Dating for Dummies: eHarmony II

I became a member of eHarmony but not before checking out claims that they are a harbinger of the Religious Right; I didn't want my membership dues to go towards baptizing sleeping homeless people against their will. The founder and very public face of eHarmony is Dr. ThreeNames a man who has, and insists on using at all times, three names. This would be like me only calling myself Cupcake Fondant Pareil. Actually, I kind of like that. I considered that Dr. ThreeNames might pass along how I answered the premarital sex question onto the Big JC during their weekly conference calls, but then I figured that "29 Dimensions" or not, there's nothing Dr. ThreeNames knows about me that Jesus Christ doesn't already know. It is true that eHarmony does not match gay couples and that is wrong because I for one believe that gays should have the same right that I am entitled to, namely to pay a ridiculous amount for a remedial dating service. The bottom line is that some of the guys whom eHarmony matched me with seemed like genuinely interesting, kind men looking for a real relationship so I joined up, just to try it out. God knows I've spent money on stupider things in my life; my undergraduate degree comes to mind...

eHarmony is truly dating for dummies, breaking the process down into steps you didn't even know existed. This does get rather annoying, but when you consider that left to my own devices I went out with a technophobe hermit, a Civil War re-enacter and a pornography-obsessed public school teacher, hell maybe I should give the eHarmony way a shot. You start the path to finding your soulmate by answering a 436 question profile. That is correct. Honestly, I took less time completing the PSATs (lower stakes: National Merritt Scholarship vs. Everlasting Love!!).

Then you answer some questions to help fill out your profile. eHarmony actually uses a logarithm to compute the ideal age range for your match: in my case the binary Gods determined that to be 22 - 32. I altered it to read 24 - 29. They also want to know in which geographic region they should be looking for your match. Except in true eHarmony fashion, they don't ask you to type in how many miles from your zip code you are willing to venture, instead they ask, how far are you willing to travel for true love? My standard answer is: Brooklyn. More specifically, anywhere I can get to in Brooklyn on the F Train. The narrowest scope for an eHarmony search is a 30 mile radius. The broadest possible search is the whole world. But Dr. ThreeNames, what if my soulmate is living on Jupiter? These people are serious about "soulmates" and if you don't play along they make you feel like some kind of pervy scum trolling the woods in Central Park after dark for Hustlers. Okay, a 30 mile radius it is.

To be continued...