How’s eharmony Going, You Ask?

John Henry Fuseli, “The Nightmare”. Image via Wikipedia

If you had asked me last week how eharmony was going I would have said, “Great.” 

I was communicating through eharmony’s email feature with a few men that I liked.   Though I was somewhat uncertain about how long I should go back and forth emailing them, and I wondered that I didn’t have a whole lot of feedback from the rest of the “matches” that were forwarded to me daily, I was content with being able to converse online with my three long distance possibles.  I was in the game!

Then a couple of things happened.

First, I spoke to my old friend CB.  His opinion was that long distance relationships do not work. For a relationship to exist, he said, the couple must actually be together, spending quality time in each other’s presence.  His remarks caused me to think about taking my email conversations to the next level.  How would we reach the next level when the men I was communicating with online all lived between 5 and 15 hours away by car?

The next thing that happened was that I had an impromptu dinner meeting with two friends.  One of whom joined eharmony right around the same time as I.  She has progressed to the meet-in-person stage, I was surprised to learn.  Here I was, so pleased with myself for talking to three men, and it turns out that someone else, similarly situated, has already had phone conversations with men and is now meeting them in person.  

She asked:

“Do you initiate contact with any of your matches?”   My answer was no.  After all, shouldn’t they contact me first?

“Do you tell them the matches that you are communicating with that you would like for them to give you a call sometime?”  My answer was no.  Shouldn’t they take the lead in seeking  to talk to me on the phone?

“Have you set your preferences to reflect that you prefer local matches and not long distance matches?”  My answer was no.  The website says that you broaden your options with less restrictive preferences.

Bythe end of the dinner I felt like my friend was maximizing the eharmony vehicle, while I was only giving token effort to meeting men through eharmony.   No, not token effort, exactly.  It’s as if I was approaching eharmony the same way that I approached my dating life, with the same passivity, built-in distance, and all.  It occurred to me that different results in my relationships are only going to be achieved by me practicing different behaviors.  Signing up for eharmony is not enough.  I have to go about socializing in a whole different way.  Well.  After I got over the dejection of realizing that contrary to what I’d been telling myself,  I am not yet moving forward in the relationship compartment of my life, I took my friend’s advice.  I changed my settings to a preference for local matches,  I initiated contact with five or six matches that I thought seemed interesting and not too far away, and I also communicated via email with my open matches that I would like to talk by phone. 

The night that I made the changes I had a nightmare. 

The day after I made the changes I went to a church service at my married-guy-friend, EB’s, church.  I looked good.  Very cute shoes.  At the service I was introduced to EB’s friend Eric, a tall, handsome, single, minister.  Eric seemed interested, but I resisted his attentions.

That night I had another nightmare.

I guess nobody ever said that change was easy.