After receiving some motivating encouragement I decided to bite the bullet this evening regarding online dating. I didn't exactly beat my reservations into submission, but was able to sit on them for long enough to sign up with the much vaunted eHarmony site. It's different from most dating sites in that you fill in an extensive questionnaire in order to give them a highly detailed character profile from which they carefully match you with other users.
The questionnaire consists mainly of statements that you have to rate on a seven point scale of 'not at all important' to 'very important' using radio buttons. There are also several lists from which you must choose the three or four things that are most important to you. Doing this for any length of time gets pretty irritating, and the whole thing took almost exactly an hour to complete, but I was quite interested to see how many ladies would have the dubious fortune of falling within my carefully tailored criteria.
Now, you're probably expecting me to say that there weren't any but no - it's not even as good as that. Instead, after all that effort, I got a short message informing me that my profile had been rejected because I didn't fall within their list of matchable character types. Huh! Even the most optimistic person would find it hard not to interpret that as 'fuck off mate, you've not no chance.' It wasn't a particularly polite message either, and there was no hint of an apology for wasting my time, but they did explain that their service was not appropriate for everyone. Quite what group of weirdos and sexual deviants I have inadvertently added my name to I don't know, but I suppose I'll have to cheerily assume that the site is geared towards 'normal' people who throw dinner parties and talk about wine as though it's important.
I wouldn't say I've been deterred, but it does suggest that honesty is less important than heavy compromise.
13 comments:
Don't take it to heart - eHarmony was founded by an evangelical Christian and there are persistent claims that atheists get rejected more often than you'd expect (this eHarmony article says atheists are more likely to cheat on their partners.) They also refuse to allow gay people to join, and eventually launched a completely separate site to keep such folk in their own little zone. So no big loss, I'd say. I'd have warned you against it, but I'd honestly forgotten about all that until this post.
Match.com has a huge number of users, and might be worth a look. Guardian Soulmates has fewer but, um, more of them can spell (or, at least, make the effort) (sorry if that's crass and awful and makes me a terrible person).
Oh, I bet they have got a list of 'matchable character types', as well. They've probably got a big naff board with big naff anime characters with pointless, made-up names and a terse, naff précis underneath each one. That says terse, naff things like 'Ray is a dynamic, energetic go-getter who knows what he wants but hasn't figured out how to get it', and big naff paper arrows between ones they reckon 'fit'. And the worst part is that that probably works.
Good heavens, that is appalling treatment. But I suppose it's better than getting a polite 'thanks for your application, we'll get back to you with potential matches' and then ignoring you forever.
Please don't be deterred Graham - if nothing else, your trials and tribulations (let's hope there are some) are prime blogging material!
Good luck!
is that three different Andrews in a row??
Don't do the joke. Don't do the joke.
THANK YOU EVERYONE, THAT'S VERY ANDY ADVICE!
Oh dear.
Andrew #1's comment suddenly makes sense. A friend of mine (a normal, well, by my standards normal, woman) also spent an hour filling in the questionnaire only to get the same rejection letter.
mysinglefriend.com is worth a look, in my experience.
Sorry. I'm ready to make a more considered response now.
Andrew 1 - Having looked into it, I found a fair few testimonies from atheists who said that they had been accepted by eHarmony so I don't think I can reasonably blame that. One article suggested that the main reason people are rejected is 'emotional instability'. I don't consider myself to be emotionally unstable, unless you count watching Glee, but perhaps my definition differs from theirs. In any case, if I'd known in advance that they reject gay people I'd have avoided them on principle.
I help my illiterate friend with his dating on Match.com, so I know who's available in this area on that site. It's slim pickings really. Last time I looked on Guardian Soulmates there was only one person within 20 miles of where I live.
Andrew 2 - If that's the case, and I suspect it is, I'm proud to be a reject.
Andrew 3 - If I ever get as far as going on an actual date with an actual woman, I may reward you with live blogging of all the ridiculous things I say.
Justin - I've heard of that site. Might be worth a pop if I can bully someone into writing a testimony for me.
But - but I offered to write a testimony for you on mysinglefriend.com last year and you said no! I honestly wouldn't have mentioned your love of Avril Wibbley or the Creative Year cream cracker video ("ding ding!")
Was it really three different Andrews in a row? I thought it was someone having a Barriejohn moment.
If you were really brave you'd ask everyone here to write a collective testimony in the comments thread. We could do it a line at a time, like that story-writing game in school.
Okay, I'll start:
Graham is a skyscraping individual who possesses many talents.
Graham spent six months of his life entertaining strangers every day and only appeared naked once while doing so.
Okay, that's quite enough thank you.
Graham has big feet - "wink wink" ladies...
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