Remember the salad days of online dating?

The painstaking hours you spent preening your profile on Match.com or the like, listing your likes and dislikes, answering soul-revealing questions such as “Would you ever eat something out of the trash?” and “How much do you weigh?” The butterflies, when your algorithm and his/hers met for the first time in cyberspace?

Some level of compatibility – if not necessarily a match – likely was made. That’s what those questions were for.

The newest trends in electronically assisted dating are all about efficiency. The top matchmaking mobile app, Tinder, has more than 50 million active users, and the market for demographically targeted services is bigger than ever. Apps and websites can fetch you a potential partner with a beard, a farm, a dog, an affinity for baseball’s Colorado Rockies or for the GOP.

Remember when JDate was it for niche dating?

Since Match.com launched in 1995, the popularity of online matchmaking services has grown steadily. Today, roughly 11 percent of Americans have used a dating site or app in their quest for a significant other. Modern cyber-
daters are much better at marketing themselves to an audience of strangers.

“Women know that weight is the issue for men, and men know that height is the issue for women. So people put on pictures that flatter them, where they’re 10 pounds lighter or 10 years younger,” said Donna Shugrue, owner of Perfectly Matched, a personal dating service in Colorado Springs. “There’s so much lying and game playing, and some people have learned how to use that to their advantage.”

Sharing oneself online is a whole different ballgame these days.

“At first, people were cautious about putting their information on an online site. Now, pretty much anyone goes on, and it’s polluted it,” said Shugrue, who’s been in the matchmaking business 30 years and advises women never to invite a blind date to their home. “You don’t meet serious-minded people; you meet people who are single, available and looking. But they’re not serious enough to invest in something that might have more potential.”

You meet ’em quickly, too. Geographically targeted apps such as Tinder can cull your Facebook profile for a few key details and almost immediately present potentials within a set area – say, 1 mile. If you don’t like the look of a contender, simply swipe left and move on.

“Today, it’s instantaneous. People decide in a nanosecond whether or not they like somebody, based purely on the physical, and then on to the next one,” Shugrue said.

Nevertheless, she gave Tinder a try after a friend signed her up and wound up meeting a man she dated for a short time.

“After that, I would go on to click and see who was there, but I never hearted anyone again,” she said. “I found it to be just like the online services – very time-consuming and not very effective.”

It’s worked for some, though. A 2013 study commissioned by matchmaking website eHarmony and conducted by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that one-third of married couples in the U.S. met online. Even if that’s true, which some experts doubt, most still meet their eventual mates at work, through friends and out socializing.

Which brings us to a downside of old school, real world courtship: the brush-off, particularly harsh after you’ve met face to face.

“I wish people would have the courage when they’re with someone they’re not interested in, rather than say they’ll give them a call, say ‘I really enjoyed meeting you, but I don’t feel the chemistry,'” Shugrue said. “They’re afraid to hurt their feelings, so they’ll string them along rather than just say no.”

If it’s not love (at first sight), at least Tinder means never having to say you’re sorry.