Oh My God

[Georgie Grrl]

I actually just paid a ridiculous amount of money to join eHarmony. I'm not sure how I feel about this... I've always been on the fence about online dating. I'm trying to keep an open mind, though, and I have a close friend who is now moving in with a man she met through that site.

 

Any advice? Things I should know about eHarmony itself or online dating in general? How long does it take to get matches? I think I've gotten 3 in like the last 30 minutes I've been on it. I'm kind out in the sticks- should I worry about having enough available matches?

[easterisland]

I actually just paid a ridiculous amount of money to join eHarmony. I'm not sure how I feel about this... I've always been on the fence about online dating. I'm trying to keep an open mind, though, and I have a close friend who is now moving in with a man she met through that site.

 

Any advice? Things I should know about eHarmony itself or online dating in general? How long does it take to get matches? I think I've gotten 3 in like the last 30 minutes I've been on it. I'm kind out in the sticks- should I worry about having enough available matches?

 

I'm all for finding one's soulmate online. Why not leverage the power of the internet to find that one special one for you? Eharmony sounds like the most

sensible option... In theory...

 

Not to bad mouth any company, but for me eharmony experience isn't what it was hyped to be.

 

For one, there simply isn't enough ACTIVE users on eharmony to make its database truly useful. You would think for $68 a month eharmony would give users the decency to contact whomever they choose and have him/her able to contact you back.... It's not the case.

Most users (I would guess upwards of 90%) on eharmony are NOT subscribers, which means YOU must pay to contact them and THEN THEY MUST PAY again to reply back to you. (this is true whether or not you do open communication or guided communication)

 

Also eharmony lacks a search function. While I understand that to some people that is precisely what distinguish eharmony from the rest of the pack, its ultra slow rate of "match" coupled with NO search ability very severely cripples the functionality and utility and thus the overall experience and satisfaction from using the site.

 

The irony is I got more matches when I was a free user and less matches after I had subscribed! I attribute this to two things:

 

1) Eharmony throws the bulk of all the people on the site you would match with at you at a very quick rate, a rate that is unsustainable over time. They do this in my opinion to entice newcomers to pay and join as full members as quickly as possible before the novelty of eharmony wears off.

 

2) I have heard many reputable sources online say that eharmony matchs free members with paid members, and vice versa.

This is to get as many people to sign up as possible. So as a free member (ie when you first start out) you are matched

with a bunch of paid members who are burning close to $70USD PER MONTH so obviously they are more quick to respond

and take the initiative to start communication.. Once you yourself become a paid member however the table turns

and you are matched with all FREE members, many of whom are not going to invest the time, money, or energy to

reply or respond back to your communications.... This is why people feel so frustrated with the service shortly after

the opening up their wallets and eharmony honeymoon is over.. If you think you aren't getting enough matches now,

just wait until you PAY & Subscribe, then you will get close to no matches whatsoever, maybe 1 match a month

if you are lucky.

 

Back to its lack of a search function. I am a pretty "picky" person and after a while I have found I can match people much better

with my own eyes, mind and intuition than anything eharmony can do. I am almost certain this hold true for the general population as well.

Despite whatever they say, eharmony tests are NOT scientific, NOT proven, and most importantly of all, they don't match you with anyone better than you couldn't match on link removed or yahoo personals yourself simply by browsing a bunch of photos and reading profiles.

 

 

What it boils down to is this: The whole point of a site like eharmony is to help you cut through all the background noise (ordinary people)

and zone in and pinpoint on your soulmate. I have tried eharmony many times on different occasions and I have to say that it fails to live up to its stated mission. It simply does not deliver, neither in quantity nor more importantly in quality.

 

Although eharmony maybe work for you, you are much better all not putting all your eggs in one basket and

start to diversify your online dating presense and search. This will increase your odds many fold and that is always

a good thing. You may want to check out some of the free dating sites online instead.

