Reviews of eHarmony

I just signed up today. I got 7 matches. One said on his profile that he was already in a relationship. I already relaxed my match criteria to say that everything I wanted was "not important." Only 2 of my matches were in the State. The rest were over 300 miles away. That is fine. If I find anyone of substance, no matter how far they are, I will be happy. I sent messages to 6 of my 7 matches (excluding the one that is already in a relationship). I am still hopeful. There is someone for everyone, right?

Last week, I spent 2 hours building an eharmony profile. Rather than pay up front, I decided to see what kinds of matches I would initially get. Excellent decision!! In the past 7 days, I have been matched with about 55 men. Of those 55, only 5 have tried to initiate communication, which may confirm what other reviewers are saying: most profiles are inactive or non-subscribers.

I agree with many of the other reviewers that eharmony users are often functionally illiterate. One of my "matches" claims that he is looking for a "good, worm-hearted woman." Another says that music is one of his "favorite thinks."

Most of my "matches" (I've got to keep putting that word in quotes because it makes me laugh to think of these duds as compatible) live quite a distance away and most are 40ish. I'm in my early thirties and don't necessarily want to date a 40+ man.

If you want to try eharmony, I highly recommend building a profile first and then just trying it out without paying. You won't get to see any photos, but you will get an idea of how poor their "matching" system is and how few "matches" there are in your area, even NYC, the largest metropolitan region in our country.

To be fair, I do know of one woman who met her fiance on eharmony 6 months ago. However, this is not the norm, and everyone else I have spoken to hates eharmony and hasn't even gone on a single date!

The most expensive dating service + the worst matching system =
STAY AWAY! It's summertime, go out and mingle.

To Jessica NLVN,

You are the problem. Not the men.

Eharmony is fine. It's a dating website like all the others.

Men are sexual creatures by nature. It's normal, it's healthy, it's necessary. If you don't like it, or have a problem with sex, then stay single, or seek help; men won't change just for you.

I am a very intellegant woman, I own my own business and house and zero debt, but I can't spell worth a crap, I never could, but that does not bother me, what bothers me the most is that E-harmony had tried to match me with men who are, nothing more than (Perverts.)! I had joined on the notion that I might find someone I could love me for me and me for them, but all I have been getting is men who want my body and not my love. So I contacted E-harmony about this and they said unfortunitly all though I've been getting these type of men, they only talked about how many susess stories they have had. I was angered by this, because I am a very compassionate female who loves everyone, I have a great life, a great carrier, and a great body with a cute face, I have all the tools to attracted a mate, but this site has not filtered out all there side of the bargain, What I'm saying is I don't care how he is if he is sexually active, or if he has a shitty job or even if he is short, all I am wanting is a man to be compassionate to me and loving, and nothing more than a physicaly strong man to man handle me, but all I'm getting is perverts and nothing more, men who when they see me and touch my hand or body then all they want to do is fuck! and when I didn't fuck them then they never came back. I just want people to know that if your going to do this site, then please be somewhat reserved about it, because you may find what your looking for, hopfuly or you may find only the perverts whom I ran into. Ps. I think there are some good guys out there, and I hope that one day I will meet this guy, but as for me and this time, I had only meet guys with no communication skills at all! !none!, all they know how to do is touch a girl and some couldn't even do that very well. Please be aware of the wolves out there, they are ready to eat you in more ways than one. Girls make him wear his raincoat, please you know if he's with you then he's been with many others.

