Jeff Whitfield shouldn’t need any help meeting women. When he talks in his calm, Kentucky drawl about his past rambunctiousness and the salvation his faith provided him, he sounds charming, self-possessed, and likeable—not the kind of guy who would need an online dating service. In fact, he wouldn’t have expected it ether. Jeff’s initial impression of the people who use internet dating sites was characteristically blunt “they’re losers” he used to say.

The problem was that the people he kept meeting weren’t exactly winners. Jeff was tired of the bar scene but wasn’t sure where else to go, so he thought he’d give Catholicsingles.com a try. After a few fizzled attempts, he met Nicole, who worked at Starbucks out in California. They agreed on everything from natural family planning to the greatness of Braveheart, and felt an intense connection that grew stronger with every e-mail and long distance phone call. Their first meeting occured about a month after they had started talking, when Jeff paid for Nicole to visit him in Indiana, where he was working in student affairs at the University of Southern Indiana. He asked her to marry him the weekend she arrived. They married on August 16, 2003 and a little over a month ago they celebrated the birth of their first child.

Jeff and Nicole are not alone. More and more people are going online to find a date or meet the love-of-their-life. Specialty Match Network, a company that runs a host of internet dating sites, cites research on their site proclaiming the online dating industry as “one of the top ten growth areas online.” They go on that “the number of U.S. online dating participants will rise from 15 million this year to 24 million by 2007.” Internet dating, according to the numbers, just makes sense. “160 million people have internet access and 80 million people are single, and it only stands to reason that people don’t want to have to introduce themselves to strangers at strange places to meet someone” says Evan Katz, an expert on online dating and the author of I Can’t Believe I’m Buying This Book: A Common-Sense Guide to Successful Internet Dating, “Lots of people are looking to fall in love and [the internet] is in fact the safest and easiest way to meet people.”

A subset of the folks looking for love online, however, are looking for people with very specific common interests ranging from vegetarians on the hunt for people who don’t hunt (www.veggiedate.com) to country folks just looking to “let that country guy or girl lasso your heart.” (www.countrysinglesonline.com). Of course, many serious internet daters are also interested in meeting people who share their faith. If you’re interested in meeting a nice Jewish boy or girl, www.jdate.com has over half a million members looking to do the same thing. In a nation where too many folks still think Ramadan is a hotel chain, muslim singles can choose from a diverse group of fellow believers at www.twomuslims.com. Christians have even more options: they can buy a special somebody some virtual coffee at www.christiancafe.com or search for either a potential match or their favorite scripture passage (or, presumably, both) on the front page of www.bigchurch.com.

According to Brian Barcaro, co-founder of both catholicmatch.org and conservativematch.org, people come to his sites because they are looking for a person with a specific characteristic. For Catholicmatch, that characteristic is faith. “I would say that the only thing unique is that the Catholics that come to our site put a higher priority on their faith—they’re specifically looking for other Catholics.”

Actually, Catholics have plenty of options, though some sites are a little more about the dating and a lot less about the Catholic. Web surfers would be hard pressed to find anything Catholic at www.catholicintroductions.com besides their name and www.executivecatholicdating.com seems more concerned about a potential partner’s pedigree and income potential than their faith. Other sites, like www.catholicmatchmaker.net, are just fronts for much larger matchmaking engines. In fact, a prospective dater at catholicmatchmaker, with just two quick links, can “meet lonely house wives” or place naked ads on sites that would make porn star Jenna Jameson blush.

Three Catholic sites, however, proclaim themselves as the only authentic, online Catholic singles services in the United States. All Catholic-owned and operated, www.catholicsingles.com is the oldest and the most diverse service, www.catholicmatch.com has the biggest numbers and the most aggressive web presence, and www.avemariagsingles.com boasts the fewest members but uses a far more focused and targeted approach.

Each of these sites approach their Catholic-ness differently but they all use it as their selling point and market niche, not mention as their spiritual reason for being. “Don’t be fooled by others,” Catholic Singles warns in its “about us” section, Join a true Catholic community!” Catholic Match makes the same distinction: “First and foremost we are a 100% Catholic site. Many sites these days have ‘sections’ for Catholics but are not really Catholic and may not even promote Catholic values. WE ARE! & WE DO!” While these two sites are looking for the Catholics in the crowd, Ave Maria is looking for a specific crowd among the Catholics, touting “a service solely dedicated to helping faithful, practicing Catholics find their future spouse and help them become a better follower of Christ.”

Tens of thousands of Catholics are creating community and meeting their future spouses online at sites like Catholic Singles, Catholic Match, and Ave Maria Singles. In the next few weeks, BustedHalo.com will examine these sites and share the stories of those for whom the sites have worked and those for whom they haven’t. For Catholics like Jeff and Nicole Whitfield, these sites are as much about meeting their mates as they are about encountering God in both quiet and dramatic ways: “In the way that [I used to meet guys]—how would I meet anybody from Kentucky?” Nicole asked. “When I hugged him for the first time, I felt like I was at home. I felt at peace. In subtle ways, we see God every single day.” Jeff agrees, remembering how Catholic Singles—and finding Nicole through it—were God’s reminders to him that his life was not over. “Right when I said I was gonna quit, He was like: no you’re not, you’re gonna quit when I tell you to. You’re gonna quit when you meet her.”

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