Guided Search

Firstly thanks for ProfileSearch...Great module doing pretty much exactly what I want it to.

I'm not sure if this is a proper feature request because it may not be something that anyone else wants.

Anyway, is there a way to modify this slightly so that the search can be guided via a defined list?

Here's a scenario that I think ProfileSearch may not find everyone. When someone fills in their profile in a field called Area of Interest they type Cars. Someone else in their own profile types Motor Cars.

When a user decides to search for someone with the same interest lets say Automobiles, they of course type in the search Automobiles...The search returns no-one despite there being 2 people in the site with the same interest just listed under different values (cars and motor cars).

To overcome people entering different values for the same subject in the Area of Interest field in their profile I have created a dropdown list of all the possible areas of interest (a pre defined list). So now the choice if you are in to Motor Cars is Cars.

Is it possible to make profile search use that dropdown list of pre-defined values to find people? So someone doing a search selects a value from the dropdown list and the search searches on that value. That way there is no way that someone could search on a value that didn't exist (and essentially be disappointed)

Does that make sense?

As I've typed this I'm thinking this is going to be tricky, but I know very little about coding etc so I'm at your mercy. Any advice/help is greatly received.