Dione David's love story is a modern kind of fairytale. It starts on Facebook and ends with a wedding just outside Paris.
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The internet was the only way for her to meet Guillaume, 30. How else could the woman up until recently based in Canberra reach the conclusion that a man living in a small village was the love of her life?
Dione, 27, says, ''We often say, 'Can you imagine if we had not met each other?' ''We can't. It's unfathomable. Unthinkable. He is the right person, and I would not have found him without Facebook.''
Her tale is not ''boy meets girl''. It's more like: girl uses Human Pets app on Facebook to find native French speaker in bid to hone language skills. Exchanges messages, then emails, with boy. Girl heads to Britain on working holiday. Girl and boy meet each other almost every weekend after their face-to-face meeting. Girl and boy live together for six months until girl returns to Australia for sake of her career. Boy follows her, boards plane with engagement ring, proposes on Christmas Eve after storm-related plane delay. The rest is history.
Human Pets is worth explaining. Formerly accessible via Facebook, it is now a social network in its own right. Users make friends, date, hang out and flirt in a free virtual world ''where all users are animals''. When Dione met her future husband, they were in the guise of a white cat and baby tiger respectively.
''Everyone goes on Human Pets for different reasons,'' she says. ''The thing about the website is it opens up new avenues.
''You don't have to just connect with people within a 100-mile radius of yourself, you can connect with anyone in the entire world. You are no longer bound by proximity.''
Dione and her friends who have also found love via Facebook or through dating websites are part of what demographer and author of Man Drought, Bernard Salt, calls ''the new normal''.
He says, ''There probably is still a bit of a stigma around going on a dating site, but that is fast receding, particularly for older people.''
It was those older people who were more likely to seek a mate through a dating website, according to Salt. He posits those younger than 35 are more likely to use the internet to connect with, canvas and filter prospective mates. Over 35s are more likely to use it to identify prospective partner candidates.
On the stigma of finding love online, Dione says, ''In the past, online dating was almost a last-ditch effort, a refuge of the scourge of the earth, for people who couldn't find anyone in person.
''In reality, people don't want to settle because someone's close by and it's easy. They want to find the right person and the internet provides a lot of scope for that.''
In the digital world, there is a whole lot of lust as well as love and given the sharing nature of the internet, a lot of it becomes public. We can be voyeurs and read Shane Warne's sweaty, breathless tweets to Liz Hurley, or Tiger Woods' downright dirty text messages to his many women, or giggle at the predicament of former US Congressman Anthony Weiner: a widely disseminated crotch shot. Sexual desire is out there in cyberspace, but so is love. Would-be lovers and the lovelorn keep websites like RSVP.com.au reporting speedy growth. The website claims online dating is the third most preferred way to meet a new partner in the ACT, behind via family and friends and interest-based activities.
RSVP has, according to spokeswoman Melanie Dudgeon, had its client numbers increase by about 61 per cent in the ACT in the last five years. The ACT represents about 3 per cent of its 1.8 million registered members nationwide. Dudgeon won't reveal how many of the 1.8 million are active users, but does boast of more than 8000 marriages and 800 babies thanks to RSVP matches.
The website's last ''Date of the Nation'' report found that in the ACT, 34 per cent of women and 23 per cent of men had tried online dating. Twenty-one per cent of members were aged 18 to 28; 32 per cent fell in the 29-38 bracket; 24 per cent were aged 39-49; 15 per cent were 49-58 years old, and 8 per cent fell into the 59 and older category.
Dudgeon explains users can narrow their search to those they'd most like to meet. It would seem this does not allow for the potential of a spark between a person and someone who does not tick all of his or her boxes.
In response, Dudgeon says online daters are encouraged to consider how flexible they'll be.
''We don't have any magic potion to have the exact person you're looking for all the time, but we do match a lot of people to other people,'' she says.
To take a look at the online love marketplace, for want of a better term, this reporter builds a Match.com profile with the moniker ''Iamajourno''.
It is interesting to look at the way people present themselves in hopes a mate will come calling. Some of the men are all sunglasses and muscle shirts. They pose in the manner of GQ models. Others are refreshingly honest in their approach and offer a simple close up of their warts-and-all face. Others have the grim air of one posing for a mugshot. Some of the women appear startlingly youthful in a way that doesn't tally with their listed age, like the 37-year-old who resembles Miley Cyrus. One lady euphemistically describes her body as ''all curves, no angles''.
It is a little hard to imagine someone feeling the spark of passion by looking at website. But people are trying. They're casting their nets. A suited 37-year-old reveals his love of building aeroplane models. His spelling is atrocious. He lives with his parents. He is just over 155 centimetres tall.
Another, who is 186 centimetres tall and a guitarist, is at least articulate. Single for close to four years, he yearns for intelligent conversation.
''I miss having that someone special that's just there to share life with,'' he explains. He is bluntly honest. His finances are in doubt. ''If it's a sugar daddy you're looking for, please look elsewhere.''
The Miley Cyrus woman dreams of something so simple it's quite humbling: ''Just a normal man with a kind heart and serious intentions.''
Online love may be on the rise, but it is not useful to look at it through rose-coloured glasses. Women have spoken out on date rape at the hands of men met online. Scammers are out there too, looking to ensnare the heart, then the wallet. While aware of the risks, Dione had no misgivings about meeting Guillaume for the first time.
''The strange thing is it wasn't strange,'' she says. ''At some point, you have to let your guard down. You have to take a leap.''