Online Dating - is EHarmony Really a Better Way to Date?

In the world of online dating sites, eHarmony has a reputation for being among the best. In fact, eHarmony even refers to it's own service as being the "better way to date". But is it really?

What makes eHarmony different from other online dating sites?

EHarmony's schtick, and the element that primarily sets it apart from most other online dating websites, is its emphasis on matching people based on their "29 dimensions of compatibility".

When joining eHarmony, new members are required to fill out a long and very detailed personality questionnaire. Answers to these questions provide a profile covering aspects of your personality including emotional temperament, social style, cognitive mode, physicality, vital attributes, values and beliefs and key experiences. Within those categories lie the 29 dimensions used to match potential soul mates.

Another distinction between eHarmony and other internet dating sites is that, rather than allowing you to peruse profiles and choose the members you're interested in, eHarmony does the choosing for you based on your elaborate personality profile.

The eHarmony online dating site then oversees a very tightly controlled initial communication process. Rather than email with one another freely as you would on most other online dating websites, you're required to first initiate (or accept) contact with your match, then pick from a list of prepared questions with check the box pre-planned answers and wait for the other party to pick their answers and respond with another set of pre-planned questions. This process can go on through several stages until the parties are both feeling more "comfortable" and ready to email directly. In the last few years, eHarmony has added a feature to allow you to circumvent the pre-packaged questions and move more directly to email. Still, the process of starting communication on eHarmony is far more controlled than most other typical internet dating websites.

Does eHarmony's personality profiling system really provide you with better matches?

Personally, I doubt it. My impression when I completed the questionnaire was that I would likely answer any number of those questions differently on any given day and could, therefore, come out with a slightly different personality profile. That would, in turn, get me a different set of matches whose profiles might be just as inaccurate. I really don't see any real science or magic in the eHarmony questionnaire.

Secondly, what the questionnaire completely leaves out is the importance of chemistry. Physical chemistry - attraction - is undeniably important. No matter how gentle or sweet or ambitious or intelligent or otherwise well suited your suitor may seem on paper, poor physical chemistry can and does routinely blow all that out in the first two seconds when you meet.

And there's also a major chemistry component to personality which a scientific model like eHarmony's will never be able to capture. Sure a guy may test as having a great sense of humor - but funny to him and his bowling team may not be funny to you. Body language, facial expressions, gestures all can effect our perception of someone else and their personality, regardless of how they've tested on eHarmony. When it comes right down to it, whether you pick someone out of a set of profiles or whether eHarmony matches you based on their 29 dimensions of compatibility, compatibility or the lack there of is revealed and a real relationship begun based on how you like each other when you meet in person.

Then there's the issue of eHarmony preventing you from being able to look at profiles and instead doing the choosing for you. When you join eHarmony you pay a relatively hefty membership fee ($287 per year as of this writing) to wait for the matches they pick out for you. Interestingly, when I was a member of eHarmony I was also trying out Match.com. As it would happen, many of the matches that eHarmony sent me were men that were also on Match - men that I had already passed over because of the information provided on Match in their profiles that the eHarmony system completely ignores. So I had paid all this money for eHarmony's great system to wait to receive magical matches that I already knew I had absolutely no interest in.

Does eHarmony's system of controlled levels of communication help you to get to know one another better?

Not in my opinion. At best, all they do is slow down the process of elimination or of meeting someone you might be interested in.

EHarmony's guided communication questions really give you no information at all. Perhaps they pretend to try to. Take a look at these examples taken from eHarmony:

"1. If you decided to stay at home for the evening would you tend to: 1. watch TV, 2. clean, 3. talk on the phone, 4. read.

2. Realizing that labels are imperfect, do you consider yourself a dominant person in your personal life? 1. Yes, I generally dominate most social settings and relationships, 2. Although not always dominant, I am often taking the lead in relationships, 3. I like to spend equal time being dominant and submissive. 4. I usually like to follow someone else's lead.

3. How often do you find yourself laughing? 1. I crack myself up! 2. I try to laugh all the time and get serious only when it's needed. 3. Most of my time is spent being serious but I like an occasional good laugh. 4. I'm generally a pretty serious person."

You can either check one of these or fill in a blank fifth option in your own words. Still, how much do questions like these really tell you about someone? How thorough an answer can you get? And if someone responded back that they would choose to read if they were home for the evening, would you then cut off communication if you prefer to watch TV? So what purpose do these questions really serve?

In my experience, internet dating sites, whether it's eHarmony or any other, serve as a place to find singles who are looking for a relationship and who seem to have some things in common with us. The sooner you get to meeting, the better. But no series of questions or an elongated process of emailing will truly help you determine if a person is compatible. The quicker you get from introduction to meeting in person where the relationship can then progress the old fashioned way, the better.

So is it possible to find your next love or soulmate on eHarmony?

Well, sure. And I know eHarmony boasts thousands of marriages from their online dating site. But so do all the others.

The point is, sure you might meet your soulmate on eHarmony. But did you find your true love there because of the "29 dimensions of compatibility" or the fact that you had to check little boxes to inane questions about your preferences for two weeks before you actually exchanged emails?

I don't think so. If everyone that met and married from a given site did so from, say, the first three or four matches they were given, then it might be a sign it had something to do with the system.

But I tend to believe then, that eHarmony, just like all the other internet dating sites, simply brings people that are single and looking for a relationship together where they can find each other and then learn enough about each other from their profiles and their initial conversations to determine if they want to go out on a date. Then, after sifting through enough of these, on eHarmony or another internet dating site or from meeting in the produce department at Safeway, the right one, with the right chemistry, at the right time, finally comes along. And the rest, as they say, is history. So if you want a larger pool of people to choose from with a little information to start you off, eHarmony will work just fine. But you may not want to put out the extra money necessary to have eHarmony then limit the number of choices you have.

Sources:

http://www.eharmony.com/?ctk=1&cid=50601&aid=1001&kid=ZCO7

http://www.pinoy.ca/eharmony/29-dimensions