Becoming a statistic

Bachelor #5 was the last guy I had planned to go out with before ending the whole eHarmony shenanigans. It had been a pretty interesting (and for you, entertaining) adventure over the past several months, seeing who turned up online and how they fared on actual dates. But it was also exhausting. The step-by-step process of communicating via an agenda usually took 2-4 weeks to garner a first date. It was repetitive and sometimes boring. And from there (as you already know), each long investment always seemed to fall through. So I was about ready to quit. The experience had been eventfully uneventful, until I met Bachelor #5.

In all honesty, I didn’t think that this last straw would be worth investing the time in considering my previous record. But something in me – maybe it was my Asian guilt over the fact that my friends had spent more than a hundred bucks on this subscription for me; or maybe it was my desire for eHarmony to redeem itself after all those stupid commercials; or maybe it was the last glimmer of hope that I held from my eternal [yet dying] optimism – something told me to give it one last chance.

So #5 wasn’t the most articulate bachelor that I’ve communicated with online, but there seemed to be something different about him. I had been advised by friends to go beyond what was on paper to really make an accurate assessment of the man. [However, I still think that the previous video blog post on really bad communication still holds its own.] So I decided to meet #5…after all, he was the cutest out of the crop and seemed nice.

We decided to meet over after-work drinks, and he was in fact, the cutest out of the crop and really nice. He looked even more handsome than his photos, and he was incredibly sweet. So we moved on to date #2 – dinner at a quaint little Italian restaurant in Noho. We had great conversation, despite the fact that we realized we were complete opposites in many regards (e.g. I almost drowned twice last year, and he’s been a beach lifeguard for almost 10 years)…which we chalked up to being complementary and/or interesting for the other person. We began to define a balance between our interests and personalities. So it was on to date #3 – a quick lunch in the park during the workweek. A few days later, I received two dozen red roses at my office from him, because he was “looking forward to seeing me” on date #4. And my faith in eHarmony was then restored.

We’ve gone on several more dates since then and have grown fonder of each other with each one. Something about this scientific process seemed to have worked, because the chemistry…or “harmony” is finally right. Despite my not wanting to have anything to do with the whole online dating process in the beginning, I’ve become a statistic. I’ve happily relegated myself to being one of those 1 in 5 couples who met each other online.  However, I still refuse to send in our story or a photo of us so that we could potentially become candidates for one of those [still] annoying TV commercials.

Many, many thanks Mathew, for being the scientific geek that you are. You’re right — it’s a numbers game of sorts. I just hope that your little test turns out to be statistically significant after all, with a high confidence rating.

So if you do end up speaking at my wedding, please don’t embarrass me too much.

Bachelor #1: Tall, dark, semi-handsome. Sweet and charming for an IT fellow. Had a LOT in common, almost too much. A little older than I’d like at 31, ready to settle down and have kids within the first 2.5 dates. I decided that I just wasn’t quite ready for a baby within the next 3 months…and I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stop noticing his white socks with dress shoes.

Bachelor #2: Short – in fact, a whole 3” shorter than what was stated on his profile.  Shorter than me. 20 minutes late to drinks (because he was out running an insane number of miles, so he said) and had to call me to find the spot that he had picked out himself. In the spirit of openness, I tried to give him a shot after all this, because he was a seemingly sweet guy…but it boiled down to the height thing. It’s an issue for me because I’m already short at 5’3”.

Bachelor #3: Culturally diverse with a nice mixed-ethnicity-background, extremely polite, respectful, and genuine.  Steady job, lived just outside the city, and charmingly witty (in a sporadic manner). This one had seemed to have potential, but 10.5 hours into our 2 dates, we ran out of things to talk about other than the music skills he had been fine tuning since he was 10. They were fascinating at first, but there was only so much music trivia that I could feign interest in during that uber long period of time. Needless to say, at the end, we just weren’t that into each other.

Bachelor #4: Had long, funky hair in his eHarmony photos and then showed up with a great, short haircut. Although I didn’t find myself physically attracted to him after noticing this (not that I was that attracted to the messy long hair either), I thought, “Hey, how bad could this one really be?” He had told me previously that he was really passionate about giving back to the community, so I thought he had to have some sense of depth to him. Boy was I right about depth, because he turned to me at one point and just blurted out, “You have a nervous laugh, which means you have some unresolved issues. That’s ok. But you still have something you need to resolve so you don’t cover it up with your laugh anymore.” End scene.

