The dating game.

• Author: Beck, Cathie
• Position: Matchmaking

When Leslie Lessig talks about matchmaking for her busy professional clientele, she does so with all the been-there-done-that understanding of any single person who's ever lived out of a suitcase.

"This business,"--dating and/or matchmaking services--is a booming industry that employs a variety of methods--with varied revenue streams--for helping the lonely hearts, the workaholics, the Internet generation and anyone else seeking a romantic relationship.

"I was either on a plane or in a strange city," says Lessig, now a franchise owner of It's Just Lunch!, a Denver singles matchmaking service."I lived, literally, on the road 100 percent of the time. So I understand the challenges of being a single professional with no time to meet anyone--and that experience helps me tremendously in this business."

Doubting Thomases need only look at the numbers that have signed on to a popular online dating service that boasts about 75 marriages a month. That service is Match.com, a subsidiary of Ticketmaster, first launched in 1995 in San Francisco. Match.com claims that more than 5 million single people have their "profiles" posted on the site--and 75,000 of those are Coloradans.

The online introduction service's third quarter 2002 financial report states that more than 653,000 of those people pay to communicate with other singles on the site, and revenues for third quarter 2002 were up 167 percent over third quarter 2001.

"Every person I know who is single thinks of us as one of their dating options," says Kathleen Roldan, Match.com's director of dating. "That explains all the interest. Today, the online dating process is just another part of dating if you're single.

"The younger population grew up with Internet, so they see it as a tool for doing things in their day-to-day life," Roldan adds. "As more people hear about meeting online, it increases the popularity. There will always be single people, and their pools of other single people get smaller over time. Online meeting connects similar-interest people with the possibility of eventually meeting someone they'd never otherwise have the opportunity to meet."

Lessig, who employs four people in her Denver office, which enrolls more than 800 members, echoes Roldan's understanding of society's increasingly casual attitude toward catching a mate via unconventional methods.

"As a busy, working adult, it's not like college where everyone you meet is single. We hand-select dates for people based on who they...