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Writer Bari Auerbach found herself suddenly single when her 15-year marriage to Aventura Commissioner Zev Auerbach ended three years ago.
Ready to mingle and make new friends, she found it intimidating after being out of the dating loop for so many years. As a mother of two children, son Logan, 14, and daughter Ariel, 13, and as a fitness buff, Auerbach knew the bar scene was not for her.
''I don't even drink,'' said Bari Auerbach, 42, as she sat nestled into her powder pink and gray sofa. Auerbach lives in an Aventura high-rise with a view of Williams Island.
Following a friend's advice, she opted to try online dating as an alternative to the bar scene in the hopes of meeting a potential soul mate.
Out of the myriad online dating services, she selected JDate.com, a site that connects Jewish singles for dating and romance. She also filled out a profile on Match.com, the big-box version of a dating service.
After creating an online personal profile, which consisted of a description of her likes and dislikes, age and fitness stipulations for potential suitors and uploading a few tasteful photographs of herself, Auerbach was inundated with e-mails from men.
''At first I figured that it was because I was new to the sites,'' she said.
Auerbach soon found herself comparing her online dating experience to wandering in a vast wilderness filled with two legged wolves.
''It's like the wild, wild West out there,'' she said. ``I began to realize that men behind the safety of their computers would type things that they would never say to your face because they'd get slapped.''
She received inappropriate or down right offensive e-mails from men young enough to be her son or old enough to be her father.
•April 17, 2006 at 11:50 a.m. ``I was just wondering if you'd take some pics of the bottoms of your feet for me? Especially if you can make them wrinkly.''
•Feb. 14, 2006 at 11:30 a.m. ``I do have hair on my head, not on my back and straight white teeth, too. Would you like to talk sometime?''
Rather than deleting them, Auerbach allowed the e-mails to accumulate. Then one day, while training at the gym she had an epiphany.
She proceeded to separate ''the real e-mails from unreal males'' into chapters, and wrote You've got Male: On-line Dating Exposed. A self-published work, the book has 23 chapters; chapter 1 is called ``Men of Few Words (Often Spelled Wrong).''
Although risqué at times, the book chronicles a hilarious account of men's online courting techniques.
The book's hot pink and neon blue cover sports a photograph of a naked man holding a computer mouse. Taking his inspiration from Adam and the fig leaf, Zev Auerbach designed the cover for You've got Male. Zev Auerbach is the creative director for Zimmerman advertising agency, and the author's ex-husband. The two remain friends, she said.
In writing this book, one of her goals was to create a sense of solidarity between women like herself who have not given up hope that Mr. Right is merely an e-mail away.
According to Elaine Adler, president of the Aventura Marketing Council, Bari Auerbach was a hit when she recently spoke before a group of 40 members of the council. Envelopes were handed out containing copies of the e-mails she put in her book. Once the envelopes were distributed, audience members were asked to read their e-mails out loud. The stunt proved to be a real icebreaker.
''She involved everyone and got them up and dancing [to the tune of It's Raining Men]; everyone was up clapping and moving their feet,'' Adler said.
Adler called You've Got Male optimistic and fun. ''There is a person out there for you,'' she said.
And like Auerbach, Hope Sedel believes Mr. Right awaits in cyberspace. Sedel is a clothing designer and Bari Auerbach's soul sister. Sedel, 40, has never been married, but she's still looking. She has been dating online for about a year and says that everything Auerbach writes in her book is ``completely true.''
''They lie about stuff, and post photos that are 10 years old,'' Sedel said of some of the men she encountered.
In the year that Sedel has been dating online two of her former online boyfriends got married.
Happy with the attention the book has received so far, Auerbach is already planning a follow-up book, that she is tentatively calling Dates From Hell.
In spite of her online ups and downs, Auerbach remains logged on and steadfast in her belief that her Mr. Right is still out there.
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