Many people swear by free dating sites. “Why should you pay when you can get the same thing for free?” is the argument. Seems to make sense, doesn’t it? But what you get is really not the same thing, some of the ways obvious, some not so obvious. Basically, it comes down to two old truisms: “you get what you pay for,” and “you are known by the company you keep.”
PlentyofFish.com and OKCupid.com are two of the biggest free sites, with PlentyofFish and Match.com duking it out for first place in traffic month after month. Go to the home pages of all three for a dramatic look at the differences.
PlentyofFish is plenty stark, no frill here. The biggest problem I see with Plentyoffish is that the profile photos seem even worse than the usual poor pictures people post: distorted, and that must be the fault of the site. Photos are SO important. The site just seems so minimal, even trashy. I wouldn’t want to be seen there, frankly. I also think that the general allover look cheapens those who are listed. Do you want that? There is also a “free-for-all” feeling about the site, freewheeling as well as free. I suspect a serious single could waste a lot of time here with inappropriate people interested in anything but a serious relationship.
OKCupid’s home page – which looks considerably better than Plentyoffish—doesn’t tip its hand by showing any singles, or at least more than one or two on the left side. You need to do a sign up first to gawk. OK does do a better job on the profile photos – they at least aren’t distorted. I did a quick scan through the guys in my area – seem to be the usual bad photos, minimal writings in the “My self-summary” sections. In general, though, the individuals seemed a bit scruffier and marginal than those on Match.
What’s the big deal in paying a little at a paid site like Match.com and cutting out the guff that you get on the unpaid sites? I just checked, and you can join Match with the best package at just $17.99 per month with a six month membership! That’s PEANUTS! Even buying one month at a time is only $34.99, just over $1 a DAY! Match has consistently kept its site clean and upscale. Since Yahoo! Personals merged with Match, Match has become the biggest – and really only – show in town, other than eHarmony, which is in a class by itself. If you are a serious dater, that’s what Match is known for: people who are seriously looking. The pay feature cuts out a lot of the casual (and marginal) folks.
Remember, you get what you pay for, and you are known by the company you keep. Plus, putting some money on the line in your search for love is its own investment and a real sign of commitment.
Well, maybe. It depends. On a lot.
I have to admit a personal prejudice towards Match.com. After all, Match is where I met my husband Drew, way back in 1998. Match was the first computer/Internet dating site, starting up in 1995. Match has successfully built a brand and service to singles that really can’t be matched. There are other big dating sites, some expensive like eHarmony, some even free like PlentyofFish.com, but Match has held the center for a clean, stylish, appealing site for normal folks, middle of the road of all ages.
But back to eHarmony. eHarmony is a bit of a latecomer, starting up in 2000. eHarmony is a more passive site, doing the “matching” for you, after you answer hundreds of questions that establishes, by eHarmony’s formula, with whom you would be best suited.
Most other dating sites are more like catalogues or phone books, where you browse the listings and pick for yourself. Some sites send you matches, too, as eHarmony does, but basically the whole membership is open to your perusal once you join.
Not so with eHarmony. You only see who eHarmony sends you, and remember, who they send is based on the eHarmony formula and how you and your matches answered the eHarmony questions. How well did you answer the questions, and how well did others? I know that when I tried it out, I got very impatient as the questions kept popping up. I started rushing and did not answer the questions carefully. How much do you want to bet that others are careless with their answers, too?
Keep in mind too that it is a MACHINE that is doing the matching, not a live person. Ergo, lots and lots of entirely inappropriate matches that you have to sort through. And what about those sloppy responses to all those questions?
Don’t like motorcycles? eHarmony does not sift out the bikers. You want someone close by geographically? eHarmony will tend to send you matches from all over everywhere. My clients consistently report their frustrations with the numerous and poor quality of their eHarmony matches.
Because of the more passive nature of eHarmony, women like it and have signed up in droves. eHarmony does not release the gender ratio stats, but they have admitted to around a 2:1 imbalance, two women to every one man. Since demographics skew the numbers as we age (more and more single women compared with the single men), we can assume that the 2:1 imbalance gets more dramatic and worse for women in the upper age categories.
eHarmony also has been plagued since its start by its conservative Christian roots. eHarmony founder Neil Clark Warren was closely associated with James Dobson and Focus on the Family, and eHarmony, from the start, refused to match same sex couples. eHarmony has been sued, has evaded and half-heartedly offered lame separate dating site solutions, but essentially still refuses to match gays and lesbian. So if you want to patronize businesses in line with your personal convictions, eHarmony’s may or may not be in alignment with you and yours.
Because of those factors, I just can’t recommend eHarmony with good conscience. Plus, I am firmly convinced that you are much more likely to get your best Sweetheart if you do the picking. Why fight the site that consistently seems to do the best? Go to Match. Match.com now even runs the former Yahoo! Personals since mid-2010, making the Match.com numbers simply huge.
