Businesses grappling to lead online dating industry

Gary Gervitz wanted a girlfriend, but with stipulations.

She had to be smart.

She had to be politically conservative, but not religious.

She had to be a redhead.

Gervitz, 30, a busy investment manager, knew it would take a lifetime of scouring bars and college campuses to find such a woman -- especially in the Bible belt.

So the resident of suburban Dallas fired up his computer and joined an Internet dating service. Within days, he began corresponding with Susan Crowell, a businesswoman who lived nearby. These days, her name is Susan Gervitz.

"I happened to have found the one girl who is a redhead, who is politically conservative, who has a master's level education and who is not religious," Gervitz said. "I got her and I married her."

For many businesses, moving onto the Internet has been disappointing.

Not so for the business of matchmaking.

'No-lose situation'

In perhaps the biggest boost for dating since the telephone, the Internet has allowed companies to compile databases of single people in search of love, then, for $10 to $50 per month, efficiently match the lonely hearts.

"It's a no-lose situation," says Richard Isaacs, a balding 60-year-old New York private investigator, crunching on a tempura shrimp at a Japanese restaurant. His date, Nuz, a slender 34-year-old Pakistani fashion designer, nodded in agreement. The pair met in May through a dating site called Lavalife.

"The worst thing that could happen is the person you meet is totally horrendous," Isaacs said. "You say, 'Thanks very much. Goodbye.'"

More than a dozen Web sites are now cataloging and matching eligible singles, giving the seamy image of Internet romance a lift in the process.

With a potential market of some 85 million single people in the United States alone, several firms are grappling to lead the industry.

'A hip thing to do'

Jupiter Research figures the 15 million Americans who use online personal ads this year will grow to 24 million by 2007.

Growth in online personals -- considered more socially acceptable than newspaper ads -- far outstrips that of personal ads elsewhere, said Jupiter analyst Stacey Herron.

"It's become a hip thing to do," Herron said.

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, the largest site is Match.com, owned by Ticketmaster. Yahoo! Personals is number two. Other major players include Lavalife.com, Date.com, Dreammates.com and Kiss.com.

The Internet's global reach and anonymity fuels the businesses, eliminating time and distance from the dating equation while easing the awkwardness of trying to meet someone in, say, a bar.

"It speeds up the evolutionary process, if you will," said Steve Duininick, 51, a Tribeca furniture dealer, divorced twice and father of four kids. "You can literally do romance on an instant basis. I could go out with one gal on Friday and another on Saturday."

The more people use online dating services, the better they get. The databases of singles grow and grow, with more choices for all.

"It might take me a month to meet 100 single women" in the normal fashion, said Al Cooper, director of a San Jose, Calif. marital clinic and editor of the forthcoming book "Sex and the Internet."

"On the Internet, you could look through 100 people in an hour," Cooper said. "The computer just accelerates these things."

Far more information

The sites gather and share far more information than any newspaper personal ad, sharing details such as body type, education level, age, income, hobbies and interests -- and the features desired in a mate.

Most of the sites allow visitors to browse pictures and profiles for free but levy a fee when a browser wants to contact a client, usually done by e-mail. Clients reveal their identities and contact information to each other when they feel ready.

In this manner, Internet dating turns the regular courtship process on its head.

"The good thing about meeting online is that you get to know each other on an intellectual level first, then you see if you're attracted on a physical level," said Tim Sullivan, chief executive of Match.com.

Some sites, like Match.com, cater only to singles. They won't allow a married person to register.

Others, such as Lavalife.com, cater to folks seeking anything from marriage to group sex, even letting customers post nude photos of themselves.

It's not just young professionals who look for dates online.

The Web sites corral lonely elderly folks, single moms who have little time to troll for dates, disabled people -- including the blind, who use text-to-speech software to read their correspondence -- and those like Gervitz, with strict criteria in looks, wealth, religious belief or personal habits.

"If you want to find Jamaican midgets, you can find them," Cooper said. "If you want one-legged women, you can find them."

Once a search turns up a few "hits," you fire off an e-mail or an instant message. If the correspondence bears fruit, the couple meets for coffee.

After that, it's purely analog love. The human mating dance -- unpredictable even by computer -- takes over.

Anna Sheffield, 31, has dated 22 men in a year of online introductions. Two of them broke her heart.

The first was an Australian who e-mailed her rapturously for months. When they finally met, he wasn't interested.

"I remember thinking, 'I don't necessarily want to cry, but I am so sad,'" said Sheffield, an actress and part-time lifeguard who lives in New York City.

The second was a blond Dane who blew her off after what Sheffield considered a wonderful evening at a trendy SoHo lounge.

"I didn't get over that for a while," she said. "I had to force myself not to call him."

'A cash machine'

While clients might wind up with a broken heart, investors probably won't.

Yahoo and Lavalife aren't releasing earnings figures, but Lavalife chief executive Peter Housley said the privately held Toronto-based company makes "tens of millions" in yearly profit.

"We're a cash machine," Housley boasted via cell phone from his car.

Match.com's Sullivan said the site counts more than a half-million paying customers. He estimates it will rake in $120 million in revenue this year.

Men make up most of the clientele, providing 70 percent of the revenue on Lavalife alone.

Women -- especially those whose pictures depict them as pretty -- get bombarded with messages. Many just reply to the ones that intrigue them. Some make steep demands on potential dates.

Duininick, whose profile shows that he earns over $250,000 per year, said he e-mailed an attractive woman on Match.com recently and invited her to lunch.

"She wrote back, said she wanted to go to Le Bernardin," an indignant Duininick growled, referring to one of Manhattan's most expensive restaurants. He told her to forget it. "I don't want to be taken to the cleaners."

Dating 'Number 19'

Sheffield, whose heart suffered the sting of a pair of fickle dates, has passed her hurt to others, especially since she began steadily dating a man she calls "number 19," a bass player from Long Island.

Last week, number 19 took her for a motorcycle ride. Sheffield massaged his shoulders during pauses at traffic lights.

But she still gets e-mail from her ad on Yahoo! Personals, and has been coaxed into a few dates. Sheffield tells new men that she's almost ready to remove her Yahoo! profile. They'd have to be pretty special to lure her away from number 19.

"I'm not off the market yet," she said. "But I'm like a house for sale. I'm under contract."

Hearing this, Sheffield said one man she dated grew wistful and told her, "I went outside and wished upon a star. I wished I was number 19."