Nerdy Bookworms Read Their Way to Romance on New Dating Site

Then there's deciding which site is the best place to lay your ego and best self-snapped picture online. OKCupid is good for cruising for a late night companion. Then there's eHarmony, which, is possibly owned by Jesus. Sorry gays and heathens.

The newest dating site on the web is both untainted by religious fanaticism and, so far, pervy IM-ers who "like your glasses." Alikewise is for people who read. Not just for those who read only the New York Times on the web, but for those who fall asleep with a book next to their pillows. A dating site for bookworms.

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Since we are fairly literate and have a history of rabid reading, we signed up to check out what the sensual world of readers has to offer. So far, Alikewise hasn't made its real debut in South Florida since there were about a dozen local bachelors on the site. It's less than three months old, so we expect Miami's literati will soon sign up for a lurk around. 

We created a profile, uploaded a picture, went to bed, and waited. By morning, two dudes sent messages. After a short convo with each, we realized that one was scary and the other seemed cool enough, he even gave us a few really thoughtful suggestions on what to read and some pleasant banter. Problem is, he lives in Iowa.  

Alikewise has a simple and clean format. The information you're able to provide falls into two categories: My Books and My Story.  Much like another online community of book-nerdz, Goodreads, you start by typing your book of choice into a search engine, and then it asks you if you wanna add the book to your profile and/or buy the book.

It always seems like they're just trying to think of a crafty way to sell, sell, sell. The buy option is corporate and dirty. The creators of Alikewise are two dudes with the same name: Matt, not Amazon and Amazon. Plus, it would have been a bit more charming to link to a local bookstore than to the Amazon beast, but whatever. 

Under "My Story," you are able to describe yourself: what people notice when they first meet you, blah, blah, and the one good sentence you have to finish off, "The bravest thing I've done recently..."  This is one where bragging is appropriate and where you can see what people actually are all about. We wrote about going on a rope swing with four-year-olds in Texas. Hey, it took some courage to bellyflop willingly into freezing water.

Some of the profiles of these guys and gals are tremendously boring, and of course, as one might expect, pretentious. Can you really tell if you like someone because you both read and liked The Shipping News? The answer is No. However, shared book interests are good conversation starters and a nice way to meet people with similar tastes.

It's enough of a struggle to find a companion who you like, nonetheless one who also loves to read. So, all hatering aside, we think we might just leave our profile active and see if we can read our way to romance.