Number 9 - World Wide Glitches

It's been a bit since I updated this blog and discussed my misadventures on eHarmony.  Forgive me for this.  Honestly, very little has occurred that is worth writing about for the past month.  Here's what is currently happening on the site:

1) I opened up my location choice to the entire world.  I have been very curious if my age group and gender preference (male) is limited on the website.  I decided to see if I get a larger number of matches by eliminating location limits.  My discovery is that there aren't a lot of men IN THIS WORLD that would be well matched with me. I don't get many "blue" matches, I get sent more "green" possiblities. Very telling.

2) More glitches in the system. I keep receiving the same 5 "possible" matches over and over again even after I remove them or block them.  Out of these 5, 3 are blank profiles.  Not very encouraging.

3) Men in Australia, Canada & New Zealand like me.  I don't know why. New pen pals, perhaps?

As of today, it has been 6 months since I joined eHarmony. I still feel that dating websites work best for younger people in a much more populated location.  So far, the site is proving this point of view. 

Chapter 8 - Let's Go USA

I stepped away from eHarmony for approximately 1 week and found that very little had happened.  The same issues still applied: blank profiles, few profiles and bugs in the system.  I was discouraged so, I decided to make some changes.

I altered my distance to focus on specific states instead.  I chose the one I live in and the one next to me.  I believed that there must be a few matches in 2 states, right?  Well, after another week, I realized I was wrong.  Apparently, there are very few men that the algorithm would consider a "match" with me. Again, more discouragement. 

Once more, I decided to expand on the area and broadened my distance to my country. With a chant "let's go USA", I launched into highly unlikely dating opportunities. What have I discovered? Men in New York, Ohio, California and Pennsylvania are matches for me according to the algorithm.  Of course, the chances of meeting any of these men is limited.  I don't plan on going on any extended road trips or flights for a date.  That being stated, I don't expect a man to do so either. No one really joins a dating website to develop a long-distance relationship or a pen pal. Do they? The key here is dating website.

A friend of mine sent me a recent article from NPR on online dating.  He thought it may be of use for this blog. The article uses a vague breakdown from a poll conducted by the Pew Center and splits this information to negative vs. positive experiences.  What did I take away from it? The percentages of sites used.  Only a quarter of those polled (which excluded ages and gender details, by the way) used eHarmony.  The majority of those who were seeking love online were using Match.com.  

Now, I'm unsure of the details as I mentioned above. The Pew Center website that linked to the survey only noted that those polled were 18 or older. I feel that statistics on gender, age, sexual orientation, type of relationship sought and specifics (i.e., religion, hobbies, etc.)  are all significant.  Let's just say that in world of older women in the Christian community that are seeking a Christian marriage the percentage would be different than those of young women without religious preference to open the door to causal dating opportunities. I believe that the more specific the details in a poll are (including niche sites: dating for bikers, specific religions, etc.) would further illuminate the online dating picture. That being said, this article is just fluff. Judge for yourself.  The link is at the bottom of this entry.

Where does this leave me? Well, let's just say I opened the door to new pen pal opportunities via eHarmony. 

Comments anyone?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/10/21/239084643/online-dating-is-on-the-rise-but-there-are-still-haters?utm_source=NPR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20131021

Chapter 7 - Another Bug

I have discovered another eHarmony bug.  

I have pointed out that I often receive empty profiles as matches. I generally open them just to see what other information, if any, is posted.  This week I found that when I opened the blank profiles photos appeared.  I'm unsure what type of glitch this is, but I hope it is corrected.

Chapter 6 - Meeting

For the first time since joining eHarmony, I met a "match" face to face.  He was a nice man, but it wasn't a click for either of us.  However, I was enlightened to a few things about the site.

1) There are more women than men on the site. 

    On average, this man was sent approx. 20 matches per day. So many, that he didn't have time to review them all. It was a skim situation for him. He also let me know that other male friends of his had the same experience.  This explains so much. While I'm getting blank profiles (still, to this day), he's getting matched with many real woman. He has plenty of choices, while I have very few.  On average, I receive 1 to 3 matches often with 2 of the 3 being blank. 

    He's been on eHarmony for 1 month, I've been on it for 3 months. Already, he's ahead of the game.

2) The site has many bugs that cause communication issues.

