Look on the Internet and you will find specialty online dating sites for every taste and every interest. You will find sites for pet lovers and, presumably, pet haters. There are sites for truckers and vegans, Goths, conservatives and brainiacs. Somewhere I’m sure there has to be a website for morons. There are websites for Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists. There are ethnic dating websites and online dating websites for punks, bodybuilders, and smokers. There are websites for fat people, deaf people and nerds. Presumably, if one explores the darker regions of the Internet, he can find romantic websites to fit every crackpot philosophy and deviant sexual proclivity.

In our world of branded imagery it is only natural that lifestyle, beliefs and predilections should also be branded to raise the odds you might actually find someone who thinks and behaves just like yourself. It is understandable in a world of desperate living that people would seek people who are just like themselves. Just look around. In a world of infinite possibilities the trend of the moment is to limit your senses so that we can better pair up and form partisans unions that can strand in stiff opposition to other partisan unions. And what better way to limit your senses than to seek someone who is a living Xerox of your most intimate thoughts and deeds?

Enter the niche dating site. Perhaps there is no better way to define the fears and apprehensions in our society than by citing the niche online dating site. It may even be better than the normal social, moralistic and political rhetoric spouted lockstep expounded upon by every socio-political faction. Not only do niche sites provide the incredible opportunity to reinforce your own lifestyle, they most increase the odds you will find your soul clone. That in turn greatly reduces the risk you will be forced to be open to new experiences. You can be assured you will never be forced to reexamine your thoughts and take stock of your lifestyle. You won’t have to stretch your mind or expand your horizons. You won’t need to change, tolerate nor accommodate.

You won’t have to take a risk. Because that’s what it is really all about anymore, isn’t it? We are so afraid of anything, we are afraid of taking a risk. We so want to be safe we are afraid of damn near everything. We pass laws every other day assuring our safety. Where we once were taught to expect the unexpected, we now are taught to fear the unexpected. We take Prozac and other mood elevators, because we are so afraid of ourselves.

Small wonder, with all that going on, that you would want someone new in your life who could really shake things up a bit. Someone providing a new perspective or engaging life from a different angle. Someone who could help give credence to that arcane concept that opposites really do attract. Just look at James

Carville and Mary Matlin. Here they are at opposite ends of the political spectrum yet sharing love and having children. If nothing else, they are a shining example that love is worth the risk.

Let’s face it; dating your soul clone isn’t compatibility. It is a concession to the fact you have decided to limit yourself to what you believe is strictly your own kind. You have dismissed the possibility that love does come in all shapes and sizes and sometimes when we least expect it, love knocks us our ass. There in the end lies the beauty in life, the mystery and the poetry. Who will you love and what will they be about? You never know. Where will you find them? Probably not on a niche dating site, but at some chance meeting in a place you might have never been before, or had visited a thousand times, only this time and that percent made it an entirely different experience.

Having sex with your mirrored interest is a lot like masturbation. Only in the case of masturbation, you don’t have care how you look or how bad your breath is. With your soul clone you might want to make a better impression. So I guess there is at least some improvement. However, what happens in those post-coital interludes where you sit across from each other and utter the same jargon without the chance that one synapse will bring something original, something challenging to the occasion? Doesn’t it get a wee bit boring? Does it make you wonder if he or she is really

the “one?" Do you start looking for someone else? Someone more compatible.

What did happen to those dangerous concepts like expansion and learning from our mates? What happened to learning from new experiences? Learning from the world? It wasn’t that long ago that a relationship fell apart because “the couple grew in different directions." Though bittersweet, it was deemed a good thing. That term, “different directions," roughly translated, meant “I got bored with the same-same and moved on, and he or she stayed in the same place. I wanted changes and they didn’t. I wanted them to try new things with me, and they wouldn’t. "

So there you are. As they say, life happens when you are busy making plans. Or sitting around and reinforcing each others convictions. After awhile the lockstep compatibility may be a little too boring, a bit stifling, a living nightmare that you are trapped inside of “Groundhog Day," only it is your life and not a movie. So all this niche compatibility business aside, you jump off the reservation and try something new. Usually with someone else who is also new. Someone different with other ideas. It meant risk. It meant you had to grow and try new things to save your soul and even your sanity. That was change, and along with that change there was exhilaration in facing the dreaded unknown. Life was a mystery once again, and in facing that mystery you were rejuvenated by the knowledge you would never be entirely safe again.

But things are different in this twenty-first century. We are now commoditized and categorized. We are a living checklist, judged by what we wear to how we think. We are segmented and broken down to our personal tastes. We are tediously predictable. We are in fact the perfect marketing target. There is no need to look for change. We find someone who shares our niche, so we both do the same stuff with the same mindset and probably—I’d give odds on this—with friends that think and feel exactly like we do. We are safe. Or at least we think we are. Because there is little chance your soul clone will cast an eye in new directions and escape into a different market segment. There is little chance that our soul clone or will seek new ideas and even people and willingly confront the dangers, mysteries and contradictions that come with that engagement. We’ll just sit, resolute, doing the same things over and over again. What a dull world this is becoming.