Here’s the one kind of person I would suggest eHarmony to: white, Christian, conservative men, the older, the better. The eHarmony numbers will work for you, if you can get past the hundreds of questions (men tend to lack the patience), and if you can stand the slow “getting to know you” process that most eHarmony singles use. Caveat: it’s more questions.
eHarmony is well financed, for sure. In nine months last year, it spent almost double what Match.com spent on ads.
EHARMONY BLOG—Feb 11—
eHarmony spends $93.3 million in advertising in 9 months, almost twice as much as Match.com—see chart below, figures in the $100,000’s”
Rank Site Jan 07 to Sep 07 Jan 08 to Sep 08
1 eHarmony 79,019.631 93,255.171
2 Match.com 51,170.580 47,607.049
3 Chemistry.com 12,125.655 28,282.073
4 Cupid.com 1,067.142 847.231
5 Nocheatersdate.com 0.000 822.042
6 Blacksingles.com 272.964 510.251
7 AdultFriendFinder.com 0.000 243.553
8 AshleyMadison.com 59.977 243.420
9 Ciaorossano.com 0.000 212.750
10 ChristianMingle.com 0.000 201.213
Source: The Nielsen Company (2009)
If you are an eHarmony fan and regular (and readers know that I have definite opinions about eHarmony— just read my postings to find out), you’ll love the resource I just found: A blog dedicated to the tricks, twists, and turns of eHarmony. I certainly don’t have the time or dedication to figure out how to make eHarmony work better for you, but you may find what you need here.
Rich men will pay big money to get (pretty, young) women. And women look for men who don’t mind a definite financial element in the deal. So what’s new about that?
Well, nothing much, but there’s been a lot of attention to it lately on the wires. Must be a slow news season, huh? Not actually. Most of the stuff came out right around the election, and that was plenty newsy. But maybe the print media wanted to write about plain old heterosexual sex and money, rather that politics, pederasts, and male ministers willing to pay for sex with men.
Dr. Phil chimed in early (before the election on November 3) with a show on Sugar Daddies and Cougars (the female version of Sugar Daddies—older women with younger men, though money did not seem to be so much a part of that equation). Sanjay (40) and Jacqueline (18) met on SugarDaddie.com Creepy site, creepy couple. You can read some of the online postings that the show generated here.
The Seattle Times’ Meghan Barr wrote “Online dating sites where Mr. Right is Mr. Rich” which appeared on 11/15/2006. The article mentions SugarDaddie.com of the Sanjay and Jacqueline fame, and WealthyMen.com. A seeming big advantage for men is the gender ratio: Meghan Barr writes that the male/female ratio on sites like Match.com and AmericanSingles.com is 70/30. (I wonder about those stats—what I had heard was more like 55/45.) But even so, WealthyMen.com claims a male/female ratio of 1/5. Pretty good for the guys, wouldn’t you say? But not so good for the ladies. Maybe women think they have at least a 20% chance at the big $$$. Better odds than the lottery, for sure.
BTW, sites that women like (eHarmony, PerfectMatch) have ratios that favor men. EHarmony avoids stating the ratios, but PerfectMatch blatantly advertises to men their good numbers: female to male: 2 to 1. I suspect eHarmony is similar. And PerfectMatch seems to have really dropped in the ratings. Mark Brooks’ blog listings (top 15) don’t even include PerfectMatch.
Mark Brooks blogged about Meghan Barr’s article, and I commented. Here’s what I wrote:
There are a number of sites aiming to hook up (appropriate term?) women with wealthy men. As long as the guys recognize the bargain, I suppose there’s no problem. But I have run across wealthy folks, both male and female, who are in a quandary about how to find a mate who will love them for who they are and not for their money. How can they get to know someone while being open and honest and not have their wealth become the prime focus? One guy naively joined one of these sites and honestly answered all questions, including income. He was swamped with offers from women, clogged up his mail box, and had eight proposals of marriage in the first contacts. It’s not easy being rich.
Kathryn Lord
Your Romance Coach
PS Interestingly, one of my blog posts that has been getting attention lately is about Sugar Mama’s. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
This came in my email box a few days ago from Kitty:
Genreal comment about eHarmony: I tried it 7 days got my refund after really no responses from anyone. When I inquired to eharmony about this, they said they may not be paying members that I am matched with. hmmph. And I asked eharmony point blank about the divorce rate for all of their success story marriages. They said they don’t have those statistics. Imagine that.
This is not an unusual story. eHarmony also turns away a about 20% of applicants as unmatchable. Now, that may provide some solice for those who pass muster and get matched by eHarmony, but I think it is pretty arrogant for a dating site to declare someone unmatchable. See my other eHarmony related blog entries here.
