eFail

[plumtreeblossom]

Following a class action suit, the homophobically managed eHarmony was pressured into finally providing same sex matching services after years of pointedly shunning it. Rather than mix their straight clientele with all the nasty homosexuals, they opened up a bare-bones outboard site called CompatiblePartners.net.

I bet it sucks. It's so clear that they hate doing it. Not only did they give it the most joyless and utilitarian name possible, the registry page features a big, fat disclaimer that all of their research was done on married heterosexual couples and that they have not done (and surely will not do) any research on same-sex matching. The disclaimer is repeated in dramatic CAPSLOCK on their TOS page. And the no-frills graphics show stereotype-reinforcing twinks and probably-not-lesbian stock photography models.

I'm sure they don't care if they ever generate a successful same-sex match. I can only imagine that they put no resources into it and are waiting and hoping it will fail. Part of the class action suit required that they give out 10,000 free memberships. That's a tiny number of people for a national dating service, but there appear to be free memberships left so perhaps potential clients aren't buying the farce. If any of you have memberships, I'd be very curious to hear how your matching is going (or not going).

Comments

[dabroots.livejournal.com]

A few months ago when I was once again playing in the online dating arena, a couple of people urged me to try eHarmony, despite that company's earlier unwillingness to match gay people. Although I was looking for someone of another gender, I'm still deeply offended by their bullshit. It's like country clubs that finally admitted blacks and Jews, but only when facing legal action.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Years ago when they first opened, I attempted to join eHarmony. After filling out 3 hours worth of questions and essays, I was informed that because of my answers, they could only offer me a 6% chance of ever finding me a match, and that I might not get my money's worth if I bought a membership. At least they're upfront about their discrimination.

What angered me in the questionaire was their inflexibility about what they think a proper match is. When it asked my preferred dating age range (mine is 10 years younger to 10 years older), it said I couldn't do that and that they would only match me to men between 5 and 20 years older, but not my own age or younger. It also said that females should be willing to relocate within 500 miles (I most certainly am NOT!). Clearly eHarmony didn't consider me to be wife material for their men. Damn right I'm not! :-)

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Okay, the info contained that second paragraph makes me stabby. WTF?

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

That's how I felt. I was not willing to move and leave my whole world behind! And I wanted to pick my age range, not have it dictated to me. It just smacked of complete patriarchy and sexism. Do Not Want!

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Definitely Do Not Want!

Nice to know it never would have even allowed me to be matched with my husband simply because of the age range. Dumbasses.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Yep, it never would have let me meet Jay because he's a whooping 2 years younger than me. Luckily Yenta surrealestate had more enlightened matching skills.

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

I joined the free membership a long time ago just to see what it was, but I was already hesitant enough about it that I didn't bother getting a paid membership. I'm sure I still have a profile floating around there somewhere, but I'm not sure. I do know two other people that were actually told, similar to the way you were, that there was very little chance they could find someone for them and to save their money. I have no idea what it was about these people that got them denied. And they're not at all from the same circle of friends that you and I are part of, so the reasons must be completely different. At least they're honest.

Also, I really like younger men. And I don't think I would have anything in common with someone 20 years older than me!

I feel really bad for my best friend (I'm not sure if you know him). He's gay and has been using online dating services for a number of years. He says that Manhunt is mostly people looking for casual sex . He's been on okc for a number of years too, but is plagued by all the 23 year olds or people just looking for something casual. He's 33, an engineer, very cute, owns his own house (one street from you, actually) and is looking for someone to settle down with and get married. He's not into casual sex at all. I feel really bad that the dating sites for gay men don't seem to cater at all to what he's looking for. I almost want to tell him about Compatible Partners, but I feel like maybe it would be insulting to him because of the reasons you stated. :-/

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

umm, hello!

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

Heh. I do try to bring him to T@F shows from time to time, so there's a chance you'll meet him at some point! ;-)

And out of curiousity...I'm not sure if you do or ever did the whole internet dating thing, but did you find the same thing with Manhunt and OKC as he did? He's now talking about wanting to try Match.com because he's given up on everything else already.

[preraphaelite.livejournal.com]

My best friend met his husband on match.com -- he tells me it's the place to go for gay guys seeking something more serious.

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

I tried a number of dating sites, including match.com, manhunt and OKC. I've found OKC to be completely worthless. If I wanted to meet a married bisexual or a curious 20-year-old, maybe; but there's damn few gay grownups on it. Manhunt, as your friend observed, is about sex, and for that purpose it serves admirably. Match.com started out promising, but after a year or so it became clear that I'd already met everyone I was going to meet through that database, and I gave up.

All gay dating sites, as far as I can tell, suffer from the same problem: the number of gay men is relatively small, and only a fraction of them are willing to put themselves out there on a dating site. I assure myself that there must be some winners, since, after all, I'm one of them; but there are an awful lot of curious, married men, or twinks who consider anyplace outside the South End to be inaccessible, or men who are online all the time but never respond.

