Summer is nearly year-round in southeast Texas so it should be no surprise that the free stuff to see and do in the sprawling metropolitan area of the nation’s fourth-biggest city focuses on the outdoors.FORT WAYNE – those online singles hubs that help narrow the field before you even play on it – have been around for years. Ask anyone who has trolled through thousands of matchmaking sites, searching for Mr. or Mrs. Right (or Right Now) and they’ll tell you: There is no shortage of dating services promising to bring singles of a similar ethnicity, religion or political ideology together.
But what about people who don’t care whether their future spouse is a fiscal conservative? What about people who want to spend the rest of their lives with someone who has the proper facial hair?
Mustache lovers, rejoice.
Stache Passions, a niche dating website, is designed specifically for people who want to date men with mustaches. Do you prefer “The Walrus?” or “The Pencil?” Stache Passions has thoughtfully broken these preferences down into categories, which also include “Handlebar,” “Fu Manchu” and “Freestyle.”
StachePassions.com is only one of the sites provided by Passions Network, a New York company that provides 150 niche dating and social networking sites, from Hot Sauce Passions and Werewolf Passions to Vegan Passions and Trek (as in “Star Trek”) Passions.
The company launched its first 100 sites in 2004, focusing primarily on traditional demographics, such as ethnicity. Since then, the concept has shifted to include 50 subcultures, with 50 more ready to be launched this year, says Michael Carter, president of Passions Network.
“We try to find lots of areas of possible interest,” he says. “But some of them are really just for fun. Around the holidays we launched a site for fans of Festivus, just because I’m a big ‘Seinfeld’ fan. But I was really surprised at how Stache Passions has taken off.”
Carter and his staff don’t take all of their groups too seriously. A recent site for single mimes, for instance, is more about the personality of the people who add it to their Passions Network profile, he says.
“I doubt very seriously loving mimes is a deal breaker for anyone,” Carter says. “But if it is, now they have somewhere to go.”
Not loving mustaches or mimes doesn’t preclude you from finding a mate, however. Niche dating sites continue to grow in popularity and abundance, so single farmers, Mac users and vegetarians can all find sites devoted specifically to them. Here’s a sampling of what you can find in the virtual singles’ bars.
Cupidtino.com: For those wanting to “Meet an Apple fanboy or girl,” and avoid all those PC-loving, Docker’s wearin’ philistines, this site promises to bring together “lovers of beautiful hardware and software design.” A large majority of the members (known as “Machearts”) are creative professionals – graphic designers, photographers, artists, programmers – and are looking for that special lady who understands that the OP-1 would be even more ravishing with a pulsaret synthesis mode.
EquestrianCupid.com: This site is dedicated to horse lovers. Not the kind who devour “Wild Heart Ranch” books by the truckload and hope, one day, to get their braces off and ask Jimmy Trolio to the big dance. This site is where adult horse-lovin’ singles can meet, schedule rides, share experiences and talk about the first time they ever laid eyes on … a palomino.
VeggieDate.org: This site allows you to meet other “veggie singles,” which sounds like a variety of sliced tofu cheese, but is actually a flirty way of saying “vegetarians” (if a flirty way to say “vegetarians” actually exists). There’s a pretty lengthy list of possible interested parties, most of which would make a butcher shudder. Lacto vegetarians, ovo vegetarians, fish vegetarians, people on macrobiotic diets, vegans and raw foodists are all invited.
FarmersOnly.com: This site is reserved for farmers, ranchers, agriculture students, horse and livestock owners, cowboys, cowgirls and other people not deterred by the smell of fertilizer, the sight of dusty, denim-clad bottoms or crack grass. In fact, they may even prefer it.
GothicMatch.com: This site wants you to “find the perfect darkchylde to bring back to your lair” and promises you’ll “never be alone in the dark again.” In reality, however, if you like Spanish omelets, British New Wave music from the ’80s and sitcoms on NBC you’ll probably find someone you like here. But they’ll be dressed in black some of the time.
DateMyPet.com. According to this site, 43 percent of pet-owning singles let their pets sleep in bed with them. Keep this in mind when surfing the profiles on Date My Pet, which brings together single pet owners of the “date me, date my four cats” variety. Profiles include essays and photos specifically for pets, including an area where your pet can describe their “ideal first date.”