    There are several little bugs to the site that cause their emails not to be received properly.  As a matter of fact, sometimes they are lost completely unless you click on the persons profile to find it. Then there are the times that it gives an error message and asks one to log back in to correct the problem. Sometimes photos don't appear after uploading them or disappear for no known reason.

2) Everyone is communicating with several folks at the same time.

    This was just a confirmation of something I believed anyhow. Not a surprise.

I'm beginning to believe that I'd have better luck hanging around the grocery market in a nice outfit. I just have to find the right market.

    
   

Chapter 5 - Month 3

This is the first quarter of my Great Date Experiment and it feels like a big fail at the moment. It would be helpful if were I able to do searches and look at options or if eHarmony held events like Match.com does.  Right now, I'm at the site's mercy. If the matches don't appeal to me, then I'm just out of luck and $180.00.  Direct questions aren't answered by their representatives even when I post this blog or email them through the site. I was just sent a survey after my initial call. This generated another email survey after my responses read "poor" in regard to the quality of their "assistance".

It's my third month as an eHarmony member and none of my "matches" have led to a meeting and/or date. I understand that the way their system works is that all the matches are chosen based on the initial questionnaire answers.  The problem is that not everyone completes a profile after answering these. If you have been reading this blog, you know I've had this complaint since the beginning. Nothing has been changed or altered.  I'm still being matched with faceless men that have only basic information or vague information on their profile page.  Just a hint: if you aren't comfortable listing your job title or the closest city/town to where you live, internet dating probably isn't for you.

Since I am still locked into this contract, I will continue to use the site and see if anything changes. I canceled the "automatic renewal" once I was allowed to do so. I suppose my next thought is if I would consider joining a different site after this membership expires. Maybe Match?

Chapter 4 - The Free Long Weekend Blues

This past holiday weekend eHarmony had a promotion. The site regularly offers non-members the opportunity to connect with people for a limited time at no cost. Generally, this is done over a long weekend. In fact, this is the same type of offer that enticed me to join this past July. As a marketing tool it has merit. After all, I'm sure many new members join during these promotions. However, it can be a bit disappointing for current members.  Why, you ask? Simple: there seems to be a higher number of empty profiles created during these time frames and they wind up in the pool of “matches” presented to members.

How can I be so sure of this? Well, I had 3 matches sent to me this weekend that had no photo, no information, and one even had no name.  That was special: no name, no photo and under the occupation it read, “not willing to disclose”.  Perhaps the algorithm believes that he could be the man for me, but any human being would be wise enough to see that couldn’t be the case.

There needs to be a better tool in place to prevent this type of faulty profile from being presented as matches.  Can you address this please, eHarmony?

Step Three - Alpha

After my last entry, I uploaded new photos that I had taken while out on the town with friends. I noted that loading new photos onto my profile immediately gets a response. I’m not sure if it’s the pictures themselves that are causing an interest or that the update triggers some sort of new rotation status in my profile page.

I continue to review my matches on eHarmony and have begun to recognize that I am cast in an unfamiliar role here: the alpha. While some women are very comfortable approaching a man directly, I am not. I’ll smile and flirt to see if there is any interest as well as indicate that I am attracted.  Generally, I wait to see if a man will approach. I know that’s old fashioned. Hell, I’m closer to 50 than 20.

The way eHarmony works is the computer program presents you with matches. You have to go through everyone, that can be as many as 9 or as few as 1, and choose to make the first move.  There are only two options: send a wink of interest or five questions. I have found that sending a basic wink is often well received while sending out a list of 5 questions isn’t always appreciated. Unless you upgrade (an additional cost), you don’t know who is shown you as a potential match.  One can venture a guess by looking at the page that shows all activity. Updates on who views whose page are listed there.

 

Here’s my big complaint: incomplete profiles without photos are often presented to me as potential match material. There isn’t a way for me to filter these out. The computer program is choosing potential partners for me based on the applicant’s original questionnaire.  If they decide not to complete an actual profile than it is moot. It appears they wind up in the system even if the profiles aren’t actually active members.

I look at online dating as walking into a cyber restaurant. If you were to walk up to a waiting area with mute men wearing bags over their heads would you be encouraged to stay there? Let me guess: probably not.

I have been approached by a few men on the site and began the process of the eHarmony “interview”. I can say that they appear to be nice men and some are very attractive. I still haven’t met anyone. After two months of this, I’m a discouraged but determined to continue on. I may as well. I’m still paying for it.

