Dating Services

As of today, EHarmony comes out of the closet. The adamantly heterosexual dating website, which has accepted only male-female couples since its inception in 2000, is launching a gay matchmaking service called Compatible Partners ( www.compatiblepartners.com).

The modern dating scene has come to this: a text-messaging service that hits random female subscribers in Los Angeles with such messages as "Hello to all the beautyful ladys." Tech-savvy singles are now relying on cellphone-based services to find new dates and friends. The programs help users find strangers to exchange text messages with and even find, on a handset's digital map, nearby people looking to connect. Joshua Beaman, a 29-year-old sound engineer from Calistoga, Calif.

Online dating has become very specific. For young singles looking for a good time, there's lavalife.com, which lets viewers categorize their search by: a) dating; b) relationship; or c) intimate encounter. For those looking for lasting love, eharmony.com claims to be the site to turn to "when you're ready to find the love of your life." But you may say, "Those sites are for the uptown crowd; I'm a little more down-to-earth. Where can I go to find true love?"

Dating has always been a delicate dance of information swapping: What to reveal when? Now some lawmakers want to regulate it by requiring online dating services to conduct background checks on their clients. The push runs counter to the prevailing sentiment about privacy. In the wake of high-profile breaches at information brokers ChoicePoint Inc.

Jack Luizzi guesses he's dated 50 women since his wife died five years ago -- and the retired Sears Roebuck manager considers that a slack pace. Beckoned by a lavish buffet of Internet dating sites, Luizzi, 75, can sound like a teenage boy who has crept into the girls' locker room. "I specify women between 58 and 75, and they'll come up with 25 pages of women. Ten to a page!" says Luizzi, a slight man with a roguish smile and a head of snow-white hair.

Now you can suffer rejection in the comfort of your own living room. Cable giant Comcast Corp. will begin airing three-to-five-minute video personals next month as part of its video-on-demand programming in its hometown of Philadelphia. It's perhaps the most open invitation to public ridicule since karaoke. "The goal is not to make anyone look like a dork," said Ken Deckinger, whose speed-dating service, HurryDate, will begin producing the videos this month.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a "Star Trek" actress' lawsuit against dating service Matchmaker.com, ruling that a fake Internet profile posted with the star's image was not the company's fault. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said personal profile information published on Matchmaker's service is solely up to the user's discretion and the company is immune from the lawsuit.

It's one of the hazards on the obstacle course of being single. You meet whom you hope is the love of your life -- someone who looks like Russell Crowe and has Bill Murray's sense of humor -- and you bring him to your apartment to see if he's compatible with your beloved orange tabby cat McGwire. And before introductions are made he tells you he's allergic to cats or even more devastating -- he hates them. Of course, any self-respecting animal lover would show Russell/Bill the door.

As a deputy district attorney, Leslie Kenyon has had her share of ticklish cases. Take the time a woman was sexually accosted by a total stranger--while waiting in line at the DMV. Another time, there was an 18-year-old who got shot in the leg by a gang punk. But the kid was too afraid to ID the shooter in court. Other eyewitnesses felt the same. Kenyon told the kid, "Look at you. Your leg is gone. Your life is never going to be the same. Why would you protect the person who did this to you?"