Millions of Spaniards have turned to dating websites to find their soul mates

MADRID - "I'm a normal person looking for friendship and, if it develops into something more [serious], the better," reads a typical ad in an online personals site.

Though there are no official figures, dating agencies estimate that up to seven million Spaniards use or have used at some point this tool to establish a personal relationship.

Many are, however, still afraid that they will be thought of as strange, sentimentally inept or as sociopaths with problems relating to people if they try to meet others via the internet.

That explains why so few online daters openly admit to using these services. Those interviewed for this report have preferred to be interviewed on condition of anonymity. Even so, numbers are quietly rising.

In Spain, online dating sites have become the third-most popular way of finding a partner after friends and co-workers, according to Jupiter Research. It is estimated that over 400,000 Spaniards found something like their better half last year thanks to the internet. Online dating in Spain is also a booming business worth EUR 50 million a year.

The typical virtual dater is someone between the ages of 30 and 45 who admits they are looking for something more than just an affair. Men outnumber women (until recently, ladies didn't pay), but the gap is shrinking rapidly.

Says Princesa44: "I used to live with my boyfriend since I was very young and had two daughters with him. When I got separated at 35, I realized all my friends were married and didn't have anyone to go out with; nor did I know where to meet people; even worse, I had no idea how to flirt.”

“I entered [the website] Meetic and a whole new world opened up for me. In no time, I had over 20 contacts on my messenger. I spent my nights chatting with four guys at the same time. Then the dates followed..."

The modus operandi is always the same. First the user signs up. He or she then puts together a profile that covers their physical traits, work and family situation (married, single, divorced, with or without kids, etc.), hobbies and their preferences regarding the ideal partner.

They search for individuals who match that profile and get in touch through the site's chat or email service. If the two are interested in each other, they exchange their private chat addresses, which 90 percent of the time is MSN Messenger. They chat three or four times, trade photos, and if there's chemistry, they will decide to meet personally.

Match.com, owned by a US company and Meetic, the French-owned dating service, jointly control over 80 percent of the Spanish internet dating market, though there are many others such as the German FriendScout24, Be2 of Luxemburg, Yahoo Personals and OkCupid of the United States.

After France and the United Kingdom, Spain is the European country where internet dating is the most successful.

What's more, virtual dating has, just like the real thing, its own rules and experience is essential.

Says 34-year-old cyberdater Diego06: “At first, I'd chat all day long. It was exhausting and boring and not at all practical. Now I chat with no more than two or three people at a time. If I see they're not interested or they're chatting with 15 other people simultaneously, I delete them from my messenger and move on.”

“With dating, it's the same thing. I don't invite anyone out to dinner or for drinks on the first date anymore. First, I ask them to meet me for a beer or a coffee in broad daylight. If I really like them and I think it could go somewhere, the next step is to go out for drinks... You save time and money."

One of the main reasons people hesitate to use a personals site is that they're afraid of meeting those geeks that the internet has become notorious for.

"Bad experiences are extremely rare," says José Ruano, director of Meetic in Spain.

"We have had some people use Meetic to compile a book with models, for example, and there is always the creep who ruins it all by sending rude comments. If a user gets an annoying email, they can put its sender on a blacklist and that person will be blocked from sending a new message. And if someone appears on the blacklist more than three times in a week, their account with us is blocked."

The main advantage of these sites is also their big drawback: you have to pay to use them. The credit card used to open an account guarantees trustworthy information that can tracked to a client if they should cause problems.

These services cost around EUR 30 a month, depending on the package, with the average user being a client for three and four months, or the time it takes to find a partner who meets their expectations.

The databases of Meetic and Match.com alone have over 10 million profiles, and 300,000 new profiles are created every month, although many are the same clients with different identities.

Dating sites advertise stories with a happy ending; couples who met online and are now living happily ever after. But there are stories for all tastes, like the ones who use these portals to make a Guinness record of sexual partners or simply as a way to travel on the cheap.

It's not surprising that nearly 70 percent of all Spaniards prefer to date in chat rooms before meeting in person, according to a poll taken by Microsoft this February of 30,000 MSN users.

Internet dating affects all levels of society, although according to Match.com, the typical user is a university graduate (80 percent), with no children (70 percent), and who is looking for a long-term relationship (80 percent).

"We don't guarantee that you'll find love," says Ruano of Meetic. "But we do promise that you'll meet people and date them. If you put your mind to it, in four hours you can have a date lined up. And that can lead to marriage, an affair or just friendship."

Online dating is a rapidly growing phenomenon, threatening to replace traditional relationships and giving sociologists and psychologists pause for thought.

"To find a partner, people used to stick to their own group: family, mutual friends, their neighbourhood, a certain educational level," says Luis Muiño, a psychotherapist who specializes in virtual dating.

"But our upbringing and way of looking at the world is getting more individualistic, and this goes for our romantic relationships as well. The dating ritual is changing completely. It is way faster than before - in just two chats you have to make an emotional impact."

A study by Match.com of over 800 couples married since 1995 concludes that those who met online are actually more compatible and more in love than those that met the traditional way.

Eighty-nine percent of "cyberspouses" say they are very happy compared with 66 percent of "traditional" spouses that responded affirmatively.

 [Copyright El Pais / Ramon Munoz 2008]