1. They’re a Christian Fundamentalist organization

Despite their attempts to portray founder, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, as a friendly cross between Yoda and Father Christmas, eHarmony is a company that got its break during appearances in “Focus on the Family” radio broadcasts. Dr. Warren likes making money more than he like’s defending James Dobson, so his conservative right-wing ideology is varnished over on the eHarmony site, but that doesn’t mean you can pretend your subscription money isn’t being used to fund school sponsored prayer, corporal punishment, homophobia and pro-life lobbying – fine if you agree but worth noting if you don’t.

That also meand they don’t want your business is you’re depressed, have been married more than twice, are an atheist or are gay (yes, they run “Compatible Sodomites Partners, no they don’t want to.) Dr. Warren has said “…here are six places in the Bible that say homosexuality is wrong.” only to continue, “On the other hand, in the Old Testament if you work on the Sabbath day and you’re guilty, then you should be shot.” (I think he means stoned, given it’s the Old Testament he quoting, not Guns and Ammo).

You will be judged and no, eHarmony is not offline on Sundays (run Dr. Warren! Run!)

2. They’re lying about those ’29 dimensions of compatibility’

Though Dr. Warren has a PhD in psychology, it doesn’t mean he’s incapable of using any perceived authority to legitimize pseudo-scientific claptrap he’s plucked out of the air. eHarmony loudly claims to base its matching algorithm on science and research, while failing to publish any of the science they claim to be charging for. Does anyone know what these ’29 dimensions’ are because Dr. Warren’s not telling and it’s a logical place to start?

Worse still, the site design itself makes it obvious they’re using nothing more sophisticated than a comparison, and a bubble-sort, to make matches. With an algorithm which requires 258 data-points to work, and that’s how many questions they ask each member, how clever can it be? Doesn’t asking anyone 258 questions give you a reasonable chance at matching them with a person they may like?

There’s no ‘secret science’ I’m aware of that doesn’t involve Nazi’s and time-travel, but we’re being asked to believe, or have faith, there’s a lot of clever stuff being done for our own good eHarmony can’t tell us about it. It’s rubbish. Science is public by definition, if you can’t review the findings you can’t claim it’s real. Isn’t it wrong to claim you’re doing ‘scientific matching’ if you haven’t proved your system scientifically, or that there’s any real science in it?

3. They don’t want you to fall in love

eHarmony gets a lot of press for the claim it’s responsible for 2% of US weddings. The numbers are hard to check because they come from a Harris Interactive poll paid for by eHarmony (no conflict there), and the raw data’s not been made available to the public. You could say Dr. Neil Clark Warren is the man behind 1% of American divorces of course, but that’s less marketable.

Even if those numbers hold-up you have to ask what they mean. If you appeal to conservative Christians who don’t believe in sex before marriage, you’re going to corral a self-selecting group of users eager to marry. In fact you will combine the ingredients necessary for marriages doomed to fail, desperation, sexual frustration and unrealistic expectations. Unsurprisingly – eHarmony doesn’t provide data on their marriages longevity, presumably because they don’t care, or don’t want us to know the truth. Either way, numbers of marriages entered into by itself can’t be seen as a measure of dating-site success. A marriage that ends after a year isn’t a more long-term relationship than dating for a year but by talking endlessly about marriage long-term success is implied.

More tellingly, when you join eHarmony they only allow you to communicate with people who’ve also bought memberships. If they really wanted to give you the best chance of a match, why not introduce paying members to non-paying members if they’re found to be compatible? Instead they demand payment form everyone involved, as if the most important dimension of compatibility is having a credit card on file with eHarmony.

If their matching algorithm was brilliant, most people would meet life-mates within a few dates and you’d see rapid turn-over and consistently low membership numbers. It would be a hard place to stay single (don’t forget, they won’t let you join if they don’t approve of your character). When you look at the site, neither is true. Joining eHarmony costs $60 a month, and their best customers are the ones who stay active longest (which is true of all subscription sites). They make money sending single people on unsuccessful dates.

Buyer beware.

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