Counting on technology to bring you happiness is a risky thing. Whenever I think of “computer dating” I get images of guys with white lab coats and dark horn-rimmed glasses carrying stacks of punch cards through pristine computer labs. Then there are those endless pieces of junk mail from companies with names like “Great Expectations” that offer you the opportunity to meet your lifelong partner through their scientific matching methods.
When I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal in the summer of 2003 about eHarmony.com, I was intrigued. eHarmony’s marketing touts its ability to match people based on “29 dimensions of compatibility” and has slogans such as “When you’re ready to find the love of your life.” How could anyone argue with that? I decided to sign up.
I am hereby sharing my real-life eHarmony experience in the interest of assisting those of you who are considering going this route. I hope this review proves helpful, if not entertaining.
The eHarmony Process
It should be pointed out that eHarmony.com is not an online personals site like match.com or Lavalife. It’s the modern version of the yenta, a matchmaker who looks at who you are and what you’re looking for and connects you up with someone of (ostensibly) compatible values and goals. eHarmony clients don’t get to pick from thousands of other clients—they have to wait for the matches to come to them.
Once I decided to jump in, the first thing I was presented with was the "Personality Profile." This is a questionnaire that takes about 30-40 minutes to complete, and it’s very similar to those surveys you took in high school to determine what career best suited you (dog catcher? neurosurgeon?): they ask the same question three or four different ways, presumably to get all those subtle nuances of who you really are.
(There are also some trick questions which are meant to filter out the liars in the crowd, such as “do you ever drive over the speed limit?” I’ve heard that if you answer “no” to that particular question you are rejected by the system. So if you’re a liar or a really really safe driver, keep that in mind—you may be driving to the movies alone for a while longer.)
I finished the personality profile, sat back, and waited for the Love of My Life.
Two days later, I received a couple of emails from eHarmony, telling me that they had found some matches for me, and if I chose to communicate with these women, I could do so.
When you see your matches, this is what you know about them: their first name, what town they live in, their age, their height, and what they do for a living. If they choose to post a picture, it may be available for you to view at this point. They can also choose to hide their photo until later in the process. Further down the page, you see several sections of introductory information, where your match gets to talk about herself (or himself). You get to read about her passions, what she's looking for in another person, how her friends describe her, and other things like that. At the time your match is made, your match receives a similar page that you've created about yourself.
This is the part of eHarmony that’s the most similar to other dating sites, because this is where you establish yourself to your matches—- I’ve seen a lot of posing and "trying really hard to make a good first impression" stuff going on here.
If you choose to communicate with one of your matches, you click a button that says “Start Communication.” This causes the system to send your match an email that says that you want to start the process with them. You then choose five closed-ended questions (from a list of about 30) that you’d like the other person to answer: these questions are along the lines of “what do you like to do on a Saturday night?” and your match has to choose from four predetermined answers or they can fill in their own answer.
If your match decides to start the process, they will answer the five questions and return with five of their own. If they choose not to start, they can hit the “Close Match” button at any time, and choose from a couple dozen reasons for dumping you, from “I am pursuing another relationship” to “Other.” Once you close the other person (or they close you) you cannot, in any way, communicate with them again. A pretty nice feature in case you run across a stalker or something.
Once you’ve exchanged closed-ended questions, you then exchange “Must-Haves/Can’t Stands.” This is actually a worthwhile thing because it really gets down to what’s important to you and your match. You pick 10 things (again, from a list of about 40) that you absolutely must have in a relationship, and then 10 more things that you absolutely do not want. A typical must-have is “I must have someone who likes to give and receive physical affection,” and a can’t stand would be “I can’t stand someone who is married to their job.” A few of my matches ended after this point when it was clear we didn’t sync up.
If you make it past this stage, the next step is where you exchange open-ended questions, and you get to go a little deeper into your and your match’s personalities. Again, you get to choose from about 30 pre-written questions, like “What is your simplest pleasure?” or you can write your own. This area can be a lot of fun, and it can be like a really bad job interview. One question I was asked was “how would you feel about dating someone who is considered ‘unattractive?’" You can learn a lot about someone here.
Completing this step successfully leads to the next step, “Open Communications,” which is essentially sending emails through eHarmony’s system. You do not have each other's personal email or other contact information at this point. The idea is that you continue to communicate through eHarmony as long as you like, until you reach the point where you’re both comfortable with a phone call and/or meeting. Theoretically, by the time you reach this point most of the hard questions should be out of the way.
The next step is up to you and your match. This is where that pesky human chemistry thing comes into play—- someone you are completely compatible with on paper (or in this case, bits floating over the internet) may do nothing for you when you actually meet. The hope is, of course, that magic happens and you and your match go on to be one of the “thousands of success stories” in eHarmony's ads.
That’s how the process works. Now on to the real interesting part-— my actual experience with the service.
First, a little about me: early forties, divorced, two kids with me part time. I think I'm pretty decent looking, I've got a very good job, I own my own home, I'm a nice, considerate guy, etc., so I guess I'm a good catch, as they say.
Now, the raw numbers: I was a member of eHarmony for 7 months. In that time, I was matched with 216 women. Of those 216, I reached Open Communications with about 50. Of those 50, 28 are ones with whom there was a mutual interest, at least electronically. Of the 28, about 10 led to phone calls and/or arrangements to meet. Of the 10, 7 led to first dates. Of the 7, 3 led to second dates. Of those three, two led to third dates.
What follows is a representation of the women I was matched with. I am presenting this out of human interest and I am not trying to sound bitchy. I'm sure some of these women could tell you what they didn't like about me, but they can enter that in their own blogs.
