Adventures in eDating

As some of you may, and others may not know, I recently hit an all-new low and signed up for eHarmony.

I blame it on the abundance of tourists and married men in Las Vegas; my hectic work schedule; and a weak moment at a party where I found myself talking to two women, both coupled, one who found her +1 -- to whom she is now married -- on the dating Web site.

I was at a CineVegas party, actually, and the ladies were encouraging me to break from the flock and go find me a man. The crowd of short LA transplants was less than appetizing to me (and I've already blogged about the shameless CineVegas party boy crowd) and the one successful eDater bent my ear.

A week or so later, I broke down and signed up for eHarmony.

Since then, it's been fine. So far, so good, I guess. I've been matched with a bunch of local-ish guys (within 300 miles, originally, though I've since narrowed the filter to within 100 miles) and even went on a date.

That's not my issue.

The problem, for me, is the closing of matches.

See, despite being set up with people based on 10,001 factors of compatibility, I still get a lot of shorties, fatties, fuglies, and obvous d-bags sent my way.

(I've also been matched with two people I already knew, which was slightly awkward but still very funny to me.)

Whenever I get matched with a potential suitor, I try to review his profile immediately so I can delete him before he sees me in his matches. That way, he won't be so discoraged when he sees me suddenly disappear from his list. Or, worse yet, decline his "communication request" and instead seve him with a delete notice.

The service gives you a long list of reasons to cite when deleting a match: "I think the difference in our values is too great;" "I have too much happening in my life at the moment;" "Based on statements in their profile, I'm not interested in this match;" " I don't feel that the chemistry is there."

There are two rather ambiguous ones, as well: "I would rather not say" and "Other."

I tend to use the latter a lot, since eHarmony doesn't have "You're obviously a child molester," a "You're wearing Ed Hardy in your profile photo," or "You resemble Jabba the Hutt," options.

Needless to say, the search continues.