Eharmony has done the most complete results study about couples who met there and married: 16,500 in the hear ending August 2005. See this blog entry.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Now this one is really fun AND informative: Scott Krager, a single 23 year old (I know, I know, a baby for most of us) has set a goal to get married in a year, and is using eHarmony to do it. What’s new about that? Well, Scott is blogging his experience. Right Out There for us all to see.
If you are interested in how eHarmony works, as well as a man’s thinking and perspective while doing it, keep a regular check on Scott. I’m going to. Here’s a link to his blog: eHarmony - Good or Bad?
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
While I am not a big fan of eHarmony (read my comments here), credit where credit is due. They do bring about marriages (though I do not know if they are any better at it than any other site). eHarmony is better at cashing in on their couples, though—have you seen the happy two-somes in the eHarmony ads? Have you wondered if they are real?
Here’s one that seems genuine. Burrill and Kari McCoy met on eHarmony on March 15, 2004. Want to see their wedding picture? Here it is. Kari is 54, Burrill’s age isn’t given, but he looks older than she is. Love that silver hair, Burrill! Congratulations to you both!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Internet dating sites like Match.com and eHarmony are venturing into new territory: Relationship building, marriage strengthening, and divorce prevention. While it is hard to know what is really going on, the first wave of divorces in couples who met on the Net has begun.
According to an article by Ellen Gamerman in the Wall Street Journal. US Census data says the median length of first marriages that end in divorce is eight years. Online dating got started with Match.com in 1995.
Since all marriages have a divorce rate of about 50%, cyber couples divorcing should be no surprise. And actually, I would venture to guess that the marriage survival rate for couples meeting on dating sites might turn out to be better, since the singles get more information up front about a potential partner than in ordinary dating.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Buried in an article on azcentral.com are some interesting stats:
eHarmony says 16,500 of their clients married in the year ending August 2005.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, “an estimated two million married Internet users met their spouses online.”
Also quoted is Anna Murray, who used her therapist to review profiles of possible mates. Her current husband passed both of their judgments. That’s a great idea, and something I regularly help my clients with, screening potentials through their profiles, helping read between the lines.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
eHarmony has a suit pending.
John Claasen is suing eHarmony because they refused to match him after he had spent two hours filling out the matching survey. eHarmony routinely refuses to match married folks, and Claasen is not yet divorced, just legally separated. Claasen asserts that eHarmony is discriminating against him because of his marital status, which may indeed be breaeaking California’s civil code, section 51.
PerfectMatch has unresolved complaints filed with the Washington state Attorney General’s office and the local Better Business Bureau gives PerfectMatch an unsatisfactory rating.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Right after I finished yesterday’s posting about an earlier article in the Wall Street Journal, up pops yet another treatment of Internet dating in the New York Times.
The story leads with Elizabeth Brereton and Robert Smith who were part of one of the first (if not THE first) experiment in computer matching called Operation Match in 1965. Each received a list of ten possible dates after the data they provided was crunched by an impossibly big computer. They appeared on each other’s list, though never followed through in making contact.
Four years later, Smith went to a mixer for grad students at the University of Chicago, saw the proverbial “woman across a crowded room” and introduced himself. They both immediately knew that they had been paired earlier by Operation Match.
They were married four months later, and are still so.
The article goes on to discuss the comparatively new compatibility testing that dating sites are moving towards, a la eHarmony, PerfectMatch, and now Match.com’s Chemistry. Throwing in some interesting statistics on divorce (more of those in a later posting), the reporter David Leonhardt (and the compatibility matching dating sites) make a good case for matching like with like. Leonhardt quotes Pepper Schwartz, Perfectmatch’s pro behind their matching system: “What this does is try to narrow it down so you spend less time with people who are totally out of the question. We’re just upping your chances.”
If you’ve spent any time on Yahoo! Personals and Match.com sorting out who you’d like to meet from the millions listed, anything that saves you time would be welcome. I spoke to a new Romance Client this week who was lucky enough to get a charter membership to Chemistry. She said that she had met two very interesting guys through Chemistry who she would never have considered otherwise. Big advantage right there: You may be blinded by your own prejudices to very good candidates. See what another blog reader reported in about his experience with Chemistry.
I’m not a huge fan of the compatibility testing sites, but combining one of them with a listing on one of the big major sites (like Match.com or Yahoo! Personals) might serve you quite well.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
February is a great month for finding stories about couples who met on the Net. Here’s a summary of the ones I have seen lately:
From “Dating Web sites now attracting mainstream singles”: L. Dean Hendrix (50) and Sherri Moran met online and have been married almost two years.
