12:16 AM EST, Mar 13, 2006 Read more comments or post your own Although some Americans thin... Online love life: It's only

Although some Americans think the words "Internet dating" and "nerd" are hopelessly linked, here's good news for anyone who has considered signing up on a dating Web site.

In a survey of 3,215 Americans, one-third said they knew someone who had used a dating Web site, and 61 percent said they don't think of online daters as "desperate."

One of the most unexpected results, says Mary Madden, who studied online dating for the Pew Internet and American Life Project, was how widespread online dating has become.

"We were surprised to see that if you don't use online dating yourself, chances are pretty good that you know someone who's used it," says Madden.

But beyond dating Web sites, researchers also discovered that many Americans use the Internet or e-mail to help with their love lives. Of the singles interviewed, 74 percent said they have used the Internet to facilitate dating. Even if they're not dating someone they met online, they may be exchanging flirtatious e-mails with someone they met at work or sharing favorite songs or music videos, or looking on the Internet for a good place to meet others.

"These are indications of just how much of our lives are lived online," says Madden. "The Internet is playing host to some of the most crucial interactions of an early relationship."

Of course, all is not rosy in the online-dating landscape. A majority of those surveyed said people who use dating Web sites often lie about whether they're married.

That could explain one of the study's other findings: That 17 percent of single people frequently use Google to search the name of the person they're dating or about to meet for a date.

"There's a different set of norms for interacting online that can be just as complicated as offline," says Madden. "But it's still the game of love and feelings and emotion, and there still has to be chemistry."

This is cache, read story here