eHarmony sucks

I wasn't planning on becoming a paid subscriber, but eHarmony.com allows me to take their looong personality profile quiz and have a membership with a profile description and a pic. So I signed up just to see what was out there.

Unless I am just missing something, I found no way to discriminate my matches based on height and income. So since I earn $0 at the moment, and I am 5'3, eHarmony seems to think that my perfect match would be a sensitive, 40 yr old 5'7 security officer!! And in order to clear out a few of the 12 maximum allowed matches in my queue, the system has to actually send the short guy a "close" note with my reason. It provides a multiple choice list, so I chose "other," and winced a little. eHarmony doesn't allow you to select age limits, and since I prefer younger guys, this was a problem. It's not that I wouldn't date a 40 yr old at all, but I am going to expect a LOT more from him than I will an up and coming 26 yr. old. And well, in my experience, men at the older side of Generation X are a little bit more old school when it comes to treating strong women with respect. The ones I have gotten to know romantically, and they are few, have seemed to have this strong desire to FIX me and give me unwarranted advice. One suggested I go all utilitarian and attend court reporting school, as his ex-wife had. I mean, seriously. I can't see a 26 year old even daring to suggest how I should go about my academic pursuits.

By day two on eHarmony, I noticed that some of my matches had "closed" me out with the reason chosen that I had no profile pic. So I added one, just to avoid being dumped for that dumb reason.

The next morning, after I had cleared out a few more matches, I noticed that I had a new match who had already closed ME. Huh, really? So I checked out his profile, as a non-paying subscriber, I cannot view his photo, but I quickly recognized him as McNothing who I met for coffee back in September! His profile sounded like all of his long emails, his facts and physical description matched, and obviously, his first name, age and occupation gave it away. It was definitely McNothing. I had to laugh. I knew we had similar personalities, but eHarmony matching me with him within my first 15-20 matches in such a large city is a bit of a coincidence!

I can't believe he didn't even say hi. Just closed for reason, "other." I guess we aren't friends!

Needless to say, getting "closed" by strangers AND people I know is just more than I am equipped for at this point. I don't like that I can't just browse people, and go with intuition and that gut feeling rather than let a computer system decide that I really want a vertically challenged blue collar type. Plus eHarmony is too expensive. I have to admit I am a bit bummed that I couldn't reach out to the 30 yr old vegan teacher. And another guy who was in his early 30's gave me an "interested" status, but as a non-paying member, I couldn't respond. So I just cancelled the thing completely.

Bottom line, eHarmony is a good effort, but misses the mark in my opinion. Who says I want someone who is just like me anyway! McNothing was a LOT like me, and while I felt drawn to him in a strong way, there was also something annoyingly familiar about him, like a brother! Almost like we spoke the same language a bit too well. I was totally on to him, and that made him both vulnerable to me, as he spilled his guts about his wife's total betrayal, and then he felt uncomfortable. So it was ruined, all because he's just a bit too much like me.