We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love. ~Author Unknown

We are told, online dating and matchmaking services in general are growing even in a recession. Singles are logging in and attending speed dating sessions more and more. One reason that online dating is growing is, it is cheaper to go online than to spend all hard earned money on a dinner and a bad date. There is also the excitement of the adventure that somewhere out there is the girl or the boy of one's dream.

My daughter and son in law are celebrating their 7th year wedding anniversary this year. Which makes me a real believer about finding love online. Now, as a 'tradionalist', on a normal day, i would never share this part of my daughter's story, and how she found her soulmate via the internet. But, i am an enlightened mom, and i have discarded my pre-conceived, narrow minded ideas how and where people should meet and find love. If people travel, find their special someone in another country, fall in love and marry despite language, color, and cultural differences, what makes online meeting so strange?

I have an only child, which is reason enough to be insanely protective. When it came to my daughter's love life, i considered myself 'old fashioned'. For me, the idea of befriending anybody in the internet was, a no no, too weird, and extremely dangerous. I was more than skeptical, i considered it a do not enter zone. Guess what? You have to guard yourself from your own worst fears because It has a way of becoming a reailty. As in our case. We were completely appalled when broke the news to us, that she was in a relationship with someone she met online. Whoa! No no no no! What's wrong with the guys next door? You have to understand, we have a gorgeous, intelligent and much sought after daughter. She never had a gap between boyfriends, she could have anybody she wanted. Of course, we tried to talk her out of her insanity, that he could be a serial killer and worst.

Meantime, while we were going through the hysterics of our daughter's news, the same was happening to our future son in laws' family thousands of miles away. The same anxiety, the same question 'how can you tell you like or love each other when you haven't even seen each other in person? Well, to cut this story short, next thing, we find ourselves, two families, celebrating our children's wedding in beautiful Hawaii, laughing, dancing and looking and acting like normal people.

If the internet is the new cyber hunting ground, we need to check out the dotcom cupids to provide us with answers how it all works.

One of the top players, eHarmony's tell us, that their singles matching models are based on 35 years of clinical experience and rigorous relationship research to determine which commonalities between partners are consistently associated with successful relationships.

Their cornerstones success are their questionnaires which differentiates their services from other internet dating sites. Matching is based on a 29 Dimensions of Compatibility, which they claim is scientifically proven to predict happier, healthier long-term relationships.

A few major players:

www.Match.com

www.eHarmony.com

www.True.com

SinglesNet.com