Two light taps on my front door. I was sitting on my couch, looking out the living room window. I didn’t have butterflies in my stomach, but my palms were slightly sweaty. I didn’t look out the peephole, but I wondered what she looked like. I immediately ran her online personal ad through my mind. I expected a girl of average height, brown hair, with a bubbly personality. Other than that, I didn’t let my expectations get too high. The stereotypes of the losers and weirdos a person can meet online became more prominent in the back of my mind. 

She knocked again. There was no turning back now.
I took a deep breath, swallowed and opened the door smoothly. The girl whom I had met online was standing before me. She had shoulder-length brown hair, neatly brushed with no bangs. Clear complexion. Slim figure. Straight teeth. She wore a sleeveless red shirt with a rainbow-colored handprint on the front and tight, black pants. 

She eyed me up and down, smiled and said, “Hi.” 
I nodded and responded: “Hey.” 

The Internet has made a big impact on dating, with more people using it to find love. LoveAOL, America Online’s forum for Internet dating, has more than 220,000 searching singles, and roughly 1,200 weddings have been performed as a result of the service, according to the Web site. And that’s not the only popular dating Web site. More than 21,000 people are listed at singlesonline.com. There is also dating.com, Yahoo! Personals, friendfinder.com, adultfriendfinder.com and match.com, all of which cater to overlapping segments of society.

So, I decided to test these waters myself to find out what’s out there.

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