eHarmony Falls Flat

My best friend Sophie had a very Sex and the City-worthy week of dating in New York. She got broken up with on a text message, took home a bus boy from work in a brokenhearted shameful moment, and then drunk-dialed her ex-boyfriend from college. The next morning she calls me, swearing off men again. So I suggest an alternative. “How about crossing your sex wires with some Internet wires and give the whole Internet dating a chance?” I suggest.

So we browse some of the well-advertised sites and decide on eHarmony. The hype and advertising finally gets to her. Who doesn’t want to believe a message that preaches that it’s time to experience the joy of falling in love with someone who sees you, loves you, and accepts you for who you are?

eHarmony says this kind of happiness only comes from true compatibility—something they claim to have mastered. They invite Sophie on a no-risk trial to find her soul mate.

Marketing themselves as the number one trusted relationship site to go beyond traditional online dating, eHarmony claims ninety members get married every single day. They match you based on twenty-nine dimensions of compatibility. “Compatibility necessary for a lifetime of joy,” they explain.

So Sophie fills out the 436-question survey and clicks “Find New Matches.” Twenty-six new matches. Sophie begins to click through each one, slowly scanning down each profile and ultimately clicking “No Match.” More than half of the users don’t have photos, even though the “Join Now to See Photos” was what finally tempted her to type in her credit card numbers, charging $110.85 ($36.95 per month) for a three-month trial.

But Sophie keeps clicking with an open mind. The matches just aren’t. In the extensive questionnaire, she honestly states that she is a moderate Jew who drinks and smokes several times a week. More than half of her matches are moderate Christians who never smoke or drink and prefer matches who don’t.

A week passes by and Sophie gets a few more bad matches. Another week—even more bad matches. Finally, a week and a half goes by with zero matches. Apparently, when you first sign up (seven-day return policy) is when they run the initial compatibility query on the twenty million existing members of eHarmony. Once they serve up the majority of the matches, the rest of the time, it’s a slow drippy faucet.

Sophie logs on each day seeking her twenty-nine-point compatible soul mate. Each day—nada. Where art thou, eHarmony matchmakers? Are they not all sitting hunched over scientific raw data, drawing compatibility charts or mind mapping Sophie’s 436-question survey?

After a month of the dripping matchless matches, Sophie decides this isn’t worth the price of a massage. Beyond an occasional chuckle or small-talk email exchange, the matches were worthless. The one man Sophie finally thinks is a potential offline communicator ends up emailing her from his hotel room in Las Vegas expressing his loneliness.

Unmatched men loiter Sophie’s “My Matches” tab on eHarmony. Sophie wants her money back, but she’s fair; she wants the portion of the membership that remains unused—two more months.

Since the product involved in this e-commerce transaction is the love of your life, you’d expect a customer service contact phone number or an email address. Sophie entails my help in contacting eHarmony; certainly there was some sort of error with the matching system.