eHarmony as eHomophobic

eHarmony set up its e-dating service with the intention of matching men and women into long-term relationships. By men and women, I mean exclusively heterosexual individuals. "eHarmony was founded in 2000 by evangelical Christian Dr. Neil Clark Warren and had strong early ties with the influential religious conservative group Focus on the Family." (link) Forget the millions of gay, lesbian, and transgendered people also looking for some e-love. This discriminitory practice caught the eye of eHarmony's competitor, Chemisty.com.

In a series of television ads, Chemistry.com used the slogan "Over 1 millions people rejected by eHarmony.com." One such ad features a gay man thoroughly looking over Playboy magazine. When he's done flipping through the pages he exclaims, "Nope, still gay." You can watch that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgxOhG2nDOA

At around the same time, individuals and gay advocacy groups began to pursue legal action against the website. In 2007, Linda Carlson brought a class action law suit against eHarmony based on California's anti-discriminitory laws. Just a few weeks ago, the website settled with gay New Jersey citizen Eric McKinley. In the settlement, McKinley dropped his suit against eHarmony in exchange for the website offering its services to LGBT people. eHarmony will launch the new site, entitled "Compatible Partners," by March 31, 2009. (link)

Another good thing for LGBT's interested in e-dating is that eHarmony tends to be the exception rather than the norm. Most sites include the options of "men seeking men" and "women seeking women" when they apply their algorithms for matching singles. 

Dear Diary, E-dating is Lame

There are two things one doesn't want to hear your friends are doing when you're 24: 1) Getting married 2) E-dating. These makes me feel old.

So over the past ten days I have been on OKcupid.com, which sees single people of all orientations, races, religions, ages, etc... and let's them post AND view profiles for free. Unlike most of the high profile websites this one is entirely free, with features galore to browse and utilize at your lonely finger tips.

How does this web-site work?

Well that would certainly depend on the person looking for a mate. The site lends individuals the opportunity to find people based what type of relationship they are looking for. They can range anywhere from long term to short term, friendship or casual sexual encounters (and doesn't enjoy one of those, unfortunately, okcupid doesn't pay for the cream to clear up that rash). Finding myself in a bit of a predicament on how to introduce myself to the Internet dating community I picked them all. I can't compare this site does the high profile e-dating gurus like match.com or eharmony.com, mainly because they cost far too much money to utilize and not to brag or anything, but I don't have a problem meeting women ins social situations. I couldn't help but get a little nervous with the feature that tracks who is viewing your profile because it is called "stalks per week."

Is it worth the time?

A large part of me says no, but there is a strange fascination I have developed for one of the feature on this site... The "improve matches" questions are hilarious to read and answer. They are a cornucopia of useless information to know of others. Most teetering on the issues of gay rights, religion, and of course sex, with the occasional sprinkling of those awkward relationship questions about kids and attitudes, things of that nature. Once you answer the question posed by the site, it asks you how your ideal mate would answer the question. I don't know why, but once i started answering them I couldn't stop, I accumulated over two hundred answers.

The other feature I enjoyed.... "Quick matches" for those of us who like to look at a poor quality photo someone took of themselves and rate a person's attractiveness based on it. Using this feature you can also rate their personality based on their profile, but that takes the fun out of it. While using this curious feature I have drawn 3 conclusions: 1) I found myself clicking a lot of 1 or 2 star ratings, which means there are not a lot of attractive people to me on the Internet, 2) People's profile pictures are ridiculous, guys with no shirts, girls in thongs showing off their chesty assets, most women are bisexual, it's like Chippawa St. on a Saturday night, 3) This info can be easily manipulated and idealized by the person writing there profile, I didn't lie about anything on mine, but I can see people glorifying themselves sites like these. After all they are asking you how you view yourself, this to me is quite problematic, it reminded me of ebay.

What have I learned?
There are many unattractive people in the world.
People love to talk about themselves.
People have a lot of free time to take all those tests (they took me a few hours).
Matching people based on answers to silly questions doesn't seem accurate
I am apparently a 4 out of 5 in looks according to"hellensecs" who is a very attractive woman herself, which can only mean that there are not a lot of good looking people on the information super highway.
My recommendation?
Perhaps if you are incredibly desperate and ugly or you have some time to waste judging other people. All in all it is a bit creepy to me, like I said before it's like a virtual Chippawa St. mascaraed. If you're looking for a person to settle down with, you're either going to have to go the more expensive route, or the more
traditional route.

Greg

The History Behind E-dating (Melissa Baker)

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It's Pretty Safe...Right?

When it comes to dating over the Internet, it seems that the smart choice would be to stick with the well known e-dating sites, such as the Yahoo Personals, or Perfectmatch.com. Most of these sites screen for your criminal history before they allow you to join or sign up. That may not be the case with other uncommon or unfamiliar e-dating sites. And so, if you want to explore the "miracles" of e-dating, your obvious choice should be one of the sites you might see advertised on T.V., like the often publicized Match.com.

