EHarmony Is Not a Christian Dating Website

It is a matchmaking and relationship enhancement business.

Yes, it was founded by and based on the research of a Christian, but so what? It is no more of a "Christian" business than Harvard or Yale are Christian universities. Even less so, as Harvard and Yale were originally founded to train Christian ministers, while EHarmony was founded with the goal of reducing the divorce rate.

The website was originally marketed through Christian outlets.

But over the years, the website has expanded its outreach.

I frequently see blog or forum postings claiming that EHarmony rejects atheists or any non-Christian.

As far as I can tell, the service does reject some atheists or other non-Christians, but it also rejects some Christians. The service does not reject people based on their religious or philosophical beliefs per se, and plenty of non-Christians have been accepted by the service and have used it. So no, the service doesn’t reject atheists because they are atheists. However, if someone indicates they are an atheist, they want another atheist, they feel very strongly about this, and they are very serious about finding someone very close in location to them... perhaps nobody who meets those parameters and is compatible with the applicants' personality and other conditions is in the EHarmony system. In that case, the service tells you they can't find matches for you at that time. I think it also does this if other limitations you have placed result in too few matches. Instead of taking your money, they reject your application. What's wrong with that?

Now, EHarmony.com doesn't do same-sex matching. But apparently a lot of people looking for this and thus complaining about EHarmony are unaware of their sister service, Compatible Partners, created to settle a lawsuit... or the many other online matchmaking services for gays and lesbians.

If you're going to criticize something, do so on the basis of reality.

Note that EHarmony also rejects applicants based on age, being legally married, having "too many" past marriages, depression, instability, or some other factors your personality test results indicate would keep you from being marriage material right now.

Staking an Exclusive Claim

This appears to be advice from EHarmony.com. I found it here.

"Annie, MN" asked:

Is it foolish for me to continue dating a man who is still seeing another woman?

No. It is foolish to fornicate with him, but not date him per se. Unless people are engaged, they should be open to dating others.

He has been completely honest about his involvement with both of us.

Now how do you know that? He has told you he's seeing another woman. That doesn't mean he's being honest about what they are doing, what he's told her, what his feelings are for her, and whether or not there are yet others he is seeing.

He may be telling you the whole and complete truth, he may not. You don't know for sure. You are assuming, dreaming, hoping, or wishing.

We have only dated a few months but I am ready to date him exclusively.

Why? Do you mean to tell me that if another guy came around who seemed he could be everything you've been looking for, and he asked you out to do something you've always wanted to do, you'd tell him "no"?

You don't really know this guy, and he's not ready to date you exclusively, so why not date others and see what happens? Most men are more likely to ask for exclusivity when they have a reason to. Your lack of interest in dating others (or, perhaps, the lack of interest others have in dating you?) doesn't give him much reason to pledge exclusivity in order to get it.

Only stop dating others if you know you could marry him and he appears to be getting ready to propose marriage to you.

Of course, that's assuming you are looking for a husband, and are dating a man who is looking for a wife. We don't really have a lot of information to work with, though EHarmony does tend to be marriage-focused. We don't know your ages. I'm assuming you are both established and have no minor children. (If you are not established, you should not be seriously dating... just dating for fun.) If you are just looking for a sex partner, the answers may be different.

As I may have mentioned before, what I believe is the ideal (and what I will advise my kids) is that they focus on getting financially/professionally established (and learn who they are), and under the age of 25, their dating should be casual – a way to discover what kind of person they best interact with and enjoy. After that, if they are marriage-and-family-oriented, they should date more seriously, as in letting their dates know early on that they are dating to find a spouse. The moment they realize that someone they are dating would not be the right spouse for them, they should stop spending their time dating that person (and stop bonding that way with the person). Only when engagement is looming should all others be forsaken.

In the response:

It is also normal to expect that while you are getting to know someone and deciding if they are right for you, they will also be dating others and making decisions about who is right for them.

Like I said.

Part of the process of choosing a person to pursue is gauging their interest in you.

You want someone for whom you have passion, but you want them to have passion for you, too.

You mention in your letter that you've been dating this man for "several months." I believe this is more than enough time for him to decide if he wants to pursue you or the other woman he is seeing.

Maybe he enjoys spending time with both of them (and any others) and likes things the way they are?

I would suggest that you politely ask him whether he is ready to commit to an exclusive relationship with you.

I don't think it is been long enough. If neither one of them has seen any red flags and they are both attracted (in every sense of the word) to each other, they should keep seeing each other even if they are not ready for engagement yet. But if there is a red flag, or a fundamental incompatibility, stop seeing him.

New EHarmony.com Commercials

I've noticed some new commercials for EHarmony.com, ones that don't feature Dr. Warren. They seemed to be geared towards catching the eye of some of the audience that might automatically switch into "ignore" mode when they see the familiar look or hear the familiar voice of the longstanding ad campaign for which the business is famous.

