Being in a large market (LA), I expected to get quite a few matches delivered to my profile... and I wasn't let down. I was on for roughly 6 months and was force-fed around 5 - 10 matches daily. So many that when I came home after work, practically all I did for the first hour or so was clear out the majority of them. I did end up contacting 40 or so, and went on dates with about 25, so not as good as my ratio from in-person type dating (bars, friend introductions, etc), but still not bad for an online gig.

What gives it a 2/5 is the fact that these girls were quite possibly the best photo-choppers around... and they pulled some pretty psycho stuff.

Case in point, a seemingly lovely girl from the westside named Elise (name changed, obviously) seemed to have everything in order. She described herself as fit and the pictures seemed to back that up, she was a lover of the outdoors, had a dog, a stable job as an aerobics instructor, her own place and car(!). This worked for me because I was sick of dating deadbeat out of shape gold diggers from the westside that I'd meet through my work. All of the emails and phone calls were great, we really meshed well it seemed. Then came the in-person meetup at an outdoor cafe in Santa Monica (3rd st).

It was an October evening and a bit chilly, so she was wearing a long jacket... beware the long jacket, a friend once said. "Par for the course, I suppose" I said to myself. Her face was exactly as photographed, and we had some decent conversation. She avoided the talk about going to the gym, though, which struck me as odd from someone claiming in their profile to be an aerobics instructor... Coffee over, I figured "what the hell" and suggested we hit up a watering hole to see what she was hiding under that puffy trench-coat lookin thing.

It is then and there that the gravity of the situation finally caught up. She wouldn't let me take her coat, oh well right? No big deal I thought. I was still curious as to what I was possibly... er... getting into later that evening, if you catch my drift. The first few rounds of drinks went well, conversation went great, and I was thinking "hmm, she seems normal, what's the catch?"

The place started to get a bit crowded and warm.
It finally got so hot that she had to remove the jacket and when she did, it was game over. She must have weighed 165lbs, all of it from the waist down. At five-foot nothing, that's some heavy duty equipment. I politely terminated the evening with a handshake and a well wish, and was on my way within 15 minutes.

I emailed her that I had fun but didn't think our lifestyles were compatible (I'm a physical fitness coach and asst. mgr at a health club, she obviously hadn't seen the inside of a gym since the Clinton administration), and then removed her profile from my list.

It was there that she started getting weird. Late night / early morning calls (I had to change my number), strange notes left under my windshield wiper at night, increasingly profane "anonymous" emails saying that I lead people on and that I'm a liar, culminating eventually in profanities being keyed into the drivers side door of my Navigator while I was working late one night. Thank goodness she didn't know where I lived!

Anyways, that was one of the 4 or 5 stalker-esque instances that happened as a direct result of meeting someone from that site. I had tried match.com and others before and nothing like that had EVER happened. eHarmony must attract the psychos? That wasn't the only time, however, that I met someone who's pictures didn't quite mesh with reality.

So 2/5. +1 star for volume of matches, +1 star for amount of dates as a direct result, -3 stars for quality of dates / actual vs. photoshopped appearance in profile pictures.