Who here has done the Eharmony thing? Opinions, please.

[Scubaqueen]

such is life.

I find myself not only without my beloved old kitty Murphy - RIP these last ten days, sweet boy - but am now also w/o the Divemaster after almost five years of togetherness (he's still alive, in case you were all wondering. :p )

while i'm not ready to dive back into the dating world just yet, i long ago filled out a profile for eharmony, and, bless 'em, they haven't forgotten about me. once i'm done licking all my wounds, i was considering a trial period with them.

what say you dopers who have partaken: boom or bust?

[pherorama]

If you're going to go with a dating site, I'd suggest www.okcupid.com

Not as restrictive as eHarmony, and free.

[Sweetums]

I started a thread a while back about how after taking the e-harmony test they told me I was basicly "undateable".

Of course I have actually dated since then, so that pretty much sums up my opinion of e-harmony. :)

[phall0106]

eHarmony survivor here. I found it to be incredibly dull and boorish. Well, at least the men I was meeting were. There were simply too many of them that wanted to spend too much time sending emails and chatting online. Plus, every single man was looking for MARRIAGE. Do you realize how difficult it is to get to know someone if they're eyeing you up as their wife? (Not girlfriend--WIFE.) Talk about pressure.

I found better luck with match.com, in that I met a lot more men who were willing to meet me for lunch after two emails. (I cannot tell if I'll actually like someone unless I meet them. If I wanted a Pen Pal, then I'd do that, but I don't, so I'm not.)

Still, I quickly got bored with the whole "New Man Every Weekend" thing, plus as weird as it sounds, I simply could not keep track of who was who.

"I have a date this weekend with Phil."

"Which one was he?"

"Um, the guy with the brown hair, who is a dentist and drives the Audi. Or maybe he was the guy with the blonde hair, who has two kids and works in the city. Or was he...dang, I can't recall which one he was!"

I really needed to develop some sort of data base to keep track, and well, that seemed like a lot of effort.

[Grossbottom]

what say you dopers who have partaken: boom or bust?
I'm early-30s male, and it was pretty much a boom. But that personality matching thing is crap, you won't get better chemistry odds than you would walking down the street bumping into people. Another downside is that the site is so cautious and laidback it seems to host alot of people that don't actually want to meet; they just want to trade emails and flirt ad nauseam. So you might need to aggressively weed out the shut-ins getting their daily internet socialization so as to make room for the folks that can handle those high pressure Starbucks meetings. :rolleyes:

I'd do it again if I was at loose ends and it wasn't surf blocked. Getting to meet girls at work was a big part of the fun factor for me, I didn't really sit at home doing it. Just remember to deep six anyone that doesn't spark your interest or is giving you the run around, so you get new matches and your money's worth.

[KneadToKnow]

I started a thread a while back about how after taking the e-harmony test they told me I was basicly "undateable".
:confused:

How did they convey this? "Sorry, we don't think we can help you at this time, please try again later" or "Are you flurkin' nuts?" Somewhere in between?

[Dunawake]

I filled out a eHarmony profile a while back and it's the only dating site I've actually gotten any reaction from, with several "requests for communication". But since I don't really feel like paying $80 just to respond...I can't comment.

[Sweetums]

:confused:

How did they convey this? "Sorry, we don't think we can help you at this time, please try again later" or "Are you flurkin' nuts?" Somewhere in between?

Something along the order of "there are no matches for you at this time." I took the test as a lark, but answred honestly. Still, I thought it funny at the time, that for all their talk of finding a "soulmate" I didn't seem to have on as far as they were concerned.

I have tried several on-line dating services in the past, so have a few friends of mine and can't say I know anyone who has gotten satisfactory results. Of course when talking about on-line dating services. I am exempting match.com from this. Having long hair, I am on the turn-offs list of 99.9% of the women there. :D

[Catfood Purrito]

:confused:

How did they convey this? "Sorry, we don't think we can help you at this time, please try again later" or "Are you flurkin' nuts?" Somewhere in between?

If I recall correctly, it's been several years, it was something along the lines of the first one. It happens to a lot of people, to the point where another online personals site is currently running an ad mocking it. Even my mom got rejected, and she's the most normal person I know. A few years ago, I filled out the personality profile thing out of curiosity (I was already in a relationship) because of a thread on another message board discussing how so many people get rejected, and sure enough, they regard me as undateable. I'm a little weird, though, so I wasn't terribly surprised. So's my husband, so I guess we're a good match.

My mom's had better luck with match.com.

[KneadToKnow]

So, is it easier to be told you're undateable by a soulless computer algorithm, or by a string of go-nowhere misadventures?

As a soon-to-be-divorced guy, this is info I really have an interest in.

[Cajun Man]

This thread is better suited for IMHO.

I'll move it for you.

Cajun Man
for the SDMB

[Lynne_kilii]

second vote for OKCupid. The price is right, it's fun, and it was reccomended to me by a doper a few months ago. Just finished up a date twenty minutes ago, actually...

**grin**

[OpalCat]

I tried eharmony once. Despite saying "within 50 miles" had people contacting me daily from all over the fucking place--even the opposite coast! And you don't (or at least didn't back then) get to see what they looked like until you'd already talked for a while, apparently. I'm not a shallow person, but I do have to have a physical attraction, sorry. I don't want to waste my time only to realize that while you might be nice as a friend, you totally revolt me on a physical chemistry level.

[Fern Forest]

I found OKCupid to be practically empty. Maybe it was just that my state (Hawaii) is woefully underrepresented but still for free it can't hurt to check it out.

