14 DAY TRIAL // eHarmony, the online dating service that claims to help hundreds get married daily, is not an app you want on your iPhone if you’re feeling depressed or have a low self-esteem. That said, it’s probably a great service if you happen to be a “match”... for its algorithms.
The app is free to download but not so free to use. In fact, the subscription can run in the hundreds of dollars if you want the full package. I can’t assess if the price is right because, during my testing (for a review), I wasn’t looking for true love. Though I did answer all the questions correctly and truthfully. So here’s what I found.
eHarmony has a nice interface but takes at least 20 minutes to set up
eHarmony for iPhone looks great and it’s been specifically designed to advance rapidly through the questionnaire. It’s sprinkled with romantic imagery here and there, and it gives off a very optimistic and positive vibe. Unfortunately, you need a lot of time on your hands to use it.
No joke, you need at least 20 minutes to go through the motions because the service needs to know everything about you – and I mean everything – in order to hook you up with someone. You can opt to create an account on the spot or sign in with Facebook. However, you still need to provide an email address, pick a user name, specify the country you’re in, give them your phone number (this is optional), and other stuff.
At one point during the Q&A session, it asks you to specify various ranges for things like age, distance, etc. The distance thing is crucial, but the app doesn’t tell you that.
Once you deal with the account setup, it then starts to ask you more personal questions. Not just some. A lot. About a hundred of them. And you need to be very careful what you choose, otherwise you’ll end up meeting the wrong people, or no people at all (more on this below). It’s excruciating!
Spells potential trouble
Like any online dating service, you can never be too careful with the information you hand out or the people you agree to engage with. But it’s a trusted service and one that really struggles to find the perfect match for you. Which is both its strongest point and its weakest. Here’s why.
After finishing the mile-long questionnaire, eHarmony returned the following result: “We’re sorry – we are unable to find the right type of people for you.”
If that’s not a blow to the psyche, I don’t know what is. I mean, the user is already desperate, right? Online dating, enjoyable as it may be sometimes, is still basically just a last resort for people who’ve been trying and failing at finding true love in real life. Telling that person that there’s no one out there for them is really the last thing they want to hear.
The message was so terse and cold I’d completely forgotten the distance I specified, as well as other aspects. And it’s hardly a surprise, considering I’d been concentrating like crazy answering questions about my personality for the past 20 minutes. All I remember thinking was, “man... am I that complicated?”
The least they could do is recommend alternative answers, show you people that are “somewhat” in the same league as you are, or why not even let you fill out the questionnaire again. Who says you didn’t lie in the first place?
But no. It stops there and when you do try to come back, it hits you with the same message over and over again. As if it wasn’t clear already that you’d been labeled as undatable by the eHarmony community.
Of course, I didn’t linger for too long and started to investigate. Soon, I realized it had to do with the 60km range I picked during the testing phase. I’d completely forgotten about it. It’s not eHarmony’s fault that there are just a few lost souls using eHarmony around these parts, but it’s not my fault either that I picked what I thought was a decent area to scour for singles looking to hook up.
Since I can’t go back to tweak any of my preferences, what happens if I move out of the area and decide to try my luck once more? Do I need to create a separate account?
And this raises another question. How many eHarmony accounts are really valid, considering I’m probably neither the first, nor the last person to get singled out like this? If I make a separate account and take another swing at it, will eHarmony delete my first account? I don’t think so. That would be positive identification, and it would raise even more privacy concerns.
eHarmony’s disclaimer
After feeling sorry for you, eHarmony adds that “This does not reflect on you personally or your chances of finding a happy relationship.” Instead of ending with this message, perhaps they should start with it.
Like patting you on the shoulder, eHarmony then dispenses these last words: “We wish you the best in finding a great relationship.” Oh, great! They care.
Imagine being told by a “system” that there’s no one out there for you, after everyone in your life has unanimously voted you as either unattractive, too shy, too pushy, jealous, too skinny, chubby, smelly, or just plain annoying. An online dating service is the last place where you want to be told to scram.
With this out of the way, you can now safely journey down the eHarmony lane and try your best to find a soulmate. After all, now you know what to expect, and you should also be aware by now that eHarmony’s match-ups are based purely on algorithms, not someone’s personal opinion about the type of person that you are.
And if you get the same kick in the groin, then maybe it’s high time you hit the clubs. Call me old-fashioned, but I think it’s better to just let your visual and olfactory senses decide, not a server.