Monday, February 22, 2010

The E(harmony) (Pro)Files--Part 1: The Personality Test

As some of you may recall, I received an email on Valentine's Day weekend advertising that eHarmony was free for 5 days. Well, not really. I misread it, and it was really free communication for 5 days. But, I thought, what the heck. I was curious, and I figured I'll sign up and see what happens. If anything, I'd get some pretty entertaining material like a friend of mine had.

The first step of setting up an eHarmony profile is taking the personality test that helps eHarmony's algorithm match you up with the most compatible people for you. You know, they match on "29 dimensions of deep compatibility." Now that I've taken this test, I think it's a load of crap. Maybe it's just me, but some of these questions were ridiculous:

1. "True or False: My house is often cleaner when I have company coming over."
Ummm... don't most people clean when they know someone's coming? Pretty sure I don't know anyone who says, "Company's coming! Quick make a mess!"

2. "True or False: I generally want to come out ahead."
Doesn't everyone? I really don't want to be matched with someone who wants to come out behind because he clearly has no ambition or goals.

Then, there were preference questions, and I felt a little odd answering a few of them. For example, it asked me what race I would prefer to be matched up with. I felt a little racist putting "Caucasian," but honestly, I don't see myself with a little Chinese man. So, to make up for my glaring racism, I put that it wasn't that important to me that this guy should be white.

There were, however, a few things that I said were really important to me, like the fact that I wanted to be matched with another LDS person (or at least one that claimed to be) and someone that didn't smoke or drink at all. However, eHarmony, I guess, felt like I was being too restrictive on the drinking one and told me this:
Sorry, eHarmony, I don't care how many more matches I'll get if I say I'm okay with someone drinking once a week or more; there's a reason why I have it set that way in the first place!

Anyway, so I finally manage to get through the compatibility/personality test after a couple hours. No, seriously, it took forever. There were 10 freaking sections. I felt like I was going through an extensive background check/vetting process, or an intense employment application or something. I had to take several breaks just cause I couldn't stand staring at the screen and answering questions anymore. It was crazy, but I had completed the test and was signed up to be a member of the eHarmony community.

The next step was setting up my profile...

1 comment:

Rachel Mohat said...

I at one point in time filled out that questionnaire only to find out that they charged like $50 bucks a month. Then for the next 8 months or more I continued to get emails from them telling me I had matches or they knew someone I might be perfect with. It got OLD, real old. I was like I didnt sign up for your service for a reason, LEAVE ME ALONE! LOL Good luck with your endeavors. I used ldsplanet.com That is where I met Peter.