Feature Article

Three years after they met and fell in love, Keith and Lily are finally dating.

That may sound backward, but the Orlando couple are together thanks to that most forward-moving creation -- the Internet.

They wooed each other online through the written word, saving e-mail messages much like sweethearts of yore bundled love letters with ribbon, pulling them out and re-reading them in quiet moments, savoring phrases, thrilling to choice words.

And may the cybergods be praised for instant messaging!

"My heart would pitter-patter when his name popped up" on the screen, said Lily Frazier, 37.

"It was the strangest thing," said Keith Goldman, 39. "When I first started realizing I was developing feelings, I felt really wrong about it. This was just words on a screen."

And those screens couldn't have been farther apart. Goldman lived in Orlando. Frazier was 2,553 miles away in Seattle.

"He always complained, whenever we'd get on message boards, that everybody wanted to meet," Frazier said. "I always said, 'You don't have to worry about me.' "

That would change.

Among the estimated 115 million Americans currently cruising the Internet, about 7 percent -- around 8 million -- use online dating services or peruse online personal ads, according to Internet research firm Jupiter Communications.

Those computer users can access hundreds of Web sites devoted to cyberdating. Most sites allow users to post personal data and search data posted by others. Some are free, some charge a monthly fee. Some let you find your perfect match -- other services have the computer search for compatible couples.

One of the oldest and largest sites, America Online's Love@AOL, claims 4 million visitors a month, and that jumps by 30 percent around Valentine's Day.

AOL also takes credit for 10,000 marriages.

The site (at www.love.com or Keyword: Love for AOL subscribers) currently boasts more than half a million personal ads posted by women seeking men, men seeking women, and various other combinations.

The service, which is free, allows users to divulge, if desired, personal information such as height, weight, income, occupation, religion and interests. They also can post a photo or essay, and answer questions about what they're looking for in a potential mate. Users can browse all the personals, or search for specific characteristics, such as, say, all brown-haired 38-year-old African-American women from Orlando who like to fly-fish.

Why would someone post such personal data for all the World Wide Web to see?

Why, fans of online dating would argue, would people go on blind dates? Or dance with strangers in clubs? Or visit bookstores just to look for a date?

"We find many, many people who tell us 'There are few opportunities in my life to meet somebody where I'm not at a loud party or smoky bar,' " said Bill Schreiner, AOL's formally titled "CEO of Love" and head of the site.

"I believe the computer has brought back one of the oldest traditions in the world -- the exchange of love letters," Schreiner added. "It's a great communication tool. People get a chance to precisely articulate their feelings, and listen to someone like you don't do in regular conversation."

That's the plus side.

But there is a dark side to online dating, and experts advise newcomers to test the waters before jumping hook, line and sinker into the cyberdating pool.

"I first went online in 1993 to explore the possibilities for doing research as a teacher. I discovered if you're literate and can type quickly, and you don't ask women what color their underwear is, you can make friends that way," said Richard Booth, a California English professor and author of Romancing the Net, a guide to online love. "I was single, divorced. I made a few alliances online and got a sense of that world that way."

But Booth ran into trouble in his first foray into online dating. He met a lively woman from Maine, and they'd spend hours in imaginary romantic dinner dates, describing for each other the setting and the meal, indulging in witty conversation.

"Then about two weeks into that, she mentioned that her husband was in the next room playing poker," Booth said. "That's when I got the sense people don't always tell the truth online."

Misrepresentation is one of the most oft-cited drawbacks to online dating. It can be tempting to shave a few pounds, add a few inches, or tell even bigger whoppers, when you're shielded by your computer screen.

People who go online looking for love using an idealized version of themselves are doomed to failure, Booth said, especially when they meet another person who's also telling fibs.

"They become two cartoon characters who meet and fall in love," he said. "Then they get cold feet when it comes time to meet."

Booth has put together a list of cyberdating do's and don'ts in his book and on his Web site at www.romancesite.com/index.html. His tips include: be patient and honest; be cautious about using the word 'love'; don't quit your job and move across country for someone you barely know; and keep a sense of humor.

Booth has an arsenal of horror stories, including a woman who quit her job and rented her apartment, only to find out her cross-country online love was married, and another 40-year-old woman who ended up unknowingly having an online affair with a 16-year-old boy.

"I have a friend who says the nice thing about this medium is you get to know people from the inside out," Booth said. "But it's also important to get to know them from the outside in, and to eliminate that from the relationship is dangerous."  

Keith and Lily felt the need to get to know the outside about five months after their initial online conversation.

It seems e-mails and online chats couldn't contain their ardor. First the pair sent photographs, then made phone calls, and finally, Lily Frazier flew to Orlando.

There was a long kiss, a few moments in which everyone else in the airport seemed to disappear, and a long weekend spent in, says Goldman, "a mixture of ecstatic, we-can't-believe-this-is-happening romance, plus straight talk about the future."

That talk included their two ex-spouses, his two children, and her three.

Frazier, who worked in retail, soon was ready to quit her job and move to Orlando. Goldman, a social worker, said no -- he didn't want to separate her children from their father.

That problem was solved when Frazier's ex also fell in love online and moved to be with his sweetheart -- in Lake County.

Now Frazier, Goldman and the five kids are all together in Orlando.

On alternate weekends, when the kids are gone, the two go out. They plan to marry but haven't set a date.

"Marriage is a definite," Goldman said. "What we're waiting for at this point is to iron out some of the dynamics of family blending and step-parenting.

"But I don't think there's any doubt -- this is the person I want to grow old with and get one of those tacky RVs and drive around with. . ."

"No-no-no-no-no!" said Frazier, referring to the tacky RV and not the marriage, which she wants too. "I'm just enjoying the relationship," she added, "and I don't want to complicate it right now."

They just started dating, after all.