever result in real relationships? Again, it depends on who is asked. Yahoo! Personals takes pride in dazzling their browsers with pictures of couples who actually met on their site, as a testimony to the effectiveness of the system.\nBut it's easier to be convinced by a real life Internet success story.\nUniversity of Southern Indiana student Sarah Orem, 20, never intended on meeting her boyfriend, Justin Church, 21, online. One day Orem went on www.emode.com and found that the whole Web site had been changed. Instead of the usual quirky IQ and personality tests, the site boasted a new feature called "social networking." Basically, social networking gave users a chance to post themselves on message boards according to their interests to find people with similar interests.\nOn a whim, Orem decided to join one message board for the Christian College Networks and e-mailed one interesting sounding user posted on the same message board. Once they connected months later, they began regularly e-mailing each other. \nThen they graduated to instant messaging, phone calls and finally, they decided to meet. Church traveled from his home in St. Charles, Mo. to meet Orem in Evansville. \n"When I opened the door and saw him standing there, it was a strange feeling," says Orem. "Here was this person I had come to know so well, and he looked like a stranger."\nBoth Orem and Church soon forgot their shyness and now have a committed relationship they want to last forever. Both are looking forward to the possibility of marriage. Orem has only had to contend with a few derogatory comments about how they met.\n"I hope people can realize that if you are careful, you can find someone who is honest about who he is and have a great relationship," says Orem. "I am living proof"