Do a search for something like: Okcupid, justsayhi, plentyoffish, datingdna, etc

 

If I were to subscribe to any service long term it would be link removed. They don't have the best

search nor the best philosophy but they do have by far the most members... And since you

are leveraging the internet, numbers do count.. It is a numbers game and you want to go

where the numbers are highest.

[renaissancewoman101]

I've done the eHarmony thing and really hate that website. I've been a paying member for about 3 months and have chatted with about 5 guys. No dates though. I'm thinking of retiring my profile from that site.

[StephenP]

I took their "29-dimension" personality test (boredom at work), and after all that time, this is what I get-

 

"eHarmony is based upon a complex matching system developed through extensive research with married couples. One of the requirements for successful matching is that participants to fall within certain defined profiles. If we find that we will not be able to match a user using these profiles, we feel it is only fair to inform them early in the process.

 

We are so convinced of the importance of creating compatible matches to help people establish happy, lasting relationships that we sometimes choose not to provide service rather than risk an uncertain match.

 

Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching model could not accurately predict with whom you would be best matched. This occurs for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply will not benefit from our service. We hope that you understand, and we regret our inability to provide service for you at this time. "

 

 

They still give me a personality profile though, which is a long list of blurbs about myself, mostly telling me that I'm arrogant, competitive, and impatient.

[easterisland]

 

They still give me a personality profile though, which is a long list of blurbs about myself, mostly telling me that I'm arrogant, competitive, and impatient.

 

 

They used to give a FULL complementary personality profile. Now they just

give you the headlines and hold back. Even as a paying subscriber in order to get your FULL personality profile you still have to pay and order for it as a separate item. When asked why the company made that policy change, a spokeswoman from eharmony stated that their marketing department noticed a lot of people were signin up only to get the (then) Free personality profile and they might as well starting charging for it and only give out a condensed version of the profile for free.

[Georgie Grrl]

 

Although eharmony maybe work for you, you are much better all not putting all your eggs in one basket and

start to diversify your online dating presense and search. This will increase your odds many fold and that is always

a good thing. You may want to check out some of the free dating sites online instead.

Do a search for something like: Okcupid, justsayhi, plentyoffish, datingdna, etc

 

If I were to subscribe to any service long term it would be link removed. They don't have the best

search nor the best philosophy but they do have by far the most members... And since you

are leveraging the internet, numbers do count.. It is a numbers game and you want to go

where the numbers are highest.

 

I understand the sense in playing the numbers, but I am REALLY not interested in a hook up. eHarmony is the only site that's been recommended to me as one in which I might find someone who is actually interested in a relationship. Do you find that's inaccurate?

[renaissancewoman101]

I think the people on eHarmony are more serious about dating and are not out there for a hookup, etc. But still I have talked to a few guys on there, emailed back and forth, and still no dates.

 

So, I'm not sure.

[easterisland]

I've done the eHarmony thing and really hate that website. I've been a paying member for about 3 months and have chatted with about 5 guys. No dates though. I'm thinking of retiring my profile from that site.

 

 

Eharmony's database isn't very large. You may want to go where the numbers are.

 

The two largest online dating sites are link removed and yahoo personals.

(in that order) Combined they consists of almost 80% of the entire online dating population!! You should try them instead, they charge much less, give you the flexibile to search or "window shopping" (eharmony feels like an arranged marriage to me) and significantly increases your odds of meeting someone who is within your radius.

 

You may also benefit more from trying a variety of completely free online dating sites instead. Okcupid, Plentyoffish, Justsayhi, datingdna, link removed just to name a few.

[StephenP]

It's kind of difficult when you live in an area where Internet services aren't widely used by residents. For example, if I signed up for eHarmony, I'd probably end up having to travel to New Orleans for a date.

[easterisland]

I understand the sense in playing the numbers, but I am REALLY not interested in a hook up. eHarmony is the only site that's been recommended to me as one in which I might find someone who is actually interested in a relationship. Do you find that's inaccurate?

