How Does eHarmony Work?

Published on March 25, 2010

This post will be a guide to eHarmony. It is the second post in a three-part series where I’m going to discuss in detail using Match.com (see my previous article), eHarmony, and finally I will compare these services to determine which is the “better” of the two. In this article, I’ll be describing eHarmony from the ground up.

For a broader conversation on this dating service, see my eHarmony Review post.

Thoughts on the eHarmony Profile

eHarmony is known for its long sign-up time but that’s part of the service. The long sign-up process is based on determining your personality and then providing all your matches based on the results of this personality test.

Before I discuss the individual areas of the profile creation, let me make a suggestion. With eHarmony, you must be as honest as possible. Painfully honest if necessary. It is very easy to answer a question in a less than accurate way because you want to be more inclusive with the people you will be matched with. You’re worried that if you say you leave your room messy some people won’t be interested in you so you say that you leave your room clean.

This is a bad idea because the test is meant to help you find that person who doesn’t mind that the room is messy! This is an arbitrary example but the point is you must be honest in your profile. Your entire experience on eHarmony will be based on how you answer these questions so you need to take this very seriously.

Creating Your Profile at eHarmony – Part 1

Your personality profile is first up and the majority of this section will be answering multiple choice questions along with a few sections where you will type descriptions of yourself. Below I’ll briefly describe a majority of the sections you will be filling out.

Congratulations! You’re done at this point…sort of. When I went through this process it took about 30 minutes (although I was distracted a few times). You’ll be shown a screen with subscription options. As with Match.com, this screen can be confusing the first time it is viewed because it looks like you need to sign up. You don’t. Just click on the View Your Matches link to move on. With any luck, you’ll immediately have matches to review. I received 7 matches when signing up which is a fair number.

Hold on before you start looking at your matches because you’re not done with your profile yet! I’m not sure why eHarmony separates the profile creation into two separate sections but they do. Maybe the point is to help people get through the initial sign-up process which can be tiresome to someone new to online dating. At any rate, on to the next part.

Creating Your Profile at eHarmony – Part 2

If you are on your matches screen, click About Me at the top of the screen. You can change your basic settings (like height, occupation, etc) and can also add more photos in this area. However, to finish the profile the “In My Own Words” and “Values” sections need to be completed

In My Own Words
This is the area where you will build the bulk of the text in your profile The text areas you filled in during your first part of your profile creation will be included in what people can see of you but these sections will fill in the rest. eHarmony is very unique in the questions they have you complete for your profile. Instead of the traditional “About Me” or “About My Date” boxes, they have you answer specific questions that will reveal who you are. The following are the questions that you are asked to complete:

• Other than your parents, who has been the most influential person in your life and why?
• What is the most important quality you are looking for in another person?
• Other than your appearance, what is the first thing that people notice about you?
• What is the ONE thing that people DON’T notice about you right away that you WISH they WOULD?
• What are five things that you “can’t live without?”
• Describe the last book you read and enjoyed.

As you can see, these are not what people have come to expect with online dating profile sections but they get the job done and they may actually encourage better profiles. This is because when presented with a blank page to fill in anything about themselves, many people fill in hardly anything at all. With these specific sections specified, more people may fill in additional information about themselves than they would have normally.

Values
Values are split into two areas: “Must Haves” and “Can’t Stands”. The “Must Haves” is a checklist for you to select attributes that you like for your date to have. This section includes items such as Chemistry, Verbal Intimacy, Strong Character, and Artisticness to name a few. In line with this, “Can’t Stands” are qualities you do not want to have in a person that you date. Examples in the “Can’t Stands” list include Anger, Lying, Vanity and Laziness.

Again, it’s best to be as honest as you can be.

Communicating with Other Singles

Obviously the first step is to view profiles and then to contact the people you are most interested in. Once you decide to contact someone, the process below will begin. It is worth noting that whoever starts the communication process gets to go first in each of the steps described below.

