Is eHarmony the same as Match?

[JuneJulySeptember]

I just signed up for Match.

 

Right off the bat, it didn't look very promising, but whatever, it wasn't a lot of $.

 

eHarmony is a lot more expensive, but I do like the fact that you can say stuff like you have loyalty as a characteristic and that you don't put that much value on looks, etc.

 

However, I have a feeling when it gets down to the nitty gritty, it's going to be essentially the same as Match.com. Just people screening themselves out based on looks, and if that's the case, there's no need to sign up for 2 sites.

 

Opinions?

[insert_name]

I signed up for match on the basis that I had recebtly seen people saying they had met their wife/friend had met their wife on there after having no luck on the free sites etc so it seemed to be legit- very disappointed with the reality. Now I am seeing people say the same for eharmony- I'm not making that mistake again, especially if its more money.

 

There will always be anomalies, you have to decide whether your odds of finding a partner will increase sufficiently to justify the costs. Bear in mind that only a small percentage of the men who are in the entire online dating arena will get into a long term relationship via OLD and it really looks like throwing good money after bad, imo. If match isnt working for you then I dont think eharmony will.

 

The only exception being that the cost will surely weed out a lot of players and attraxt only the most serious women, but as match shows when money changes hands the list of demands in a partner increases so men find themsleves paying money to struggle to meet the criteria. I imagine this must reach its zenith on eharmony

[d0nnivain]

The sites operate differently. On e-harmony they match you & you only chose from the profiles they send you. On match it's all self select. In the end people are going to make decisions based on a variety of factors & looks will most likely be one of them.

 

 

If you do a search you can often find a coupon for e-harmony & save yourself some money.

[newmoon]

i've done both. eharmony is very different. they send you matches, so you can't go browsing like you can on match. and, depending upon your answers to their very extensive questionnaire you can end up getting no matches every day to maybe 7 or more. i average about 10 matches a week. it's much more limiting than match because you cannot see pictures unless you're actually matched to that person, or unless they are a "what if" possibility. as a female i like it much better because only matches can see my photos and not everyone who signs on with an account. there are some downsides that are similar though; you cannot tell who is a paying member vs. who is not, so you end up with some 'dead' matches sometimes - people who have been off the site for a while. and just like match, you comes across profiles that haven't been filled in and etc. i have found that the age runs much higher on eharmony, and they do stick very close to what you ask for when you get a match, so you should answer the questions well. they don't send you people by color of hair/eyes/height, etc. but do send you the more important preferences, like kids/religion/education level, etc. the matches they send are actually very strong. i'd go with eharmony over match if you;re super serious and willing to wait quite a while for a date. it's not nearly as fast as match and 1st dates can take 1 month+ of chatting to even get to. much slower but better imo. i got a coupon for eharmony that brought the rate down for 6 months, and i waited til match expired before i signed up for eharmony. from the short time i've been on eharmony i have seen zero crossover in terms of pictures; no pictures i saw on match have been matched to me on eharmony. so, there is not the crossover you get between match/okcupid.

Edited November 29, 2014 by newmoon

[FitChick]

I didn't know that the same parent company owned Tinder, OK Cupid, How About We and Match. Have you spotted the same pics with the same usernames and profiles? If the usernames and profiles are identical then you can contact anyone through any portal. However, I think they are all separate since someone on Match would be shocked at being contacted for a hookup via Tinder. Someone who has a couple of accounts should try searching for themselves on the other sites to see.

 

How specific can you be about your physical requirements on eHarmony?

Edited November 29, 2014 by FitChick

[newmoon]

I didn't know that the same parent company owned Tinder, OK Cupid, How About We and Match. Have you spotted the same pics with the same usernames and profiles? If the usernames and profiles are identical then you can contact anyone through any portal. However, I think they are all separate since someone on Match would be shocked at being contacted for a hookup via Tinder. Someone who has a couple of accounts should try searching for themselves on the other sites to see.

