I did a couple of web searches for "artistic & creative singles", and guess what my search turned up? Nothing. Zero. Nada. You would think if there was any sort of niche dating groups, this would be it. Wroooong...

So instead of saying the heck with it and giving up, I saw an opportunity. I asked a bunch of people what they thought of an artistic singles' dating group, and they all told me to go for it. Right now, I'm still waiting for approval from a certain social networking site where I'm trying to begin my new group, and there are already people writing to me wanting to join.

My point is, this is exactly why dating services are seeing a decline in new memberships. Too much trust has been destroyed by too many people abusing the system (which has had its own share of crooks), and singles like me are figuring out that the social networking thing can address our needs which the dating services have not responded to.

If you don't find a singles group you like, why not just do like I'm doing, and start your own?

It's not that easy to start a dating site, but that's just what we did - founded a niche dating site for a group that we thought was underserved: BrazilianConnects.com. There are no other successful dating sites dedicated to Brazilians and those who want to meet Brazilians.

But, what I mean is, large numbers of people are giving up on online dating because it has promised them happiness but is not able to give it to them.

Even to start an online dating service which is run by singles and is honest, would be a bad business venture nowadays, because the industry's reputation is so badly tainted.