filed in Sex and Dating
Taking the Online Out of Online Dating
At eHarmony, customers can now hire a personal counselor for $5000/year to manage their dating profile and do the scouting. Interested?
Artwork by Barbara Kruger
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Wendy, you once said you circled the expiration date of your match.com subscription to make sure you canceled on time. I found you could cancel the automatic renewal ahead of time, and continue to use the subscription through the expiration date; precision scheduling of cancellation not necessary. You still need to take the extra step, if you wish, of blocking your profile, after nonrenewal, to avoid getting checked out.
This is good to know, if I decide to go back on Match. But I do admit to a certain pleasure of actively canceling it, almost defiantly.
I can think of a lot of things I’d rather do with $5,000.
For real!
So many things. But I suppose it’s good for people who have $5000 to burn.
“A fool and his money are soon parted.”
Every person I know who has gone the online dating route has told me that eharmony is the worst one of all, with the fees and the length of the questionaire just adding a bunch of insult to injury. I have one friend in particular who truly believes that the higher fee means that you’ll get better quality, and eharmony has been of particular disappointment to her. (She’s quite naive, in spite of being ridiculously intelligent.)
Also, after browsing several dating sites myself, I’ve noticed that those who are on the pay sites also tend to be on the free sites. Why pay for the same shenanigans that you can get for free?
The name eHarmony drives me nuts. That alone kept me from signing up.
eDissonance? My match.com experience was good, and good for me. But of four nice ladies I met, two falsely said they were divorced when actually they were married-but-separated. I thought only MEN did that. I don’t understand the purpose, for women (am I chauvenistic a little?) of enrolling on such a site and lying about your marital status. But a good experience, anyway.
I agree that it’s hard to understand why people lie on these sites, because eventually it will catch up with them (age, weight, etc.) But I suppose the reasoning goes: if we can only meet in person, then I’ll explain everything, and win them over.
I guess if it works… it is ok…
But I have always been reluctant to pay anything for dating. Including dating services, matchmakers. It just seems wrong to pay for something most people find for free…I still feel this way.
I don’t think it’s wrong, if it actually worked. And in general, I’m all for a diversified approach to problem solving. But like Lauren, there are too many other ways I’d want to spend $5000.
I did not mean to imply it is ‘wrong’…
I think it is a waste of money..
When I did online dating, I found eHarmony to be largely worthless. ONE potential candidate–and his profile stated that he was only interested in friendship, not a romantic relationship! I actually had much better (not great, though) luck with match.com. Their questionnaire is overly long, yet it doesn’t capture nuances or complexity or maybe that you don’t want to be OVERLY compatible!
Five thousand dollars-un(insert gerund here)believable!
I read about a site, Carrot Dating, where you can actually bribe someone to go out with you. http://www.carrotdating.com/ Sigh.
That is what i am talking about, you cannot ‘buy’ a relationship or love….
That is SO depressing. Trying to convince somebody to go out with you really does not sound like a recipe for success…
I am doing eHarmony now and it’s not doing much for me. I decided ahead of time that I would settle in for a spell and not cancel after a month or two and that’s the place I’m in now. I kinda sorta met a man there although technically I met him on Craigslist (I know, I know). I placed an ad, he responded, I didn’t write him back. Fast forward six weeks and he has an ad on eHarmony. I wrote him through CL and say I saw him on eHarmony and did he want to give it a go so we did. We met for a cocktail later that night and parted comfortably. The next day he wrote to say he had a fine time but didn’t think we were a match but still wanted to hang out/talk/text if I didn’t mind. I don’t. We’re on good terms, to the point where I might invite him over for Thanksgiving so it wasn’t all bad.
I did match for awhile and had no luck on it when I lived in DC and now here in Baltimore. If the goal is to take the online out of online dating, I’ve had far more luck meeting men in sports bars than any other place. So put on your stretchy pants and head to a Buffalo Wild Wings near you!
As annoying as it is, I think it’s best to subscribe to dating sites for at least 3 – 6 months, and then grin and bear it. Or better still, have a drink at a sports bar.
Tried eHarmony, did not like it at all. Was too much work and also too kitsch with the multiple choice questions. This was awhile back so maybe it’s changed? My brother met his wife there so there are successes. I kinda think that they all suck equally when the results aren’t good and then, once you meet someone with whom you click on Match/JDate/CL/eHarmony/OKC/ClassicalMusicLoversExchange/GreenSingles/Whatever, that one becomes great. So if they all suck equally the more expensive ones become more sucky/$. I subscribe to the sports bar method–going to one tonight, in fact!
Have fun at the sports bar. At least you can have a drink. Let us know how your night goes.