 

Sorry if I miscommunicated. I was not referring or implying to a hookup in any way. In my first reply I assumed you were looking for a 'soulmate'. That is the appeal of eharmony. However the appeal does not live up to reality, that has been my sad but true empirical experience. When eharmony first started back in 2000 as a VC backed charter I heard about it and was all for it... But its not all the hype that you see on the advertisements.... And despite how much you want to believe it is, its not. Whenever something unique comes along its a breathe of fresh air, but eharmony turns out to be just the same old same old... They company in my opinion isn't fundamentally any different from any of the other dating sites out there in terms of business ethics or avarice.. They are better than link removed through, but thats not saying much LOL

 

Yes I can understand how a 500 question exam can filter through some of the people who just want to get laid... But that is no guarantee... People who just want to have sex have brains also and they probably figured that one out before you did...

 

And here is my point, in the end its the person you are with, not the name of the online dating site you use, or the medium you choose for your search (whether by in person, blind dates, newspaper classifieds, online dating, etc) that matter. But in order to find such a person we can't just wish them to fall out of the sky, so you have to actively search sometimes to help speed up the process and increase the odds. I just think that after all things considered, you are better off diverting your money, time, energy, and emotional resources somewhere else where you will get a higher return on investment. Eharmony just doesn't work as good as they claim it works. Just because eharmony is a relationship site doesn't mean everyone on their is looking for their soulmate or that there are no players on eharmony. And just because sites such as link removed are dating sites doesn't mean you can't find someone special for you or that all guys on match are just looking for sex.

[easterisland]

It's kind of difficult when you live in an area where Internet services aren't widely used by residents. For example, if I signed up for eHarmony, I'd probably end up having to travel to New Orleans for a date.

 

Then why not go local? Use the local newspaper classified or perhaps even craiglists?

[Georgie Grrl]

Sorry if I miscommunicated. I was not referring or implying to a hookup in any way. In my first reply I assumed you were looking for a 'soulmate'. That is the appeal of eharmony. However the appeal does not live up to reality, that has been my sad but true empirical experience. When eharmony first started back in 2000 as a VC backed charter I heard about it and was all for it... But its not all the hype that you see on the advertisements....

 

Yes I can understand how a 500 question exam can filter through some of the people who just want to get laid... But that is no guarantee... People who just want to have sex have brains also and they probably figured that one out before you did...

 

Oh no, you didn't miscommunicate. I've just heard that the other sites you mentioned are largely frequented by people just looking to hook up, which is why I've avoided them. I meet a lot of guys on my own, but the majority just aren't interested in serious relationships. I'm at the stage in my life where I want more.

[easterisland]

Oh no, you didn't miscommunicate. I've just heard that the other sites you mentioned are largely frequented by people just looking to hook up, which is why I've avoided them. I meet a lot of guys on my own, but the majority just aren't interested in serious relationships. I'm at the stage in my life where I want more.

 

1 more thing to consider is that since there are significantly more females on eharmony than males, you are not put at an advantage. Eharmony site itself claims that for every 2 males there are three females on its site... That is great for males but not so great for females.

 

So you don't have to be an economic whiz to see the law of supply and demand is not in your favor on eharmony.. Whereas on sites such as link removed or yahoo the exact reverse appears to be true. So in essense eharmony's strengths are also its weakness and it kinda balances out if you know what I mean.

[StephenP]

Then why not go local? Use the local newspaper classified or perhaps even craiglists?

 

 

True, but I would never use personals ads for any reason other than online to take the test out of boredom. I've been with the same woman for five and a half years, and we're getting married in July. I met her in an environment I'm comfortable with, an environment that suits both of us. I fully advocate the "get out more" method of meeting people.

[Atticus90]

Dateing sites are a waste of time.

You see those commercials with those happy couples, but it's fake. It's a sham.

 

You can't fall in love with text.

Real life interactions are the only way in my opinion.

[JadedStar]

Dateing sites are a waste of time.

You see those commercials with those happy couples, but it's fake. It's a sham.

