eHarmony sure does think I suck.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The first two times I took their “in-depth, comprehensive personality test, designed to match you with just the right person”, I was told that I was so utterly bizarre and/or incomprehensible that they refused outright to attempt to hook me up with anyone. That’s right; they actually would not accept my money to try to find anyone even remotely like me.

So, today, on a lark, I take the test again. I fill out the questionnaire at blinding speed, giving my brain about a tenth of a second in which to process the question between reading it and selecting my answer. Fifteen minutes later, I’m through, and – wonder of wonders – it accepts me! At long last, I’m semi-quantifiable (woo hoo?) enough to be entered as a set of variables in some system’s database. Curious to find out what sort of fellow lunatics I’ll be paired up with, I eagerly click the “Find Matches” button, wait through eHarmony’s sixty second nag animation, and discover…nothing. “Our matching system was not able to find any new matches for you right now.”

What the hell? Oh, wait. My profile’s set to only accept matches in Roanoke. That must be the problem. Better make it all of Virginia. There we go. Now, we just click on “Find Matches” again, and…“Our matching system was not able to find any new matches for you right now.”

Well, crap. Fine then. Increase search range to the entire United States of America, and expand allowable age range by three years in either direction. Click on “Find Matches”, and…“Our matching system was not able to find any new matches for you right now.”

Okay, FINE! I see how it is! All right, then…expand age range to maximum allowable and, just for kicks, remove what few restrictions I had on race, religion and recreational drug use. Expand geographical search range to include all inhabitants of the planet Earth. Click on “Find Matches”, and…“Our matching system was not able to find any new matches for you right now.”

That’s it. I give up. When an electronic corporate entity refuses to allow me to pay them on the grounds that pretending that they could conceivably find a compatible mate for me would just be wrong, well, I’d say I’m probably just screwed. Oh well. Back to Match.com, whose latest take on me seems to be that I enjoy ditzy 18-year-old party girls whose profiles are written in AIM-speak. That is, if I can ever finish wading through the endless stream of emails that my awe-inspiring profile elicits. Hell, I might even get one someday.

Note for the folks who don’t know me in real life, which is more or less all of you: the above is roughly 97.4% facetious. I don’t rely entirely on online services for my romantic encounters, and I certainly don’t sit around feeling sorry for myself as a result. I do, however, find it mightily amusing in a sardonic sort of way that eHarmony thinks I suck so much.

2

The Wikipedia article on eHarmony profiles and it’s goals might help you understand it a little –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eharmony

Best regards,

Mooney252

3

I think another Doper had the same problem with them a few years ago. Frankly, one reason I never considered them is because I was afraid the same thing would happen to me. If it’s any consolation, I know the Doper it happened to in real life, and I’ve long considered him an attractive man, and I was half-hoping we could date at one point, or, more accurately, knowing him, at sword-point. Since then, I’ve started dating someone else and the gentleman I’m dating and I are rather madly in love with each other. I didn’t meet him through an on-line dating service, or any other dating service. He started turning up at events held by an organization we both belong to.

Yeah, getting turned down by a whole dating service stinks. On the other hand, finding out the only people you’re being paired off with are people whom you’re really not interested in and have little in common with could be worse! It may be trite advice, but it worked for me. Find a group which does stuff which you think is interesting, join it, and see what happens. I tried that with the SCA and it didn’t work; I tried it with Mensa, and wound up with the gentleman I’m dating. I joined Mensa because I went to a science fiction convention. (As you may have gathered, I’m a geek.)

I’m sorry it happened, but you may be better off! Good luck!
CJ

4

Roland, FWIW, IMHO you’re so normal your profile has me yawning.
And yes, my sense of humor includes comforting people who don’t want or need to be comforted :smiley:

5

Why should eHarmony be any different than anyone else?

:smiley:

6

Actually, that does explain a whole lot. I always wondered why I got some sort of “pastor” vibe from the dude on TV.

Roland, go visit okcupid.com (if you haven’t already). They have no agenda (other than making money on ads and donations). They’re free and entertaining. But whatever you do, don’t look for a match before you answer at least 100 questions (improve matches). When I did, I got so depressed because all of my matches were “20%” compatable or less. It took me a while to figure out it’s a statisitics thing; once you’ve answered a higher number of questions (like 200 or so), the matches get better.

And (purely as a scientific experiment), if anyone wants to see just how geeky I am… :wink:

7

JAG –

I read an article (The New Yorker?) that described the eHarmony ads as touch of brilliiance. An advertising expert said basically: they give Neil Warren the whole screen; he’s a fatherly figure with a white background and that the visual image is intended to make him godlike, as if speaking to you from heaven.

In advertising, nothing’s accidental. Not the background, not the tie color, not the voice.

Best regards,

Mooney252

8

eHarmony is generally for people who want to get married soon. I think that you’re a bit young for that service. Even though you expanded your age range to people who are decades older than you, it still won’t match you because those much older than you won’t fit into their forumula for matching. IOW, the self selecting categories will work to limit your matches, not expand them.

9

From your profile

Come on. You seriously think that’s going to get you play with mostly conservative religious girls who want to get married?

