MONETT, MO.

As Toni drives around this southern Missouri town in her Malibu, she remarks on the likeliest places to meet someone special.

“I could probably hang out in this store,’’ she says, pointing to Race Brothers Farm Supply. “I used to buy stuff for my horse there.’’ Next is the YMCA: “Maybe in the weight room I’d meet somebody,’’ she says. “But that’s just not me.’’ She makes another nod, to Justin’s Boots: a red metal barn with a mock silo attached.

Finally, there’s the Beer Cave, its windows wrapped in Bud Light posters. “I’ve never stepped foot in there,’’ she says.

Such are the reasons that Toni, who is 44 years old, who loves dressing up in period costumes, who works with kids with special needs, who is a mother of four, and who wants animals and a man to share with her a life in the country, is single.

If dating in the city is a jungle, try the hunt across small towns, foothills, and mountains. Imagine a dating game that requires you to cast the die across millions of acres of corn and cow. Imagine driving 200 miles to be disappointed at dinner.

Hence, FarmersOnly.com, a dating site that sprouted in 2005 to connect people across rural expanses so that they may not only find love, but also find others with a love of country culture or the outdoors. FarmersOnly declined to respond to interview requests for membership data; a message from a few years ago boasts 2 million members.

Like a lot of matchmaking services, FarmersOnly gives hope to a specific audience: the lonely hearts of the heartland, who seem at least as deserving as the souls on Meet-an-inmate.com. You can click a button to flirt with someone with prewritten lines. Some are generic: “You have a nice smile.’’ Others are not: “Which is faster, you or your horse?’’ and “I see you like John Deere too . . . want to compare tractors?’’

But talk with some FarmersOnly members, and you’ll find that even a land as mythologized as the American countryside — the one we know from TV as a land so happy only slow-motion photography can capture it — is no better than any other when it comes to matters of love. And because of the distances involved and such sparse numbers, it may in fact be worse.

Misty is from a speck of a town in central Texas about an hour from Austin. (None of the men contacted for this article responded.) Like Toni, she wants a man who shares a love for country living.

Her profile pics show a fit brunette engaged in a veritable decathlon of dudeness. In one, she is sprawled across geese she shot and stacked like cordwood. In another, she holds the head of a dead buck by its sizable antlers. In a third, she beams from the cockpit of her old mud-racing truck, worth about $40,000 and equipped with a 1,000-horsepower engine.

“I’ve done some real country redneck things,’’ she says on the phone. But she clarifies that she doesn’t necessarily expect a man to be as rough and tumble as she is. “I’m looking for someone just to have a conversation with and who likes the outdoors.’’

She’s had a rough go. Zero matches from about 10 dates, for a medley of reasons, including religion. FarmersOnly is secular but draws a lot of professed Christians professing traditional values. Seems like a great place to meet a gentleman. But as of midsummer, Misty was still waiting. One tried to take her to the equivalent of Hooters. “I told him I didn’t see how he could get to know me where there are so many other things to look at.’’

Like with any other dating site, relationships are born from an intriguing profile and grow via text messages and phone calls. But when two people decide to meet, the distances to cross in rural America ratchet up the expectation for sex. That can mean a first date doesn’t just mean deciding what to wear, but where to stay. And some really awkward conversations with someone you’ve never even met.

Says Beth from Kansas: “I don’t kiss on the first date, so that’s been a problem for someone driving up from Texas.’’ Misty once rented an Airbnb and then canceled when the man proved a cad over the phone. She got her money back.

The distances lead to other problems. Kimberlie, who lives near Des Moines, found a man in Wisconsin who worked as a farrier, which means he works on horse hooves — a hot commodity on FarmersOnly. Kimberlie trekked to Wisconsin several times. At first, they did not have sex, and there was no pressure.

After awhile it got pretty serious, and Kimberlie met his family. Then she discovered he was dating other women. “I’m not one to be naive,’’ she says. “I found out this other stuff was going on, and it made sense this was his game.’’

Like a lot of women on FarmersOnly, Kimberlie, in her 30s, doesn’t consider herself a feminist — although she is ambitious, independent, and outspoken. Those qualities can work against type on a site like FarmersOnly. She bid one country boy on the site good-bye after he suggested she do his laundry. “I like being in the kitchen,’’ says Kimberlie, a professional baker, “but not because I’m traditional. It’s because it’s what I love to do.’’ She wants a partner, but she makes clear that she doesn’t need one.

Plenty of women on FarmersOnly have mated first with a lifestyle. The site then helps them scan the horizons for a good man.

Kimberlie, a proud small-town girl, said many men on FarmersOnly profess to want a friend and lover to romp with in the great outdoors. Still, “I’ve never had anybody go, ‘Want to come to my farm and cruise some gravel roads?’ or anything like that,’’ she says. “I’d do that in a heartbeat. It’s so simple and so fun.’’ It also reveals more about who a person is.

Instead, she’s gone to dinner.

Stephanie, from a suburb of Tulsa, reprioritized after a divorce last year by putting lifestyle over love. When she thought of happiness, she thought back to being a teenager on a galloping horse.

Now Stephanie owns two horses and wants to sell her large suburban home to buy a ranch with a horse barn. She’s already roped her kids into the country life. Her son is learning how to lasso, and her daughter can ride a barrel pattern.

“This is a hobby we share,’’ Stephanie says. “We all enjoy being out there, whether it’s trail riding or going to the rodeo. It’s not like we’re going to a ballgame for one kid and gymnastics for another.’’

Recently, she signed up for FarmersOnly, got bowled over by male interest, and sifted through a few intriguing options. Regardless, “I have a plan in place, man or no man.’’

Still, if she finds someone, there’s a good chance she’ll find him on FarmersOnly, which is the only dating site to earn her business. And others say that despite disappointments, they’re sticking with it.

Beth used the site to meet a long-term partner in Kansas, and though the relationship failed, she rejoined. “I felt that I met a man whose values and behaviors were more in line with Christ than anyone I found on Christian Mingle,’’ she says.

Toni in Missouri found a man with horses in the country. But on a date on horseback — a dream — he downed so many beers that they washed away Toni’s hopes.

Recently, she found someone else through the site. But he moved from Missouri to Montana, a distance too great even for the power of the Internet to transcend.

“I was sad when he moved because I found someone with the same morals and ideals that I [have],’’ says Toni. “There’s one thing that no matter who you are, you cannot compete against, and that’s a good-paying job.’’

Bret Schulte is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Arkansas.