 

You can't fall in love with text.

Real life interactions are the only way in my opinion.

 

Atticus, people use those sites to increase the amount of "real life" interactions they have.

 

internet dating is a great resource if people tackle it in a way that will increase their odds...

[easterisland]

Atticus, people use those sites to increase the amount of "real life" interactions they have.

 

internet dating is a great resource if people tackle it in a way that will increase their odds...

 

Yes I agree. The whole point of taking it ONLINE in the first place is to leverage the power of the internet and already existing technological infrastructure to help increase our odds many fold and hopefully enable us to find someone whom in real life we would have never found.

 

There are six billion people on this planet, it is impossible to meet face to face with each of them. Even in your own town its impossible to know everyone. Physical social interactions are limited by the constraints of time, transportation, distance, energy, and money... In the old days one's social circle was one's tiny little village and that was it.. If you wanted to married it had to be someone in your own little part of the world. You pool of applicants where limited to the radius of your village.... Tough luck if there didn't happen to be anyone compatible with you in your area, either you settle or remain single.... You were born under the wrong stars, in the wrong time and place and you had to live with it...

 

These days with international jet travel, interstate highways, modern technology our domain and realm of potential applicants have been enlarged and increased to span the ENTIRE GLOBE.

 

The problem is structure. It is not feasible to fly to every person on the planet of the earth to meet with them face to face and have a talk. Although we can know fly to ANY person on earth, no amount of technology will allow us to fly to EVERY person. Its a mathematically impossibility. So the only way to do it is online. But online we face information overload.

 

Facebook and Myspace are but far orders of magnitude larger (in terms of raw active users) than even all the greatest/largest dating sites combined (Match/Yahoo/Eharmony/True/Perfectmatch/Plentyoffish/Okcupid, etcetc) And as we all know, the relevance of any social network is proportional to the square of its nodes (users)

 

However, the downside for trying to use Facebook and Myspace as relationship/dating sites is that their "search" function sucks! You cannot narrow down using criteria that is truly important and thereforeeee cannot tune down the "background noise" and thus you end up with information overload. (Try combing through millions of profiles one by one to find "the one", you'd have more luck knocking door to door like a salesman)

 

Love is not a numbers game, but using it to find the right one, to pinpoint that special person is like having a magical machine that can find that needle in a haystack. We should find creative ways to leverage the power of the already existing internet and put it to real use.

 

So doing it online increases your odds of find that PERFECT match for you,

it also broadens your horizon (also about increasing odds) and exposes you to people whom you would never in a hundred lifetimes meet otherwise.

[JadedStar]

There are six billion people on this planet, it is impossible to meet face to face with each of them. Even in your own town its impossible to know everyone. Physical social interactions are limited by the constraints of time, transportation, distance, energy, and money...

 

Yep. Even the most social of people will still have a better chance increasing their odds employing the internet...it is hard to leave it all to happenstance...being in the same place at the same time as other singles with similar interests and goals is sometimes tough, like i said even for very social people.

 

Then throw in the fact that most people today work longer hours than ever. Companies are merging and downsizing making it imperative that people work longer and longer hours, thus restricting social time even further. It's almost imperative to use the internet for many professionals.

[Shes_abetty]

i met my current boyfriend online, he just happened to send me a message on Myspace.

 

My advice regading online dating:

 

1. The person never looks exactly how they do in pictures...angles and lighting can make one person look like 4 diferent people.

 

2. You should not hold all the conversations through IM or e-mail. Once it has been established that there is an interest, 90% of conversations should happen over the phone

 

3. Online dating is a sport for some, just like it is in the real world, so take everything someone says with a grain of salt until verified with action.

[Cindersam]

I have had a different experience with Eharmony. It seems to work for me. i just got back from a date with a really great guy.

 

My membership also did not cost $69 a month. It is closer to $30 which is about the same as link removed.

 

Also I don't know what easterisland is talking about with being charged to respond to "free" memberships. I have never been charged any extra amount other than the monthly fee.

