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At their first meeting, Gaspar noticed Bob's bad haircut, which she says looked as if it had been done using a bowl. But she loved his sense of humor. A year after she signed up online and 10 months after their first e-chat, Frances and Bob got hitched. "I had been a very private person, so online dating was a big step for me," says Gaspar, who had been widowed after 39 years of marriage. "But now it's all joy. We both feel like we're 20 again."

Some e-daters have learned to be skeptical of what they read. It's tempting for many roving the Web to gussy up personal details, such as age. Some exaggerate slightly, while others go way over the line. Women defend the age fib, arguing that men sometimes unfairly filter out potential mates above arbitrary age limits. "Online profiles often stretch the truth," Mynchenberg says, having looked at over 1,000 in the past few months. "Many women seem to include pictures taken at least a few years earlier, and they leave out their real age. I'm amazed by how many are stuck at 69."

On the other hand, many women quickly grow leery of leches who lurk on these sites. "Some fellows are married, others [are] interested only in sex, and there's even the occasional 16-year-old just kidding around," says Solomon. "But there are many who are very nice, and those are the ones you end up spending time with."

Like personal-ad services in print, Web personals have a raunchy side too. On Lavalife.com, many men and women over 60 post ads in a section called Intimate Encounters. Using the screen name Cleopatra, for instance, a 70-year-old from Pennsylvania lists Tantric sex as her online objective. "Now is my time to 'make hay while the sun shines,'" her profile says. Even Mynchenberg says he recently joined AdultFriendFinder.com, which he calls a "sexy" singles site, because many of the older members on other sites seem to want more romance and less sex.

Some sites help members avoid the pitfalls of online dating by offering specialized screening services. True.com, for example, is a new $30-a-month dating service that checks public marital and criminal records to make sure that potential members are single nonfelons. And sites like rightstuffdating.com, SquareDating.com and GoodGenes.com invite only graduates of elite universities to join. (Although those sites check applicants' college records, there's no guarantee that the occasional Princeton imposter won't try to date up into the Ivies.) There are also ethnic and religious niche sites like JDate.com for Jewish singles and DharmaDate.com for Buddhists. For those seeking partners to ponder life's last, deepest questions, there's soulmatch.com.

With all these virtual hookup joints, online dating is connecting more than just singles looking for love. It's also bridging the generation gap between some grandparents and grandchildren. "My granddaughter left me a message one night complaining that I had so many more dates than she did," said a 73-year-old Floridian who goes by the name Classy Lady on JDate.com. Dubbing herself "the hottest gal in Boca," she teased her granddaughter about her abundant suitors and her nights on the town.