And the saga continues…
Sort of.
Today was my last day on eHarmony.com as a paying member. Assuming nothing changes for the better (which I highly doubt), I will be completely closing my account in 7 days. So, all of you lovely eager ladies who are simply waiting for the right moment to sign up to be matched up with yours truly, your potential knight in shining armor, are simply too late.
*Waits for the raucous laughter to die down.*
So, anyway, here’s the email I sent to their customer service, just to let them know exactly why they won’t be getting my $50 a month anymore:
To Whom it May Concern:
As you can see by my account information, I have decided to not renew paying for my account. Within 7 days, I will completely close my account. This is for several reasons, which I hope you will take into consideration as you continue to improve your site. These reasons are as follows:
1. The inordinately large number of noncommunicative matches: Out of 85 matches that I have received in the 4 months that I have been a member, 1 match was communicated with in real life (for a time), 4 matches reached open communication, but no outside communication ensued, 10 matches were closed somewhere in the directed communication process, and a full 70 matches never responded to communication whatsoever. I assume that most, if not all of these are due to the requirement that a potential match must become a subscriber to take part in the communication process.
However, I believe these ratios to be rather inappropriate. I believe that it may be appropriate to consider allowing directed communication to those who have not yet become a subscriber, and then only allowing open communication to subscribers, to ease the problems with having such a horrendous ratio of non-responders.
2. Site problems/Slow site: I have discovered several technical issues with your site, including slow load times, stalled connections, failed/broken links, and links that go to to the wrong places. I believe some of this may have to do with your site’s non-compliance with internationally recognized standards-based web coding structures. As not everyone will or even can use Internet Explorer, I would recommend that you fix the problems with your site and upgrade your speed and servers to allow for the slow connectivity.
3. Lack of flexibility: Your organization of matches, methods of communication, etc., do not, in any way, allow for flexibility. The only way to view my matches is to go through several links of only 5 matches per page. On slower connections, this becomes quite burdensome, as I must wait for your slow servers (see point 2) to keep up with me. Additionally, the manner in which I want to view my matches should be customizable in even simple configurations, such as “By Date Created” “By Status”, “By Location”, “By Alphabetical Order”, and even possibly by my own ranking system. Simple changes such as these can assist with the overall experience.
Finally, the method of communication needs more flexibility as well. While I appreciate the “Fast Track” system, that still only leaves 2 methods of communication. Your directed process, and simply diving right in. Is there no middle ground? Can more questions be added or customized? Can I make up my own short Multiple Choice Questions or add items to your list of Must Haves/Can’t Stands? This lack of flexibility makes it extremely difficult to use your site reliably.
I apologize for the griping, but I feel that since I will be taking my business elsewhere, I might as well let you know why, so that in the future, I might again rejoin your site if some of these major problems are addressed.
Thank you for your time.
So, that’s it. If you’re thinking of joining eHarmony.com, you might reconsider. At first, I thought the concept was great. I’ve come to find that concept doesn’t help if the execution just plain sucks.
And, to top it off, D.H. moves away in two weeks. To be perfectly honest, twice this week she’s asked me to spend time with her, only to be incommunicado until several hours after she promised to call. Calling to warn someone that they’ve gotten tied up with something and are unavailable is a concept that I’ve discovered that most people don’t understand. I suppose the concept of common courtesy and open communication died with the advent of the cellphone, which seems anathema to the paradigm, so to speak.
I seriously need to stop going to meetings with management. I think I’m starting to talk like them. But maybe I’m just being paranoid. You haven’t noticed anything different have you?
So, I’m back to Square One, which is beginning to feel like home to me.
As you may have noticed, whenever I write an entry about my relationship… stuff (for lack of a better or less explicit word), I title it as “Do you think you’re better off alone?”. This is due to one of my favorite techno songs, titled “Better off alone” by Alice Deejay.
And it’s a question that I ask myself almost every day. Sometimes several times a day. Why do I put myself through all of this crap? Why do I work so hard at something when, underneath, I know the chances of anything actually working out amount to pretty much zilcho?
But, due to my emotional side (hormones), the side that tends to win in internal arguments, I have to keep trying. To be honest, I’m sick and tired of being alone. I would like to start working on building a relationship, instead of picking up the pieces of the old, dead, and stupid ones. And believe me, there are more than a few of those. Fortunately, most of which are resolved. Most, I said, not all.
I suppose I want, I assume, what most people want, which is simply to love and be loved. I want to fall in love again. And this time, I’m a little older, a little wiser, and a little less blind to the truth. Hopefully I can start to learn some new lessons instead of making the same mistakes I’ve made before. But I’m not getting the chance to learn any lessons, unfortunately.
It is kind of depressing to watch all of my friends getting married. I have about 6 friends (couples) getting married this year. Last year it was 4. I’ve even told one of my good friends that I was even a little jealous, not of who he is getting married to, but the fact that he and his fiance are a couple that I can see until death truly do them part. They have a great amount of potential as husband and wife, and I wish them all the best and support I can muster.
But I must admit that I’m jealous of their happiness, in the “Dang, that must be nice” kind of way.
So, I think I’ll join a new online dating service. One that doesn’t RSTBO (Really suck the big one).
The funny thing? I can see myself in 20 years as that weird guy down the street with about 15 cats who plays strange music too loud at inappropriate times. Right now, I’m just the weird guy in the corner apartment with one cat who plays strange music too loud at inappropriate times.
Go figure…
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