By Lindsay Clark
Jill is not her real name but when telling about on-line searches for love, people tend to want to remain anonymous.
Jill, a senior majoring in elementary education got on a plane in January and flew south to meet a 22-year-old guy she only knew from on-line.
'I was so excited to meet him. He seemed like such a cool person from his emails,' she said.
'Plus my brother happened to live in that same town, so he and his girlfriend came with me so it wouldn''t be a dangerous or awkward situation,' she said.
On-line dating services are becoming more popular, but the question is, are they really safe? And why is it embarrassing to admit participation?
With hundreds of services like udate.com, kiss.com, lovecity.com and even a site catered to Latter-day Saint singles, ldssingles.com, love on line is just a mouse click away.
Several Web sites boast over hundreds of thousands of personal ads and add up to 500 new members daily.
Also claiming to provide an equal ratio of male to female personals, on-line dating proves to be an option not just for girls.
For Jill, it was a positive, fun and harmless encounter.
But she, along with other Brigham Young University students who use dating services, don''t want their names used because of what people might think or say.
Professor and Chair Robert Stahmann of the Marriage and Family Therapy department, agrees on-line dating services are becoming a popular thing.
'If it''s just used for introductory purposes it can be similar to placing a personal ad in the newspaper,' Stahmann said.
The real problem with on-line dating may occur if a relationship develops on-line where that individual may never really know who they''re talking or writing to, Stahmann said.
As far as an attitude of embarrassment, it''s just a natural sentiment that comes from feeling unusual for having to use the Internet to find relationships, he said.
'It''s comparable to feeling embarrassed to have to tell your roommate to set you up with someone because you can''t get a date,' Stahmann said.
Despite how people feel about disclosing on-line dating experiences, other BYU students have mixed feelings about cyber-dating in general.
'I know there are success stories but I think the whole on-line dating thing is pretty embarrassing and lame,' said Amber Henrie, 23 a senior from Charlotte, N.C., majoring in Dance.
When on-line people can make themselves out to be someone they''re not, she said. Plus you never know what psycho could be on the other end.
Henrie said she would never personally do it because it is a joke to so many people, with everything on-line dating insinuates.
Whether people will ever be comfortable admitting use of on-line dating services or not, thousands of testimonies across the web prove that the on-line dating phenomenon continues as people everywhere find love across cyberspace.