from Brooklyn, NY for suggesting this week’s topic: Online dating, once a fringe and stigmatized activity, is now over a billion industry.

Over 40 million Americans have given online dating a try, and over a of the American couples married between 20 met online.

Most living grown-ups have a history of exes, hang-ups and maybe a nervous breakdown or two. They know that you have a past, but they don’t want to hear about it. Some online dating profiles read like shopping lists.

They’re looking for someone with brown eyes, short hair, between 5’10” and 6′, from north-east Birmingham, and so on. First, they make the writer sound like a control freak.

Say which music you like, and your favourite place to see your friends.

Specific information does more than make you sound interesting – it also gives potential dates something to write to you about.

Is online dating making the world better and dating more effective, or is something important being lost or sacrificed as a result?Instead of interacting with the people around her, she chose to search for a companion elsewhere online.I wondered to myself, is this what online dating has done to us? Forget that stuff about playing hard to get, expecting the man to pay, and never having sex on a first date. “I cook a mean paella and I’ll always try to make you laugh” is good, but “I have a fantastic job and no-one can understand why I’m single” is not.Today’s rules are a little more user-friendly – but some of them may surprise you. Many dating profiles start with statements like: “I’m no good at this kind of thing”. If you put yourself down, you won’t sound attractively self-effacing. The aim of the online dating game is to catch the eye of someone you have lots in common with.