 

How specific can you be about your physical requirements on eHarmony?

 

you don't come up on other sites. i had okcupid/match at one point and you don't come up on each place. you can - i suppose - pick the same username for both sites and someone could find you that way, that'd be easy enough. and a lot of people do that to avoid paying. they put their email as their username and hope you'll search them out that way. w/eharmony you can ask for a specific height and label it as important/not important/mandatory and you can limit by body type and restrict the importance as well. so, for example, i put mandatory of over 5'10 and mandatory for a body type, so they are really good about only sending matches that meet that, and the rest fall into a 'what if' category - like, take a look at these guys who could be matches, but they are under your height preference. i did put a body type preference and i must say that no match has been overweight, so that tells me that a) eharmony is matching based on that preference and b) the matches are being honest as well.

[JuneJulySeptember]

you don't come up on other sites. i had okcupid/match at one point and you don't come up on each place. you can - i suppose - pick the same username for both sites and someone could find you that way, that'd be easy enough. and a lot of people do that to avoid paying. they put their email as their username and hope you'll search them out that way. w/eharmony you can ask for a specific height and label it as important/not important/mandatory and you can limit by body type and restrict the importance as well. so, for example, i put mandatory of over 5'10 and mandatory for a body type, so they are really good about only sending matches that meet that, and the rest fall into a 'what if' category - like, take a look at these guys who could be matches, but they are under your height preference. i did put a body type preference and i must say that no match has been overweight, so that tells me that a) eharmony is matching based on that preference and b) the matches are being honest as well.

 

But that's what I mean.

 

If a woman's height min is 5'X", then whatever site she is on, it won't change. So, on eHarmony, if you get a match but he's not near your height/race requirement what does a woman do?

 

I actually do like the concept and parts of the questionnaire were inspiring, others felt lame.

 

Also, how do you apply the coupon? Do you have to put your credit card info in first, and then put the code in?

Edited November 29, 2014 by JuneJulySeptember

[newmoon]

But that's what I mean.

 

If a woman's height min is 5'X", then whatever site she is on, it won't change. So, on eHarmony, if you get a match but he's not near your height/race requirement what does a woman do?

 

I actually do like the concept and parts of the questionnaire were inspiring, others felt lame.

 

well, you won't even see the match if they are not at your height/weight requirement. so, it's a non-issue. it's awesome (from my pov) because why do i want a guy 5'6 contacting me? on match he could, on eharmony he cannot. they do give you some potential matches that fall outside your requirements, but it's definitely not like match. you can just browse like a shopping mall there, but not on eh.

[JuneJulySeptember]

well, you won't even see the match if they are not at your height/weight requirement.

 

Oh, I see. So basically, it'd be a complete waste of $ for me.

 

Almost nobody sets their height requirements at or lower than my height.

 

I thought you said that eHarmony didn't screen based on looks. I guess I was mistaken.

[newmoon]

Oh, I see. So basically, it'd be a complete waste of $ for me.

 

Almost nobody sets their height requirements at or lower than my height.

 

I thought you said that eHarmony didn't screen based on looks. I guess I was mistaken.

 

they don't screen on color of eyes/hair and etc. but on weight and height, yes. each person can set height and weight as mandatory/important/not important. so if a woman picks 'not important' that would be in your favor. if she picks mandatory, she'd never see you, depending on her height requirement.

[FitChick]

Does eHarmony edit or censor your profiles? I am wondering if Match does or if I'm losing my bloody mind. There were two different sentences I always put in regarding men contacting me and I just noticed they are missing.

[scubasteve]

Does eHarmony edit or censor your profiles? I am wondering if Match does or if I'm losing my bloody mind. There were two different sentences I always put in regarding men contacting me and I just noticed they are missing.

