Or rather, the concept of the internet relationship.

My girlfriend and I were watching TV last night when the commercial for eHarmony came on. For those of you outside of the United States, eHarmony is this online dating service that relies solely on one personality test without pictures or photos to determine an individual's "perfect match". Each commercial shows a couple, the date they were matched on line, and the date they were married. Rarely does the date between the time they were matched and the time they were married exceed 6 months.

So, anyway, we're sitting there, and my girlfriend gives me that doughy eyed look. "Do you think we would have met on eHarmony?" I sigh, and run through this heavy diatribe into online dating services, and how they promote a mechanical, ill-begotten approach to establishing relationships in society. I also attacked eHarmony extensively, pointing out their paradigm of marriage and equating all these match made marriages to pure happiness.

The dough eyed look continued.

So I told her, "Fine, tomorrow, you fill out the questionnaire, then I'll fill out the questionnaire, and we'll see if the sytem matches us." So today while I'm at work (it's pretty slow, hence me being here) she fills out the eHarmony thing. After a few minutes of "calculating" matches, the sytem responds to her:

Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching system is not suitable for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply would not benefit from our service.

My girlfriend's immediate reaction was that because she had refused to answer the religion section and the "do you want to get married soon" question, she was rejected. So I did a test.

I did two personality tests. The first one I filled out honestly, neglecting a religion match choice and selecting the personality match choice. I recieved a pretty negative personality disposition summary at the end, calling me "non-committal" and having a great "need for growth". It, too, gave me the same response as my girlfriend. "You would not benefit from our service."

I went back and entered everything the same, this time selecting Christianity as a religion choice, and saying yes to all marriage and child related questions. (I had, originally, answered yes to marriage and whether I wanted children before, I point it out here for clarity's sake.)

Immediately, I was given matches, a positive personality review, telling me, my "natural empathy style may draw others" to me, and surprisingly that I "have a strong feeling of optimism, considered favorably by most people" around me and that my "perception is that the bottle is half-full rather than half-empty."

This is a narrow scope of a test, but I had my girlfriend go back and fill out the religion and child/marriage questions the same as me, and bam, the system showed her as a 70% match for me or something like that.

Has anyone else taken this test? It is not by any means overtly religios, but the last deciding questions you answer on the damned thing are religion related. It just got me thinking that this is some weird shit. Some of the questions even go so far as to ask what level of participation you have in the church or community spiritual groups...

If the qualifier to being selected as a potential match is religion, then I wonder how many people who truly are lonely have been turned away because they took a secular approach to the test? This sort of thing, this internet dating, it is a perversion of man's natural connection through the soul and society. These people that tout love from sites like this I must second guess through simple logic. Because you are lonely, this should not be the sole reason for loving someone else who is also lonely. It just struck me as weird.

Anyone? Does this type of dating service hinder the natural way of love?

Oh man, you're in a whole big pile of shit.

Why?

i would say that doing the test before youre a couple isnt so bad, men and women tend to lie, so as to appear more interesting to the opposite, with tests like these, you cant really lie to get that "dream girl"

as far as the religional aspect of it, thats fucked up, but if its backed by a religious sponsor or the owner is religious, then so be it

Prepare for overanalytical conversations about why your relationship is working and why IS it working? Unless, she's just curious.

This is interesting.

Religious homogamy is a big indicator of marital quality, but it is by no means the only indicator out there. I agree with you that it seems they're placing way too much emphasis on it. It should be included, but excluding people who took a more secular approach to the test is completely absurd.

I don't know if computer dating in general hinders the natural way of love. If it's something like what you've described with this eHarmony site, then I would tend to agree with you. But, sometimes it just sort of happens b/w people online and not because of a site like this where they find your match, so it also works out well sometimes. To each their own I guess.

You definitely have a good point in pointing out that eHarmony may be turning away a lot of non-religious folk who are truly lonely, which saddens me. It's very interesting. I don't think eHarmony is too concerned about only having religious folk in their system, as they are trying to make money. But what you suggest is defenintely worth pondering.

As a Roman Catholic there's something I always try keep in the front of my mind. That is: Understand the value that religion has to other people. All through high school I only dated Christian girls, mostly catholic girls (gotta love the uniform), simply because I really didn't understand other walks of life.

In my recent years, this idea has really helped me understand other people of non-Christian faiths, and has opened the door to many wonderful relationships. This is critical to keep in mind now. The reason EHarmoney has religion on their site is because it is an enormous piece to a persons life. The majority of peoples morals, values, customs, their culture, their entire lives are rooted in their religion. No offense, but how involved in church and community events someone is, could be very critical to a lot of people out there. Maybe not to you or I, but to many it is. Religion is also very critical to me. Now I don't discriminate when I date. I turned the page, dated an athiest, a Lutheran, a non-pracitcing Arab girl, and an Americanized practicing Islamic girl. But sadly, I have found that girls have disciminated against me for being catholic. The athiest photo-major dumped me JUST because I was involved in the Roman Catholic church. She wanted to date for my personality, she thought I was funny, intelligent, thought I looked good, but my religion alone brought her to the conclusion that I was not worth dating. See...it's stuff right there, that immediately makes me prefer a relationship with a Roman Catholic. Because, I know when I meet a girl who is Roman Catholic, that by and large, we are going to share the same values, the same morals, many similar ideologies. On top of that, we can share in our religion, go to church together. Our religion would bring us closer together. Unfortunately Roman Catholic girls are pretty hard to come by.

