http://www.match.com

Though it may not at first seem like a place where you'll find virtual community, Match.Com has it. Match.Com, a web-based matchmaking service that is easy and fun to use, offers a ten day free trial; you sign up with an anonymous "handle" and write a profile of yourself, and then you can either read and respond to other people's profiles or lie in wait with your hook baited. Within two days, I had 37 different men sending me email. I asked them about their own luck using this service, and it's no surprise that there's a disparity between the number of available men to women. If you're female and want to bask in attention, you're in luck. If you're male and want to find a soulmate, you'd better make sure your profile and your email conversational skills are up to par, or you'll get ignored in the stampede. There is the chance that you'll actually meet your lovematch - I spoke with one user in the chat rooms who was marrying someone he met on Match.Com, and this is apparently not as rare an occurrence as you might think. However, regardless of whether you end up meeting anybody in real life, it's a remarkably safe and silly way to meet a lot of email penpals, as both you and they remain anonymous except for the "handle" you've picked out. There's also an easy to download and install chat program which allows you to use the Match.Com chat rooms. This is remarkably similar to what many of us imagine hanging out on chat rooms is like, except with no pretense that anybody is there for any reason other than leering at one another. You can make private rooms, send private messages to the other people doing chat, or practice acting suave in front of your adoring public. A lot of the chat users seemed to know one another and log in regularly, making this seem a little cliquey unless you jump right in. Within minutes, I had convinced everyone to sit on their keyboards and lick their monitors; I highly recommend that method as a sure-fire way to get people talking to you. At any rate, whether you find a date or not, you'll have fun and end up meeting a lot of random strangers to penpal with. - T.N.

subject matter: relationships

regional affiliation: global

format: chat, WWW pages

language: English

cost: No cost for first ten days of access. After that, one month is $9.95, three months are $23.95, six months are $39.95 and one year are $69.95. See the Match.Com site for more specific details.