Dating site tries to out-Facebook Facebook

As I understand it, Facebook was largely created so that boys who perhaps hadn't enjoyed the greatest success with girls could somehow make themselves look somehow desirable online.As I also understand it, many people these days still join Facebook in the hope of extending their ability to find The One, or even A One, through friends, extended friends, or merely people they have talked and stalked into being their pretend friends.Now a dating site for sad singles called Pirate Date claims to be "a dating trust-network for friends."I am not sure whether, in a word-association game insisted upon by my psychiatrist, I would immediately on hearing the word "trust" offer the word "pirate." Still, perhaps it is merely a description of our times, a description of the love that the Pirate Bay has created in so many hearts, that "trust" and "pirate" are as one.

(Credit: Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

The idea behind this site is that everyone on it shares their single friends. If that seems like a rather extreme Saturday night in the heart of a frustrated single, here are a few more details.You're not allowed to have fake profiles on Pirate Date. Members are asked to vouch for each other. And, in a neat post-Facebook twist, whatever information you add is immediately open to all your friends.Moreover, the site offers "Trust Paths" so that you can see exactly who knows whom and how.Pirate Date also claims to have a "Social Proximity Gauge," a loving algorithm that "calculates thousands of details, giving you a tool you can trust in measuring how close you are to people you find interesting."While claiming it is "just like real life," Pirate Date wants to be more focused and more exclusive than the Babel of Facebook, while at the same time integrating with it.You can, apparently, "search Facebook singles that not only match your criteria, but who are connected to you through friends and other Pirate Date members in up to 5 degrees of separation."Many in this world wonder just how many degrees of separation one should stop at, before the person you are being introduced to might truly be a mere stab in the dark. For myself, unless one of my immediate friends offers a beaming, detailed, observant, honest description, preferably complete with medical records, filmic proclivities, sporting prowess, and snoring tendencies, then I am wary.However, some may feel a little more trusting of their extended network. Naturally, I would be grateful if one, two or many of you might try this slightly fascinating concept to see if it really does hold out some hope for an improvement man's ability to get on with, well, someone.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)