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"We're a cash machine," Housley boasted via cell phone from his car. Match.com's Sullivan said the site counts more than a half-million paying customers. He estimates it will rake in $120 million in revenue this year. Men make up most of the clientele, providing 70 percent of the revenue on Lavalife alone. Women -- especially those whose pictures depict them as pretty -- get bombarded with messages. Many just reply to the ones that intrigue them. Some make steep demands on potential dates. Duininick, whose profile shows that he earns over $250,000 per year, said he e-mailed an attractive woman on Match.com recently and invited her to lunch. "She wrote back, said she wanted to go to Le Bernardin," an indignant Duininick growled, referring to one of Manhattan's most expensive restaurants. He told her to forget it. "I don't want to be taken to the cleaners." Sheffield, whose heart suffered the sting of a pair of fickle dates, has passed her hurt to others, especially since she began steadily dating a man she calls "number 19," a bass player from Long Island. Last week, number 19 took her for a motorcycle ride. Sheffield massaged his shoulders during pauses at traffic lights. But she still gets e-mail from her ad on Yahoo! Personals, and has been coaxed into a few dates. Sheffield tells new men that she's almost ready to remove her Yahoo! profile. They'd have to be pretty special to lure her away from number 19. "I'm not off the market yet," she said. "But I'm like a house for sale. I'm under contract." Hearing this, Sheffield said one man she dated grew wistful and told her, "I went outside and wished upon a star. I wished I was number 19." On the Net:
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