 

I get between 10 - 20 matches a week. Of course out of those Imay only be interested in 3 or 4 but that is moe than I would meet in a regular week.

 

The amount of matches you get may depend on what you are looking for and how specific you are. If you are too narrow then you will get less matches. For instance the age range I put down was between 4 - 5 years younger than me to 7 - 8 years older. I am not picky as to moeny or looks I mainly want someone who has the same religion that I do. That is the only area where I was specific. So i think you get more matches if you have a wider range of criteria.

 

Also i met my last relationship (which lasted 6 years) through an online dating site (not EHarmony) so i do feel they work. Yes there are some weirdos out there but there are also some good decent guys.

[easterisland]

Also I don't know what easterisland is talking about with being charged to respond to "free" memberships. I have never been charged any extra amount other than the monthly fee.

 

If you initiate a conversation with a free member, they must also sign-up and

pay the $68 to respond back to you! I didn't say you have to pay twice, I said both persons (yourself and that whom you contact) have to pay upwards of $70 to successfully initiate a conversation so effectively two people must each pay (so thats means eharmony gets two memberships per one contact attempt)

 

You get the discounted $30 per month because either you are continuing your membership for several consecutively months, OR you have purchased a long term membership plan. But for most people who get a response from a paid member and join the site ONLY for contacting back, they will join only for one month, and the standard one month rate that last I checked was certainly higher than $60 USD.

[Georgie Grrl]

OK, I have check out link removed and quite frankly am frightened at what I found. The generalization about it being a hook-up site has been confirmed...

 

I think one of the things that would bother me is that anybody can browse through their site. That's a bit embarrassing, if you ask me. I'm thinking I don't want just anybody in my life knowing I'm doing the online dating thing.

[easterisland]

OK, I have check out link removed and quite frankly am frightened at what I found. The generalization about it being a hook-up site has been confirmed...

 

I think one of the things that would bother me is that anybody can browse through their site. That's a bit embarrassing, if you ask me. I'm thinking I don't want just anybody in my life knowing I'm doing the online dating thing.

 

 

Well you don't really have to post a photo. Maybe share only photos with people whom you have successful communication with? Just curious, but what makes you think link removed is about only hook-ups? In their criteria they have the option to choose : looking for friends, looking for relationship, etc...

 

I myself didn't really like plentyoffish's interface, its not very intuitive or web 2.0ish. Maybe you should give link removed a try...

Or datingDNA

 

Good Luck

[Georgie Grrl]

I just meant that I noticed a lot of the guys had sexual comments in their profiles. It didn't seem to matter whether I put long term or just friends in the search criteria. Maybe that's just the men in my immediate area

 

I think you almost have to put pics up on one of those sites. Not only is it likely the only way to really attract attention, but also because you don't want to think there might be someone you could be interested in, only to have them finally see your pic and then back out. I imagine that would be quite the blow to the ego. And don't you always assume there must be something wrong with someone if they do not post a picture?

[easterisland]

I just meant that I noticed a lot of the guys had sexual comments in their profiles. It didn't seem to matter whether I put long term or just friends in the search criteria. Maybe that's just the men in my immediate area

 

I think you almost have to put pics up on one of those sites. Not only is it likely the only way to really attract attention, but also because you don't want to think there might be someone you could be interested in, only to have them finally see your pic and then back out. I imagine that would be quite the blow to the ego. And don't you always assume there must be something wrong with someone if they do not post a picture?

 

Well that's the dilemma isn't it? Everything in life takes a certain amount of risk, I guess you have to balance it..

 

I'm not saying eharmony is no good at all, you should still give it a go and contact as many matches as possible... After all you have already paid and joined right? I think eharmony has a 2 week trial period. If I am correct, you can cancel within 2 weeks and get a full refund if you are not happy with the service. Just be prepared that it may not get you any real results (the same goes for any dating website) and to supplement your eharmony membership you could consider some free online sites as well.