On-line dating/lying

Almost everyone who asks about my marital status, also asks me why I don't try on-line dating services, because, they go onto to tell me, their cousin (or some one they know) met their fiancee/husband/whatever on Match.com or eHarmony or one of the many on-line options out there.

Well, of course I have tried on-line dating, and so have many of my friends, and we have stories to tell, just not success stories! I have to say that my on-line experiences have been worth the comedic value if nothing else. But then it usually requires a little time and distance to appreciate the humor in some of these situations.

I have several stories about on-line dating, so I am only going to tell one of them today. Let's start with eHarmony. This on-line dating service is generally the most highly regarded because it apparently selects potential partners on 27 (or is it 37) points of compatibility.
Unlike most of the other sites, you can't browse through the lists of singles. You have to go through their lengthy process and then their software sends you potential suitors.

But long before you get to this point, you have to complete a long, long questionaire and personality profile, provide photos, etc. I was actually surprised they didn't ask for a blood panel and a DNA swab!

Then when that is done you receive a personality profile that is supposed to help you better understand yourself and what kind of person would best match you. Then the matching begins.

You wait, and wait and then you get an email message saying that there's a match. You can click on that person's profile and get some information. But then you begin the next round. You send questions to them, then if you are really lucky they answer them and ask you some questions. This goes on for a few more rounds before you get to the ultimate - OPEN COMMUNICATIONS. This allows you to email back and forth and then decide what next steps you would like to take. So, that sounds quite good. It protects your privacy to some extent and you can take your time to get to know someone a little better, right?

Well, maybe! Most of the "matches" you receive never respond - no "I am not interested", or "I have met someone", just no response! So when you do get a response its pretty exciting, even though the process is long and exhausting. Because you have been matched with this other person on all these levels of compatibility, it makes you feel at least a little optimistic. I mean this computer has to be smarter than you or your well meaning friends and relatives, right?

Well, maybe not. And here is my story. I was matched with this guy, who seemed to have an interesting profile, didn't live with his mother, you know, he seemed normal. Among the many things covered in his profile he said his height was 5'7". I am 5'4" and I am not overly concerned about height, so this was a non issue for me. My ex is 6'4" so I thought maybe someone closer in height to me would be good. After jumping through all of eHarmony's hoops, we finally got to the point where we had a phone conversation. He seemed again, "normal" and we decided to meet for coffee one Saturday morning.

It was summer, so I wore a cute summer dress and some sandals with a mid height heel (maybe 2 inches at the most). So, that would make me 5'6", so imagine my surprise when I saw my "match" and he was definitely shorter than me, WITHOUT my heels! Yikes! Why would he lie about that? Why would he lie about anything really? But something like height? Did he think I wouldn't notice? We made polite conversation, but I was relieved when the date was over. Starting with such an obvious lie meant this was going no where.

At the time of this story I had 3 friends who were all using eHarmony. We are all around about the same age, live in the same city, but that is where the similarity ends. From a personality perspective, we could not be more different. We were together for a drink and started talking about our dating woes. I started to relate this story when one of the girls stopped me. "Is his name Frank?" she asked. "Yes", I said and she burst out laughing. She had been matched with him too! And as we talked more, we discovered that we had all been matched with him. One friend had never received a reply from him, and the other had indicated she was not interested. She said she was puzzled that she had even been matched with him as she had given specific criteria relating to height. She stands 5'11" in her bare feet so she had indicated that she didn't want to be matched with anyone less than 5'10".

The friend who had gone on the date is a petite 5'2" and she had worn flats on her date and she was still taller than him. While we all laughed at his audacity to lie about something that would be immediately obvious, we wondered about a lot of other things.

Is that computer really that smart. On what levels of compatibility had we been matched. The four of us have such different taste in men (and most other things) so why would we have all been matched with the same guy? In fact, when you get to a certain age and you live in a smaller community that is very couple oriented, does the computer yell uncle and throw out all the search criteria? Is the sample size just too small? Does the computer in desperation, just say, "they are basically in the same age range, they live in the same geographic region, there is not much more that I can do - take it or leave it!"