Dating Web site seeks niche in farming communities

No, I haven’t milked any cows yet, or had a chance to hold any newborn lambs. But I’ve discovered recently what lots of people here in Maine have known for a long time – that hanging out on a farm can be fun.

Heck, it can even be a little romantic for a city girl like me. It’s quiet, the clear nights are perfect for stargazing and there’s something sweet about those lambs bleating in the barn.

But farming has a serious side that you can’t really romanticize. The work’s hard, the weather can be fickle and the hours stink. So do you, sometimes.

And oh, those hours. Going to bed when the sun’s still up in the summer and waking up with the moon in the winter. Imagine that kind of life as a single person.

After all, as Jerry Miller points out on the introduction page to his Web site, farmersonly.com, how often do you get a chance to meet someone when you’re working on a farm all day long?

That’s why Miller, who writes on the welcome page that he owns a company that works with farmers and ranchers all over the country, founded the Web site.

Miller says he looked at other online dating services that claimed to be directed at people living in the country, but didn’t like what he found.

“Just looking at the postings, they sure didn’t look like farmers to me,” he writes. “I decided to create an online dating service that’s 100 percent for farmers, ranchers, and those who can relate to the rural and country lifestyle.”

We have all kinds of crazy hours in the newspaper business – there are lots of professions out there where people work nights or just weekends – but can you imagine setting up a date for 5 a.m. coffee, or a drink in the late afternoon?

Normally I’m not an advocate of looking for love in a narrow group of people, but a dating Web site for farmers makes sense to me.

Maine is the perfect place for a Web site like this to take off. Think of all the agricultural products we grow here, from potatoes to blueberries. There are tree farms, deer farms, apple farms, organic farms … and I bet lobstering would count, too. Remember, this Web site is for anyone who can relate to a more rural life.

I took a look at the site recently, and it reminded me of that TV show “Hee Haw,” and not because of the subject matter. Farmersonly.com is a little bit silly and might cause you to roll your eyes in places – but it also might make you chuckle.

While completing your profile, a cartoon horse asks you for your “Neigh-borhood” (that’s where you fill in your location). A cartoon sheep asks for your “Baaaa-ckground”. And the graphics that hold the space for a photo is a cartoon of the dour-faced farmers in the painting “American Gothic.”

But beyond the goofiness, you can tell that farmersonly.com is serious. Instead of asking if you’re in, say, accounting or the medical industry, it lists a variety of jobs related to farming. You can pick livestock farming such as alpacas, cattle, dogs, goats, horses, pigs poultry, rabbits, sheep, or dairy farming, organic farming, agricultural or animal sciences student, or just a plain old nature lover.

There are some interesting hobby choices, too. You wouldn’t find “muddin” on too many personals sites.

Farmersonly.com isn’t yet swamped with Mainers, although it’s hard to tell based on the search function. My main complaint about the site is that free searches don’t let you at least narrow things down with a, um, neigh-borhood. In order to select a state you have to fill out a profile, and even then you only get 14 days of a free trial premium membership. After that, whether you pick potatoes up north, rake blueberries Down East, or milk cows in Somerset County, you’ll have to fork over cash to be a farmersonly.com member.

The couple of ads I skimmed had some clever user names. A North Dakota man who grows row crops is “premiumspuds.” A guy with a 13-acre sheep farm in Maryland is known as “muttonman.” A woman from Missouri calls herself “barrelracerwoman” – guess what she likes to do on her farm?

Farmersonly.com isn’t the sole Web site for those who appreciate a more rural life.

I was directed – by a girl who grew up on a dairy farm – to a similar site called redneckandsingle.com. But from what I saw it’s a little less serious than farmersonly.com. It’s more like an electric bull than the real thing – you know, for people acting the country life rather than actually living it.

Jessica Bloch can be reached at jbloch@bangordailynews.net.