Step Two - Moving Forward

The past few days have been dedicated to organizing my eHarmony page. As mentioned in first post, I removed older photos and decided to look at what I had written in my profile. I made a few edits, added a little more information and rearranged which photo would best fit as the cover page. I have been more active in reviewing potential matches sent to me and even reached out to a couple of "what if" selections.  This area of the site shows possible matches that are outside the scope of established settings.  I can see that they are a little further away, a different age range and/or education level than what I have set up as my preference. Exploring outside of my comfort zone is what this experiment is all about, so I decided to use this section.

I also received an instant email response from eHarmony's customer service line. It's a survey about the "issue" to see if it has been resolved. As of this moment, I haven't yet ventured to fill out the online form. I am concerned that a multiple choice questionnaire will not reflect the actual issues I have had with the site or my experience with the customer service representative. Generally, I find these type of email surveys are skewed to whatever direction supports the website business model.  It's a basic marketing tool to control the outcome of the response in order to utilize the data to the maximum benefit of the business.

This brings me to another question: if everything is based on this type of algorithm do they work outside of statistic building? Anyone?

 

First Step - Join the Biggest Dating Website

We've all seen them: advertisements proclaiming that love can be found via the Internet.  Who doesn't want love? This July 4, 2013, I decided to give it a try and joined the most expensive site out there - eHarmony. I decided to make it a real commitment and joined for a year.

I moved from Los Angeles, California where I was extremely social and dated frequently to Providence, Rhode Island.  I am social here in Rhode Island, but the atmosphere isn't the same as California.  Not to say that it's bad, it's just different.

Dating as an adult can be a difficult and daunting task. When I was younger, I met men my age or close to it all the time. Flirting was easy, fun and dating was a breeze. Now, I go out with friends and enjoy meeting new people as often as I can. However, the majority of people I have met in my age category (late 40s) are already married. I only chose to jump on board the Internet dating game after being inundated with ads on television and giving in to the option. What the Hell, nothing else seemed to be working. 

I joined eHarmony expecting to go on several first dates. I didn't join expecting true love or having ridiculous expectations. I thought it may be a great way to meet men that otherwise may not cross my path. Eventually, one may wind up turning into something more. That's as far as my optimism went.

So far, I'm unimpressed with eHarmony.  I have a tendency to get matches from several states over, much older and many without photos. I found this to be the norm after 6 weeks on the site. After much exploration, I found an email contact to send a note stating that I was unhappy with the results.  It took a few days to get a response. They provided a basic "sorry" note along with a phone number for customer service.  

I called today and spoke with "Jennifer".  She had a young voice and was clearly following a script.  She looked at my profile, made a few adjustments to see if things could be changed to help the algorithm work.  eHarmony won't let you search their database for matches.  All matches are sent to you based on what the system spits out as a potential match. I listened to Jennifer explain the process, discussing the issues I had with the current matches sent me. Then it happened: she completely insulted me.  She pointed to photos of me that were "older" and really jumped all over them. She was down right rude. Yes, one of the photos I used was 8 years old. I placed it on the front page because of its size. It fit properly while others weren't lining up right. Wow, was she nasty about that. 

Now, I'm insulted. It becomes more of an argument than a discussion on the phone and I'm fuming inside. I point out some of the matches I've been sent have photos that are much older, including one man who used his high school photo from 1980. Her rebuff was that he probably wasn't having any luck on the site either. Ouch. I also pointed out what she said insulted me. Her response was clearly scripted and had no real emotion behind it. 

I asked if I could cancel my membership and get a refund. No can do. My agreement binds me to pay them the $180 (just about) if the account is active or not. It's paid in 3 segments with an automatic yearly renewal. I ask if the renewal can be canceled and she states, yes after the last payment is made. So I'm trapped. I'm stuck in the contract so I may as well use the site. I removed the older photos and will consider adding new ones taken within the next several days. 

I am now aware that eHarmony doesn't provide their customer service representatives with sensitivity training.  If you call, expect a bitch-slap. If I'm lucky someone will see this in eHarmony's Human Resources department and make training adjustments to their customer service staff.  

Meanwhile, I'll justify this expense by blogging about it. I committed for a year, so I'll write about this entire experience. Good, bad or indifferent. I will note if eHarmony works for me.