Hovering Over Cupid's Cursor

It’s been ten years since The New York Times declared it socially acceptable to meet your mate on the Internet. “Online dating, once viewed as a refuge for the socially inept and as a faintly disrespectable way to meet other people, is rapidly becoming a fixture of single life,” wrote Amy Harmon in a 2003 piece charmingly titled “Online Dating Sheds Its Stigma as Losers.com.” According to a 2010 survey of recently married people, dating sites were the third most common way that these couples met. (The survey was commissioned by Match.com.) Today, one-third of America’s 90 million singles have used an online dating site. I’ve lost count of the number of times people have asked me, “Have you tried OkCupid?” as if it’s a home remedy to be applied to a pesky rash—never mind that I wasn’t even scratching.