Match.com is out. Facebook & the other social networks are the new way to meet people online. But it's not quite as simple as posting a profile and waiting for messages to arrive. It takes a little bit of thought and strategy, and you can meet lots of great people.

The first step is to become Facebook "friends" with as many of your friends, colleagues, classmates, etc. as possible. A great way to do that is to use their "Friend Finder" to import your email address book so you can quickly see who else you know that is already on Facebook. But read the instructions carefully so you don't mistakenly spam you entire address book with an invitation to connect. You'll be amazed who you can reconnect with! You'll also be surprised by how many of your friends are listed as single.

Next, spend some time checking out your friends' friends. You'll never know who may catch your eye. If they're a friend of a good friend, ask for an intro. But if you don't feel comfortable asking for an intro from a friend, then spend some time taking a look at their photos, etc. and see if there's anything you can comment on that's witty or interesting. Even better, watch your news feed and see who your friends are posting photos of & interacting with, then comment on some of those photos. Or, if you want to be a little bit more stealth about it, send them a message, rather than commenting on a post or a photo. If they're at all interested, they'll probably respond to the comment, or maybe even comment on your wall. At that point, I'd say switch to sending a Facebook message, rather than having the whole conversation via a wall or via comments. But I'd still recommend keeping the notes short.

Once you've sent a few notes back and forth, see if you can get together in person. Maybe you have activities in common? I've always found that's the best approach. Cutting to the chase and getting together in person sooner rather than later also helps you determine if you have any chemistry with this person. Otherwise, you may become great pen-pals via Facebook, but realize once you meet in person that there's no chemistry. Then it's pretty awkward if you want to break off the pen-pal relationship.

Lastly, if you set up your security settings so that "friends of friends" can view your profile, you'll be much more likely to have someone stumble upon your profile and write you a note or a witty comment. If you have it totally private so only your friends can view it, it won't make it easy for that special someone to find you.

Good luck!