Internet dating used to be a flag of distress, the bastard love child of Miss Lonelyhearts and the worldwide web.

Today, internet dating sites are bulging and seeping into our lives - in Starbucks and suburban streets there are internet daters everywhere, eyes dull from cyberspace, looking for something.

Traditional dating - I meet, I smell, I smile or I scowl - seems to be ebbing away under its twinkling assault. Fifteen million people in Britain are single, and almost five million are shopping for love online. Internet dating has been sold as the great solution to 21st-century loneliness; in a world of infinite possibility, you can theoretically meet anyone. But is it really? How is it changing our relationships?

Clyde Baldo, a psychologist who works with disillusioned internet daters at his practice in New York, paints me a picture of the other side of the online experience.

in truth, it is a subconscious playground in which to play out one's deepest wounds."