If you are single and have been exploring the web or Social Media to find your soulmate, you may want to fly KLM! Early this year KLM introduced a ”Meet & Seat” program that allows passengers to view the Facebook and LinkedIn profiles of fellow passengers and pick one of them as their seatmate.

As a concept, online dating through an airline is not entirely new. Malaysian Airline’s MHbuddy offers a Facebook app that lets you identify friends who are on the same flight and hook up with them in-flight or at your destination city.

Personally speaking, I am fifty-fifty on this one.

I like the relative anonymity and the disengaged state an airplane offers for the duration of the flight. On the other hand, many a time I have had the not-so-pleasant experience of having to bear with a seatmate who didn’t quite grasp the concept of personal and physical space!

Now, if you have been quietly trying to figure out your best option to meet people “seeking serious relationships” you may be happy to hear that online dating has become mainstream. A recent blog in Huffington Post by Julie Spira noted that online dating has lost its stigma and as a means of meeting people, is second only to personal introductions by friends and family.  Hooking up with a complete stranger in a bar takes a back seat!

So how easy is it for someone to find a dating site that works?

Frustrated users claim that many of these sites do not live up to their marketing pitches.  I believe that social media can play a big part in vetting a potential date. In these days of information overshare, it is a lot more difficult for people to project themselves as someone who they are not. Six degrees of separation is becoming real!

Now, if you consider yourself relatively savvy about online and social media dating, here are some things to consider.

A location-based dating service that focuses more on introducing local users to each other may help narrow your search. Online dating sites have started catering to niche players who may be searching based on their religion or hobbies. And, if you have been building up your social influence score through Klout, here is one for you: Tawkify

Blending a user’s influence score like Klout and Kred as part of their match-making algorithm, Tawkify takes social media dating to a new level.

Trying to convince my wife that I am only doing research…