 

Yes they do

[smg15]

I think what both sites have in common is they are expensive and don't allow you to view pics of the members online until you purchased a membership

[JuneJulySeptember]

I think what both sites have in common is they are expensive and don't allow you to view pics of the members online until you purchased a membership

 

I think every guy, especially those who don't do that great with women, should try online dating. It gives you a good idea of what you are up against in real life, and a better plan of how to attack it.

[smg15]

I think what both sites have in common is they are expensive and don't allow you to view pics of the members online until you purchased a membership

[newmoon]

Does eHarmony edit or censor your profiles? I am wondering if Match does or if I'm losing my bloody mind. There were two different sentences I always put in regarding men contacting me and I just noticed they are missing.

 

yes, they do. and a member can request an edit as well. lots of people try to slip their email into the profile, or a "contact me at ..." and if they catch that they will delete it out on their own or at the request of other members. on eh, not sure if match does it.

[FitChick]

I think what both sites have in common is they are expensive and don't allow you to view pics of the members online until you purchased a membership

You can view Match members without subscribing. Just create a profile.

[FitChick]

lots of people try to slip their email into the profile, or a "contact me at ..." and if they catch that they will delete it out on their own or at the request of other members. on eh, not sure if match does it.

They all do. I am surprised when some do slip through. One guy had his phone number as his user name!

[jcrew11]

Has anyone tried matchmakers like "Its just lunch"?

 

I heard they sometimes give Men free dates because they don't have enough men in their database, and they usually have only women paying as customers. I guess a lot of women are too scared to try match.com and leave it up to sketchy matchmakers.

 

If they really are giving free dates to men, then that seems like a great opportunity. Can anyone verify this?

[writergal]

eHarmony is supposed to have a better dating pool. But it seems like people have 3 dating profiles online; on POF, Match and eHarmony to cover their bases. Waste of their money if they do. Just pick one and you'll have the same luck as you would with 2 more OLD profiles on different sites.

[BluEyeL]

I tried almost every site, except POF, and apps like tinder.

 

Eharmony, I had no luck. They matched me with people outside my area, and rarely got any dates.

 

I did It's just lunch. It's not working and it was $2000 down the drain. They give you 10 guaranteed dates but guess what, it's completely blind dating. I never got a second date from It's just lunch because men didn't see me in advance and obviously didn't like how I looked. It's not that I would have said yes to most of them anyway, but nevertheless, never got a second date from there.

 

I had 100% call back for a second date on online dating, because men saw pictures before so only men who already liked how I looked like and also who talked to me online/on the phone before meeting asked me out.

 

I also did Great Expectations. $6000 down the drain. It's more like a meetup, they do events. They also have an online database you can search, but it's limited compared to online dating. Dating pool is really low quality there, desperate men sign up for that. I think it's really a scam. What I got out of that is some professional pictures that I used for match.com

 

The site I found to work best in terms of quantity and quality is match.com You get tones of people, quality is reasonable, I met many decent people there that I went out with for periods of time from one to three months, before I met my current boyfriend of 5 months there.

 

I did all this searching within one year and a half. I also used meetup and went to singles events. I got a 3 month summer fling out of that, in 2013.

 

So in summary, in a total of 18 months until I found a serious relationship (I'm 42 now, almost 43), my summary is this:

 

1. eharmony: really low return, just two dates in more than a year, quality not any better than match, very restrictive and frustrating.

 

2. match.com: met several good quality men, professional men, good character, people who weren't into it for sex and who treated me right. Got 100% first to second date call back. Observation: the way I wrote my profile made a very big difference on the type of men I attracted. I had different versions and I had best results with one of them. It was a big difference. Pictures also make a huge difference. You also need to change something in your profile every week and run searches/log in often to have the search engine put you at the top and increase visibility. Like I said my current relationship is from match.com

 

3. It's just lunch: blind dating doesn't work. Really low return rate.

 

4. Matchmaking: the worst.

 

5. meetup.com: at least it's free and you can get some dates out of it. You can screen people in person before going out.

