Furthermore, Bedbury explains, the great brands tell a story, like a great piece of mythology, "with the customer, not the company, as the story's main protagonist." Our online love-seekers seem to sense this intuitively: "[You're] not someone who thinks 'Cathy' is funny, but someone who thinks 'The Jerk' is funny." "You love who you are, but you want so much more." "You'll love my vegan pancakes in the morning!"

And since we've become products ourselves, it make sense that we can only advertise ourselves by associating with other products. Indeed, each personal ad patches together an increasingly eclectic and romantic mélange of brands to create a signature brand: "The Anarchist Cookbook," Moroccan Mint loose tea, Jack Russell terriers, "Naked" by David Sedaris, Tenacious D, Williams-Sonoma, "North by Northwest" starring Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant, Vespas, late '60s Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The cultural references become dizzying after a while, with each brand standing on the shoulders of a million brands that came before it. Pepsi is Britney Spears is Marilyn Monroe is "Pleasantville" is the idealized '50s. Chevy is Bob Seger is the American Farmer is Marlboros is Wrangler Jeans is "The Grapes of Wrath."

But as online ads become more aggressive and clever and self-consciously crafted, what impact does that have on the human interactions that result from them? What does it mean to peddle yourself so effectively before you even meet your prospective partner? Can there possibly be any room left for the real, flawed, fragile human behind the ad?

And after buying into the suave vegan pancake-maker and cognac-sipping reader of Whitman, can you possibly accept the humble, nervous accountant who stands before you? With such a marketing blitz, followed by frisky, flirtatious instant messaging and countless e-mails, followed sometimes even by long midnight conversations and phone sex, is it remotely possible not to be disappointed with the real thing?

Like reading a book and then seeing the movie, you don't realize how much you've already painted a picture in your head until you see someone else's vision on the screen. Similarly, it's tough to know how much fantasy you're bringing to the table until you're sitting face to face, and you recognize suddenly that you'd ascribed a whole different set of verbal tics, affectations and gestures to the person in your mind without even knowing it.

The smallest thing about the person can send you spiraling inward, thereby shutting you off from the experience. You felt sure, based on his e-mails, that he wasn't a mouth breather! It seemed obvious, given the flirtatious confidence with which she approached you online, that she didn't have a flabby ass!

In "A New Brand World," Bedbury quotes University of Michigan business professors C.K. Prahalad and Venkatram Ramaswamy who contend that a "product is no more than an artifact around which customers have experiences." Similarly, navigating today's online personals can feel more like an exercise in fantasy: We take the artifacts before us, and use our powers of imagination to create an idealized mate from these offerings.

Strange how easy and familiar this process is to us; but then, most relationships are at least 30 percent imagination. Without a fantasy-driven notion of themselves as a pair, most couples' relationships would collapse under the weight of years of compromise and self-sacrifice.

And besides, for as long as I've known her, my online dating friend in New York has been lamenting that she never meets any new men -- ever! Now she meets them all the time. They're not all perfect, and sometimes she's built them up in her mind only to be disappointed. But now at least she's getting out there and hanging out with new people, and for better or for worse, she says she has a real feeling of possibility.

"I might have stayed involved with the last guy even though it wasn't working, because I would've thought, I'll never meet anyone else!" she says. "Now I know I can just go online and meet someone else tomorrow." That's right. There are always more brands on the shelf -- I mean, fish in the sea.

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