Illustration: David Foldvari  The flaw in dating websites'
business model came into focus last week. They seek to make
money out of loneliness and sexual frustration but their
services threaten the existence of those very feelings. It's not
the same as selling food or porn, which satisfied customers
return to buy more of. If a dating website has any properly
satisfied customers, it'll never hear from them again.  You may
think that's unlikely to be a pressing problem. Perhaps you're
of the view that internet dating is the last resort of the
socially dysfunctional or irredeemably unattractive – that
signing up for a dating website is just the final hopeless
gesture you make before resigning yourself to dying alone. On a
singleton's "to do" list, it's one place above "Bequeath all my
money to a cats' home".  If so, you're railing against the tide
of general chat. Everyone's saying how internet dating is the
future – the technological solution to busy, modern disconnected
urban life. "There's no shame in it," pe