David Smith wrote “We are the quintessential love story” about Tom Blue and Jay Shippole who married this Valentine’s Day.
In a Rapid City Journal article, Mary Garrigan wrote about newlyweds Steven and Cheryl Smart who met on eHarmony in July 2004. eHarmony estimates 16,630 marriages of eHarmony matches couples inbetween September 2004 through August 2005.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
According to Christopher Palmeri’s article “Must Love Wing Tips,” Match.com says that men do indeed seek younger women: typcially 13 years younger. But at eHarmony (where 25% of men over 55 want women under 40), Dr. Neil Clark Warren often finds himself in the awkward position of explaining to these guys that the younger women just aren’t interested. “I’ve had men ask: ‘Do they know what I’m worth?” Warren says.
I guess these guys are aware that they are making a deal, they just don’t know the price yet.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Here are two lovely stories out of Bozeman, Montana, for heaven’s sake! Dan and Carolyn Hopper met on ChristianScienceSingles.com, he living in Washington state, she in Montana. They are now living in Bozeman, happily married.
Marcia and David Crowell met online in 2002. But talk about long-distance relationships! Marcia (who contacted David first) was living in Sao Paolo, Brazil, while David was in Bozeman. It was only a couple of months after their first face to face meeting in Brazil before David proposed. “It was love at first sight,” says David.
And here are two more, this time in Plesanton, California. Vina (60) and Gary (63) Dugan met on eHarmony and married just a few months later. Marilyn Rogers (62) and a grandma had over 500 guys get in touch before she started steadily dating Peir Delfrate.
This one is a long-distance affair: Amy Shorter and John Whitaker were separated by 670 and 13 years (he was 35 and she was 22). And Ian Parker and Michelle Joseph have an even bigger age difference—17 years. But both couples met online (Amy and John in a chat room for military history, Ian and Michelle on Friends Reunited Dating. John and Amy are already married, and Ian and Michelle have a wedding date of April 29, 2006 - are year to the date from when they met.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Since I am a Romance Coach specializing in helping singles find partners using Internet dating sites, I read with interest Vanessa Juarez’s article “www.findlovehere.com” in the February 20th issue.
The first half of the article is essentially correct, but falters in the second half when Juarez starts talking about specific dating sites. First off, folks 50 and over, divorced or not, find the best and most choices on the largest Internet dating sites, Match.com (where I met my husband in 1998) and Yahoo! Personals. Smaller sites have correspondingly smaller numbers.
What Juarez did not mention is that sites like PerfectMatch and eHarmony (which have built-in a more passive role for singles—the web site does the matching—and therefore appeal to women) have very skewed gender ratios that do not favor women. PerfectMatch openly courts men, enticing them with 2:1 male to female ratios. That would include all age ranges, so likely the older women get (when they outnumber men anyway), the worse the ratios.
Most of my clients are women over 40, and I NEVER suggest either eHarmony or PerfectMatch for these because of those bad numbers. All have gone to either Match.com or Yahoo! Personals or both and been pleased and astounded at the large numbers of quality men just waiting to hear from them. Internet dating is in large part a numbers game, and a single is best served by going to the sites where the numbers are in his or her favor— large numbers of singles in gender ratios that favor the individual.
Best, Kathryn Lord
eHarmony released some eye-popping numbers on January 31: According to an independent survey by Harris Interactive, 16,630 marriages between September 1, 2004, and August 31, 2005, resulted from eHarmony matchups. Since each marriage consists of two people, that means slightly more than 90 singles per day get hitched because of Dr. Warren and company. (16,630 times 2 divided by 365 = 91.12) Those are some numbers by anyone’s calculations.
These are the “hardest” numbers that I have seen so far, at least gathered in what appears to be a legitimate effort. Up until now, the only number I have seen have been from Match.com, and those are self-reports: From my website—“In 2003, more than 200,000 members reported that they were resigning from Match.com because they had met the person they were seeking.” And ” Match.com claims to initiate over 130 engagements and marriages each month.”
There’s a big gap between 130 engagements and marriages a month (3,120 a year at that rate) and 200,000 satisfied resignations. Even eHarmony’s numbers are only 33,260 happy singles a year.
Probably the truth is somewhere inbetween. Or maybe not, since those figures are a year or two old. We know that Internet dating continues to grow as an industry, though not as fast as the 75% growth rates of a few years ago.
Regardless, that’s a lot of happy people, or at least we hope that they are all happy. If “The proof is in the pudding,” that’s quite a set of plums.
I do wonder if Harris Interactive asked about couples who met on other dating sites like Match and Yahoo! And I also wonder how many couples, total, got married in the time frame specified. Wouldn’t that be interesting? Though a survry in mid-2004 indicated that about 15% of marrying couples met online.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
If you want to read, step by step, how a nurse in Pennsylvania and a soft-hearted man in North Dakota met through eHarmony and then built a romance and relationship, this is the story for you. Reporter Carla Kelly charts the course meticulously in the Times Record.
