The Man Behind Curtain Number Three

I’ve been asked for my opinion on the differences between on-line dating sites; specifically, Match.com and eHarmony. Both sites cost about the same for a six-month membership, both have safety suggestions and tips about how to set up a profile. I learned the hard way that Match.com will—for a price—write a profile for you. After reading hundreds of profiles of “men in your area!” there appeared to be a pattern to some of the exceptional ones. A second reading of those confirmed that who I’d really like to date is the person who ghost writes dating profiles for a living. Sadly, they were not available.

Cat food, lemon curd, tea, duct tape, and bleach. Stop judging me.

eHarmony has the best questions in their repertoire. They ask the best questions to help you fill out your profile and have an impressive list of conversation starters to help you break the ice— “List five items in your shopping cart” or --- well, I don’t really remember any other questions, but they were good ones. So good, in fact, that I would use them over at Match.com, where the questions weren’t as good, but there were more men in my 100-mile range. For the record I said the five items in my cart were “Cat food, lemon curd, tea, duct tape, and bleach. Stop judging me.”

At eHarmony, every time I tried to adjust my range area down to 100 miles, they would give me a yellow warning sign and tell me of all the great matches that I was missing out on in Calgary. As in Canada. I’m convinced eHarmony owns stock in an airline that flies solely to Calgary. I apologize, undiscovered Canadian Soulmate, I’m not in the mood for a relationship that depends on the cooperation of the TSA. Alas!

I’m not going to lie—on-line dating is a lot of work. Done properly, it’s like having a second job. You have to constantly keep reading profiles, starting or responding to conversations, keeping track of which “Bob” is which. For some reason, every third man in my age demographic was called “Bob.” As aliases go, “Bob” is perfectly acceptable, but you’d think the “Bobs” show a little creativity and branch out. Although I suppose going by “Rich” has its drawbacks, now that I think about it.

I dated only in my age demographic—I found it far too depressing to even think about having a romantic relationship with someone who didn’t understand the concept of “phone booths” and “rabbit ears.” I don’t have time to explain all my cultural references. You had to be there, seriously. Good times, good times...

I tried to do all the right things, take sensible precautions, not be too urgent—after all, I signed up for six-months! Plenty of time, for plenty of fish in the sea.

Turns out though—it was the second guy I talked to that ended up being The Guy. After three months on-line, two different dating sites, a plethora of emails and a handful of assorted dates, I found myself repeatedly drawn back to Jon. Jon is funny, and wise—meaning he thinks I’m funny—and is very Zen. He loves to read, makes his own salsa, and is kind. In the bonus category, he smells delicious, is taller than I am, and wrote his own profile. Since we met on Match.com, I must say—it’s the best $146 I ever invested.