Preowned, Preapproved
By GINIA BELLAFANTE NY TIMES

It is often said among single people that unmarried men and women ought to be required to navigate the social orbit wearing product labels. Imagine how efficient it would be, the thinking goes, if you could glance at a sign on a prospective partner's forehead and learn right away that this person who might seem fetchingly "original," actually keeps a dead cat in the freezer because he didn't trust his veterinarian to properly inter it.

The fact that 16.6 million Americans visited matchmaking Web sites in September alone, a figure from ComScore Media Metrix, has made Internet dating seem almost stigma-free, which means, among other things, that the opportunity for false (or at least massaged) self-advertisement is now nearly without limit. In the virtual world, a 5-foot-6 actuary can too easily masquerade as a 6-foot-3 cardiothoracic surgeon who sculptures. Thus, the search for amorous fulfillment, like the search for a plasma-screen television, has required something along the lines of a Consumer Reports.

To this end, a month ago, Elle magazine's blunt-as-an-anvil dating columnist, E. Jean Carroll, started a Web site, www.greatboyfriends
.com, on which women recommend men to other women. "The idea is predicated on a belief in sisterhood not culturally in vogue right now, as the success of "The Bachelor" attests. "For the last 10 years, I've been writing this silly E. Jean column," Ms. Carroll said, explaining her motivation to start a site for which she is currently charging participants nothing. "The No. 1 overwhelming question I get is, `How do you find a man?' and I'm so sick of it because I answer it all the damn time." (For the record, Ms. Carroll has advised going to the Kentucky Derby.) "Lots of my friends know lots of wonderful guys, so I called my sister who designs Web sites, and I said, `Why don't we start something where girls can recommend their exes and anyone else?' " Read on (free regis. needed)