Features

I recently accepted an assignment to attend a Cybersalon debate entitled “Matchmakers Duke it Out Over Best Strategies.” Though I didn’t think I was the best person to attend since I’m married and haven’t been in the dating game since 1983, I was curious to learn more about this growing social phenomenon. 

And besides, I’m a believer in keeping your options open. You never know when you may need the help of a dating service.  

About 75 people crowded into the Berkeley Hillside Club, located just above Shattuck Avenue on Cedar Street. I looked around the room. I wasn’t much older than a lot of the folks attending. Pizza and beverages were available and as promised, at 7 p.m. the debate began. 

Actually, it wasn’t much of a debate since it took most of the allotted hour to introduce people in the audience and the panel—which included representatives from eMode, Tribes, Table for Six and SmartFlirts. 

Local resident, high tech publicist and moderator Sylvia Paull started the Cybersalon eleven years ago in her home with the goal of gathering together friends and people she admired to discuss how technology is changing society. The events grew so big and popular that she had to move them from her house to a larger venue. 

This is the first year that Cybersalon has taken place at the Hillside Club. 

Among the audience members Sylvia introduced was Lee Felsenstein, the inventor of the world’s first portable personal computer, called the Osborne-1. 

Felsenstein said he met his wife in a chat room on The Well. After several correspondences via e-mail, they met for a live date. She wasn’t his type, he said; she was overweight. But he soon realized his ideal was not necessarily his life partner. 

Seven years later they were married. 

The first panelist to speak was Mark Pincus who is creating a Web site called Tribes. 

“It’s a social network,” said Mark. “A way to connect to each other on the Internet without being buried in a database or spending money to find one another.” 

Mark’s original goal behind Tribes was to get a date for himself. He was attracted to cyberspace matchmaking because his sister had found her husband on jdate.com, a Web site for Jews seeking other Jews. When Sylvia asked Mark if he was currently seeing someone, he said yes. 

“And how did you meet this special someone?” asked Sylvia. 

“The traditional way,” said Mark. “At a party.” 

Psychologist Dr. Courtney Johnson, eMode’s director of research, was the next presenter. 

She said her goal was to find the formula for love by using personality tests that access values, attitudes, bonding and communication styles. She has also developed a compatibility test to match eMode users with others on the site.  

Table for Six founder Julia Paiva was the only representative from the non-Internet variety of dating services. She said that men and women want the same thing and that they need to be physically in front of one another in order to experience attraction. She provides that face-to-face contact by setting up dinners and outdoor activities in which like-minded singles can meet.  

Ned Engelke explained how SmartFlirts utilizes cell phone text messaging to make instant connections with others. He said text messaging “removes the overhead for blind dating,” i.e. getting ready for a date, giving information about your whereabouts to a friend in case you need a bail out, etc. 

With only 160 characters allowed in text messages, Ned enthusiastically declared, “You don’t have to be Tolstoy in order to get a date!” 

Cynthia Typaldos’s angle on cyberspace dating was different from the other panelists. 

She’s mostly interested in connecting professional guilds, but she had originally played matchmaker via a golfing Web site in which she connected golfers with other golfers who were looking for playing partners.  

Last to speak was dana boyd (her name has been legally changed to lowercase), who didn’t represent any company but who has recently arrived in Berkeley (via MIT and Brown) and seems to be an expert on all kinds of humanistic topics including types of dating behaviors which she divides into three groups: random hook-up, asking a friend, and getting to know the “familiar stranger,” the person you see at the bus stop everyday but don’t necessarily talk with. 

Finally, from the audience came a representative of PlanetOut, a highly successful Internet site that connects gays and lesbians, although its CEO, Megan Smith, admitted that she’d first met her life partner in the flesh at a job networking party.  

What’s a 51-year-old woman, who’s been married eleven years and with the same guy for twenty, to think of all this? 

Well, it was nice to be in a room full of optimists, people who believe they can help others to connect with one another, and with folks who are interested in doing the connecting. 

However, being the old-fashioned wedded type, I have to admit that I’m interested in the after effects of marriage more than the beginnings. 

By that I mean, what happens after you meet Mr. or Ms. Right, fall in love, get married and then, suddenly or gradually, the relationship changes? 

As the wife of a man who had an accident after I’d said “I do … in sickness and in health, and until death do us part,” I want to know how one keeps those promises when real life, not cyberspace, intervenes.  

Cybersalon meets at the Berkeley Hillside Club the third Sunday of every month, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. 

Next month’s forum is entitled Digital Democracy. The speaker is Joan Blades, founder of www.moveon.org. 

For more information about Cybersalon, contact Sylvia Paull at whoisylvia@aol.com. A list of upcoming Cyberspace events can be found at www.hillsideclub.org 

Tribes: www.markpincus.blogspot.com  

eMode: www.emode.com 

Table for Six: www.tableforsix.com 

SmartFlirts: www.smartflirts.com 

Cynthia Typaldos Consulting: www.typ aldos.com 

PlanetOut: www.planetout.com