Looking for love online: Is Madison's singles pool big enough for dating success?

I'd be ur slavw, my suitor whispered to me through his keyboard. He immediately corrected his typo.

When this pickup line plopped into my OkCupid inbox, swoon I did not. Instead, I LOLed, then felt pity, for both my suitor and myself. I was 32 and single in a city of only a quarter million, with only a fraction of those available to me. The comedy of this online encounter competed with my despair.

I couldn't help but wonder, in a Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw type of way: Is this worth it? Will online dating help me find true love in Madison?

Dating in Madison often seems like another of what Rebecca Ryan called a "tier-two tradeoff" in the October 2013 issue of Madison Magazine. That is, we all make sacrifices to live in our beloved but small city. In dating, that sacrifice might be options.

Fishing for love in a small pond can make your odds of hooking a mate look grim. At a certain age, the dating pool dries up into isolated puddles. People become increasingly settled into relationships and families, and you find yourself searching for new and different waters.

Therein lie the hope, the horror and the humor of online dating in Madison.

Online vs. 'organic'

Now a nearly 20-year-old phenomenon, with the birth of Match.com in 1995, online dating seems to have reached its prime. In a 2013 poll by Pew Research Institute, 38% of single-and-looking Americans confessed they've searched for love (or something like it) on the Internet. Most users fell in the ripe age bracket of the mid-20s to mid-40s.

As with much of life, the Internet has colonized the dating landscape. Sites range from the big "markets" (Match, eHarmony and OkCupid) to niche communities such as GreenSingles for the Earth lovers, ChristianSingles for the Jesus lovers, and Vampire Passions for, well, you get the point. Mobile apps, such as Tinder and Grindr, connect potential matches based on tidbits like mutual Facebook friends and geographic proximity.

As the online market grows, success stories are accumulating.

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Looking for love online: Is Madison's singles pool big enough for dating success?