The List
In the order in which I was matched with them, here's a list of some of the more interesting women I was matched with and what happened. All the names have been changed:
1. Laura was a Real Estate agent. The most influential person in her life is her ex-husband, with whom she has a very “loving relationship” to this day. She also has two cats she refers to as “the girls.” I was not encouraged by my first eHarmony match.
2. Mary was an attorney. She prided herself on her sense of humor, but when we spoke on the phone, she was one of the most humorless people I’d ever spoken with. (Imagine this: a great joke flying overhead like a frisbee, only to splat into a vat of cold oatmeal.) We arranged a lunch date, but she cancelled the day before because she decided she wanted to exclusively date someone else she met through eHarmony. I told her I appreciated her honesty and secretly sighed in relief.
3. Marissa was in Sales and was also a student majoring in Psychology. I kind of got the impression in our communications that she was analyzing me. Maybe it was just my paranoia. I ended it because of that and a lack of "spark."
4. Ariel was a DBA and Webmaster whose office was a block away from mine. Her whole deal was in living a Tantric lifestyle, and I got the impression she was really, um, horny. She proposed we meet for lunch right away, and I really didn’t see anything in any of our communications to merit such a quick suggestion. It concerned me, to be honest.
5. Leslie was a freelance PR consultant. Okay, she was unemployed. She was very nice, very bright, and we met for lunch. In person she was the spitting image of my ex-wife’s aunt, and I just couldn’t get past that.
6. Cynthia was an attorney. We had a very nice conversation on the phone and decided to meet for lunch. Within the first 5 minutes of our meeting, I felt there was no chemistry at all, and that was confirmed a few minutes later when she told me she wouldn’t sleep with anyone unless she was going introduce them to her kids. I suggested we see how lunch went first. Our encounter ended when the check came and she stood and said she had to catch a train, but I should "call her sometime."
7. Angela was, it turned out, the head chef at a restaurant in a town where I used to live. (I’ve never been there, but it has a good reputation.) I was her first eHarmony match and she didn’t quite know how to do this whole internet thing. I gave her a little advice on how to go through the process (eHarmony should have paid me!). She really wasn't ready to date, though, so we just kind of let it fade.
8. Monica, at first, seemed to be living proof that eHarmony works. She owned her own PR firm, and was attactive and smart. We clicked right away, talked on the phone, and went on a couple dates. Things seemed to be going nicely when she told me I was the first guy she dated since she left her husband of 20 years, and her divorce had become final one month before we met. When I'd back off, she'd come on stronger, and when I'd show interest in her, she'd back off. She either wasn’t ready for a relationship or, somewhat likely, she had another relationship going at the time. After about a month of dating, I received an eHarmony Open Communication message from her in the middle of the night, ending it.
9. Melissa was a salesperson who had her own line of cosmetics that she sold to salons around Chicago. She never could tell me how she manufactured the stuff, and she said it “doesn’t have a brand name yet.” Whenever I asked about her work, she seemed to change the subject to my work or gloss over the question. I just got a creepy feeling from the whole situation. When I ended communications, I was glad she didn’t have my phone number because I think I would have been called. A lot.
10. Helena was an office manager and by far the funniest person I met on eHarmony, which is a big plus. We became friends over email and met for dinner once. There was nothing romantic between us, but we kept communicating outside eHarmony as good friends.
11. Sherry worked in Customer Service and asked right up front how I would feel about dating someone “unattractive.” She actually looked nice in her photo, but I wanted to see if there was something positive underneath all the cynicism. There really wasn’t. We never even got to a phone conversation.
12. Emily was an art director who was very cute and funny, but also very recently divorced. We had lunch a couple of times, and she asked me to a movie on a weeknight. The day before the movie she had to cancel our date because of “work.” She told me at one of our lunches that she was seeing another guy from eHarmony, so I figured that had something to do with it.
13. Sandy was a medical transcriptionist. We met for dinner and we had a lot in common, but it was one of those situations where there could have been sparks, but for some reason they never ignited. We stayed in touch for a while, but eventually lost contact.
14. Jessica was probably the most interesting person I met on eHarmony. She had a very interesting life as a teenager, and in the late 70s-early 80s hung out at punk clubs in Boston. We emailed each other for a while, and like Sandy, if there were sparks it might have gone somewhere.
15. Carol was a nurse at a fertility clinic. We met for dinner and she seemed nice, but once again, very light in the sense-of-humor department. She holds distinction of being the last eHarmony match whom I met in real life.
I refrained from mentioning The Really Scary Goth Chick, The Fundamental Atheist, The Crusader, and the Lady Who Was Soooooooo Attractive That Men Are Put Off By Her Beauty and the Glamour Shot on her Profile Proved It. They were all interesting, yes, but not people I ever took seriously.
This is not to imply that the women I met on eHarmony were all nuts or defective in some way. Many of them were very nice, normal, sweet people-- just not "The Love of My Life," as advertised. And let's face it, you probably wouldn't have read this far if you thought the stories were boring.
It All Comes Down To This:
On paper, eHarmony sounds like the perfect solution to meeting people. By getting to all the deep-down stuff up front, you should be able to determine whether someone is right for you or not. I have to admit that there are things that I learned about my eHarmony matches that I might not have discovered until many dates into the relationship, if ever. For these purposes, it works just fine.
What’s missing is the element of personal chemistry. Some people are writers, some are talkers: it’s easy to become enamored of someone who writes well, only to discover they can’t look you in the eye when you meet. The other side is that some people can’t write at all, yet in person they’re completely charming. And above all this, you can feel perfectly comfortable and attracted to someone on line and even on the phone, but once you meet you’re still down to pheromones or whatever.
“Find the love of your life?” Maybe it’s possible with eHarmony. My advice to anyone who tries it is to be yourself, have fun, enjoy the way the system works, but never discount the importance of the element of human wackiness.
Posted by jtl at September 8, 2004 10:19 AM