Last year, Americans spent $313 million on online dating services in the search for the ideal mate or, in many cases, the ideal date. These websites number in the thousands and cater to every taste, lifestyle, and desire you can imagine. There's veggiedate.org for vegans and vegetarians, yogaromance.com for the more flexible among us, jdate.com for Jewish singles, adammeeteve.com for Christians, and date-a-doc.com for medical professionals.

But now there's a brand-new form of online courting called “values dating.” Launched by beliefnet.com, the multi-faith spirituality website dedicated to helping people meet their spiritual needs, soulmatch.com is a dating service that allows you to search for a partner based on their personal and spiritual beliefs. According to the website, “Soulmatch is the first online dating service focused on values, faith, and spiritual chemistry. Perhaps no spiritual need is greater than the desire for love and companionship, and Soulmatch is here to help you meet that need.”

Those searching for love on Soulmatch complete an online personal profile that involves designating their faith (more “alternative” options include “spiritual but not religious,” “pagan,” and “humanist”) and answering questions that range from the serious (“The most important spiritual experience I ever had was
. . .”) to the more humorous (“Do pets go to heaven?”). When asked to select three things they believe in, candidates can choose from a list including “the apocalypse,” “random chance,” “heaven,” “nothing,” and “the Force.”

Soulmatch's profiles are significantly less comprehensive than those of another dating service, eHarmony.com, whose slogan is “Fall in love for all the right reasons.” eHarmony requires its users to answer hundreds of questions about themselves, such as what their spiritual inclinations are and whether they feel “plotted against” very often. Then, through a “scientific matching” process, the website pairs them up with their perfect mate. Many of eHarmony's questions are interesting and even psychologically penetrating, but others just seem silly. For example, “True or false? I always read ALL of the warning literature on side effects before taking any medication.”

Whatever your feelings are about online dating in general, it's good to know there are places where lonely followers of the Jedi way can finally find one another.