So I’m back to the drawing board. It’s been a really weird ride so far, because I keep getting such a funny range of average [?] bachelors in the eH-Inbox. But I am reminded that it’s all a numbers game.  So I will wait patiently to sift through the hundreds more matches that I am scientifically proven to have more chemistry with, to uncover the identity of (a hopefully promising) Bachelor #5…

For those of you who think I may be exaggerating about some of the “matches” that I get, you’ll find that this profile excerpt isn’t quite as eHarmonious as you would’ve originally imagined:

“Wonderful music(All kinds of)bring me to the heaven, Singing in the public turn me on…I also think the best way to stay focus and peace in this uproarious world is spending more time on reading. When vacation is coming, I will packed up and grab my camera for traveling with my friends If the god allow me to make 3 wishes to be come true, that will be World Peace, No disease and No wild animal killing.”

I’m down with the “world piece and no disease” part but um, really? How do I get these kinds of matches, you ask? I guess only time, and a scientific experiment will tell…

[And on to the next blog... hit the jump for more.]

It’s been just over a month since I signed up to be an eHarmony soul seeker, and I’ve gotten 302 matches delivered to date. That’s right, throughout this holiday season Santa thought that I would see scientific potential in 302 eligible bachelors. Here’s the rundown:

- 147 of these are currently closed out. This means that I didn’t like them for various reasons (e.g., too short, live too far away, strange statements in their profile, terrible grammar, seem strangely controlling) or they didn’t like me.

- 143 of these are still open. I could potentially communicate with this set…but truthfully, I’m just too lazy to close out 140 of them.

- I’ve gotten 3 nudges (not associated with the three that could still have potential from the previous statistic). Nudges are exactly like Facebook pokes, but I guess it would be odd to “poke” a potential partner on an online dating site.

- 12 – this is the current number of matches I’m actually communicating with. Some have stalled at the early stages of “Guided Communication,” some have never replied back to my prompts, and

- 2 have gotten to “Open Communication.”

- Of these two, one shows promise. I have a pending date with one of these guys… (Yes, my first possible eHarmony date is on the horizon.)

- And the other…well, the below video will illustrate why this has been such an interesting learning process. I don’t even know how to begin to reply to this one, any thoughts?

[Before we get to the video, let me first say it's been quite an amusing experience so far. Every now and then Ms. Guest Blogger sends me a snippet of some of the messages she's received via eHarmony and I have a good laugh. Here's the text of the message--the audio reflects how the voice in my brain is reading the message. Enjoy. - Mat]

[Before the flaming begins, I'm not making fun of the guy for lacking the basic English skills of a 6th grader. That's not it at all. Hey, maybe there really is such a thing as a comma-ellipsis in some crazy foreign language. What I am saying though is the dude is looking for a date and couldn't spend the 20 seconds it would have taken him to proofread his bizarrely short message? C'mon, guy. Put a little effort in it. - Mat]

Update Two

For the past week and a half, I have been receiving 6-8 emails each morning telling me that I have a new match at eHarmony. At the beginning of this period, the prospect of an interesting guy (aka potential date) sitting in my inbox was pretty exciting. I thought that eHarmony – with its “scientifically matched” branding campaigns would do a good job of creating complements – but as it turned out [so far], I’ve only found 3 out of the 50-some-odd candidates to be potentially date-able matches.

After saying, “What!?” to that ratio, you’ll probably ask, “Could it be your own, limited profile?” Well the answer there has to be “no” because I was as genuine, albeit cheesy, as I could have been on the questionnaire. I have a good handful of pictures up, and I have selected multiple location preferences with distance as a “not soimportant” factor, opening me up to a fairly large sea of fish. So this has got me wondering if I am more superficial than I should be. Several of my close friends who know that I’m subscribed to the online dating market have told me that I should start becoming “more open-minded” about my potential matches. Heeding their advice, I’ve been trying to read profiles before looking at pictures, and if guys don’t have pictures up, then I don’t dismiss their potential right away. In fact, I keep their profile open so that in the event they decide to “Start Communication” on Level 1 (of 4, after which is finally the “Open Communication” stage to set up a date) with me, I can respond. But you know what ended up happening? After I closed out some of the non-matches I was given, some of my own potential matches ended up rejecting me. So I’m not the only one here who is browsing profiles for a certain type of person. I think it’s difficult not to assess overall attractiveness on an online profile when you have access to a person’s pictures. But at the same time, I’m not someone who likes going on blind dates. So there – I said it – I am superficial.