So yeah, online dating sucks. The only thing worse is not dating—or hanging around bars.

[trouble4hire.livejournal.com]

I've heard that there is a gay craft social at Diesel Cafe on Monday nights that was started for gay guys who wanted to meet guys in a non-bar location.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

What happened? I thought it was going very well :(

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

Oh no, Matt was unceremoniously dumped shortly after Valentine's Day. He told Matt that just didn't "feel the passion." Even though everything seemed to be going well. Matt was pretty pissed because this was the first boyfriend he's had in like 3 years and he really liked the guy.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

That's terrible. The last I heard, everything was going so well. I haven't spoken to him since that time. I'm really sorry... I guess I should write him.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

I still don't get how a private service had this result from a class action suit.

What's next, someone suing jdate for not allowing Gentiles?

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Jdate actually does allow gentiles. They probably don't get many messages, but they're allowed to be there.

There are some articles on the suit on Google. They were also getting some internal pressure from some of their more open-minded heterosexual members. I think they put up the cheapo G/L site so as not to lose those members' paid subscriptions.

Condemning and defending eHarmony in the same breath

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

Okay, here it goes...

I used eHarmony (eHarm as those of us in the know like to call it) for a period of about three years in between 2005 and 2008. Initially, I had tremendous success with it.

I ceased using it in 2008 because the site has undergone serious decline in the quality and quantity of participants. I am not sure to what extent this is due to bad publicity.

I am inclined to believe very little, as Internet dating in general appears to be waning in popularity as people realize its intellectuality and shortcomings -- it is not the panacea it was once believed to be in the early 2000's. eHarmony requires an enormous investiture of time and (most importantly) finance. It is only natural that such a site would suffer the most, first.

I defended it because: a) the bad reputation was coming from the internet, and I tend to believe any internet meme is overwrought, and b) it was so successful for me.

I was looking for a serious, committed relationship, and eHarmony appeared to be able to offer me that above all the other sites. Where else was I going to turn? OkCupid? I always "resented" having to wade through (heterosexual) profiles of people looking for anything but a serious, committed relationship, but that is pure egocentrism on my part.

I read Dr. Warren's defense when the story first broke; that the site was based on research, and all his research was based on heterosexual couples. What if heterosexual couples and homosexual or bisexual or any other type of relationship have different matching fundamentals?

But then I realized that even if his research didn't cover other sexual orientations, HE SHOULD HAVE FOUND SOMEONE WHOSE DOES. Really, what's the harm? Then I read that he graduated from Pepperdine, and I threw up in my mouth.

So I had the conflict of a site that brought me tremendous success and knowing the fact that the proprietor was a bigot. Great. Once past the heterosexual and spirituality checkpoint, I never encountered any other bigotry or discrimination on the site. I guess because I knew this guy was Focus on the Family, if the site didn't tell me I should have died in the Holocaust, I thought the guy was totally open minded. Talk about relativity.

In the end, I parted ways with eHarmony for both reasons. My conscience began to bother me, and I have moved away from the Internet as a means of dating. I will not deny that adherence to the philosophy of all being fair in love and war did cause me to overlook things I probably shouldn't have, specifically, discrimination.

Re: Condemning and defending eHarmony in the same breath

[joyeous.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with Pepperdine? Seriously, I don't know.

Re: Condemning and defending eHarmony in the same breath

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

When you said you had success there, what did you mean< specifically? It seems to me their goal is marriages, and you're still available. (not challenging you at all, just curious about your experience.)

I think you're thinking of http://www.russianbrides.com/ :-)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

No, I don't feel you're challenging me at all. It is a legitimate question.

I do, however, feel that may be too narrow a lens to view eHarmony (or any other dating site) through. After all, what is the goal of any Internet dating site? If we lower the bar from marriage to just creating a relationship, however fleeting, then by the same logic, any dating site has failed that doesn't grant each and every member such.

From actually using the site, I'm not sure I felt any undo emphasis on marriage. I also never felt any bigotry or discrimination. Of course, I passed their heterosexual filter :/ All the women I met were as liberal or more liberal than I. I do like the format and do like the pacing. I like to say the parts of eHarmony are much greater than the whole.

It is hard to specifically put into words, but the majority of women I met there just seemed to be more serious (read: adult) about finding a committed relationship -- to focus on marriage still puts the cart way (way, way) before the horse.

And after using the site, I had a few relationships that lasted several (3 or more) dates, and one long-term committed relationship that lasted just under a year. Contrast this to OkCupid!, where three female friends and I sat around a week ago trying to think of whether we ever had a second date. And OKC has a very different "angle" than eHarmony. That doesn't mean I didn't use OKC -- I just used it for something entirely different.

Internet dating can lead to marriage. My sister met her husband on jDate, and a friend from taekwondo met her husband on Match. But so can riding the T, going grocery shopping, and even going to a pickup bar. I imagine even using OKC can work. I just felt that for myself, having defined "working" as a serious, committed relationship, eHarmony worked the most.