Cyrano de Bangalore

Not long ago, the blogosphere was smirking collectively about the news that a “busy” L.A. executive had placed an ad on Craigslist, seeking to hire a ghostwriter to compose “masculine but romantic” e-mails for him on online dating sites.

Have a laugh, but should anyone be surprised? In an age when time-pressed urbanites can hire help to handle all manner of daily details such as walking the dogs and shopping for clothes, why not outsource your love life? It’s much less messy when you can retain a pro to compose your Match.com profile, coach you on a date and find your better half.

Subcontracting romantic groundwork seemed to pay off for Timothy Ferriss, author of the bestselling book “The 4-Hour Workweek.” After finding that outsourcing tasks for his business endeavors proved efficient, he decided to try offshoring his online-dating duties (filling out forms, managing responses) to teams in India, the Philippines, Jamaica and Canada. The monthlong endeavor cost about $200 and resulted in more than 20 dates.

For those who would prefer to keep their dating duties stateside, the virtual assistants at Love Concierge--a new start-up in Springfield, Mo. --will weed through your “compatibles,” make restaurant reservations and buy flowers for your date.

“At the end of the day, people export these things to people who know better,” says L.A.-based dating consultant Evan Marc Katz, who founded the profile-writing service E-Cyrano in 2004. “Just like we might own a wrench, but we might not want to fix our own pipes when there’s a leak.”

Katz, a former “screenwriter who couldn’t sell a screenplay,” has assembled a team of about 10 scribes who will interview you and then craft two 200-word essays for the “About Me” and “About the One I’m Looking For” sections of singles websites. Katz believes that people who have their dating profiles written professionally aren’t lazy but proactive--and smart: “It’s a really competitive space. If you think that person’s cute, presumably hundreds of other people in your demographic do too. Why would they choose you?”

After struggling to meet someone suitable on the Jewish singles network JDate, a 29-year-old real estate agent hired E-Cyrano and found that “a new breed” of potential partners started contacting her. “Every single response was something to the effect of, ‘This profile is so refreshing; it’s the best profile I’ve ever read,’” says the Santa Monica resident, who prefers to remain anonymous. She not only coughed up $199 for a profile rehaul, but she also hired Katz as a personal dating coach. That can cost $1,500 a month, including pseudo-therapy sessions to “figure out what’s been holding you back.”

Susan Barry, a Santa Monica-based image consultant, also deals in the business of turning you into a top-notch catch. For $150 and the price of dinner at an haute spot such as Hatfield’s, she’ll surrogate-date you, critiquing your first impressions, personal hygiene and table manners so you won’t blow it in the real world. “You can’t believe the stuff that comes up,” she says. “One guy wanted to drive around [to find a parking space] and not pay for valet. . . . Or a guy is talking on his cellphone . . . or he’ll [have] his buttons popping out.”

It’s hard to deny that approaching love as strategically as a job interview or as dispassionately as shopping on Amazon can kill the romance for modern daters. Old-school matchmakers such as Eva and Sherry Singer, a mother-daughter team who have been in the business for more than 20 years, say they distinguish themselves from 21st century love brokers by being personally involved in a couple’s courtship.

In fact, the Singers--who run the L.A.-based matchmaking service Meet a Mate--want to find you a spouse so badly that there’s even a stipulation in their contract (No. 20) stating that they can dance at your wedding. To date, the two have 550 marriages to their credit.

Of course, in matters of the heart, there can be no guarantees. “I wish I could say that everyone got married,” Eva says. “If I could, I would charge $100,000 a minute--and I would probably get it.” Maybe that $199 for an online profile rehaul is a steal after all.