Then, one of my favorite dating columnists Tom Blake wrote about about 50 something’s Mike and Carolyn. Mike, completely out of character, wrote Blake about his equally out-of-character romance—fast and long distance. Want different results??? Do something different!!!
And both of these couples span the miles—don’t be afraid to search folks who live farther than 5 miles from your doorstep, even if you don’t want to move. Maybe Mr. or Ms. Right will move to you!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
You know how I love Love Stories, and I really love this one! It combines Love Stories, Maine (which I also love), Internet dating, and Hurricane Katrina. Sounds like a movie, doesn’t it?
Well, no, it’s real life. Read here about how Henry Thibodaux of Louisiana, six miles from New Orleans (though with a name like that, he could be from Maine, too), and Becky Walker from Hartland, Maine, met on eHarmony early in 2005.
Becky and Henry had already met in real time and space before Katrina hit, so they knew that they had something special. But the storm and subsequent destruction of Henry’s home pushed their timeline a bit. Henry’s moved to Maine, and they are planning to marry next June.
If you are a regular reader, you know that I have my difficulties with eHarmony. But Henry and Becky seem to be just the kind of folks that eHarmony works best for: Heterosexual, Christian, and seriously looking for a relationship. If that describes you, than eHarmony may be just what you are looking for, too. And your Sweetie may be looking for you there, so hop on over!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Hey, it’s now August 2009 and look what I got in my email box today—love to hear the followup, don’t you? Thanks, Becky Thibodaux!
Kathryn,
Let me formally introduce myself. I’m now Mrs. Henry Thibodaux (Becky Thibodaux formally Becky Walker).You wrote a blog about me and my now husband- “Real Lemonade From Katrina Lemons”. I could not believe that I found a blog on it 4 years later. You got to love Google’s search engine. How heart warming to read your comments about our meeting and the wonderful story that brought us so close together. It’s nice to see others see the fairytale that we honestly live out every day. That picture taken of me and Henry for the article is in our living room with a sign over it that says,”…And They Lived happily Ever After”
I wanted to reward you for your work by giving you an update on our lives. Henry and I have been married for 3 years 8 months now. We bumped the wedding date up to January 14, 2006 after we realized that we could not make it to June of that year. I never once had one doubt that he wasn’t the one as I had time and time again in previous relationships. Soul mates was truly something that I did not believe in. But after finding him I’m so scared that I nearly married years prior without the love that Henry and I have for one another. So many people settle.
I can never thank eHarmony enough for brining us together. Those 29 detentions really do work. The 500 questions may be a pain but the possibility to meeting your best friend whom you have the pleasure to grown old with is worth 5000 questions.
After nearly 4 years of marriage we still hate being apart and want to spend every waking moment together. After being single for so many years we both know what we have found in each other and never for one moment do we take it for granted. I have attached a photo from our wedding that we both cherish. We were dancing to our song, “God Bless the Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts. He was in tears and I was just taking in the moment trying to remember it for a live time. Everyone at the reception was in tears watching us and knowing what we had been through and knowing that we had waited so long for this moment.
Enjoy and thank you again,
Mrs. Thibodaux
Here’s an interesting article about what eHarmony’s doing with the $110 million in venture capital it raised last winter. It’s a complicated financial story that I won’t try to sumarize here, but suffice it to say, a good proportion is not going into improved services for their clients.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
In my continuing quest to bring you good news about Internet romances, here’s a three for the price of one story. See the side bar on the right for details.
George and Erika Eloff met on eHarmony. They got married last March.
Here’s a novel way to get married: At the office party! Terry Duso and Joe Emerson met on friendfinder.com
Robin Galiano and Art Russell met on Match.com. Art was the third person Robin met through online dating. And Art staged a proposal that you’ve got to read.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
I love love stories, and I know my readers do, too. Here are some I have read lately:
These two thirty-something’s met on Match.com.
Here’s another story about more thirty-something’s. These two really took their time writing back and forth online, and didn’t even share pictures before they met.
eHarmony came through for Kenneth Jones. Kenneth got lucky when he widened his search beyond his home area of Austin and San Antonio. His Sweetie Bettie Harrell live in Florida. They are getting married August 13.
This one’s a two-fer, two stories in the same article. And it contains a great idea: bribe your kids to help!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
A simply fascinating comment got posted this morning on one of my blog entries about eHarmony. Scroll down and see the comment from bdb777athotmail. This guy is ticked off at eHarmony for sure! It’s not clear from the posting that the writer is a guy, but I emailed him and got an answer back that clarified that the writer is a man.
