High-tech dating leaves out the fun

The record album, the horse-drawn carriage, the abacus, the establishment of dating - that's just a short list of some things that have become obsolete. And here is a list what replaced them: the compact disc, the automobile, the calculator, high-tech dating.I'm naming this phenomenon. High-tech dating is the use of technology to forego as much face-to-face getting to know each other as possible.Let's say technological dating encompasses Facebook, MySpace, AOL Instant Messenger, e-mails and text messages. If so, the majority of the couples I know became acquainted through high-tech dating. I believed Bob Dylan when he said 'the times they are a-changin'. And for the most part, societal progression is a good thing. .

Dating Site Is Good Medicine for Those Ailing

Online dating sites such as Match.com and eHarmony draw millions with a promise of replacing chance meetings with a targeted computer search for a soul mate. Now there's Prescription4Love.com, a dating Web site "for people with special conditions."

Launched last year, it was created by Ricky Durham in memory of his brother, James Keith Durham, who died in 2004 after a 15-year battle with Crohn's disease.

"He couldn't meet people," remembers Durham. "He had a colostomy bag, so he didn't feel comfortable meeting people." Things might have been different, Durham believes, if his brother had been able to find somebody who shared -- and understood -- his illness. The Web site allows users to do just that by searching according to different conditions, such as AIDS, infertility and obesity.