Robert J. Moore started seeing “Single?” yard signs everywhere:

I seriously can’t take a ten minute drive without passing one of these signs. What fascinates me more, however, is that they never seem to last more than a few days in one spot. In most cases, I’ll see a “Single?” sign somewhere and the next time I drive by it will be gone. I can only assume that these signs are being taken down by whomever maintains the property where they are placed (they are almost always stuck in the lawn of a public park or building).

The fact that these signs are still so prevalent today, more than a year after I saw the first, means two amazing things:

* Despite their short shelf-life (or, lawn-life), sticking these plastic signs into the ground in small towns has proven financially viable (I can’t imagine that a year’s worth of data to the contrary would result in the business continuing to print and plant these signs).
* Someone must be monitoring and replacing these signs as they are taken down. When you consider the number of towns likely involved in this system, it’s clear that this is far from a one-man show.

Then, just this past Friday, I saw the most amazing sign yet. A town not far from my house is called Haddon Heights, NJ. It is a miniscule town that occupies just 1.6 square miles of land and has a population of barely 7,000 people. Furthermore, 56% of the population is married and 25% is under the age of 18 (thanks Wikipedia!). Not exactly a ripe market for a dating business. Nonetheless, as I drove through the town, I saw (no exaggeration) twenty signs that read “Single? www.HaddonHeightsDating.COM.”…

You may have seen these, too. What’s the story behind these signs? Moore figures it out and shares what he knows with you in an article oozing with the infectious pus of giddy curiosity. Moore’s research skills are on impressive display as he uncovers a vast and quite possibly nefarious network stretching across the country, overseas as far as India, and through tens of thousands of websites online. Following Moore’s line of thought and course of research was both entertaining and illuminating.