 

6. I also did speed dating. Three times. Nothing came out of it.

[JuneJulySeptember]

I tried almost every site, except POF, and apps like tinder.

 

Eharmony, I had no luck. They matched me with people outside my area, and rarely got any dates.

 

I did It's just lunch. It's not working and it was $2000 down the drain. They give you 10 guaranteed dates but guess what, it's completely blind dating. I never got a second date from It's just lunch because men didn't see me in advance and obviously didn't like how I looked. It's not that I would have said yes to most of them anyway, but nevertheless, never got a second date from there.

 

I had 100% call back for a second date on online dating, because men saw pictures before so only men who already liked how I looked like and also who talked to me online/on the phone before meeting asked me out.

 

I also did Great Expectations. $6000 down the drain. It's more like a meetup, they do events. They also have an online database you can search, but it's limited compared to online dating. Dating pool is really low quality there, desperate men sign up for that. I think it's really a scam. What I got out of that is some professional pictures that I used for match.com

 

The site I found to work best in terms of quantity and quality is match.com You get tones of people, quality is reasonable, I met many decent people there that I went out with for periods of time from one to three months, before I met my current boyfriend of 5 months there.

 

I did all this searching within one year and a half. I also used meetup and went to singles events. I got a 3 month summer fling out of that, in 2013.

 

So in summary, in a total of 18 months until I found a serious relationship (I'm 42 now, almost 43), my summary is this:

 

1. eharmony: really low return, just two dates in more than a year, quality not any better than match, very restrictive and frustrating.

 

2. match.com: met several good quality men, professional men, good character, people who weren't into it for sex and who treated me right. Got 100% first to second date call back. Observation: the way I wrote my profile made a very big difference on the type of men I attracted. I had different versions and I had best results with one of them. It was a big difference. Pictures also make a huge difference. You also need to change something in your profile every week and run searches/log in often to have the search engine put you at the top and increase visibility. Like I said my current relationship is from match.com

 

3. It's just lunch: blind dating doesn't work. Really low return rate.

 

4. Matchmaking: the worst.

 

5. meetup.com: at least it's free and you can get some dates out of it. You can screen people in person before going out.

 

6. I also did speed dating. Three times. Nothing came out of it.

 

Wow. Thanks for the detailed info.

 

It looks like online dating is really not for me. The pool of potential women who will accept my physicals is just way too small.

 

But I'll keep it chugging for the paid duration and see if I can get at least one person to agree to go on a date.

 

Does anybody want to make a wager out of it?

Edited December 1, 2014 by JuneJulySeptember

[BluEyeL]

It's true that I'm a woman, but I'm a single mom, I have my kid 100% of the time, I'm over 40, and I'm not slim. I'm not "big", but not slim either. Average and my BMI is in the overweight (not obese) category.

 

My secret is: if I have a goal in life, I NEVER give up no matter what obstacles. I fall, I stand up, adjust and go at it again. I'm relentless. I go after a goal like gangbusters. I believe that if there is a will, there is a way. I have blind faith in my abilities. I am open to learning and changing my approach based on the results. I am very big into positive thinking. I keep telling myself that I'm amazing, men love me and anyone would be lucky to be with me and that transpires in my attitude, making me have confidence when I date. I don't take looks into consideration when dating, only character traits. Attraction builds up from other things than looks. Six packs don't do anything for me if they're on an arsehole.

 

You could try to be more optimistic and try getting better at dating, through reading, practicing and positive visualization of your goals.

 

If a single mother over 40, with average looks, could do it within 18 months, so can you.

[smg15]

I think every guy, especially those who don't do that great with women, should try online dating. It gives you a good idea of what you are up against in real life, and a better plan of how to attack it.

 

It's just that those 2 sites are very expensive. I stick to the ones that are $9.95 to $19.95

[smg15]

You can view Match members without subscribing. Just create a profile.

 

Ok well maybe that was eharmony that did not allow me to view the members