eHarmony is a disaster – Steer clear of it. Not only is it expensive, but you’ve got the weird religious issues. Once you get past that, their long-term compatibility thing completely ignores short-term chemistry (i.e., are you even attracted to this person?) and the process of getting to know someone is deliberately designed to string you along to make the process take longer so they can get more money out of you. 'Nothing like wasing three weeks answering questionaires back and forth with a woman only to finally get to see her picture and realize that she is not someone you ever would have been remotely interested in in the real world.
I met my fiance on match.com. I understand there are some criticisms that folks here have about shell accounts or whatever but my experience was mostly positive. The fact that it was a paysite really filtered a lot of the crap I would imagine you get on the free sites, the interface and search functions all worked fine for me and if I found someone that interested me, I was generally able to set up a date for that weekend. I live in a rural area so I had to be a little patient to find what I was looking for but I would imagine that in an urban area you could have a different date every night until you found the right woman.
In general I thought it was a lot like looking for a house online. You scan the photos looking for something that suits your tastes, read the profile to looking for red flags and to see if it looks like a good fit then you set up an appointment to see the house in person. Generally you know the second you walk in the door. “Wow – The photos of this place were totally deceiving,” or “The mud room’s larger than any other room in the house and the masterbath is off the dining room – I could never live here.” After a while it gets discouraging but then one day you walk through a door and go, “Huh – This place is kind of neat.” 'Sometimes you fall in love with the place right off the bat (my first house) and sometimes you’re not sure but see potential and then later fall in love with the place and can’t imagine what you were thinking with your initial hesitancy (my second house).
Anyway, my jaw hit the the floor when I saw my fiance’s profile. Curiously, we didn’t hit it off right away. We took a three month break and were both on the fence for the first year after that but, whatever reservations we might have had, we made each other happy and sticking together turned out to be the best decision either of us has ever made. We could not be happier now and have zero reservations. I mention this because a lot of people are looking for perfection right off the bat.
I’m getting off track here but one other thing I’ll mention is my theory that water always finds it’s own level. On a really superficial level, 10’s are going to date 10’s, 8’s are going to date 8’s and 5’s are going to date 5’s and that’s by preference. A 5 would be miserable dating a 10 and vice versa. This isn’t something that we sort out consciously, it just sort of happens on a subconscious level. Going beyond a superficial level, though, this theory holds true for all aspects of a person – The person you date is inevitably going to be about as emotionally and mentally healthy as you are. It’s self-selecting. If the balance gets too far out of whack on any given level, the relationship either never gets off the ground or stops working and comes to an end.
On a practical level, what this means is that if you are unhappy with the quality of men/women you find yourself in relationships with, raise your water level. If you keep finding yourself in relationships with crazy people, look in the mirror. You’re probably fucked up yourself. The other trick is, once you have committed to self-growth, the ideal relationship for you is someone else who is also committed to growth. This way, you grow together. It’s a positive feedback loop and the relationship just gets better and better over time. If you have a relationship wherre one person is committed to growth and the other is not, eventually the relationship will break down.
