I first tried the online dating thing back in 2002 sometime. That was match.com. I think what inspired that was a friend and co-worker having some success in meeting dateable women, and I thought what the hey, I'll give this a try too. I signed up for match.com for three months, and at the end I couldn't wait for the subscription to expire. I was finding that participating in local singles events and going to the Sunday Singles dances (which we haven't had now for years) was plenty of fun and was enabling me to meet women.
Sometime around early 2004, I decided to give match.com another try. What happened then was that I wasn't impressed with the "selection" that the singles groups had. Oh, there was never any problem meeting women. The problem was meeting dateworthy women. Let's face it. There are a lot weirdos out there, and yes, we have them on my side too.
In the second half of 2004, match.com was actually starting to "work". I dated this one lady named Jennifer for about 2 1/2 months. I liked her, but not to the point of wanting to get serious with her. Then Kathleen came along after I told Jennifer we weren't going to make it, and my sense then was that "hey, this can actually work!". Two months later Kathleen ended it because of medical issues (hers), and it was back online again. Match.com didn't seem to "work" for the rest of the year though it did introduce me to Dyanna in 2006. I always liked Dyanna and thought she was quite the babe, but for some reason we couldn't seem to have an intimate conversation.
Now I'm back on the market, and I'm using eHarmony now. I have heard this come highly recommended by a friend and co-worker, and after going through their lengthy battery of questions I was initially impressed. Some of that shine may be wearing off, but then again maybe it's also the process of getting used to how it works. The jury is still out on this one, but here's what I've learned so far.
One, for some reason eHarmony likes to crash the browser. I know that I haven't got the latest and greatest Internet Explorer version installed, but I'm not going to use IE8 until we're using IE8 at work. Even if I were to be using IE8, some of your super slick websites may ferret out some glitches with the browser. Regardless, it's a bit frustrating trying to review your matches when the browser keeps crashing.
Two, eHarmony does real good at finding you matches some 500 miles away from you. OK, maybe their matching criteria is so strict that I've already managed to exhaust the Tucson-area matches in two days. I'm getting a lot of matches from southern California, and I'm "closing" them as that I'm not sure the distance thing will work in the first place. Yeah, I like to get in the truck and visit San Diego from time to time....there's some interesting rock formations near the Imperial County line and San Diego is a neat city. I considered relocating there about twenty years ago. But I think that's out as far as driving to meet someone goes. I don't even like to go to Phoenix to meet someone, but at least I can get to Phoenix and back in the same day.
Three: I'm now going to say something good about eHarmony: I get the sense that they really want to see their customers succeed in finding a match. I wrote in a question about whether or not it was possible to talk to a "live" person rather than email, and within 24 hours they got back to me on that one. Yes, it is possible, there's an 800 number available 24/7. And they're responsive in another way. A lady in Capistrano Beach that I turned down wrote in to them to ask them if I would reconsider....and a customer service rep advised me of that. If I want to re-open the match, let him know and they'll take care of that.
Four: Something else good to say about eHarmony: their screening process weeds out the scammers. I've been contacted by Nigerian scammers on Match and on another site. Although they are taken care of quickly by Match, the scammers won't have the patience to wade through the questionnaires that eHarmony throws at you. eHarmony also offers an identity verification service that's "free" with their higher-priced package (which I've signed up for). No scammer would go in that far.
Five: eHarmony also has some other bells and whistles that I haven't yet taken the time to explore, such a s a secure two-way anonymous phone call setup. You can talk to your match without having your phone number revealed to that match. Since I've got some cellphone minutes to burn I might do that if I am talking to someone outside of Tucson (big "if"). I haven't had any problems though with women misusing my phone number.
It is way too early to rule on whether or not signing up on eHarmony was the right thing to do. All I can tell you is that I don't have buyer's remorse on it yet. But I also don't know if I'm going to continue if no match is found when my term expires.
I just wish that there were more "eligible" (by their standards) women in Tucson to choose from.
* * * * * * *
Kerry Livgren, who got a mention in my last post is recovering from a stroke. From what I can tell his family is encouraged by his progress thus far. There is no way to contact him, (he's got a lot of irons in the fire anyway), but I hope that he'll be making some more music. I have some of his post-Kansas CDs and I recommend them. I should get some of his other CDs.
* * * * * * *
My cousin Kathy is visiting her brother Todd up in Phoenix. She and her husband came down to Tucson on Friday along with Todd's family, Amber and Annette. We hiked Sabino Canyon after sundown, and we were down in Tombstone for most of yesterday. Coming back, there was a really nasty storm that included hail. We had supper at the TTT truck stop off I-10 in Tucson before they headed back to Phoenix.
This was the first time that I really had time to "visit" with Dan. He's a good guy; the kind of guy you would want with you if you were to go out deer hunting. At one point in Tombstone yesterday him, Todd and I were solving the world's problems while the women were shopping.
After the previous weekend, their visit was therapeutic. I needed it.
I had a friend try eHarmony. While he liked the idea of a more exacting set up, he thought the questionaire was too detailed, which prevented him from finding any compatible women. He actually had eHarmony reject him because they had no matches. I hope you have better luck.
ReplyDeleteWhat I had heard before about eHarmony from someone who had been there was that they would only match women who were very close to him in age. In my case they're giving me a good spread agewise.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see how it goes. One week is not enough to judge whether or not this was the right move.