I think these ones may be a little hard to spoof, at least until they establish a new common feel.

EHarmony.com Gets Slammed By Christians, Conservatives

Many atheists, Leftists, swingers, cheaters, players, depressed people, people who have been divorced several times, and homosexuals are upset at EHarmony for not being geared towards serving them, or, in the case of the atheists and Leftists – purely because EHarmony.com was founded by someone who previously associated closely with Focus on the Family.

Now, an outcry from Christians and Conservatives has caused EHarmony.com to pull an advice piece dealing with one night stands. The piece was called “Navigating the One Night Stand” and was found here: http://advice.eharmony.com/?page=articles/view&AID=1961

There’s also anger over this piece:The Girl’s Guide to Camping at Your Boyfriend’s Place, originally found here: http://advice.eharmony.com/?page=articles/view&AID=1969

According to Dr. Warren, one of the reasons he founded EHarmony.com was to lower the divorce rate and strengthen marriages. I think that is a good goal. Based on what he’s written, I can reasonably conclude that Dr. Warren is against one night stands and fornication in general – and believes that saving sex for marriage strengthens marriage. Let me say right now that I agree.

Having said that, if EHarmony.com is going to reach out to serve people who do not follow Biblical morality, there are areas where they can still offer advice to people in situations that they shouldn’t be in n the first place. However, when doing so, they should be careful about their tone and guide the reader to material that will explain why and how to avoid such situations in the first place, for the sake of increasing the chances of having a strong, happy marriage. To me, it is like a doctor treating an STD. Someone shouldn’t have an STD to begin with, but once they have it, they should be treated.

Now, let me go through the first article.

So you’re a swinging single and you’ve had a one-night stand.

Bad move, if you are marriage-minded. It’s like going through a fast-food drive-through on the way to a seven-course gourmet meal at the best restaurant in town.

What’s the etiquette for establishing boundaries, calling the day after and getting out without hurting feelings?

Feelings are likely to be hurt no matter what. But I do agree with minimizing the damage.

While most of us are looking for that special someone to spend our lives with, the single life dictates that sometimes the opportunity for companionship presents itself in the form of a one-night stand.

This is part of what gets people riled up, but it is reality. Some people are weak, and they mess up. Yes, “mess up”. It is definitely a mistake, if you are EHarmony’s target market of someone looking for lasting love. In that case, you should just say "no".

One night stands are often the goal for those who just want sex and nothing more. But they aren’t the target audience of EHarmony.com.

While a one-time roll in the hay isn’t exactly emotionally fulfilling, sex in any form can be relaxing, enjoyable, and fun.

While this is true, the tone could have been a lot better. Some sins are fun, at least in the moment. That doesn’t mean they aren’t damaging to your soul and risky for your body.

So maybe it’s closing time and you haven’t found Mr. or Ms. Right.

Kind of hard to do in a bar or a club anyway. But if you’re in this situation, that’s when you GO HOME and get some sleep. But players take note of advice like this... the advice is a one night stand is okay as long as you haven't found the right person. Players read advice like that, and they resolve to NOT be Mr. or Mrs. Right, because that person has to wait for sex, while a jerk doesn't. Why? Because someone doesn't want to be seen by a potential marital partner as being morally loose, even though that it is exactly what they are. I write from experience.

If you are up for it, you can enjoy a romp with Mr. or Ms. Right-for-the-night. But when you find yourself in a position to get lucky, you should heed a few rendezvous rules to ensure a seamless one-night-only performance.

How about “take a cold shower instead”?

Be Up Front
As consenting adults, it’s absolutely fine for both of you to do what makes you happy.

Fine by whom? Legally? Yes. Morally? No. At least not in this case. And short-term happiness isn't the same thing as long-term, especially in this case.

The key is to make your intentions clear with your date and call it what it is: sex with no strings attached.

Oh, come on now. If you’re going to tell someone how to score a one night stand, at least give good advice. (Hmmm, was this actually a clever attempt to make one night stands more difficult?) There are many women out there who engage in one night stands, but very few of those do so without the “plausible deniability” of the unspoken hope that it could lead to something more. Most women still need an “excuse” to do such things, and one major one is “I thought we had something special starting.” Another is “I was drinking.”

Once both of you have appropriate expectations, you can appreciate the spontaneous lovin’ for what it’s worth.

What is the street value these days?

Do the Safety Dance
Keep a cell phone with you, and if you can, tell your friends where you will be and your date’s name.

How do you even know it is your date’s real name?

Guys should keep a cell phone so that they can claim they got a call and have to go. Great excuse for not spooning.