Step One: Closed-Ended Questions
The first step is to send each other closed-ended questions. These questions are multiple choice and generally easy to answer. They should help reveal more about your match and you’ll choose five of these questions to send. As a part of this step you’ll also send answers to the five questions they asked of you. As an example, the following is one of the closed-ended questions you can ask:

In addition to the default answers, you can also answer with your own words in a provided text box.

Step Two: You Trade Your 10 “Must Haves” and 10 “Can’t Stands”
The second round of communication consists of reviewing and exchanging your personal list of “Must Haves” and “Can’t Stands” with your match. In my experience, this step goes by very quickly as there isn’t much for either of you to do at this point aside from reading their selections (and making sure you’re still interested).

Step Three: Open-Ended Questions
The next step of eHarmony’s communication process is to write each other three open-ended questions. eHarmony does provide some samples you can choose from but be sure to ask the questions you really want answered. This is a good opportunity to find out exactly what you want to know, not what eHarmony suggests you should want to know.

Step Four: Emailing Each Other
This is the last step and from here on out communication will work the same within the eHarmony: you’ll send each other emails including whatever you would like in them. Normally at this point I had many things I wanted to talk with the woman about because of the eHarmony communication process. The process is great but for every question answered during the process you’ll think of several more that you will have to wait for this stage to find out more about.

As I described in my online dating guide, I think you should schedule the first date sooner rather than later. Three or four emails and then I think you should be talking about meeting. eHarmony’s communication process can cause some people to stop making decisions since each stage is controlled for you. The last stage (actually meeting) will require one of you to move things along without eHarmony’s assistance. This may sound obvious but just keep it in mind.

Unique Features to eHarmony

These are additional features that eHarmony offers. Note that each of these services has additional cost associated with them.

ProfileAdvisor: This feature allows you to get a professional writer from eHarmony to help you better express the real you in your profile. This will run you around $100 (ouch).

SecureCall: This allows you to talk with others on your phone anonymously (in other words, they can’t get your phone number and you don’t have theirs). You can control who can call you and who can’t and which phones the calls will be routed to. $5.95 a month.

RelyID: RelyID is basically a background check. It give an extra degree of comfort to those who are communicating with you as it shows you are who you say you are. $5.95 a year.

Premium Personality Profile: This is an expanded version of the personality profile taken when signing up up at eHarmony. This is for you personally and won’t help directly with those you are looking to meet at the site (although it may help indirectly if it helps you identify areas of growth I guess). $19.99 one-time fee.

Other Random Thoughts on eHarmony

• You can’t see any photos unless you sign up. I think this is a mistake as I believe that eHarmony should at least show a single photo as this could actually encourage people to sign up…but that’s just me.
• Icebreakers allow you to send a message for free even if you aren’t paying. Icebreakers are very difficult for me to understand. If you’re not paying, there is little reason to send them unless you want to see if someone replies before you sign up. Once you’re a member though, I don’t know how these would be used. The communication process is so controlled within eHarmony I think these would only slow things down.

Subscribing to eHarmony

Subscribing is straight-forward process although there are a few different options. I think it is again worth mentioning my thoughts on the appropriate amount of time to sign up for. eHarmony bases most of its saving off of signing up for a full year. A year is excessive but if you can stick with it, the plan would save you a substantial amount of money. There are also coupons you can use for further savings:

eHarmony Promotion Codes – Save Up to 20%

Often when you sign up, eHarmony will have a package that will include other promotions if you sign up for a full year. Occasionally these savings add up enough that they do make the 12 month subscription a very good deal. I also believe that you can use the promotions above with the other offers eHarmony presents.

One thing I always mention when discussing signing up at dating service is the fact that most (all?) dating services will automatically renew you for the same plan you are currently subscribed with. This means if you signed up for a year, when the year is up they’ll renew your subscription for another year. My suggestion is this: if you sign up for a long time period immediately cancel your subscription after doing so. This won’t prevent you from using the service (you’re paid up until your time runs out) but it will prevent the service from auto-renewing.

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In my next article I’ll discuss I’ll be discussing eHarmony versus Match.com and my thoughts on the two services when compared to one another.

The eharmony Difference? Deep compatibility! Try it Today!

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