Looking for love on eBay

One wonders what Voltaire's Candide would have made of the Internet age, for surely many would argue that we currently live in "the best of all possible worlds." Then he would have come across what would seem like just another one of those "only in South Florida" stories. A 42-year-old single mother of two, trying to unload her home and find true love at the same time. Followed by that of a man in Australia, following a divorce, who has put his entire life on the auction block. Love for sale, conditions eerily predicted by David Byrne in his movie True Stories. But the need to feel loved and important in the Internet age is turning out to have grave consequences. On the one hand, the need to feel loved is promoting prostitution at ever younger ages. On the other hand, those who want to feel important are following in the footsteps of Paris Hilton because they think they'll get the same notoriety. Others have expounded on the consequences of technology and social isolation. But it seems that despite the existence of the most powerful communications tool in human history -- and the proliferation of singles sites offering the possibilities of true love that it provides -- we, as a people, may be lonelier and more desperate for connection than we've ever been. Candide would, alas, still find himself asking "is this really the best of all possible worlds?"