IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO RAISE A GOOD DATER

What would you do if you saw these picture on a dating site? Roll your eyes? Point and laugh? Copy and paste the picture into an email and announce to your friends and family that THIS is why you've given up on dating and are becoming a eunuch or a nun? Before you bust out the castrating shears or the habit, a new dating site called DateBuzz is giving you another option. Imagine if you could filter your searches so that you no longer have to see the shirtless guy posing in front his Trans-Am, or read the profile written by the teacher who is "definatley looking for someone inteligant" - unless of course, you're into that. DateBuzz allows you to tag pieces of profiles you like or dislike so your search results get smarter. If Jdate had this feature, I never would have posted this, this, this, this, this...well, you get the idea.

The premise behind DateBuzz is to not only help members sift through the wretched refuse found on most dating sites of poorly written profiles and self-taken cell phone pictures, but to create a community of daters that provides feedback to its members. If the picture of you leaning over so that your breasts cover your buddha belly isn't working for your target audience, they'll let you know so you can change it. If you're not getting positive feedback about listing the bible as your favorite book (because everyone knows "the bible is my favorite book" is code for "I'm illiterate," except, of course, for you), you'll know it's time to expand your reading selection, or to start reading, period. By the same token, if people like that you volunteer at a nursing home once a month, perhaps others may be encouraged to do the same, if for no other reason than to make themselves seem more attractive to you and the rest of the dating community. (Or they could just lie about it, but at least they'd be lying about something other than their incomes or weights).

Of course, DateBuzz is susceptible to the same pitfalls as other dating sites. The best looking will likely get the lion's share of the positive feedback and many will filter their searches so that only the hotties pop up. But the idea of a site that organically cleanses itself of the dull and inane, while encouraging the attractive - physical, emotional and intellectual - at least in theory - is long overdue. Forget the "dating guru" who can't get a date herself, or the "relationship expert" who looks like the only relationships he's ever been in charged him by the hour. Who better to tell you what's good and what sucks about your profile than the people you're trying to attract? If DateBuzz succeeds, the community it's trying to create will have your dating back, so that you don't wonder why no one is responding to your profile that includes a picture of you flipping off the photographer. And if this site serves no greater good than discouraging people from listing "House of Payne" as a show they never forget to TiVo, it will have performed a much needed service for daters, as well as human beings everywhere.