There have been some…if not many “I’m sorry but absolutely not,” types mixed in to my match list. [No offense to the guys I shut down out there. I’m just not that into you.] I was disappointed because I never thought I’d see these types in my eHarmony box of science, and because I didn’t think that I would start feeling this superficial. But I guess this is a game of trial and error. I had just hoped that the errors would be a little more…attractive.

I know that I may not be the most attractive person in the world myself to a lot of guys (hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder); in fact, I believe that it’s difficult for young women like me to define the lines between modesty, beauty and confidence, especially coming from a traditional Asian background. I’ve been told that I should act like a demure lady, yet never settle for less than the best. It’s been a funny journey so far, trying to become a “Woman o Character” – the phrase that defined my Catholic High School’s theme song and ironically, the westernized end of my Catholic High School’s teachings.

But I am standing strong on the fact that I would like to date someone who I’m at least mildly physically attracted to. After all, if I’m going to look at possibly waking up in bed next to this person for an extended period of time, I would like to think that his face will
warrant a morning smile. Is that really so wrong?

I have 2 matches right now who I’m waiting to hear back from on this whole step-by-step “Guided Communication” track. As the online exchange of questions becomes more in-depth, I’ll let you know how things go. Until then, lets hope that my profile magnetizes someone more interesting.

[After she sent me this, we had a discussion about causal relationships and I'm not fully convinced we truly understand what is going on here. The researcher in me has to wonder what is really happening. After all, if she is consistently getting some 6% (3 / 50 guys) return for average-or-better looking guys, that would imply (in a perfectly representative sample) that eHarmony has 94% ugly people and only 6% nonugly people. That just isn't intuitively correct. The "average" people (just by definition) should be far greater than 6% even if they are dating online. So we've got to start asking--maybe ugly people consistently choose the same answer she happens to choose? Is she scientifically destined to only find true happiness with an ugly person? Are all hot people just not as sympathetic and passionate? I sense an experiment in the near future. - Mat]

The Beginning

For many reasons, my relationship track record hasn’t been great. I’ve had a tendency to date guys who I thought had a good balance of machissimo and emotional sensitivity – characteristics that I defined through a cultural lens of a first-generation Asian American.  But my vision must have been cloudy, because my balance was off. The ideas of urban westernization, traditional religious values, and the social pressures of a material American lifestyle have left me as dumbfounded as a damsel in distress. [The Disney movies I watched with fervor as a kid didn’t help me understand what a healthy relationship looked like either.] I take at least some responsibility for the failed relationships of course, but in my eternally-optimistic perspective [a.k.a. somewhat cheesy, hopelessly romantic dreams], I believe that there’s someone better out there meant for me.

Enter e-Harmony.

Note: I did not choose this method of trying to meet people myself –instead, it was gifted to me.  I take no credit for this one. Someone who [I want to think] wants to see me happy in a healthy relationship has opened me up to the more progressive world of online dating. So I’m giving it a chance.

This might actually be one of the best things that’s happened to me. No, I haven’t met anyone special just yet – it’s only Day 3. But the extremely long questionnaire that I had to fill out about myself and my relationship preferences has forced me to take a genuine, introspective look into the person I’ve grown to be. And I’ve done a lot of growing up over the past few years – so I’m excited about this new experiment.

I wasn’t very happy when I didn’t get any matches at first (my heart skipped a beat when I thought that I was incompatible on this site that advertises ~230 marriages a day)…but when my first small flood of email notifications came in, I thought…this could be interesting.

Checking to see if I have any new matches is like crack right now. It’s like a renewing Christmas present each time I go to see who’s in my set…but I get disappointed when I unwrap sporting goods and video games. Right now I’ve narrowed my current sights to 2 possibilities.

Hopefully there’s a Swiss-Army knife somewhere in there…