I'm 23 and I have a very hard time meeting people, and I haven't been on a date in more than 5 years. And not from any lack of trying I assure you! At only 5'10'', I'm short and ugly, but I keep clean and in good shape. I'm in grad school out where the population is 80% male so there are few chances for a "real" date here.
As I get older and many of my friends are marrying and having children, I felt left behind. I've never really dated anybody before, and didn't see any prospects of doing so in the future. Unfortunately it looks like nothing can change this and eHarmony is no exception.
My father had met his current girlfriend on eHarmony, and although I had initially discouraged him from doing so, and I don't enjoy her company, they are happy together and that's all that really matters. They told me that they were each others' first match so initially my hopes were high.
I was very embarrassed to start on eHarmony, and I kept it a secret for over a year. I filled out my profile completely, with several pictures of myself. I put a lot of effort into my profile, making it as honest and complete as I could.
I have spent almost $200 in the 18 months I've been on the site with no date. I have attempted communication with roughly 300 members. I guess the average response rate is 1 in 20, and probably half of those 1 in 20 actually answer past that. 15 in 20 just ignore me, and 4/20 just close me out right away.
Needless to say, I've been very jaded by the lack of response.
Although I did come close to meeting one "Shannon" and she did
I think there is a great variety of success and failure on this site, as I hope to have illustrated for you here. Unfortunately I rank with the latter.
But my point is I don't think this is eHarmony's fault. They're not going to change anything, they're just giving you a chance to be yourself and see what other people think. It's not their fault that none of the matches have gone through. My age might be another factor, with girls my age less willing to take a date online. People my father's age (53 when he meet his current girlfriend) are more willing to meet someone online.
I have no dating prospects in the real world, so I'm staying on eHarmony.
I'm reminded of an old saying "Let the Buyer Beware" and that's my advice to any prospective eHarmony members.

Eharmony is much worse than any other sites (which are already not very good anyway) because you only get what they give you, and there is no choice in who you want to communicate with. I am a slender to athletic guy, and handsome, yet I'm getting women who are fat and unattractive. I have always dated and been attracted to petite blondes or brunettes. They couldn't be more wrong about physical compatibility. By the way, even if I were interested in the matches they sent me, there would be no way to communicate with them. 70% of my 200 matches have not closed the match on their end, after I have closed it out, which means these people have let their subscription lapse and/ or are completely inactive on the site. It really is fraud, and action should be taken.

I agree. Huge waste of money. Some of the men I went out with say they get hundreds of female matches per day. So many, they just find it hard to choose. Honestly, after hearing this from several "matches" it must be true. The matches I do get are like guys that just couldn't even make it at the bar seen. Seriously, the matches are just loser's, guys that are still angry from their recent divorce, or guys that can't even spell one word correctly.

It is bad that all I have read in this site is nothing but negativity. Well, let me tell you guys I used the site for 2 months a couple years ago and I did find what I thought was my perfect match, and we actually moved in together for two years. Unfortunately our relationship did not make it, but the experience with eharmony was very enjoyable. We had great communication from the beginning and I looked forward his messages every day. He made me smiled every day, I was very happy that period of my life. That was my first time playing with online dating and I have to say it will be the last. I know that I would never find the same; it just would not be the same I experienced with my ex-match. Now I will do it the old fashion way, you know maybe at school, at a coffee shop, at a party, through a friend, who knows. For now I will keep enjoying my single life. I realize today that most women are starving to receive something from a man that they need to give to themselves. Time and independence. Good luck in your search!!

Oh, good God! Where do I begin?

I don’t care what those eHarmony commercials say - this was far and away a complete waste of my money. eHarmony claims that they match you by “dimensions of compatibility,” and those commercials featuring normal, decent-looking, well-spoken, happy people who found their other half through this site are not necessarily to be taken at face value. Yes, the site obviously worked for them, but does it work for everybody? The answer is no.

That’s because eHarmony isn’t this revolutionary dating site. In fact, I think it’s total crap. I’m a nice, attractive, responsible 20-something, with a job and an education, and in eHarmony world that apparently translates as the perfect match for men who look like they’ve just been released from prison. Those were the types of guys eHarmony matched me up with - creepy-looking (mostly), poorly-educated (vastly), under-achieving (almost always) guys - when they managed to match me with anyone at all.

I spent hours filling out that lengthy questionnaire that they make you do before you can start receiving matches. I was careful, honest, and spent time on each question. I genuinely wanted to present a good profile. Yet somehow, I kept getting matched up with men whose basic life principles weren’t compatible with my own.

eHarmony would occassionally ignore my criteria as to how far I was willing to travel to meet a match. I think I’d indicated a maxium radius of around 75 miles or something. But I’d get matches from well beyond the radius I’d indicated. Once I was even matched up with a guy who lived 7 hours from my house. How does eHarmony expect its members to get to know people who live such vast distances from one another?

