1) Accept the person that you are, and learn to love that person. If you don't accept who you are and love yourself, others will have a hard time following suit.
2) Do the things you love. In doing so, you're likely to meet others who share the same interests.
3) Stop worrying about whether you'll ever find someone. When you do this, you project a sense of desperation, and others can pick up on this.
Also, why the tight time frame? You don't get married to become happy, you get married because you're already happy.
On a more practical level, try OkCupid.com. Seriously, I've been so impressed with that site. If match.com is like myspace, okcupid.com is like facebook. High quality, smart people. The girls actually write you back. I'm averaging about 2 dates a month from OkCupid right now.
Also, the site is just a well designed and fun web app, so I can appreciate it on that level.
I haven't used any other dating sites, so I have no proper basis for comparison, but I've been very satisfied with the site, from matching system, search options, etc.
Bottom line: I ended up meeting my current girlfriend there and things are going very, very well with her. Anecdotal evidence, yes, but I hope it complements the nuggets of awesomeness you'll find on OKTrends (http://blog.okcupid.com).