The eharmony computer has won itself a reprieve. This morning, my daily delivery of ‘suitable’ guys* included a Christian lawyer who left a big City firm to work for an overseas charity, who spends his spare time turning out for the armed forces reserve and whose last-book-read was War and Peace. Which makes him rich, compassionate, fit and brainy. Or a brilliant liar.
Either way, it felt like The Computer was finally taking me seriously. I like to think I scared it with that 48-hour ultimatum and am now receiving the real, quality product, like Stringer Bell in The Wire when he realises his package isn’t as good as the next motherf****r’s.
From the 30-odd profiles I’ve been sent so far, I’ve gleaned eight that seem worth responding to. There is a flaw, however. Because I’m still at the free trial stage, I can’t actually see any photos. This is the first time I’ve gone in blind, and to some it’ll sound like Russian Roulette – the terrifying, Deer Hunter kind, rather than the sexy, Rihanna-in-barbed-wire kind. But I’m actually quite looking forward to it. As we know, I rarely fancy a guy on first meeting, so a 2”x2” photo isn’t going to do that much for me anyway.
I’ve dropped them each an ‘icebreaker’, a standardised one-liner which is the first and most low-key form of messaging that eharmony offers you (and it’s free). After that, you graduate to a ‘guided communication’, which involves choosing, from a list, five questions you want to ask your match about himself – which he will then answer, no kidding, from a set of multiple-choice answers. Goodness, we wouldn’t want you thinking independently. It might be dangerous.
For now, my matches have just received a note telling them I ‘just wanted to say hi’. For a dating site that’s supposed to be all about personality, eharmony sure doesn’t want you to express one.
*to my inbox. Not to my door. Now there would be a service worth £34.95 a month
[...] 21, 2010 by TheGirlGlory Eharmony update, in [...]