If You Like Piña Coladas

I recently asked my Facebook friends how to meet guys. Several of my them mentioned online dating sites like eHarmony and Match.com. I thought about it for a bit and decided Why not? I mean, meeting someone online and getting to know them through email correspondence instead of endless bad first dates actually sounds like a good plan to me. I figured I could weed out some of the weirdos by a quick glance at their profiles, right?

Men who say they don't like kids can be eliminated right away. Anyone who lists collecting snakes as a hobby, or doing math problems as a favorite leisure time activity can be immediately discounted. And, this may sound shallow, but any man with a profile picture that makes him look like a sociopathic ax murderer can be removed from the pool of possible matches. Don't ask me what a sociopathic ax murderer looks like, but anyone with a maniacal smile and oh say, a bloody ax, (along with men who have their mothers or their cats in their pictures) would probably fit that bill.

So I went ahead and signed up for eHarmony. Well, when you first sign up, you have to answer 15,000 questions. There are questions about your level of education, income, height, religion, what are your personality traits, what are you looking for in a partner. There are a ton of questions designed to help you find a good match promote lying. For example, how would you answer this question?

My house is -
A. spotless; even my dust is organized
B. pretty clean and organized
C. a complete disaster
If you answer with A, you’re a controlling, obsessive, type A person. If you answer with C, you’re basically saying you need a backhoe and a hazmat suit to get in your front door.

It will take you a good hour to fill out the entire questionnaire. Or, at least, it should take you that long. If you’re impatient and tend to rush through things, you might make some grave mistakes on your profile. I’m not admitting anything, but if you rush through the questions, you might inadvertently miss something really important. Ahem.

So I finished the sign-up process (or so I thought), but then came a whole new section filled with open-ended questions. By the time I finished that, I was sick of the lame questions and started answering inquiries like, “What are you looking for in a person?” with the lyrics to Rupert Holme’s Escape. No joke. I really did. I figure they’ll either get it and appreciate my humor or they’ll be relegated to my discard pile because if a guy doesn’t laugh at my jokes, then there’s obviously something wrong with him.

I received sixteen matches the first day. Excitedly, I started checking them out. Ten of those were over 60 years old. They had grandkids older than my children! I thought – eHarmony sucks! What kind of genius thought it would be good to pair me with a 62 year old grandpa??? (I’m 42, by-the-way)

I mentioned this to a friend who informed me that I’m the idiot. I must not have taken the time to accurately fill in the box that asked, “What age range are you willing to date?” This is why you really want to make sure you have a good hour of uninterrupted time when you’re not about to fall asleep in order to complete the whole sign-up process. Trust me.

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