Even more interesting, as an evangelical Christian (his words) he fits the demographics that I think describe who eHarmony might actually work for that I wrote about in the piece he comments on: “So if you are male, heterosexual, with fairly traditional, conservative values, looking for the same in a woman, and you don’t mind someone else doing the picking for you or not seeing what the lady looks like until you have communicated for awhile, eHarmony would be a good place to sign up. If that doesn’t describe you, go somewhere else.”
If this kind of guy can feel so poorly serviced by eHarmony, then who does eHarmony actually work FOR? Despite the happy couples pictured in the ads (Oh, I do hope that the couples are real, eHarmony!), I have yet to hear of a good experience with eHarmony from one of my clients or readers.
P. S. bdb777: You might want to take a look at one of my most recent postings about scamming dating sites. Even eHarmony deserves to be paid for what they deliver. What does it say about you if you try to get around paying, even if you are mad?
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
USA Today posted an article last night by Janet Kornblum that looks as if it was researched right here on my blog. If you are a regular reader, you know that I have been writing about my reservations about eHarmony for awhile (5/10, 3/13). Kornblum’s article “eHarmony: Heart and soul” captures succinctly just what I have been saying: Neil Clark Warren, eHarmony’s founder, has roots in the Christian community that he is now trying to distance himself from, and discriminates against Gays, Lesbians, and 16% of those who take eHarmony’s personality test—those determined by eHarmony to be “unmatchable.”
Here’s some clarity I had not seen before:
Warren started out marketing primarily to Christian sites, touting eHarmony as “based on the Christian principles of Focus on the Family author Dr. Neil Clark Warren.”
The connection may come as a surprise to today’s mainstream users: Nothing in Warren’s TV or radio ads ($50 million spent last year, $80 million projected this year) hints at his Christian background.
And while it’s no secret, the Web site doesn’t play it up, either.
eHarmony increasingly is seeking out secular audiences through online partnerships, including promotions on USATODAY.com and other news sites owned by USA TODAY’s parent company, Gannett. As part of that effort, Warren is trying to distance himself from Focus on the Family and its founder James Dobson, a longtime friend.
Warren says he will no longer appear on Dobson’s radio show, and he recently bought back the rights to the three books Focus on the Family published—Finding the Love of Your Life, Make Anger Your Ally and Learning to Live with the Love of Your Life - so he can drop Focus’ name from their covers.
“We’re trying to reach the whole world—people of all spiritual orientations, all political philosophies, all racial backgrounds,” Warren says. “And if indeed, we have Focus on the Family on the top of our books, it is a killer. Because people do recognize them as occupying a very precise political position in this society and a very precise spiritual position.”
eHarmony is NOT looking for Gays and Lesbians, though. I guess Warren doesn’t consider them part of the whole world.
What’s particularly interesting is this article appears in USA Today, and on the web edition, in the banner across the top, is an eHarmony ad. I’ve always thought of USA Today as a bland, middle of the road or right-ish publication and probably have never even bought an issue myself. The only times I have read it is when it is left at my door in hotels, or when I am bored in an airport and find a discarded copy in the next seat.
Yea for USA Today to publish this article, and Yea for Kornblum to write it.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
If you really want to have chills run up and down your spine, take a closer look at James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family“site that I mentioned in my last posting about eHarmony. Follow down some of the link you’ll find there, like to Dorothy Patterson’s article “The High Calling of Wife and Mother in Biblical Perspective” or to Gary Bauer’s website “American Values” and his Op Ed piece on “The State of the Union” Yeowee Kazowee. I don’t know if it will curl your hair, but it did mine. EHarmony, you are just too close to those guys for my comfort. I find this steady creeping towards the religious far right that our county is doing terrifying. I really worry that eHarmony is just another facet of that frosty trend.
Here’s another twist that I came up with: Neil Clark Warren (Dr. Warren to eHarmony fans) says he doesn’t understand enough about Gays and Lesbians to pair them. However, Warren rates compatibility of partners as being highly important for relationship success.
What I have found to be both a blessing and a curse for same sex couples is their sameness, rather than their differences, and if Warren really sees sameness as a virtue, he needs to take another look at same sex couples (Same sex couples: Note “same” in the very phrase, Dr. Warren). Warren can learn a lot from same sex couples, as can we all.
Two women or two men together have an unstated understanding of each other because of their “sameness” that a man and woman can never have. That sameness can be a blessing in the form of a natural agreement and understanding of the other, but also a curse, in a lack of differentiation and erotic tension arising out of the inherent gender differences.
