eHarmony

Every once in a while, you see an awesomely appropriate someecard that jogs your memory about something you'd been trying to forget.

In this case, it was my very brief eHarmony experiment.

After hearing one too many of my friends preach about online dating and how successful they had been in finding relationships through eHarmony and how so and so knows someone who got married to someone they met through the internet, I was close to giving in and just trying it, if only for amusement's sake.

What finally tipped me over the edge was I saw one of the eHarmony commercials that is supposedly about a real couple that met through eHarmony, and the guy in the commercial, "Joshua," was totally hot. And not only was he a beautiful specimen of a man, but some sort of scientist (nerd score!) AND an artist on the side. Done and done.

I mean, other than the fact that he was matched up with some woman "soulmate" on eHarmony and was happily married.

And, as my friend C pointed out to me later, "S, he's an ACTOR. He's supposed to be yummy and make you want to join. He's not actually on eHarmony."

I just ignored her (advertising never lies) and signed on to eHarmony to get started on finding my "Joshua."

And then came the questionnaire....

This thing is the most detailed, repetitive, annoying list of questions I have ever witnessed in my life. Seriously. I'd rather take the SATs again than the eHarmony questionnaire.

It was literally ten pages of 100 questions each that consisted of, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how funny are you? Smart? Sensitive? Punctual?" and so on and so on.

Directly followed by a page filled with identical traits, but this time asking you how important on a scale of 1 to 10 it is that your partner possesses these qualities.

I sat there for ten minutes wondering if it's a seven important or an eight important that my partner be punctual. And then I realized this was the most absolutely ridiculous thing I've ever done.

Look, I am not frowning down on people who use any sort of online dating site. In theory, I think it actually makes a tremendous amount of sense. This way you filter out people that are automatically incompatible with you, and are left with a series of choices who share similar priorities, and are hypothetically single and actively looking for a relationship, which hey, is half the battle.

However, I'm an old fashioned girl who believes in meeting a guy and feeling a spark before I agree to going out to dinner with him and sharing my ideas on religion and cleanliness. Isn't that part of the fun of dating anyway?

In the end, I gave up on the stupid eHarmony questionnaire around page seven. But I am still open to the idea of dating "Joshua" if him and that soulmate ever break up.