Further, always use protection. Without the risk of sounding like a high school health teacher, protect yourself from STDs and pregnancy every single time to avoid lingering consequences.

Condoms are not 100% effective, nor do they prevent the transmission of all STDs.

Don’t Spend the Night
Unless invited, don’t sleep over.

Don't even if invited. Get out of there.

Snoozing together is too official, and it should be reserved for an established relationship.

Too official? But having a stranger inside you is unofficial?

Gather up your belongings and make a respectful exit.

There’s nothing respectful about any of this.

Don’t try to leave a trail of personal “bread crumbs,” such as a wallet, a purse—or, worse, your unmentionables—as a gateway for a second meeting.

Any guy who finds a one night stand’s stuff in his place should throw it away, and if she asks if he has it, he should say no. It is a trick. She'll never make that mistake with you again.

Hanging around implies desperation, pegging you as the sad Clingy Clarissa or Hopeless Harry.

Uh, giving it up on the first date doesn't imply desperation?

Don’t Call
One-nighters need not call or check up on the whereabouts of the person they shared the evening with. Acting as if your near-anonymous night of passion was a first date will just confuse sex with love.

This is good advice for players, but bad advice for someone who is trying to adhere to morality. Such a person should call and apologize, and let things cool off before considering seeing that person again.

Keep Your Mouth Shut Don’t crow about your conquest or the amazing time you had with this lover to your friends like an adolescent.

Good advice. Guys often tell their buddies that they "hit it". Women, however, will tell their friends exactly what went on in very detailed descriptions. Nobody should talk, except in a prayer for forgiveness.

One-night stands might solicit spontaneity and liberation, but you ought to know enough not to participate in short affairs unless you are capable of the detachment they require.

If you are, there may be something wrong with you.

If you have the ability to live in the moment and not demand a long-term relationship afterward, then you are golden.

Golden to players. You shouldn’t be fornicating in the first place.

What a mess.

Moving on to the second piece - The Girl’s Guide to Camping at Your Boyfriend’s Place:

You’ve met a great guy on eHarmony and so far things are going well. The two of you are going out, spending time together, and once in a while you’re probably crashing at his place. Here’s your guide to looking great by using what you’ve got.

By crashing, you’d better mean the non-fornicating kind.

When you find yourself wearing his T-shirts and sometimes even using his toothbrush (ew), it’s tempting to ask him if you can stash some stuff at his house. However, there’s always a chance that this will come off as if you are moving too fast–as if you want to move in after knowing each other only a few weeks.

There should be NO stashing unless marriage is pending in the next few weeks.

It looks like EHarmony may be facing some of the same problems that happen to musical acts who start out appealing to a Christian audience and then try to go mainstream. One problem is losing their moral compass. The other problem, even if they don't lose their compass, is accusations of "selling out" by some of the original audience.

If EHarmony does things right, they can bring Christian principles to the mainstream practice, thereby strengthening marriage.

Stop Whining About EHarmony.com

A clinical psychologist spends decades counseling both-sex couples and learning why relationships fail and why they last, and what makes happy marriages happy. He figures out how to determine if a man and woman are compatible with each other in ways that will likely result in a happy, lasting relationship. He wants to increase marital happiness, reduce the divorce rate, and thereby help individuals, their children, their extended families, and thereby society as a whole.

He sees a business opportunity, and he takes what he has learned and modern day technology and launches EHarmony.com. Good for him, right?

It is a voluntary service that people have to log on to and pay to use. Nobody is obligated to use it, and there are many alternative online and offline services.

Yet this hasn’t stopped people from complaining and suing. The complaints and lawsuits are usually about what eHarmony.com isn’t, which is funny because it doesn’t claim to be those things in the first place.

It is a site dedicated to matching people based on their likelihood of entering into and maintaining happy, lasting marriages. It isn’t a “dating” site.

To determine if people are ready for such a relationship and with whom they’d be compatible, eHarmony has people fill answer an extensive list of questions to form and deliver a personality profile. The length and depth of the questioning is set up to smoke out people aren’t really serious or patient enough, may not know themselves well enough, may be misrepresenting themselves (intentionally or not), aren’t mature enough, or have some other emotional condition or character trait that renders them unlikely to be a good marriage partner. EHarmony does not take money from those people, because the people running the service do not think they will be able to successfully help those people find a lasting relationship. Such applicants are told that the site would be unlikely to find them partner. EHarmony also “rejects” people who are currently married, are “too young”, or have been divorced enough times to make another divorce likely.

There are people who are paranoid enough to believe that eHarmony “rejected” them because of their beliefs about religion or their weight, but there are at least thousands of eHarmony.com customers who can demonstrate that not to be true.

I find it curious when people balk at the results of the personality profile, get angry when eHarmony won’t take their money, or complain that they are consistently matched with losers. All of these things are a result of what someone has indicated about themselves. They only have themselves to blame.