Well, perhaps I can inform you that you will be more safe using one of these sites, but I certainly can't say the same for Joseph A. Silva's "match".

Joseph A. Silva met the woman (whose name was disclosed by police) over Match.com, a commonly used and seemingly safe Internet dating site. He traveled from East Providence to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to meet the young woman sometime in August of 2006. Only, what was meant to be a pleasant interaction between two ordinary people captivated through cyberspace ended up a nightmarish night. The woman report being raped by Silva only a couple days later.

"Police then spent months obtaining evidence in the case, including using legal means to obtain member information and e-mails from the dating site match.com, which has privacy policies protecting its members" (http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/11/30/internet_date_led_to_rape_nh_police_say/).

Hard police work eventually led to Silva's arrest about four months after the crime was reported. Police believe that this may not be the first time Silva's victimized someone.

Portsmouth Police Captain Janet Champlin said that the "rape allegation is the latest in a proliferating number of Internet cases that range from child predators to fraud to sex crimes, with victims and perpetrators of all ages" (http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/11/30/internet_date_led_to_rape_nh_police_say/).

So, it is good advice to still be suspicious of whomever you might find using Internet dating, on whatever site. There is no sure-fire way to know everything about a person by meeting them online. However, it is easy to feel real emotions for someone you meet online, enticing enough to make you want to meet them in person. Be careful of where your emotions might bring you, you might not want to go there. You might misjudge somebody, and it could end tragic.

Tim Strampfer

E-Dating Fraud

Although there are examples of people finding true love using these e-dating websites, there are a select few who aren't as fortunate. According to consumeraffairs.com, there are many people who are scammed anywhere from a few hundred dollars up to the tens of thousands. One extreme case came from a woman named Annette, who had fallen for her so called perfect man on eharmony.com. This perfect man was a 41-year old building engineer, with a young daughter. Annette and this man (John) were speaking for several months, allowing Annette to truly believe she has met the man of her dreams.

When the time came for the two to finally meet, John said that he was in Nigeria but his briefcase was confiscated by airport security. He asked Annette to wire him $1300. She did so in a heartbeat. Right after, John told Annette that his luggage was stolen which had $45,000 in travelers checks in it. More money wired. By the end of the month, Annette's bank account had been sucked dry. Over $35,000 of her hard earned savings would never be seen again.

Research shows that the two major hotspots for e-dating fraud occurs in Nigeria and Russia. There have been a number of situations where American males fall in love with poor Russian beauties who cannot afford to fly to the States. They are wired the $1000+ for the plane ticket only to be stood up at the airport. This occurs often because the people behind it work in organized fraud rings. These fraud rings understand that a good number of people using these e-dating sites are very desperate, and are blinded when they think they have met the perfect person. This explains Annette's failure to see the sketchiness of John's claims.

...The lesson?

DON'T BE SO TRUSTING!!! Use these e-dating sites with a hint of cynicism.
Take your time with these people, and make sure you really know them.
Avoid those who seem like they are rushing things, or asking inappropriate questions.
Be wary of users whose stories are obscure, or inconsistent.
Last but certainly not least, avoid people who ask you for money!

Lynn Markel

Getting Noticed

•Start with an intriguing headline.
•Reveal your personality.
•Avoid over and underselling yourself.
•Be specific about what you want.
•Never say what you don’t want in a partner, instead try to focus on positive aspects in a partner that you would be interested in.
•Update your profile every few days. In most dating cites updated profiles usually appear at the top of the list when a search is made.
•Post a few pictures of yourself. Studies show that people who post pictures of them in dating cites get more responses. Make sure the pictures of you that you provide will reflect on your personality and hobbies.
•Take time off of what your doing and make sure you are completely focused on writing your ad. Make sure your profile is organized and provides important information about yourself. That will reflect the level of your seriousness in finding a match.
•Make sure you are honest! If you don’t tell t he truth about yourself, you will end up disappointing your partner and yourself.

Marriages

•Online Dating Magazine estimates that there are more than 120,000 marriages a year that occur as a result of online dating. (Online Dating Magazine - 2007).
•However, online daters may be misled by online dating services that promote marriage statistics.
•According to eHarmony, a new Harris Interactive research study found that between August 2005 and August 2005, 33,000 people who met on eHarmony ended up getting married.
•The 33,000 marriages average out to just over 90 marriages a day.

Who's the Best?

According to the internet there are a few internet dating services that trump their competition. I complied some of the lists down into a comprehensive list reflecting three websites' findings: mydatingservice.com, onlinedatingcomparisons.com and top-dating.net. Here is a list of the top 5 dating services out there on the information super highway:

Tied for 1st.



2.

3

4

5



Most of these sites let you post a personal profile for free, but to utalize the site and actually wind up on a date you have to pay. Love isn't cheap, after all the internet is a means of commerce and even companionship will cost you anywhere from $19.99 to $49.95 for an average of $37.82 a month and that isn't even including the date.

Greg