[PeppyGPhiB]

The founder is a Pepperdine alum, so several years ago, when they started advertising, I tried out eHarmony. The guys I was matched with were all way more conservative than me and I didn't feel like we had much in common even on paper. They didn't seem like matches at all. But eHarmony works differently than Match.com and other online places...it works in phases and there's no search tool or anything like that. It's not appropriate for someone (like me) who knows exactly what they want/need in a partner. Anyway, I tried it for a free month, then abandoned it.

I don't think it was ever attached to Focus on the Family; I think they just promoted the service on Focus on the Family, among other mediums. Look at the marketing - it's all focused on marriage, not dating or hooking up. So it is values based...that is, it's supposed to match people up according to which traits they have that supposedly are the rock of a marriage, and it keeps apart people that might have conflicting values that would cause a rocky marriage. For some that might be religion, others education, others race. The founder has said that the reason for excluding same-sex matches is because the research it uses to base its pairings on does not have findings for same-sex couples...because same-sex couples can't get married (or at least they couldn't at the time the company was founded).

ETA: my bf and I DID meet online, though. It's very normal here in Seattle. In fact, it used to be that when I went out to a bar with friends, I'd see guys I recognized, but I couldn't figure out from where. Then I realized that I had seen their profile on match.com.