Warren seems oblivious of the sameness he values so highly that exists naturally in Gay and Lesbian couples. And oblivious of the converse: Sameness can cause problems too. What I have found necessary for long term relationship success is a balance of sameness (compatibility) and difference: enough that you agree on for relative calm, and enough that you differ on for excitement and variety.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
I’ve written about eHarmony before, and I sure do wish that I could feel better about recommending the site to my clients. I like what eHarmony has carved out as their market—serious daters looking for serious relationships. I even have a link to eHarmony on my website, because a proportion of my clients sign up there, even after I tell them my misgivings. But eHarmony does not work with everyone, and that I find disturbing.
What’s even more disturbing is eHarmony and it’s founder Neil Clark Warren’s evangelical Christian roots. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being being a site associated with a religion. There are plenty of sites like that, some very popular, like JDate.com for Jewish singles. What bothers me about eHarmony is that they play down this connection, and now seem to be actively trying to dissociate themselves with that base.
David Cober writing for the Los Angeles Times tells about Warren’s attempts to buy back publishing rights for his own book from James Dobson’s organization “Focus on the Family,” with whom Warren has been associated since the 1980’s. Dobson is also a psychologist, as it Warren, and active in politically promoting conservative Christian values. Pointing to the banner for “Focus on the Family” across the top of the cover of his book “Finding the Love of Your Life,” Warren says “That’s a killer for us.”
What’s not at all clear is if and how the conservative Christian roots of eHarmony may show up in it’s matchings of singles. One thing that they are up front about is that eHarmony does not work with Gays and Lesbians, and does not plan on changing that. From Warren: “I don’t know how to do those matches, the research has not been done.” What a weak excuse for blatant discrimination.
I wonder about how other biases may have crept into the matching procedures, like perhaps women are only paired with men their own age or older. Or men have to have equal or higher incomes or job statuses than women they are paired with. Or women are paired only with men who are the same height or taller. Who knows, because eHarmony’s not telling.
There’s also the weird Orwellian atmosphere that “Dr. Warren knows best.” Warren is about the only psychologist I know who insists on being called Dr. Warren, or even Dr. Neil Warren. No matter how his name is presented, the Dr. is always there. Even Phil McGraw is Dr. Phil, which while including the Dr. seems much folksier. It certainly seems that Warren is using his Dr. to the max. And why would I want “Dr. Warren” making such important decisions for me, even if he does know best? I like to think I have some ability to think and decide for myself.
What I do know is that eHarmony attracts many more women than men, so the odds are very bad for women, especially older women. Warren also believes that the more similar people are, the more likely for success of the relationship.
So if you are male, heterosexual, with fairly traditional, conservative values, looking for the same in a woman, and you don’t mind someone else doing the picking for you or not seeing what the lady looks like until you have communicated for awhile, eHarmony would be a good place to sign up. If that doesn’t describe you, go somewhere else.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Yesterday, I wrote about the technological hurdle lots of older folks need to jump in order to find love online. Evidently, plenty are doing so: In a story published yesterday in the Miami Herald, Vanessa Petit wrote of Glenn Zimmerly (70) and Dorothy Williams (68) who met on eHarmony in September 2003.
Petit goes on to quote new figures for the growth of the presence of singles 55 and over on Internet dating sites. Match.com attracted 704,000 visitors 55 or older in January 2005, up from16% from January 2004 when the figure was 606,000. eHarmony reports a jump of an astounding 86% over the same time period, from 196,000 to 350,000. Note that the numbers for Match.com are double those of eHarmony, but an 86% growth deserves attention. Imatchup.com reports growth in the 55 and over category of as much as 30%. And remember, this is at a time when growth rates for the online dating industry as a whole have slowed considerably from previous piping hot rates in the past few years. Seniors are driving a good part of the growth that is occurring, it would appear.
What I wonder about is the gender ratios. I know, ho-hum, I go on and on about this, don’t I? See my earlier postings: “I wish I could recommend eHarmony, True.com or PerfectMatch, but I can’t!”, “Gender Ratios and Internet Dating and Relationship Sites” But eHarmony has had ratios that do not favor the ladies, in the 60/40 female to male range. And when men and women get older, the natural ratios get more and more out of wack, as the men die off, and the ones that live tend to go for younger women. Since eHarmony already appeals to women more than men, I suspect that the ratios favor men more and more as the ages go up. The good news again is for guys: whatever your age, if you want the numbers in your favor, head for eHarmony. But ladies, I am not so sure… And eHarmony, if I am wrong, tell me, okay?
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Why are the three top sites that potentially have so much to offer so flawed? All three say that they are “relationship sites”—places for serious singles to meet serious partners. Serious means wanting a long-term, committed relationship or marriage. eHarmony has led the way in differentiating “dating sites” from “relationship sites”—Match.com would be a traditional dating site, where you can meet for friendship or casual dating as well as more serious, long term relationships. All three use some kind of “compatibility testing” for matching singles—long sets of questions that each poster fills out, and then the sites’ computers match one with another, using some sort of formula. All sounds good, right? No wonder so many are flocking to join up.
