Valley Of No Dolls

There aren't many things that are hard for a guy to get in Silicon Valley. Here, in the land of a-millionaire-per-minute, the job offers come daily and the venture capital flows freely. The cars are fast, the theme houses ubiquitous. Wireheads beam their contact information to one another via dueling Palm Pilots, rendering business cards obsolete. And who needs to be bothered with picking up the dry cleaning or meeting the cable guy anymore? Even middle managers at Web startups are starting to hire the Valley's new version of a butler: the personal assistant.

But when it comes to a date, the story suddenly gets sad. "I've been searching for a partner for four years, and it's just--damn--it's hard," sighs 43-year-old Gary Wagner, an accounting manager with the Silicon Valley branch of DreamWorks SKG.