I play with dating things

[oyceter]

I make a confession: I have joined eHarmony.

Wait, wait! I am not insane! Actually, I was lured in by their giant-ass questionnaire (it's too much like a meme to resist). Furthermore, refuse to pay, and even more importantly, I seriously doubt that I am ready or willing to start dating right now.

The scary thing is that they start throwing matches at you even if you haven't paid and really have no intention of paying! The really scary thing is that I have absolutely no idea how they came up with those matches, given that every single one of them looks extremely generic. I mean, honestly. I can't remember how one is different from the other, except this one person put his most important quality in a person as "piety" and the most influential person in his life as "Jesus." Now don't get me wrong, because I have nothing against Christianity. But given how I answered questions and the like, I reeeeaaaally don't think me and this guy would be a good fit, seeing as how I am not exactly pious, to say the very least.

One guy even jump started stuff and did the "asking close-ended questions" step. Apparently eHarmony works so that you can't actually browse all the profiles -- they match you up with potential people who show up in "My Matches." If they look interesting, you can progress to asking close-ended questions (multiple choice, which I did answer, because again, memeage!), then to seeing their entire profile, then to open-ended questions, then email, I suppose. Very structured! Weird.

So since everyone else's profile seemed quite bland, I decided to put all the potentially off-putting things first in my profile, half to ward off any more people deciding I'd be a good match for them based on some random multiple-choice questionnaire that I did while half asleep, half in case anyone who would really be interested in me would see and much geekery could ensue. So I have things like love of rats, knitting, fandom person, genre book reader, and etc. put down. I almost sort of feel that if one is going to do the online dating thing, shouldn't one put down all these potentially off-putting things in the very beginning? Because there are people who find that kind of stuff attractive, I'm sure, and if you don't put it in the forefront, then there may be unexpected surprises and the like. Plus, wouldn't it heighten the chance of meeting someone else who liked that so at least you could geek out together?

Er, or am I just completely wrong about the entire dating thing?

Anyhow, I feel like an undercover anthropologist! More reports later, if anything funny happens!

Comments

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Ha. I once filled out an online dating application, and the net result was that I got contacted by a lot of middle-aged white guys with Asian fetishes. Some people are so transparent.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

You may or may not care, but eHarmony has a kind of creey background (the founder is one of Dobson's Focus on the Family minions) and refuses to do same sex matches due to it 'being against Christian principles'. If you are allergic to the Christian right wing, you may want to go elsewhere.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I finally got so bored reading the profiles of the men they tried to match me with that I canceled my (unpaid) account.

But I hope something funny happens to you!

[lexica510.livejournal.com]

Salon recently ran an article on eHarmony (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/06/10/warren/), which you might find interesting.

As far as meeting people according to how well you match up on whatever categories they've chosen to measure... *shrug* According to any compatibility test you'd care to mention, spiritualmonkey and I shouldn't even spend time in the same room together. (Sometimes the ways this manifests are funny, sometimes really not.) But each of us feels that marrying the other was one of the most unequivocally right decisions we've ever made.

Of course, having said that, we did actually meet based on a shared interest, since we were both regular posters in rec.art.bodyart at the time.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine went through eHarmony, and was vastly irritated at all the people who ignored her (several times repeated) requirement of geographic compatibility and a certain age range. She's a 30 year old woman on the east coast and got sick of 60 year old men in New Mexico trying to pick her up for netsex.

[superplin.livejournal.com]

Sounds frighteningly like my experiences with match.com, where I learned that despite my best efforts, I'm apparently extremely appealing to 50-something fundamentalist Christian truckers.

Anthropology experiment pretty much sums it up. ;)

[chi-zu.livejournal.com]

My recent bouts of loneliness have made me consider checking out eHarmony. But I think I did their survey thingie as an online meme-ish thing once without realizing it was a dating service. I remember the "matches" being really boring. So I haven't wasted the clicking motion on it. Do keep us informed of how it goes!

[oyceter]

Yeech, sketchy!

[oyceter]

Yeah, I've heard about that... but anyway, figure I am not planning on giving them any money.

[oyceter]

*snerk* You are partially responsible for this foray, because I had so much fun reading your commentary!

[oyceter]

Thanks for the link!

[oyceter]

Wow. So far the matches are all at least in my geographic area (which I specified) -- not sure about the age group, given that I can't see the birthdates, which is slightly sketchy.

[oyceter]

*sneeeeerk* Ok, that's funny! I am actually almost hoping something odd happens (as long as it is solely online and doesn't involve RL) so I can blog about it. Wah. Obviously I am on LJ too much.

[oyceter]

Hee! The online survey is indeed very memeish, which is mostly why I filled it out. Shall let you all know if anything funny happens!

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Undercover antropolgy sounds like a fun diversion. Shall be very interested in what you uncover.

Gina

[seajules]

Spouse and I both took the approach of being most upfront about all the things we'd been assured were most off-putting about our personalities and interests. Given that it'll be six years of wedded mostly-bliss in November, I'd say it worked out as we intended.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

So since everyone else's profile seemed quite bland, I decided to put all the potentially off-putting things first in my profile, half to ward off any more people deciding I'd be a good match for them based on some random multiple-choice questionnaire that I did while half asleep, half in case anyone who would really be interested in me would see and much geekery could ensue. So I have things like love of rats, knitting, fandom person, genre book reader, and etc. put down. I almost sort of feel that if one is going to do the online dating thing, shouldn't one put down all these potentially off-putting things in the very beginning? Because there are people who find that kind of stuff attractive, I'm sure, and if you don't put it in the forefront, then there may be unexpected surprises and the like. Plus, wouldn't it heighten the chance of meeting someone else who liked that so at least you could geek out together?

:) That makes total sense to me.


I'm interested in doing okcupid mostly just to find cool people in the area to hang out with, and also as a means to have company so i can check out bars in the area (to see where i wanna try to work) but i'm holding off until i actually have income i can spend at said bars.

[oyceter]

Hee, it is.

[oyceter]

Yay for you!! It seems to sound quite practical to me, but then again, what do I know ;).

[oyceter]

Oh cool! Is okcupid sort of like a Friendster thing?

I've been luckier these days in finding people to hang out with, thanks to work having enough people I like personally.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Understanding it as a lame LJ knockoff where the cache is all about having lots of "friends" and "testimonials," i vowed never to sign up for friendster, so i couldn't really say.

You make a profile and can code things as interests (though that's nowhere near as easy as it is in LJ). The default search is by location, and you can filter by gender/orientation. The profile's long enough to give you a good sense of what people are like. And you can fill out quizzes to help the system recommend you matches (plus giving people checking out your profile more info about you). And there's also a "questions that are important to me" section as well.