One of the big things today is online dating. There are more services than you can shake a stick at that will fix you up with your perfect mate. One of the biggest today is eHarmony.com. You're bound to see TV commercials for this site all over the place. When a company based on the Internet advertises on TV, you know they mean business. But does online dating really work? There are those on both sides of the argument. We're not going to take sides in this article but only present them. You can draw your own conclusions. The premise of online dating is actually very simple. You go to the online dating service of your choice and fill out a form. This will give the service some general information about you. If you actually want them to fix you up with somebody then you have to pay them a fee, after which they will give you an extensive survey to fill out. This is where you basically tell them everything about yourself that you can think of. There are standard questions for most of these sites and then there is usually an area to put in a short narrative. The sites of higher quality, like eHarmony, leave no stone unturned. It's like placing your DNA into a hopper and matching you up based on the most complex algorithms you can find. One would think that this is a fool proof method to find your ideal mate. Those who are pro online dating claim that the better companies really do have this down to a science. They say that their programs will match you up with someone even better than you can do yourself. If you go to these sites, especially eHarmony, you will read hundreds of testimonials of people who have been successfully matched up with the person they ultimately ended up marrying. Everything looks like just one big Garden Of Eden. But is it? Those who are opposed to online dating claim as the main problem with the whole concept something that is hard to argue with. People lie. Let's face it. If you're applying to an online dating service and you know that you have a very annoying habit of interrupting people when they speak and never let them get in the last word, you're not going to let someone know this. And while this may be an extreme example, there are more common ones. For example, a common question is how attractive you think you are to others. How many people are going to put down very unattractive? How many people will put down anything negative about themselves for that matter? If you were able to read the profiles of all the people who apply to online dating services you'd think that everyone in this world was a fashion model of a movie star. Yes, people lie. So how valid are these questionnaires, no matter how detailed they are? When it comes to online dating you have to take the whole industry with a grain of salt and realize that it isn't some magic formula. You could very well end up with somebody who is the exact opposite of what you're looking for. |
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