Monday, July 13, 2009

Maybe the "e" stands for "extraneous"? or "expensive"?

Over the Fourth of July, eHarmony.com offered a free communication weekend. I had tried eHarmony in the past and not had any success, but free is a very good price so I figured I didn’t have anything to lose except a few hours of my time.

I went and logged into my long since abandoned account. It took me a few tries to guess the password, but I finally got in. The account was so old that it was full of “matches” dating back several years. Actually, the last time I think I had logged in was on a previous “free weekend” maybe a couple of years ago. So, the first thing I had to do was delete the old matches, or “close communication” as they call it, so that there would be room for new ones.

Some of the old matches had already been closed by the guy involved because I hadn’t been “responsive” – and I don’t blame them. That’s absolutely true. You can’t be more unresponsive then not logging in at all.

Some of the matches I closed were with men who were no longer even on eHarmony. Their profiles had been completely deleted. So, there I didn’t feel any guilt about deleting them out of my inbox either.

But over 30 matches were just sitting there, untouched, never opened by him or me. What does that say about all of this business? Who are all of these men who may have been ideally matched to me on over 300 points of compatibility (or whatever the commercials say)? Who are they and why do they bother to sign up for the website if they’re not going to participate and try to meet someone? Although, to be fair, anyone could ask the same question about me.

My central reason for giving up on eHarmony is that, in my opinion, they don’t bother to actually pay attention to what I’m looking for in a man. The “matches” are generally nonsense. I’m usually ready to “close communication” with someone before the communication has ever started based solely on something that’s revealed in their initial description of themselves.

For example, I’ve specifically noted how tall I am and that I want to meet somebody taller than me. Yet I’m repeatedly matched with people like Dale a 5’8” CPA, who is probably a nice enough guy. But in my experience, guys lie about how tall they are. And if he says he’s 5’8”, he’s probably more like 5’7” and that’s going to put him over an inch shorter than me in flats. And maybe this makes me a hight-est, but if eHarmony can claim to find perfect matches for people, then shouldn’t they at least be able to match me with somebody at least 5’10” or hopefully taller?

Other matches I received over the Fourth of July weekend were just as easily dismissed, such as somebody named Marcel. I wondered if he was the monkey-haired “Top Chef” contestant (who does live in Las Vegas) or just the monkey from “Friends”? Anyway, he listed “Ayn Rand” as one of the major influences on his life so I had to delete him right away.

I was alerted to most of the matches eHarmony came up with by a series of emails with pithy subject lines.

Email 1 encouraged me to “Meet Paul and find out about his favorite activities.”
But Paul had “closed communication” with me before I even had a chance to see his profile. He was probably short and knew I was going to delete him anyway.

Email 2 cheered me on to “Meet William and see if you find a spark.”
But I knew there would be no spark when I saw that William had written that he loves working out and physical fitness and going to the gym about five times in just his basic introduction. In addition, William lives part-time in San Bernadino which does not sound appealing. Plus, he wrote: “I LOVE ALTERNATIVE MUSIC!” in all capital letters. You know, just so he made sure nobody missed that all important part of his personality.

Email 3 announced “Meet Joe: he could be what you’ve been looking for.”
However, Joe is only 5’9” and loves U2. Nope. I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

Email 4 read “Meet Bret and discover what you have in common.”
Well, Bret and I did have a couple of things in common. We both love roller coasters and amusement parks. On the other hand, Bret loves NASCAR and believes “in treating a woman the way she should be treated,” which, as a feminist, I know is code for “I’m a jerk who doesn’t like women to own their own houses or have had more sexual partners than me.” So, it was clear we were never going to ride a roller coaster together.

Email 5 simply said “Find out more about your new match” without specifying a name.
This could have meant either Ken or Andrew who I was matched with on the site but had not received specific emails about. It didn’t matter since they were both headed for the “closed” file. You see, Ken said that the “Five People you Meet in Heaven” was “a great, inspirational book.” So, he clearly has no sense of irony. And Andrew wrote: “I love Broadway show tunes. Ha ha. J/K.” And anyone who jokes that way about Broadway show tunes has got to be a homophobic asshole.

Email 6 told me that I had received a “photo share nudge” from somebody named “Stephen” but I couldn’t locate where to respond to it on the website. I also couldn’t find anyone named “Stephen” anywhere in my inbox.

Email 7 had the most self-complimentary tone to it. “Meet Scott: We’ve matched you on the important areas of life.”
Besides the fact that EHarmony was using an awkward prepositional phrase in this subject line, it turned out to be the closest to a successful match that its algorithms of compatibility had made. I actually chose the “start communication” option for Scott because the only questionable thing in his initial profile is that the book he claimed to have read most recently was “The Prince” by Machiavelli.

But then, just as quickly as the free weekend had begun, it ended. But the day afterwards, I received an email that said “Scott has requested communication from you.” Dutifully, I logged into EHarmony and answered Scott’s questions. I then clicked to submit my answers and was taken to a sales page telling me that I could not communicate with Scott – or anyone else for that matter – unless I coughed up my credit card number.

So, then I had to wonder to myself: was Scott worth the $59.95 it would cost for 30 days of eHarmony? Was a man who had recently read Machiavelli worth $59.95? Or is the question really: is any man worth $59.95? And is that really any way to begin a relationship? Wouldn’t I always be calculating if I had gotten $59.95 out of it? An iced tea here, a lunch there, perhaps a cocktail or a shared bottle of wine? At what point would I stop assessing the value of our interaction. And, of course, this is all assuming that I’d ever meet anyone through eHarmony, be it Scott or somebody else, who I wanted to meet in person at all.

No, I decided, I could never spend $59.95 to continue communication with Scott or anyone else for that matter.

Besides, he was probably lying about his height anyway.

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