Love On The Web

Cyberspace has become the new gathering places for singles looking for a match -- an alternative to smoky bars or impersonal "personal" ads.

This kind of self-propelled matchmaking can even end in wedding vows.

Adam and Wendy Labenow met online. Long-time AOL members, Wendy and Adam were seasoned chat room participants who enjoyed meeting and communicating with new people online but were looking for nothing more than maybe a new acquaintance.

That all changed one Sunday night when they virtually bumped into one another in a Jewish Singles chat room. Emails led to phone calls which led to their first real-life meeting. They've been happlily married for over a year now.

Meanwhile, Adam's mom Gayle thought that she would give online chatting a try. Recently widowed, she turned to chat rooms for support and companionship. She met Paul Flaherty through an online support group for widows and widowers and the two quickly became friends.

After months of sharing instant messages and emails, their feelings began to grow. Engaged on New Years Eve 1999, Gayle and Paul will be married on May 20.

The online medium is fundamentally changing the way people communicate with friends and family. Communication is the cornerstone of any good relationship, and whether you're in one or looking for one, going online makes sense, says America Online's consumer adviser, Regina Lewis.

She says there are more than 520,000 personals online at AOL, with thousands being added every day.

Online personals are free of charge and are available to anyone on the Web at www.love.com. If you are an AOL member, the keyword is Love@aol.

There are also matchmaking dating services online, like match.com. and swoon.com. Online personals help people meet each other, let them search for matches, and facilitate anonymous emails for cautious people.

And, once you've found that match, you can go online to send tokens of your affection. For example, the following are statistics from AOL.

• 20,000 - 25,000 InstaKisses sent every day:
  
• 9,000 - 11,000 InstaHugs sent every day.
  
• 7,000 - 9,000 InstaRoses sent every day.
  
• Last Valentine's Day, 200,000 AOL members signed up to have an online Valentine's Day greeting sent to them, and 120,000 of those members sent it along to a friend.