Eharmony's matching technology does little right.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I joined Eharmony last July, cause I was seeing a lot of tv ads about it, and the one on one matching seemed a lot better than searching through thousands of profiles on match.com. All the talk about a complex system that was supposed to match you up according to many different points, convinced me to try it.

I’m an atheist, INTP, math major and libertarian leaning. The first match I got, about two weeks after I joined, was someone I wanted to meet right away, she seemed perfect. I have no idea about what she thought except what she said. We emailed for a couple weeks and but never met in person. And it ended when she made an excuse not to meet by saying she was doing charity work at the zoo that weekend (or something like that). I’m not dating wiz but that seemed like a polite way to say she wasn’t interested so I stopped emailing her, and never got another email from her.

Then I got a second match, which was someone much different from me. A very strong Christian, she wrote of her faith in every paragraph of her profile. I’m an atheist. If there really is an algorithm that selects matches then someone needs to work on updating it to include religion somehow and strength of belief.

Then a couple months later I got three matches in a span of three days, two of them closed the match immediately, so I didn’t bother to read their profile, but they probably read mine, and one put a match on hold (and it is still on hold).

Then the latest match is someone whose favorite thing to do is go party, hang out with friends, be really social, etc. I’m someone whose always had just a few real close friends rather than a throng of acquiantances. This seems to be a failure in the matching too.

So out of six matches I’ve received over 5 months, one had a lot in common with me, the rest very little in common with me. I noticed a lot of the profiles talked about wanting to go out partying a lot, which is something I don’t do since I drink maybe once a month and I’ve never smoked, and my dancing ability is poor.

Now maybe its possible that the personality questionare that Eharmony asks for has been filled out differently than the profile, and so for some reason people who aren’t outgoing are saying they are on their profiles, or on the other hand, maybe the matching system doesn’t work. I’ve even heard from some people that maybe Eharmony just waits every month or so and picks another random person from your area as your new match.

2

At least they sent you a match. I was told that I wasn’t quite what they were looking for. It seemed a lot of the questions were leaning toward more subservient women. So they didn’t even offer to match me up with anyone. I wish I could locate their email…it really pretty much told me I was not eharmony’s type.

3

Heh. Maybe their theory is “opposites attract.” :smiley: Sorry you haven’t had more luck in this.

4

Thats pretty harsh of them. Not sure why they accepted me, I have heard there’s more women on eharmony then men. Its pretty bizarre when any company which advertises refuses a customer that hasn’t done anything wrong.

5

I did their free trial thing some time back, but quickly found their set up to be useless. Their questions were all along the lines of: Do you like animals or are you the kind of person who enjoys sadistically torturing animals and leaving their dismembered corpses hanging from the antenna on an ex-lovers car? Now, what idiot in their right mind is going to say that they do enjoy torturing animals? (Though, admittedly, if I met a woman who did that, I’d be kind of curious as to what she was like, not that I advocate animal cruelty, but any female who’s got the spunk to stab back at an ex is probably my kind of woman.) Nearly everything they told you about a person was vague and indefinable.

I don’t care if a person socializes a lot, I want to know what kind of movies they like, what kind of music they listen to, what kind of books they read, etc. That is what tells me if I’m compatible with a person, not anything else. Because, really, what good does it do to set a person up with someone who might have a similar personality (all based on a vaguely worded questionairre) if neither one of them likes the same kinds of things.

Call me shallow, but I hate country music, and there’s no way I could be in a relationship with someone who listed to country music all the time. It’d be torture for me, and I wouldn’t want to torture them with the kind of music that I like to listen to.

6

I got quite a few matches, many of which seemed compatible with me. I responded to maybe 6 seriously and worked through several stages of the process. Before I had a picture posted, I got to the “I really want to meet you, here’s my number” stage (with the guy giving me his number) at least twice. Somehow, after I revealed I was overweight, both guys bailed. I finally got my picture scanned in, but elected to have it hidden until after the first “open” e-mail exchange. Guys that had responded withhin hours prior to seeing my picture suddenly had another relationship they wanted to pursue. so much for creating a match based on mutual respect and similar attitudes.

Oh, then they automatically renewed my membershp for three months, for 29 bucks. Now, if I had eveer been given an option, I wouldn’t have had an automatic renewal–I don’t even do that with magazines I’ve had for years. I wasn’t notified that my membership was expiring, or that it would be renewed until after the fact, and when I complained, they said they couldn’t do anything because I asked for the refund after the renewal. they were, however, willing to work with me to get me better matches. ARRRRRRRRGH!

7

Here’s my experience on eHarmony - I got quite a few matches and corresponded with three of them.

1 I really liked quite a bit, e-mailed back and forth about books and such, etc. I hadn’t yet put up a picture, so at that point I e-mailed him one. All of a sudden he says something like “er… you’re nice and all but I’ve been seeing somebody else and it’s recently gotten quite serious”. So maybe it did, or maybe he didn’t like my picture. (I don’t photograph well, but I’m no dog!)

2 was okay, we talked a bit, and kind of mutually lost interest.

3 I’m seeing now, although he works a great deal. He’s a nice guy and we have a good time but we don’t really have much in common.

I hate that the service is skewed religiously (agnostic isn’t even an option!) and culturally (neither is homosexuality), but I got real drunk one night and decided to give it a try, and I’ve not been unhappy with the results. And I’m definately not a “submissive woman”, and none of the guys I’ve talked to through the service seem to be wanting that. I like the guided communication and the fact that both people have to be paying (i.e. committed to actually getting somewhere with the service) to communicate. That being said, I only did it for a month and then put it on hold to see #3.

8

Guess we can talk about this at the Cleveland mini-dopefest. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=278504 :slight_smile:

I hear their commercials almost daily on an Akron radio station. The women almost always strike me as very traditional. Extremely so. Not that that’s a bad thing. But it always struck me how “mainstream” the people in their ads are.

9

FWIW, eHarmony’s founder, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, seems to appeal to the religiously inclined. He’s been described as a Christian psychologist, and one of his publishers, Tyndale, also represents Tim LaHaye. If – and I emphasize if – his faith informs his methodology, then perhaps his service may be less useful for individuals who don’t share those views.

10

Just from their TV ads, I got the immediate impression that eHarmony is trying to attract a somewhat older demographic, definitely religious-oriented, and people who generally want to settle down, get married, have kids. I would think that if prospective clients are younger, more liberal, more into things like meeting people with similar tastes in movies and music, not wanting to get hitched any time soon, there are definitely better online matching/dating services to utilize.

Not to sound like a jerk, but those commercials really remind me of Wal-Mart, and their whole mission of Middle American family values and all that. If you just want to date and fool around and have fun with interesting people, there are Match.com and Lavalife and OKCupid for that.

11

Well, it also skeeves me out that they use the word “soulmate” all the time without a hint of irony. (Actually, the total and absolute absence of irony in general gets me). But hey, it did find me a stallion in the sack, so I guess I can’t complain too much.

(A soulmate he ain’t, however, and that’s okay.)

12

My dad (who just turned 58) is having terrific luck with eHarmony. He’s met several women, and had at least one which lasted about 18 months. I guess since he’s older and pretty much looking to get married, he’s going to have better luck than I (I was also told that, while they would keep looking for me, I didn’t have any matches just yet).

13

I just found it laughable that it takes exactly 29 dimensions to make a perfect match – no fewer, no more. Exactly 29!

–Cliffy