Perhaps the most bitter attack against eHarmony.com is that it currently will only match people with someone from the other sex. A lawsuit was filed in California by a woman who was seeking to be matched with a woman. It is true that there are many, many services that already do this. However, none of them are based on the research and experience of Dr. Neil Clark Warren. Apparently, activists such as the one who filed this lawsuit really admire Dr. Warren’s matching abilities, which is interesting considering they usually are quick to bash his convictions as an evangelical Christian and his earlier ties to Focus on the Family. It seems these activists want it both ways – they want to benefit from Warren’s research while condemning the principles behind it.

Thanks to the Federal civil rights laws, businesses do not have the freedom to refuse to exchange goods/services/money with another party simply based on factors like race. You could have started the business with your own personal savings, built it from the ground up, etc., but you don’t have the freedom to choose to only serve certain races and exclude others. (And yes, this supposedly means that if you are “white” and a “black” business refuses to serve you because you are white, you can sue them.) In California, “sexual orientation” is one of those categories where it is illegal to discriminate. You can’t refuse to serve someone because he or she is a homosexual.

That is the law. I’d argue that everyone should have the freedom to hire, fire, and do business or not with whomever they want for whatever reason. If a woman only wants to work with women, she should be allowed to hire only women. If she only wants women as customers, she should be allowed to make that restriction. If she doesn’t want my money because I’m male, then she loses out when I take my money elsewhere. But, we must deal with the laws as they are, not as we want them to be.

I’d argue that eHarmony is not refusing service to anyone based on their sexual orientation. Any woman, regardless of sexual orientation, can take the personality profile and be matched with men – provided she isn’t excluded for the things I mentioned above, like being divorced too many times. If you’re a woman and you don’t want to be matched with a man, then eHarmony is not for you. I wouldn’t go to the Olive Garden and demand that they serve me Mexican food, or sell me footballs. You may not want to be matched with a man, but why is that eHarmony.com's responsibility? It is a voluntary subscription for a non-essential service.

Dr. Warren has pointed out that his decades of research has been with both-sex couples, and so he doesn’t have the experience to match up men with men and women with women. The critics have balked at this, howling and shrieking at his assertion that there could be any difference in the dynamic within the sexes and the dynamic between the sexes. I find this puzzling, because almost none of these critics are bisexual, so clearly they know there is a difference. Men and women are different, and that makes the dynamic between them different than it is between two men and two women. If this wasn’t true, then gay people could easily choose to be straight.

The lesbian can’t have it both ways. Either men and women are different and she is attracted to women and not to men, or there is no difference and therefore she should be attracted to both, and thereby eHarmony matching her with a man should not be a problem for her. But there is a difference, and eHarmony.com’s matching criteria is based on the dynamic between a man and a woman, and thus wouldn’t work it matching a man with a man or a woman with a woman.

Some people assert that the only difference is in body parts, but this doesn’t past muster, either. Is a lesbian really a lesbian only because she prefers vaginas to penises? Such an assertion is ridiculously simplistic, especially considering the use of phallic toys by some lesbians.

Rather than cursing the darkness, why not light a candle? Counselors and psychologists who specialize in counseling same-sex couples should build up, collect, and analyze research about such couples who have happily lasted, and figure out what has made their relationship work. Then, they can take that research, and start their own service. Maybe eHarmony.com would be willing to license its technologies to such a business or launch the service itself. Or is the lawsuit really just about trying to tear down a business because they’re selling chicken when you’re in the mood for tuna?

EHarmony.com has been successful enough that other matchmaking and dating sites compare and contrast themselves to eHarmony. Match.com’s Chemistry.com has gone so far as to appeal to the “rejects” from eHarmony. Great. Go to Chemistry.com if want someone who is already married, or has been divorced a few times already, or is too young or immature to get married, or has some other challenge to having a happy marriage with you. Sounds appealing, doesn’t it?

Finally, there are the people who simply don’t like the eHarmony.com ads with their happy couples and Dr. Warren. I don’t know - maybe they are lonely and bitter, or maybe they’d rather see a teen pitchman with a bunch of piercings, tats, and a rap sheet. People are entitled to their own tastes. The problem comes when they assert that everyone else has to cater to them and think like them and have the same exact experiences as them.

EHarmony.com is for people who want to find someone to marry - and in almost all of the world, that means someone of the opposite sex. There’s no guarantee you are ready for marriage, or that there’s someone out there who meets your needs/standards. Get over it. EHarmony.com has worked for a lot of people. If it doesn’t work for you, move on and stop wasting your time and energy with whining and consipiracy theories.

Oh, and if that lawsuit against eHarmony.com is succesful, they I'll sue any OB/GYN who refuses to examine my testicles.