eHarmony=eHotmess

[APhi Sailorgirl]

I have a coworker who was rejected by eHarmony. I couldn't believe it, but apparently not all personality types fit into their little bubble.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by APhi Sailorgirl

I have a coworker who was rejected by eHarmony. I couldn't believe it, but apparently not all personality types fit into their little bubble.

Yeah, one of my friends was rejected too. He's a really nice, awesome guy--he just wasn't eHarmonious. LOL.

[Dionysus]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

I went to a wedding earlier this year where the couple met via eHarmony. She's white (Jewish), he's Korean.

I know very little about online dating, so this may be a silly question--aren't there more gay-friendly sites out there?

Originally Posted by LPIDelta

eHarmony is not gay friendly. At all.

They will, however, match you with people of another race.

Alright, that is even weirder. I have a friend who is a black male, and eHarmony told him that they strongly recommend that he pursues someone of the same race, if he wants any dating success. So, do they think that only certain people are suitable for interracial relationships?

As for gay friendly sites. There are tons of them for gay guys, but not gay women. If you're a gay woman, you're just stuck with match and okaycupid. Personally, I was not impressed, I'll just stick to Novak's. But, for the people who don't like bars or whatever, it must suck for them if they have trouble finding mainstream online dating services that will serve their preferences.

[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.