New Trend in Online Dating: Outsourcing

Are you an executive too busy to scan OkCupid profiles? Are you a shy person who wishes online dating could be even less personal? Then you, my friend, need the services of Virtual Dating Assistants, a full-scale Internet-dating outsourcing company. Like a modern-day Cyrano, Virtual Dating Assistants—or one of its competitors in the small but growing field—will handle the tedious business of sending messages to attractive people and arranging dates with them, the Washington Post reports.

For $600, Virtual Dating Assistants guarantees you two dates a month. “I get paid for each woman who writes back positively,” explains one employee. “It's very analogous to sales, like a cold-caller or a telemarketer.” And several executives swear by it. “Spending all this time doing things that are purely almost secretarial doesn't make any sense,” says one. But online dating experts find the process unsavory. “It's awful!” says one blogger. “You're lying about yourself.” (More online dating stories.)