…And then there’s the guided introduction process. Augh!
Ah, the guided introduction. This is the part where eHarmony really betrays its Christian heritage. Back and forth with two sets of canned, but probing questions to determine whether this other person is an ideal mate, parent for your children, whatever it is you’re looking for. In the second round you can enter your own questions, but by that point I’m wondering if it’s even worth it.
I mean, consider that I’m investing over an hour of time answering canned multiple-choice questions over a girl, I can ask if she chews with her mouth open, but I can’t tell if there’s any chemistry at all. And this is of course the bottom line–why am I looking for a girl anyway? Why not date a guy, or a fish? Because I’m not gay, and I’m not of the piscine persuasion. Yes, it’s about sex. There, I said it. It’s nice to have a long-term relation ship with someone, but in the end you’re going to be getting down, or expressly not getting down (if you’re totally a cold fish).
And I suppose this suggests two primary customers for eHarmony. Group 1 is people who are saving themselves for marriage, and want to be absolutely certain before they get involved. Group 2 are people who got involved based on chemistry, it went bad, and now they’re afraid it will happen again. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to meet anyone in group 1, but that’s easily filtered out by saying you’re not christian. So that leaves you meeting, primarily, lonely but badly hurt people. Which, I am increasingly discovering, covers pretty much everybody in the over-30 age group. I certainly can’t exclude myself from that group either, of course, but I waited until I feel pretty good about life before signing up.
Which means that the primary value-add of eHarmony is that you don’t get to have wild, passionate sex while you’re waiting to discover whether someone you just met is compatible. Sure, there are less regrets this way, but… it’s just not very human, ils it?
