(Please, everbody, you'll just have to excuse Anti-Jim. He's been sitting at his desk for 9 hours -- no bathroom breaks -- waiting to get bridged into a conference call that never happened and he tends to become a real wise-ass.....)

I have a friend who went to speed dating. He survived. He said it was bit wierd but that he had fun. I think he's going to do it again. Yeah, the mindset that leads to seven-minute encounters controlled by a bell leaves me a little puzzled, but it *does* increase exposure in a limited amount of time. I guess they have a couple of "no-nos" like no asking what someone does for work (so you don't blow seven minutes blathering about *that*).

I have used electronic services like matchmaker.com and match.com. I got tired of all the pop-under web BS on Matchmaker (I told them so and I switched to Match which I really haven't used that much) but even then I would rate both of these services as a net positive. Yeah, you have to pay them, but how else do you expect that such a service will remain viable?

Buying a social life?? Well, I can tell you that for years I had a major hang-up about any kind of matchmaker service, personal ads, whatever. I mean -- Jeeze! -- why not just get "loser" tatooed on your forehead???

Well (and I'm taking this from a guy's point of view so don't shoot me...) finally I kind of said: "If you are travelling 80 percent for work, if you work mostly alone at home, or if you spend most of your time stuck in conference rooms or data centers with ugly, smelly guys most of whom haven't had sex in years (even with a Catholic Priest!) how on *earth* are you going to meet women??"

You get my drift. I would recommend that anyone debating about whether to use one of these outfits, well, give it a shot. Put a picture of yourself on the Web? Most everyone survives the experience. One good thing about the on-line versions like Match.com is that you can keep a certain distance -- keep the encounter electronic -- until you fell some confidence that the other party isn't completely psycho. Pretty efficient, too. Got a showstopper (like smoking, drugs, political party, Kahlil Gibran, whatever)? You can use their search tools to filter folks out that you would wind up butting heads with.

Did this produce magical results for me? No? And my energy for this stuff comes and goes. I haven't been on any of them in 9 months. Still, I got hooked up with a really lively book club through one of the women I met ( a real lunatic) and have made one really *excellent* friend. Can't beat that.