Feeling that click with culture

One dating site offers love, Armenian style

By Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer

Talin Aintablian never really "clicked" on the dating scene with guys who shared her cultural background. But when her brother met his fiancee on HyeSingles.com -- an online dating site for Armenians -- she decided to give it a try. Much to her surprise, she says, she met "the one."

"If I had been dating someone when I met Patrick, I would have dumped him right away because I knew this guy had to be the one," Aintablian, 32, said of her boyfriend of three months, Patrick Tourian.

While general online personals and dating sites have been around for years, a new online dating niche has emerged and is seeing surging growth in the Los Angeles area: Sites catering to ethnic groups.

With an estimated 600,000 Iranians and 400,000 Armenians in Los Angeles -- the largest populations outside those countries -- the sheer size of the communities is fueling much of the growth.

"These sites are especially popular in the Los Angeles area because of the huge concentrations of people there from other countries and cultures who are seeking similar people so they can pair up more successfully and outside of their tight family circle," said Judith Meskill, editorial director of Weblogs Inc., the largest online publisher of weblogs.

"These services allow people restrained by religious or familial responsibilities to find more people with their backgrounds."

Julie Albright, a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Southern California, said the sites also help those facing the same issues as larger society -- including busy schedules and few places to gather -- to meet in an easy and relatively inexpensive way.

"It opens a wide pool of availables to you while dating. You can walk to the local Armenian cafe and meet one person, but online you can meet 30. It increases your odds for a love match," said Albright, who researched attraction online and is studying attraction and deception on the Internet.

"What's beautiful about the Internet for these ethnic communities is it enables people to sort through a lot of people and focus in on those types of qualities they desire," she said.

Hollywood resident Aintablian said the online site helped her find not only a culturally compatible partner but somebody with whom she had a lot in common.

"You're running them through some kind of screening process so it makes it easier to have a potential date with somebody that has the same interests and desires," she said. "He's like me. He's American but not really Americanized because he hasn't lost his culture and traditions."

For his part, the 36-year-old Tourian said he turned to the Internet to find an Armenian girl because his options were limited in Arizona.

"I found this to be a great way to try to find Armenians," the business owner said. "It brings the whole community together."

That's the philosophy of Said Amin, CEO and founder of World Singles, the leading online dating company for ethnic communities that runs IranianPersonals.com, HyeSingles.com and ArabLounge.com.

Since its founding four years ago, the company has expanded to include 14 niche sites. And membership is growing.

IranianPersonals now has more than 120,000 members, nearly a quarter of them from the Los Angeles area; HyeSingles has 16,000 members, nearly two-thirds of them from the Los Angeles area.

"Birds of a feather flock together. As the database grows, it will draw more people," said the 32-year-old Amin.

One 28-year-old local high-tech industry worker who used IranianPersonals.com said she not only met somebody who speaks her language and shares her culture but somebody who has even more specific traits in common.

She said the site's open-ended questions like "How important is it that your children learn to read and write Farsi?" and "How do you feel about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis ... and what do you suggest as a solution?" gave her a glimpse into her potential partner's character and outlook on life.

She and her architect fiance plan to get married next year.

And analysts of the nearly $500 million online dating industry agree that such successes will help propel these types of sites to continue to proliferate.

"I think you'll see more and more of it. In theory, if there was a market shakeout because so many people are launching these types of communities, I think you'll find niche-oriented sites will find more attraction," said Michael Jones, president of Idea Oasis, Internet Dating Executive Alliance/Online Association for Social Industry Standards.

One site that has continued to attract attention is JDate, the Jewish dating site launched in 1997 that is considered the leader of ethnic online dating.

JDate accounted for nearly 25 percent of its parent company Spark Networks' $65.1 million in revenues in 2004, and its online dating service has grown so large that it is rolling out premiere offerings to try to continue to attract and retain customers.

In early May, it launched Joe's Club in Los Angeles in which, for a yearly membership fee, the company will provide personalized matchmaking and bring together at a local restaurant eight people from the site that they believe are compatible.

"The reason for that success, whether they're Armenians or Jews who are sharing a common ethnicity or a religion, is they're looking for long-term partners who share their values and traditions," said Gail Laguna, spokeswoman for Spark Networks.

But while niche sites continue to flourish they have not been immune from some of the same problems that plague general dating sites.

Teni Khachatourian of Los Angeles decided to give HyeSingles.com a try. But while she may have expected run-ins with online losers and dorks, she never expected to meet a man, date him for a month, then find out he was married.

"I don't think anyone ever expects to meet a married guy in a singles arena. But in an Armenian site where the community is so small and everyone knows each other, it would be so risky, so I would think that's the last place a married guy would put up a profile with a photograph," said the 27-year-old film publicist at Columbia Pictures.

"The lesson is that it's not different if you're online or at a bar or at a singles event. Being single, you have to be aware and as cautious as possible."

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Naush Boghossian, (818) 546-3306 naush.boghossian@dailynews.com