Tags: dating, singles

Over the past 6 months I've been on several dating sites, wary of paying to find "the love of my life" but disappointed in the results the free sites were giving me. I'm also on OK Cupid and Plenty Of Fish. So after much deliberation I signed up for eHarmony during one of their buy-one-get-two-free promotions. And yet, after three months of going through the eHarmony process, I didn't have one match end up in a real live date. I'd heard so many good things about eHarmony, and if you read the site, they'll be the first to tell you that they get wedding announcements on a daily basis.

When I allowed my eHarmony account to lapse, I got several emails from the site telling me that 3 months isn't really enough time, and many members find it takes 6 months to a year to find "the love of their life". Already I was frustrated with matches who seemed to have a lot in common with me but weren't willing to go past emailing back and forth. A few days ago I got another offer from eHarmony, the old three for one deal, and I nearly considered it. But something made me change my mind.

eHarmony is like dating for dummies. They have you take an extensive psych test, presumably to weed out the guys looking for just one thing, and to keep those who are serious about long term relationships. Then, instead of letting you pick people you think you might have something in common with, they pick matches for you based on 29 degrees of compatability. And even once you've made a match, you're not allowed full contact with them until you answer each other's pre-written and self-written questions. By the time you get to full open communication, you might have decided you're not interested after all. I suspect this is what's happening, because for the most part I was matched with people I generally wouldn't pick for myself.

I prefer OK Cupid and Plenty of Fish, where they make matches for you, but you're also allowed to peruse the site and find people on your own. They also don't discriminate against same sex relationships. eHarmony is hetero only. I tend to ignore short profiles, people not interested in having children, smokers, and people who don't live in my city. eHarmony had a tendency to match me with people in different cities in my region who were uninterested in relocating (and at this point in my life, neither am I).

I finally had a string of successful dates through OK Cupid and Plenty of Fish. So, sorry eHarmony, I prefer free love over capitalistic love. OK Cupid and Plenty of Fish get by financially on advertising, so I wonder when sites like Yahoo Dating and eHarmony are going to follow suit. And there's something to be said for the karma of doing a kind thing for two people.