Also, eHarmony will employ “flexible matching,” if someone who matches your specifications cannot be found. Beware of this. In order to employ “flexible matching,” eHarmony does the following (and this is a direct quote from their website):

“From time to time, if no matches can be found for you, we will employ Flexible Matching. With Flexible Matching we temporarily relax the Match Selection criteria which you indicated are least important to you. This often allows us to find you more matches. Rest assured, we never relax our compatibility criteria because we know the key dimensions of compatibility are a crucial foundation for a happy, lasting relationship.”

It didn’t sound so bad at first, although I was a little puzzled. I found it hard to believe that eHarmony couldn’t find one person for me within a 75-mile radius. But I thought, what the heck: flexible matching might not be so bad at all. I might meet someone nice.

Well, with flexible matching, I was getting men who couldn’t spell (“intristly” for “interestingly”) or put together a grammatically correct sentence. Some of the sentences were so poorly written that I had no idea what the guy was even trying to say and I felt bad, while other guys just made really idiotic errors. One guy, in labeling a photo of himself taken prior to having shaved his head, wrote “This is before I went bold.”

Flexible matching also caused further issues. My “highly compatible matches” included a guy who listed his occupation as “none”(I know the economy sucks, but come on!); a man who was a line cook at a fast food restaurant; a guy who owned a gun shop; a man who used his profile as a forum for complaining that all women were just out for money; a 32-year-old man who described books as “dope, lol!”; and a startlingly large number of men who were really overweight. Wow, eHarmony! I didn’t realize that I’d listed “viable employment,” “intelligence,” and “health” as things that were least important to me!

I know that I sound like a total snob, but I want to make a few things clear. I don’t care if a man didn’t go to college – it’s not for everyone – as long as he has a job and works hard at it. But it has to be a job that produces a semi-decent salary – because after all, how else is he going to survive in this world - and line cook at a fast food joint isn’t going to do that. As for the gun shop owner and the complainer? I’m not even going to address those. The 32-year-old non-reader? It wasn’t so much that he didn’t read, it’s that he was 32 and still using phrases like “dope,” and “lol.” He just sounded totally ignorant. Anybody over a certain age who still uses those phrases and wonders why they’re not in a relationship isn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

I’m convinced that the vast majority of these profiles are not reviewed by the eHarmony staff. Of course, I have no actual proof of this, but my belief is that if these profiles were actually reviewed on a regular basis, the staff would be able to weed out some of the people who are obviously a few cards short of a full deck. The complainer never would have had the chance to post his particular brand of crazy if this sort of monitoring were actually done. And what gets me is that not only was that crap NOT reviewed, it was sent to me – and probably other women as well – as a potential match! Throwing aside the fact that for about 30 seconds it makes you feel bad about yourself and your dating abilities, it is both ridiculous and absurd that people get sent useless “matches” such as this.

Oh, I could go on and on, but I’ll just add one more thing. In addition to other questions, eHarmony’s profiles will ask you to list items that you can’t live without. I always disregarded the men who listed “sex” as one of the items that they couldn’t live without. Yes, we’re all adults here, but if you’re on eHarmony, trying to get a date, don’t you think that listing “sex” as something you can’t live without is a bit much for starters?

I also disregarded guys who said that they couldn’t live without their BlackBerries. Gentlemen, there is this little thing out there called life: go and get one. I know I have.

I'd rather give them ZERO stars as this service is a complete fraud. When I signed up, the promise was at least one match per month or I would get another 6 mos. free. As promised, I got ONE MATCH PER MONTH, but they were anything but "matches". My criteria was totally ignored, especially as far as distance and age was concerned, but the last straw was the match I received on the last day of my six month subscription --
it was just a "warm body" to fulfill their obligation. While I believe all careers are honorable, I was shocked that they would think I, as VP and co-owner of a company, would have anything in common with a truck driver who, based on our communication, was slightly above illiterate. Also, I am Catholic and this man went to a church THAT USED SNAKES!!!!!

Don't waste your money.