I love my roomate and his gal. She might as well be a cultist. They worship in a barn out in the country, they sing for hours and hours before mass begins. Life revolves around church and God for her. That's cool, more power to her. But he's a non-practicing Lutheran that doesn't go to church, and that hates church. The biggest riff in their relationship is their religion...period. When they fight, it's because she wants him to go to church, and he hates it. Her mom was going to force her to stop seeing him (she's 20 now) if he didn't start going to church. Religion is paramount, because a lot of people DON'T UNDERSTAND THE VALUE THAT RELIGION HAS TO OTHER PEOPLE!

And I know this is sad...it really is...but to most people, it's just easier for them to find people with the same religion than it is to tolerate other peoples religious faith. So sad...

Now to internet dating. Those kids make me chuckle for the most part. But hey, something like eHarmony...you can find people within say...a fifty or even a 15 mile radius of where you live can't you? I don't see a problem with that. Myself, I go out to bars and crap and meet girls. But some people just like to stay at home on the weekends and chill out. So long as you keep your feet on the ground, and can actually meet the person, and have physical contact with them...I don't see a problem with it. In fact, I would say it's a good thing for people who have dated before and know what type of person they are looking for. One might think there's a bigger more exact pool to pick from on eHarmony than some dive bar on the south side of town on lady's night.

I met my fiance on Match.com. I've tried a few other internet dating sites also. You can say that it isn't man's natural connection when you are age 18-24 because you can go to college or to the local bar and find plenty of singles. But when you get into your late 20's, as I was, there aren't so many singles around. I also just moved across the country so it was a great way to meet people.

I guess to each their own. You should consider keeping an open mind. One day you just might find yourself sibngle and in your later 20's (not to mention balding). Then what?

Nanny nanny poo poo, James has a girlfriend

Hmm, and here I was thinking that you used the internet dating services because girls were scared of your enormous penis.

Been close to a year.

Anyway, we were curious. I told her a machine may help in finding someone, but determining who's best is entirely up to the individual.



Again, yes, that's fine, but the messages eHarmony sends when the personality tests are over is either, "You win! Here are some other lonely people we have scientifically matched to you!" or "You lose! Because our system is so scientific, and you clearly do not meet the parameters we have set, you stay lonely!" I just thought it was awkwardly cruel and humourous at the same time.




Right... and maybe I should clarify, I've dated people by meeting them online before. I'm a busy guy. But I've never been happy about it. I met my current girlfriend by chance, tripping over her foot on the way to a poli sci class at 7am, spilling coffee all over myself. It begs the question of fate. Though, I'm way too logical to apply my relationship to fate, merely because I consider relationships something we work for. In that sense, if we work toward love as a goal, the internet can help that. But this Doctor Douchebag who designed the tests to determine who I'm "right" for seems asinine. He's trying to provide a service for people who fear that they will be selected or denied based on looks, but at the same time, people are cancelled out of the process entirely because of an admittedly fallable system.

I'm speaking, again, specifically to eHarmony. Another thing eHarmony robs the user of is first sight. The most important aspect of a relationship, or forming relationships, is a first impression. I need a face, a picture, something to attach me to that person either emotionally or physically. From there, the personality should click, and if it doesn't, oh well. For those concerned that their looks will remove them from the natural selection process of emotion and love, they are sadly mistaken. While a cynic in most cases, I truly believe there is someone for everyone. The determining factors in deciding who we shall be with lie in our own hands, not fate, and not some silly test on line.

I hope I'm not offending anyone who's used this service and found some form of love. I just feel like people are being taken advantage of (this program is NOT free after your initial personality test).

What may perhaps be more poiginent than the Eharmony marriage rate is the 50% divorce rate in the United States. Yeah so a lot of people get married, how many are paying alimony 3 years later. You'd have better luck with the Russian Brides at least you know what you're getting.


Regardless of "profile" we have a lot of neurotic unrealistic people seeking some "soulmate" or unrealistic image of "love and romance" that they have had cultivated since exiting the womb. Much like a TV program many men and women have a relationship attention span of what 7 seconds, brought on in part by those idiots occupying hollywood.

You have people that don't want to compromise which they may view as "settling." They don't seem to grasp the concept that every relationship is compromise.

Bottom line, it's easy to match neurotic unrealistic people toegther especially if they are overly needy believe in the service and or the possibility that some diety led them toegther whether it is true or not. It's much tougher to match rational realists. "Christian" probably fits 80% of their criteria. "I want kids" fits about 98% of the women.

Pfffttt... Its a myth that girls are scared of enormous genetalia. Have you seen the size of some their dildos and vibrators? Scary.

You can't throw a brick around here without hitting one.

I dare you to try.

more than 70% of the Brazil population its catholic...

Sadly I live in New York

But on the plus side, I gotta REAL hot date with catholic Mexican girl on Saturday.

In WNY, non-psycho catholic girls are almost impossible to find. The only one that SEEMED decent that I meant, ended up being busted in a bar for having a fake ID. She was in all the papers, it was the highlight of my life.

*gets hit*

Ow!

There is no way you're Roman Catholic...

You gotta show me your goods now

*skips past LW*

Got to catch me first!