I had lunch with a total stranger today. His name is John Bito, and fortunately, he's a pretty nice guy.

It could have gone either way, though. And that's the point of Noonhat.com.

A Web site introduced me and Sarah Schacht to John Bito.

Yesterday I entered today's date, my e-mail address and the area where I wanted to have lunch into the new Seattle-based Web site. Unlike most Web-based social lubricants, Noonhat forgoes gathering any additional details about its participants in its quest to pair Seattleites with random lunch companions.

It just sends out an e-mail to a couple of people whose lunch preferences line up. It doesn't even ask for a user's age or gender.

So it's definitely not a dating thing.

"All this is an excuse to talk to people," said 33-year-old Brian Dorsey, the site's creator. Dorsey didn't make the site to make money or even make it big. He just wanted to meet someone totally random for lunch. The best way to do that, he figured, was to let everyone do it.

Two months in, the site had 100 users. But in the 24 hours after he talked about it at Seattle's geek event "Ignite Night" last week, 100 more signed up.

You never know who you'll meet on these blind non-dates, so if you're nervous, Dorsey suggests bringing a friend.

I brought Seattleite Sarah Schacht -- but not because I was nervous. She and I already had a lunch date and figured we'd add a wild card into the mix.

The system sent an e-mail to Bito, me and a third user who quickly told us he wouldn't be able to make it, and we arranged the time -- 12:30 -- and the place, Macrina Bakery.

For not having entered anything about ourselves into the site, we found plenty to talk about. Bito is a vegetarian very into local politics, just like Sarah. And he's from the East Coast, just like me. So other than our jobs -- Schacht runs KnowledgeAsPower.org and Bito works for QPass, a company he said sold the very first ringtone in the U.S. -- we discussed next Tuesday's local election, what makes East Coasters the way they are and where one can find a good vegetarian recipe.

So if you've got an appetite and a sense of adventure, this is a pretty good way to meet someone new.

Anybody out there use Noonhat lately? Thinking about it? What do you think?