14 November 2010

eHarmony.com

I created a profile on eHarmony tonight.  I thought it'd be interesting, and mostly funny.  I created a profile about 4 years ago because a roommate and I were curious.  After I created mine I got an email about 15 minutes later telling me that based on my questionnaire answers I was part of the 15% of people who eHarmony chose not to match.  I'm not really sure what that means, personally I decided it was because I didn't need the help, and by matching me they'd be making more competition for people who really needed the service.  I never really took the whole dating site thing seriously, I guess I figure people got along just fine for thousands of years before the internet.  It was probably also a little pride, I've never felt like I've needed extra help, on top of that after Liz I always had this strong feeling I'd end up with someone I already knew.  And I might yet.


Anyway, I created a whole new profile, I was watching The Walking Dead and a commercial came on saying their free week ends tonight, so I figured I'd check out how it went.  Surprisingly enough I got 7 matches when I finished. First off, height is pretty important to me and I marked that it was, however I only had one match taller than 5'5", considering 5'4" is my self-decided minimum height, that didn't match me up very well.  I was surprised at the fact that almost all those matches have very nerdy profiles.  I guess I can't complain, I'm pretty geeky myself, but at the same time there's more to me than just that.


To be honest, my curiosity was peaked by the experience.  I am a very curious person, I would probably pay money to get the information that eHarmony is withholding from me, but it's not worth the $50/month.  I mean seriously, $50 per month to meet people?  Seems a little steep, maybe it's because I haven't reached the point of desperation yet.


All in all it was quite enlightening.  I wonder, how many people have used dating sites?  How has your experience gone?  If you haven't, why not?


Questions at the end of a post?  Pretty lame, but like I said, I'm a curious guy.

3 comments:

Madi said...

Actually! I know two people who have met people off of a site! They both had a serious relationship for a while, for one reason or antoher it didn't work. But it wasn't the fact they met on online dating! Give it a try! They love it!

Fei said...

I hadn't known that they reject applicants. I Googled it, and this is what I found:

http://eharmony-blog.com/104

I actually agree with their criteria. Could it be that when you created the profile you were under 20 OR because you were doing it only for fun, you weren't answering honestly and the test could tell that your answers were random and not tallying up?

Hmm.

My best friend actually runs an online matchmaking site and so I know quite a bit about what goes on in the background making those systems work. It's pretty darned impressive. I think it's totally worth the money.

I'm a little bit of a personality typing compatibility junkie. If I hadn't been able to meet my spouse the way I did, I would for sure have done the online dating route.

Waited For a Sister Missionary said...

Well I think the trick with me is that on paper I'm unstable. I didn't randomly answer questions, although to a computer it probably looked that way.

I think the problem was that back then they didn't give you a frame of reference. Now a lot of questions begin with a line like, "Your friends would describe you as..."

On the old test it just asked you to rate yourself, and for me, that depends on who's observing. Are we talking about Family? Friends? Acquaintances? People on the street?

My friends would probably describe me as warm, compassionate, sincere, outgoing, smart, and a leader. While my co-workers would call me a friendly but quiet follower. Then after a first impression most people would probably think me cold, arrogant, or shy. I think the issue is that a computer formula can't comprehend how someone could describe themselves as a shy extrovert, etc.