Cyberworld of strangers will settle your dispute

She wants to buy a Gucci purse. Her husband says it's a waste of money.

A guy accuses his girlfriend of flirting now that she's lost weight. She thinks he needs to get over it - and could lose some weight himself.

A woman says her boyfriend's a controlling cheapskate, who even skips flushing the toilet at times to save money. He says she doesn't know the value of a hard-earned dollar.

Who's right? A new Web site offers a crowd of opinions to settle lovers' (and others') spats.

Sidetaker.com - whose tagline is "let the world decide who's at fault" - taps cyberspace to cull unbiased opinions.

"It's an amateur counseling service," allowed Justin Marinos, 30, a commercial Web designer who lives in New Stanton, near Pittsburgh. He launched the site in September.

Arguments (both sides preferred, please) are posted anonymously. Whoever initiates the post - more often women - invites the other to offer his or her take. Then the public has 60 days to vote for whoever they think is right; many also leave helpful - well, mostly - advice that can be painfully blunt.

Case settled, Judge Judy style.

Jeff Drawe, 28, of Jacksonville, Fla., praised Sidetaker as "pretty nifty. It's really helpful."

He is side two of the Gucci Stand-Off.

Wife Mary, 32, began in part: "Firstly, I am not asking him to buy it for me - I make enough money and more to afford one; secondly, I only want ONE Gucci purse - not a collection of 10 of them."

He retorted online: "I personally think it's a status symbol for women."

While voting was still going on last week, initial comments - 15 pages worth - favored him. "Spending that amount of money on a purse is insane," said one post. "If you can't see why, then you either have more money than sense or you need a serious reality check."

In the meantime, Drawe said his wife bought a $300 purse at a consignment shop - rather than the $700 Gucci. Sidetaker "helped me save $400," he said.

The skinny flirter was voted down. About two-thirds took her boyfriend's side. And the lax flusher was pummeled. A whopping 75 percent took her side and declared him a jerk.

Sidetaker's success relies on the dedicated participation of strangers. But why get involved in other people's business?

Well, Sidetaker does have a voyeuristic quality about it. Many probably log on to marvel at the inanity of others' lives, not unlike those who tune into reality shows.

Beyond that, most people have a bit of Dear Abby in them. "This is an opportunity to help somebody else," said psychiatrist David Baron, chairman of psychiatry and behavioral science at Temple University's School of Medicine. "This is real life. It isn't fiction or fantasy. . . . We all feel good when we can help others, but when you help others, you're learning a little bit about yourself."

Ray Fischer, a staff therapist at the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia, sees the lure of such a site. It's anonymous - unless too many details are told. It's free. And, to his surprise after a cursory look, it carries comments that seem "pretty thoughtful."

But Fischer was troubled by what sites like Sidetaker portend. "It says something about what we're going to become," he said. "There's a level of disconnectedness. . . . If we can't interact with one another face-to-face, how are we going to create those intimate relationships so we can be a healthy society?"

The site initially focused on lovers' disputes but has since expanded to include disagreements between roommates, parents and children, and coworkers. It has about 150 arguments listed and 5,000 registered users, said Marinos, who has plans to include professional advice as well.

Posters argue about everything: "Do I Leave the Sweetest Girl in the World?"; "Sex is Never Enough!"; "Disciplining Our Toddler"; "Pop vs. Soda."

"There's a big melting pot of how people live," Marinos said. "It's crazy."

The site was born of personal need. Over the summer, Marinos had a squabble with his girlfriend.

His friends said he was right. Her friends, of course, took her side. Marinos decided to turn to the Internet.

"I was looking for basically unbiased opinions," he said.

While Marinos has taken down his own story so, he says, the site doesn't become all about him, he offered this recap: His girlfriend of a few weeks wanted to go to a concert. He didn't care for the group and passed. So she went with a male friend from work. Afterward, they had a few drinks, and they kissed.

"She thought it was harmless," he said. "I thought it was cheating."

Public opinion sided with him at 60 percent.

Sidetaker notes that "far too many divorces, breakups, and separations happen over noncritical disputes. . . . When you can create a jury of anonymous peers to decide who is right or wrong in an argument, then the bias is gone and the person at fault will just have to suck it up."

In his case, it didn't quite work that way. The two have split.