But I’ve got reservations about eHarmony, and I am not alone. Jennifer Hahn writes extensively about eHarmony’s founder Dr. Neil Clark Warren’s evangelist Christian roots in her article “Love Machines” for LA City Beat. I, like Hahn, think there are lots of problems in the site and how they match singles. eHarmony’s largest black mark is that the site will not work with Gays and Lesbians. And it doesn’t take much of a Google search to come up with more fodder. The site also TURNS DOWN one in five applicants: Can you imagine getting this message after you screwed up your courage to sign on in the first place, and then spent several hours filling out the questionnaire?
“Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching system is not suitable for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply would not benefit from our service. We hope that you understand that we regret our inability to provide service for you at this time. “
I’ve written plenty lately about True.com and their questionable practices. Here’s the message you get on their home page:
“Married people will be prosecuted. Because we care, we screen members against public records to check marital status.”
Isn’t that cheery? And for some odd reason, True.com seems only to charge the guys, not women, for posting. That is really strange, since these “relationship sites” tend to attract far more women than men.
That’s PerfectMatch‘s problem (eHarmony’s too) and does PerfectMatch ever have it bad! PerfectMatch is now offering men two months for free, just to get more to sign up!
PerfectMatch’s ratios are now two women for every guy. Well, at least they say so. Getting gender ratios for other dating sites is nearly impossible. I must say, that other than the poor numbers for women, I have no other complaints about PerfectMatch. Pepper Schwartz is their resident expert and designed their compatibility profiling. I’ve known of Pepper Schwartz for years and respected her work, so I am assuming she is doing a good job here, too. But if the guys would only sign up there… Hey, guys, it’s free, for heaven’s sake! And the numbers are great, for you, anyway. Git on over!
Dating and matchmaking sites are having to compete harder and harder for your dollars. More than 850 different sites now crowd the wires, and the fast pace of visitor traffic has slowed from the red hot growth of the past five years. One of the ways some of the larger sites are trying to differentiate themselves from the pack is to define themselves as “Relationship sites” as opposed to “Dating sites.” Serious daters are 20% more likely to become paying subscribers than more casual singles. eHarmony, PerfectMatch.com, and True.com are the top three calling themselves “Relationship sites.” YahooPersonals is trying to straddle the fence with it’s new “Premier” designation (see my blog entry). Match.com, the industry biggie, is moving in that direction as well.
eHarmony, PerfectMatch, and True all use what they call “scientific” means to pair folks with the best matches. That means questionnaires for subscribers to fill out and some sort of matching procedure that takes place behind the scene (read: the computer somehow “reads” the questionnaires and then pulls out “matches” based on some kind of formula). These sites tend to appeal to women, because of the purported seriousness (a relationships-only orientation), the safety (True’s background checks and attempts to keep married people out), and the highly structured, more active role of the dating site in doing the actual matching and communicating (eHarmony). Men tend to find the sites irritating: They don’t like the long questionnaires, they don’t like being matched by the computer, and they don’t like not being able to cruise through the profiles and pick for themselves. Guys particularly don’t like not being able to see photos (eHarmony).
This trend plays out in the gender ratios. Dating sites have tended to mirror the gender ratios of the Internet in general—around 60/40, male to female.
However, in these “Relationship sites,” the ratios tend to be just the opposite, or even more skewed: More like 60/40 female to male, or worse at PerfectMatch. A reader (male) just sent me this from PerfectMatch: “Thanks in part to our new relationship with the Lifetime television; women now outnumber men on PerfectMatch.com two to one! Men, for a limited time, you can receive 3 months for only $59.95 on PerfectMatch.com. That’s right, a full three months, all access premium subscription, for only $59.95, a savings of over $100!” (PerfectMatch got partnered with Dr. Phil. He did a show about online dating around Valentine’s. PerfectMatch gave away 1,000,000 free memberships before 2/28, and 90% of those who signed up are women. )
These gender ratios are probably even worse for older single women. The male to female ratios even out around 40 and 50, then tip towards women outnumbering men as the ages go up. And of course, we have the issue of men looking for younger women, which tilts the tables even more against older women.
So guys: The numbers favor you at those “Relationship sites.” Particularly if you are older. If you are tired of no or low response, you might want to try one of them out. Ladies: Even though “Relationship sites” may feel more appealing, the numbers are not great for you. Particularly if you are older. If you must, use one of these “Relationship sites,” but hedge you bets and also sign up on a big site where the odds favor you more. My current favorite is YahooPersonals. Sign up for the Premier version and get the best of both worlds.
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