One guy's perspective of EHarmony:

Advantages:

1. After taking the personality questionnaire and completing your profile, the system does the work for you. You get your matches, send them 5 multiple choice questions and see if they respond. If they do, you know your match has at least some interest. There is no investment of writing some great (or not so great) email that may or may not be read.

2. There is no search function. And this is an advantage, you ask? Well, in a way, yes. Unlike Match and Yahoo, women are not going to be bombarded with a hundred emails right off the bat. They are going to receive a reasonable number of matches that they already assume have at least something in common with them. In a sense, you have a captive audience. For a guy, this means your chances of getting noticed are infinitely higher on EHarmony. Your profile WILL be read. I've also heard that the ratio of guys to girls on Yahoo and Match is very much in favor of the ladies while EHarmony supposedly has more women than men. I suspect that it will probably remain that way as the players are more likely to stay away.

3. It seems to have a much higher proportion of women who are serious about finding a mate with fewer drama queens and gold diggers. I've been on the site for almost three months now and I've only come across one head case and nobody that is concerned with my income. I'd say that personality wise, the quality is pretty good.

4. With the ad blitz these people have been running over the last 6 months, the pool of potential mates HAS to be expanding at a good rate.

Disadvantages:

1. There is no search function. Yes, it can be a blessing and a curse. You may have a time when the matches are not coming in as much as you'd like and you'll be curious as to what it would be like if you could create your own matches. Sorry. You can't.

2. Women on here are generally serious about finding The One. Just like the "no search function", it's good and bad. That means that each potential match is held to a higher standard than if they were just looking for a date. The pickiness can make it harder to get anywhere, especially if you are dealing with those that have a specific picture of their ideal mate in their head.

3. If you are looking for a hottie, you've come to the wrong place. That seems to be true with the women that are matched with my personality type, anyway. Of course, I am a bit of an introvert and the hotties seem to be the opposite (for good reason), so it may be different if you are an extrovert. Keep in mind that I am not looking for a model. I'm a solid 6.5 myself so I realize I would have to catch some great luck to land an 8 or a 9. I will say that on several occasions, I've looked at a woman's photo and based on that alone, she was a 5 or a six. After having read her profile, she jumped up a couple of points. So it isn't all about looks, but I'm not going to lie and say they don't matter at all.

4. Like most every site these days, they will send you matches of people that have taken the questionnaire and created a profile but haven't paid any money. You can send these people your initial questions, but they can't respond until they pay up.

5. There is no way to know when someone was active on the site. Say you send your questions and wait for a response. You haven't heard anything back for 5 days. Is it because they haven't paid up or maybe they just aren't interested? Maybe they've been out of town. Who knows? Not you. Unfortunately, quite a few of the ladies either have no backbone or really make it a point to keep their options open because I've had more than a couple that I'd be communicating with and then they just wouldn't respond all of a sudden. They wouldn't close the match to let me know they weren't interested either. So did they flake out or did their membership expire? Your guess is as good as mine.

6. The good Dr. Warren says that things like weight and body type are not listed on the site because it's what's underneath that matters. Oddly enough, height IS listed and if you're a guy under 6 feet, this can be a drawback. It seems unfair because ladies like tall guys and guys like non-fat ladies, but only one gets the advantage of knowing what's what initially.

Advice:

1. If you are a guy (or woman, for that matter) looking for a long-term relationship and you live in a major metropolitan area, you're an idiot if you don't at least give it a shot. If you live in the sticks, you'd better be prepared to travel because I bet it's hard to find matches in smaller towns.

2. Have some patience. The way the site is set up, communication can be SLOW. The process is very structured initially and this can really make it drag.

3. Don't be so bitter like most of the people on this site. Yes, online dating sucks. Yes, EHarmony could be better but if you were all that, you'd be out meeting people in the real world and wouldn't have to deal with all of this. But EHarmony isn't nearly the beating that Yahoo is for the average guy.

4. This goes for both men and women: you have the ability to choose the stage of communication at which you share your picture with your mate. I urge everyone to do so from the get go. It has been my experience that those who hold back are doing so for a reason, so you invest some time and energy in this person, they do the same for you and then eventually you see that the person you are talking to is not attractive to you at all. It becomes pretty obvious when things are going along fairly well and then come to a screeching halt once you poke your head out there. Don't set yourself up for that. I made my photo available from day one just so I could avoid that.