Just when you think you have the concept of dating understood, along comes a new way of courting that’s about as methodical as creating your own custom-made car.

The focus of getting to know a person hasn’t changed, but the approach is anything but traditional.

For instance, it’s a typical Saturday night, and you’re meeting your date at 7 p.m. at a designated location. You’re dressed casually, and your hair has that frisky, fresh-from-a-nap look. You psyche yourself up and turn on your charm because the night is about to begin. As your date gets situated, you hope that tonight you can push all the right buttons to move the relationship up another level. As you stare into that smooth, glowing face, you relax as you hear the melodious mechanics of your modem making that final connection …

Welcome to the latest in electronic soul-searching. If you’re having trouble finding that special someone at your local library, bar or dance club, there’s no need to throw in the towel just yet because you still can find a mate without having to lower your standards.

The days of catching someone’s eye from across a smokey room and engaging in that wonderful “let’s stare at each other and smile” game has been replaced with scanning for a partner through a categorical lineup ranging from hair color and body type to earned income and favorite movies.

But being specific in the hunt for a romantic partner is nothing new. Personal ads use some sort of sophisticated coding system to lure love-seekers into believing they’re the SWF, NS that a DWM, NS is looking for to complete his life or alphabet. Television shows such as “Love Connection” and “Singled Out” brought the personals to live media, giving some lucky lady or lad a chance at sorting through the crowd and finding a pick among the litter who matches his or her own personal taste.

My favorite show of the moment, “Blind Date,” is a half-hour of lovelorn singles displaying human behavior at its raunchiest. Participants are asked what they want in a dating partner and then are lovingly paired with the exact opposite, with hopes that the date will end in some drunken hot tub scene (ah, television at its best).

It appears these days that people are taking mate selection into their own hands instead of relying on friends, family and a couple of beers to do the pairing for them. More and more individuals are putting their trust, as well as pictures and bios, into the hands of Internet matchmaking services.

According to a Feb. 14 ABC news segment, Jupiter Media Metrix, a data and analysis corporation that provides information on Internet profiting, has estimated that about 6 million people go online to search for a Ms. or Mr. Right, with men comprising 58 percent of those tapping into personal Web pages.

The toughest job in beginning the process of e-romance may not be in deciding which person you want to contact but in which dating service you wish to use. Match.com, a site boasting 4 million users and more than 1,000 marriages since its 1995 debut, is one of hundreds that seeks to satisfy those searching for a broader range of dates.

But don’t be fooled into thinking all services are the same. Some sites charge a fee, while others can get very specific, such as www.GoodGenes.com,

a site for Ivy League graduates to find someone of equal status.

If you already know who you want to date but are still too shy to ask the person out, you can uncover how the other person feels about you before facing possible rejection. Sites such as www.ecrush.com allow you to send an e-mail to a person you’re interested in without the person knowing who sent it.

The message tells the recipient that he or she has a crush, and then it’s up to that person to figure out who it could possibly be. If a positive match is made, the name of the sender can be revealed. But with all this technology that provides for faster human connections, the thought of meeting someone online still raises some warnings.

Even though there are numerous success stories, as well as some not-so-successful stories (check out saferdating.com), you still never really know if the other person you’re chatting with is who he or she says they are.

It’s sometimes safer to find a chat room that caters to your personal interests, whether it be a certain religion or people your own age, and to take steps in creating a handle with anonymous background information so that others can’t discover anything about you that you don’t disclose yourself.

With warnings aside, the Internet does prove to be a great way to meet interesting people from around the world, and for a lot of users, many online friendships and love connections have been made. Maybe one day, with the help of digital cameras and virtual technology, we can make the rounds of the dating scene at e-bars and restaurants without leaving the comfort of our homes, all the while still coming close to the real dating experience.

But until that day arrives, I guess we’ll have to make do with real face-to-face interactions and drunken hot tub scenes.