[Dr._Emmett_Brown]

Count me in as another "at least OkCupid is free" vote. eHarmony is eerily cult-like.

[Beware of Doug]

Yes. If you watch their tv commercials, an alarmingly large percentage of the men have shaved heads. That's gotta mean something.

[Contrapuntal]

In just checked out the OK Cupid site. It asks for your birthday and zip code. With those two pieces of information your identity would be pretty easy to discover. Just sayin'.

[Orual]

eHarmony consistently matched me up with the most creepy, weirdo guys I've ever had the misfortune of meeting. I never got past a single date with any of them.

[DianaG]

In just checked out the OK Cupid site. It asks for your birthday and zip code. With those two pieces of information your identity would be pretty easy to discover. Just sayin'.
Huh? So does every other dating site. They also ask for a profile and a picture. These things make it pretty damned easy to discvoer your identity.

FWIW, I was on OK Cupid for about 5 minutes. Well, I'm STILL on there, sans picture and most info. (Honestly, if anyone REALLY wants to get into my pants, your best shot is if you can tell me how to delete that damned account.) I found it spectacularly tedious. After weeding through all the responses from people who were too young, too old, too far away, too damned ugly (let's be frank here, people), or barely literate, I actually met two people. One's a great guy, but there was no romantic chemistry. The other was the biggest tool I've ever had the displeasure of spending an hour with.

Obviously lots of people have much better luck with the online thing than I have. But for me, it's just didn't work.

[amarinth]

On a dare/challenge from a friend, I actually spent money at eHarmony. I'm ashamed of myself and no longer speaking to that particular friend.

Though I was considered "matchable," their algorithm couldn't/wouldn't find a reasonable number of matches for me - until it was time to extend the membership for the failure to find those matches. At that point, it ignored all of my restrictions (within 50 miles? hah - unless 3000 and 50 are considered similar as they're both numbers that end in "0.")

Also, unlike other sites, eHarmony doesn't even let you pretend to filter on things like "age" or "does the other person have children?" because apparently offspring are not important enough to matter.

On the other hand, I don't thinkg anyone over 25 uses OK Cupid.

[Contrapuntal]

Huh? So does every other dating site. They also ask for a profile and a picture. These things make it pretty damned easy to discvoer your identity.That shows how little I know.

[Boyo Jim]

Maybe this Reuter's story (http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSN3122132120070531) sheds a little light on the creepy factor:

eHarmony was founded in 2000 by evangelical Christian Dr. Neil Clark Warren and had strong early ties with the influential religious conservative group Focus on the Family...

[OpalCat]

At that point, it ignored all of my restrictions (within 50 miles? hah - unless 3000 and 50 are considered similar as they're both numbers that end in "0.")
I thought I was the only one! Yeah getting "matches" from thousands of miles away when I'd specified 25 or 50 miles? Whatever.

[pulykamell]

I got the same "undatable" message from eHarmony.

I met exactly one person from OKCupid. It was a very quiet website for me (this was in January of 2006). Nobody ever seemed to write back.

Match was a goldmine. I literally had one week lined up with four different girls, four days in a row, and all of them were good dates. If I were a player, this is the site I would use. But I found my current SO on Match, so those other three dates had to go post haste.

I did Yahoo! Personals for a spell in 2004, and that sucked for me as well.

So, in my experience, Match was the best match for me. Plenty of down-to-earth girls, didn't meet any "crazies," girls were up for meeting within a week of writing them. That's my unreserved recommendation.

[Lok]

FWIW, I was on OK Cupid for about 5 minutes. Well, I'm STILL on there, sans picture and most info.
Try this, log in, click on My Account>Edit Settings. At the bottom, at the bottom of the page click on Show Delete Account Options. Put in your password, then delete your account.

(Honestly, if anyone REALLY wants to get into my pants, your best shot is if you can tell me how to delete that damned account.)
So, how you doin'? :D

[Johnny Hildo]

If you're going to go with a dating site, I'd suggest www.okcupid.com

Not as restrictive as eHarmony, and free.

OKCupid isn't free. Paying members can write to you and you can respond, but if you want to initiate an email you gotta pay. Definitely beats Match but few in my area seem to use it. Seems that New York is a hotbed of swanky, attractive chicks using that service, though. Hmm, I'll have to move there one day.

[pulykamell]

OKCupid isn't free. Paying members can write to you and you can respond, but if you want to initiate an email you gotta pay.

When did this change? It used to be free for the longest time.

[Nametag]

I've never seen anything on OKCupid that has to be paid for; are you sure you're not thinking of some other service that has "cupid" in it somewhere?

[DianaG]

OkCupid is absolutely free. I just messaged someone to be sure, right before I DELETED MY ACCOUNT!!! Yay! Thanks Lok! :D

Oh, and a deal's a deal. Let me know if it's worth the trip to you. Sight unseen, since I DELETED MY OKCUPID ACCOUNT!!! Oh happy day!!! ;)

[Lok]

That depends, trip to where? :D

[JoeSki]

OKCupid isn't free. Paying members can write to you and you can respond, but if you want to initiate an email you gotta pay. Definitely beats Match but few in my area seem to use it. Seems that New York is a hotbed of swanky, attractive chicks using that service, though. Hmm, I'll have to move there one day.


I think you're confused with another site.

I've never given OKCupid a dime, have sent messages to users, and have received back responses.

[Johnny Hildo]

I've never seen anything on OKCupid that has to be paid for; are you sure you're not thinking of some other service that has "cupid" in it somewhere?

Ah, you're right. I was thinking of FastCupid, which is affiliated with The Onion Personals.