I had met several ladies over the years that swore by the eharmony dating site and when writing the blog about dating I thought I should also research a couple of different sites and “experience” there matching systems. Each site seems to have different ways of signing up and doing up a profile.. eharmony’s point of difference is they have a very comprehensive questionnaire to fill out and they use your answers to do a personality profile and match you with guys based on the results (ie personality types, interests etc..)?
You have a say in ethnicity and height, age, income, education, interests etc… which is a good thing, you would hope?
But here I was getting sent profiles for much older guys (way older than I specified), very short (height was specified), very unattractive, overweight and clearly not the sort or “type” you would be ever interested in or even a close to a match to you? Their interests weren’t even matching for God sake…
As I have always said, if you saw these guys standing at a party there would be no way you would be giving them a second look. Someone else might… but not YOU.
I know everyone is horrified by the shallowness of this comment (my children have accused me of it) but at the end of the day – you have to be attracted to a person first (beauty of course is in the eye of the beholder)
So thanks eharmony; after filling out your extensive questionnaire and filtering through guys I would never be attracted to in a million years for three months, the only one that I accept a coffee date from is a TOTAL LOSER…. What a waste of time and money!!!!
Day of Judgement Date
Reality is a very fragile thing and I tend to be very black and white with not much grey shading allowed; I kid myself about being flexible and open-minded. No matter how hard I try there are definitely some rules and opinions governing me most of the time?
Being judgemental and discriminating against others was something that I frowned upon but you get to a point in your life where you realise that “heck yeah, I am judgemental”.
Now I hear you ask, what is her point? How does this have anything to do with dating?
WELL I had just completed an extensive personality profile about my likes and dislikes; which then defined me as a certain type and they still can’t MATCH me with someone decent!!!
After what seemed like a marathon of emails back and forth via the dating site eHarmony; Adrian suggested a coffee date? He had expressed a dislike of having to email and said he preferred one on one conversation to get to know someone. I agreed, as I have always felt that a photograph was one thing, but you could never translate the physicality of a person to a photograph of them.
My experience had been that no matter how clear or unclear the person’s photograph was there was always a different impression after meeting them.
As I was reverse parking my car; Adrian calls to see if I have arrived (I am not even late). I answered his call and advised him that I was parking at that moment. As I walked up the street I called Adrian’s phone and as I walked past a male he called out to me. I had to look twice at him and then realised this was Adrian (looking slightly older than the photo on his profile). I must admit he was a lot better looking than any of my previous dates and had a very athletic body.
We decided on a coffee shop and sat down to order; waitress and menus arrived. There was the usual polite chat, orders taken and then time to find out a little more about each other. I decided to let Adrian talk about his life, as he seemed to be uncomfortable about his previous marriages and relationships, explaining the relationship belonging to each of his four children. I have four children too and have often been judged for this so if anyone was going to understand where he was coming from it is me.
Orders arrived and chat recommenced, but not for long… Adrian’s phone kept receiving messages to which he noted that his children were contacting him (obviously from different locations and for separate reasons). Then his phone rang and he asked if he could answer the phone as it was his son. I felt I couldn’t say “No” as it may have been an emergency. He was chatting away and I decided to go to the toilet and give him some space.
When I returned I enquired if everything was okay, he replied “yes”. His phone continued to receive messages and I asked if he needed to go. Adrian explained that his son was visiting his grandparents and waiting to be picked up. I was wondering what was going, his son was apparently 21 years old and I thought this was a little odd. I laughed and said that my kids often overlooked my rights for “ME” time and were fairly demanding. Adrian didn’t really answer and his body language spoke to me in that, I could tell he wanted to go.
I received a polite follow-up text from Adrian the day after and then I didn’t hear from him for about a month. Adrian then suggests another catch up, which ended up being breakfast. We met and even though the phone wasn’t an issue this time, it seemed to me that he was again disinterested. He spent the entire time talking about his neighbours calling the council about his dog barking and the ensuing result being that he had to move house. I wished him luck and told him I hoped it worked out. In our first meeting we had established that we worked in the same job, but different locations. I asked a girl in our office if her husband knew this guy as they worked at the same place.
She immediately laughed until her sides hurt, regaling information that her husband had told her about him. He apparently was a total loser, who was only on those sites to “pickup” and happily bragged about it with his co-workers (who in turn thought he was a major GOOSE). Nobody wanted to work with him or liked him and avoided him at all costs, I think conceited may have been used describing him as well.
So if you are about to waste your money on being matched with an ANGEL… be prepared!!
Has anyone out there met the MAN of their DREAMS on a dating site?
Cheers
SWFD
