Finding love via Macintosh is the new trend around the globe, and many are finding that romance really is possible online.

The choppy waters of online romance are fraught with lost souls, suicidal tendencies, lies, distortion, cheap sex, and sometimes even true love. But given the medium, true romance is something only the lucky happen upon in this dark realm of code and controversy. My first introduction to the online dating scene occurred years ago during the infancy of the World Wide Web. Before AOL reached its 10 million mark, before the advent of broadband, most digital adventurers met via IRC, a small community of message groups focused on one topic or another.

Initially most of my IRC experience ranged from getting tech support for my Mac LC II from willing byte heads, and exchanging movie/music suggestions from time to time. It was during one of these innocent conversations when I found out my chat partner was a woman and wanted to \"know more about me.\" Not being the adventurous type (at least not in the dangerous liaisons category), my experiences never went past interesting phone calls and a few cute emails. Today, the game has totally changed.

Now it\'s common practice for people using their Macs to meet online, either via personal ads or chance Instant Messenger meetings, and then quickly arrange an in-person connection. The increase in the digital dating trend has led to scores of incidents around the globe in which men have lured often underage girls to off-line dates where these girls ended up raped and sometimes murdered. Fortunately, these cases are in the vast minority, and online dating continues to be among the most popular ways twenty-somethings meet in a world so fast paced that-casual socializing has largely disappeared.

For those more serious about finding someone, the Internet requires a lot of patience and fortitude, but with a little persistence success can be had. Australian Mac enthusiast Andy Dent tells his story of finding love inside the ether. \"About a year after the breakup of my first marriage I tried an Australian dating service (rsvp.com.au) and was contacted by Rosalie. She had (fortunately) ignored everything I said about my taste in books, music and movies and found me solely because I said I was interested in getting back into Scuba diving -- she was looking for a new Scuba buddy. Her previous partner had been distracted away from diving by his own romantic interest. A few weeks later, I\'d moved into a house -- less than a mile away from her (in a city of over a million people!). We were married a year later and honeymooned on a diving cruise.\"

Sounds rare, doesn\'t it? Actually, this situation isn\'t as rare as it appears. Thousands of singles around the globe are trying their hand at internet dating services and personals boards. MacDirectory contributor and acknowledge Macintosh fanatic Ric Getter traveled virtually all the way from Oregon, USA to Japan to finally find his wife. \"At the risk of bringing spirituality into the discussion, I think that, for some people, the odds of meeting the right person at the right time are so outlandishly small, there has got to be something else at work,\" says Getter of his online adventure. \"You hear stories all the time of great romances beginning with some chance encounter. Ours simply had a technological twist to it.\"

The technological twist, as Getter terms it, was aided even more by that fact that the meeting was a cyber-geek connection of sorts, \"For both of us, computers were part of our work but not the focus of it. She was working as a personnel manager at a hospital in Kyoto and used computers (Macs) regularly in her work.

\"I was working as a producer/editor for a PBS station in San Jose, and the same was true for me. We both spent a fair amount of our time off on the Internet, however.\"

Sure the groundwork was there, but getting from an email to marriage still seems a bit unlikely... \"The relationship had gone on for several months before we made the move into real-time communication,\" says Getter, reliving the episode. \"It was challenging for both of us, but for different reasons. Like most people in Japan, my wife was far more comfortable with written English than spoken English, and I\'ve always been a much better writer than a talker. My wife has an incredibly beautiful voice (she has been singing semi-professionally for years and is currently a member of the Portland Symphonic Choir). The phone calls and emails eventually led to an in-person meeting in an airport where Getter, thoroughly taken by his new friend, proposed marriage to an accepting bride. Think of it as \"Casablanca\" 21st century style. \"Six years ago, the Internet was a very different place than it is today,\" says Getter. \"It was a far more exclusive community and, as such, was far safer than it is now. Like any American city, as it gets more crowded, it gets more dangerous. Even back then, there was a degree of risk and, as it turned out, we were both incredibly lucky. For me, beginning to establish a bond with someone exclusively through the written word was something I believe that I needed. It is hard to explain, but it let the relationship develop from the inside out. Dating was a skill that I never mastered very well.\"

Getter isn\'t alone in this respect. In today\'s 30-second sound byte culture, filled with an abundance of irony and unnecessary snark, getting to know people isn\'t as easy as it used to be. That is, unless you meet them online. It seems that the digital medium allows men and women of all ages to expose their true personas, thus affording everyone to meet and get along with people who really have similar interests.

Today you have places such as Yahoo, Match.com, and Nerve.com that all offer a variety of experiences for the singles community. Yahoo seems to be the every-person personals source, offering thousands of personals that can range from freaky to down right dull. Match.com comes off more like the personals for the rest of us: simple, good choices, and a general tone of fun. Nerve.com, on the other hand, is not for the faint of heart. This place is filled with some of the most intelligent, sexy, interesting people on the web and easily outclasses the competition. The only problem I ran up against was their search engine, which needed a little work.

Bottom line, just like in the face-to-face world, using your Mac to experience online dating requires tact and a bit of social savvy. A few rules may help you in your adventures:

1. Posting ads without pictures is a waste of time. If you\'re bashful, this is not going to be your thing.

2. Never give out personal info (phone numbers, addresses, etc.) until you\'re absolutely certain you know who you\'re talking to. Marketers are lurking everywhere!

3. If you do decide to meet someone you met online in-person, do it in a very public place. It\'s just safer. Anyone who really wants to meet you and is honest shouldn\'t balk at such an arrangement.

4. If a personals ad seems too good to be true, it probably is.

5. Don\'t lie (about your age, weight, interests, etc.), it will only lead to trouble.

There you have it, your sure-fire rules for navigating the online dating jungle. Now put your Photoshop face on, fire up your trusty Mac, and happy love hunting!