10

I think that’s how it usually works. The “Find Matches” button usually doesn’t produce matches (or very few), but if you wait a while, the system would produce a few matches every week and let you know. I think it’s an attempt to make you value each match and consider them seriously.

11

Honestly, I have avoided their service. Being rejected by people is bad enough. I refuse to be rejected by a machine.

Sad, ain’t it?

12

In my opinion, OKCupid sucks out loud. I get the same 5 or 6 matches each and every time I go there (with an average “match %” of about 50%, even after answering something like 600+ questions). I gave up on it several months ago, and on a whim, went back to check last night…same matches I had six months ago. I guess you get what you pay for.

13

OK< so I filled out the darn thing. I think I answered one page of questions “backwards,” but there is no way to go back and fix it. So much for the ‘answer quickly’ technique.

Survey says …

Four hits. (One in Hawaii!)

14

Now I see the real problem with this eHarmony thing.

I get all nervous even reading profiles of people who might want to marry me. Fear of commitment. Hummmm… that would explain the whole ‘living in Saudi Arabia’ thing I guess.

15

I actually read one of Dr Warrens books (don’t judge me: my sister gave it to me and I thought it was funny).

You problem is that you don’t match a lot of Warren’s criteria. For one thing, he thinks that people should only get married after age 24 (and the stats actually do back him up there).

For another, he thinks that people should never marry outside of their religion. Since you say that you wouldn’t date anyone who self-identifies as Christian, and over 70% of the people on his site say that they are religious (and 90% of those are Christian), it’s not all that suprising that e-Harmony had bupkis for you.

FWIW, I self-identify as Christian, and I’ve been very happy dating my hardcore athiest for over a year now. Don’t knock it 'till you’ve tried it. We have great conversations. :wink:

16

I can’t see your profile if I’m not logged in.

17

Well, maybe so. But I’m not Christian at all, and I got matched with lots of people from lots of different backgrounds. I got a lot of Indian or Indian-descent programmers, actually.

Keep in mind, also, that someone who self-identifies as “Christian” may have one of an enormous range of religious beliefs and practices. Many people I know who, on a multiple-choice survey would describe themselves as “Christian” do no more than keep up a vague tradition of Santa Claus and Easter Bunny. Many more don’t even do that, but they were raised in one of the many, many kinds of Christian or Christian-flavored traditions around, and they have just enough of their Christian or semi-Christian upbringing to check the “Christian” box on the form.

18

Just to clarify–I got matched with a lot of Catholics and Protestants (of various types), too. If you’re really concerned about a religious difference, you can make “Describe your spirituality” one of your open questions.

Honestly, I’ve been pretty impressed by eHarmony. A lot of the matches I’ve gotten have been total dreck, yeah. But some of them have been pretty good. I’m dating one of my matches right now. I’m not sure this is the romance of a lifetime, but there is a certain comfort, peace, and understanding that we have with each other that hasn’t happened in the vast majority of the dating I’ve been through.

19

Funny, eHarmony loved me. Mind you, all my matches seemed be slightly creepy guys looking to settle down with some sweet young thing.

Dude, I’m still a sweet young thing to someone. Cool.

I recommend OkCupid too. You may not meet anyone, but the tests are fun. And it’s free! The cost of eHarmony translates into money I need for buying books and computer games.

20

Hey, thanks for the advice, everyone, but as I indicated in the footnote in the OP, I’m mostly kidding about the whole thing anyway. Truth be told, I met a girl about a week ago and I think it might hold promise. The online matching thing is essentially “this might be amusing, and hey, there’s an off-chance I might meet a friend sometime”.

I didn’t know eHarmony was such a marriage-oriented service. That explains a lot. Seems a shame, since, of the the three (it, Match and OkCupid), it’s the only one that asked questions that were halfway relevant to anything I might conceivably be looking for in a girl/friend. Match has you write a decently descriptive profile, then, from what I can tell, selects your “matches” mostly via age and geographical location. OkCupid just asks you the most inane and worthless questions known to man (from “Would you date a carnivorous lizard?” to “Would you date a married woman if you knew the husband would never find out?”); if I want to play Zobmondo, I’ll do it AFTER I meet the girl, thanks.

Really, though, I don’t fault any of these services for declaring me nigh-unmatchable. I broke up with (read: was dumped by) my ex three years ago, and I’ve been certifiably single ever since. It’s not that I’m overly picky, per se, it’s just that my particular style of social interaction doesn’t exactly appeal to most people’s tastes. My attempts at conversations with normal people go over about as well as my attempts at Dope threads; the person I’m talking with gives me a look that falls anywhere in the range between :confused: and :dubious: , and quickly moves on to other things.

But hey, I’m not complaining. (It’s important that I point that out, since, last time I made light of my profound lack of success in the romance department, it apparently came off as though I were whining about it…I’d honestly be hard-pressed to care less; it’s nothing more than a point of fact.) If I wanted to do anything about it, I’d have done it years ago. I’m perfectly capable of putting on the facade of being a normal person; just check my Match profile (cheers, Maastricht)…I just hate doing it. And, as everyone IRL and on the Dope so enjoys pointing out, I’m still young. Eventually I’ll find someone who operates on the same bizzare wavelength as me. Or not. Either way, I’m cool with it. :cool: