Planet13 - 6:45 pm on May 11, 2011 (gmt 0)

its a shame there are no genuine, quality networking sites where hard working site owners can find other quality link partners to link with.

I would just find them through google and propose a straight reciprocal link with them. You will get more value if they are NOT in a network, because then they will only be linking to you instead of you AND all your competitors.