Day 2

Sunday...

I woke up nice and late on Sunday to my blinking blackberry...the cute guy who's questioned I answered and then asked my own has responded to my questions! I think it's time to name this guy and so let's pick places so as not to give anything away...so *Denver answered my questions. And no, I didn't get right up, turn on my computer and read them. No, I did what I had to do during the day, ran my errands, had some lunch...and then checked.

Aside...I was out running errands and imagined seeing these guys I've been "matched" with on eharmony and I swear I saw one of them in an aisle at Shoppers. Was it him? Maybe, maybe not, who knows? This big city can be awfully small. Just thought it was funny that I'm thinking that when I'm only on Day 2! Ha!

So back to *Denver! I like his answers! I'm definitely interested. Now what? His profile says he prefers fast track communication to guided but he started with guided so now what? I so don't know what protocol is on these things!

According to the guided communication method, the next step is sending each other our "must haves/can't stands" - this is a list of 10 items per list that you have to have or would hate to have in a partner. It's hard to have just 10, there are closer to 50 to choose from in the list and they make you pare it down on purpose. To perhaps learn something about yourself in the process. It's a long list and I went at it by selecting all the ones I thought were "must haves" for me and then taking off ones that wouldn't make the top ten. I did the same with the "can't stands". No one can see them unless I send them. But they are pretty personal and I'm not sure that is what I next want Denver to see from me. And should I wait for him to send me his if that's the next step? Or will he send me a fast track communication request where we get to having real emails/phone calls? Or should I send him one? I only have a month! Wait, deep breath, it's Day 2. But he replied right away! But it was a Sunday...oh geez this is so very weird for me.

Oh wait, it looks like the "must haves/can't stands" can only come from me. I guess if he initiates the questions then I have to initiate the "must haves" because the next step is to read his if he sends his back. Hmmm so do I do it? Am I supposed to wait a day? Is there a waiting time like in real life dating where you wait three days to call someone? Isn't the fact that we've paid to be online for the purpose of meeting people mean that waiting times don't exist? But I don't really want to send him my must haves even though I keep re-reading them and it's a good list.

This is all so structured. After this apparently you ask each other more questions, followed by "read Dr. Warren's message" before you get to "open communication" where I think you get to email each other straight up which until now, you are unable to do unless you request a fast track. WTF? Is Dr. Warren's message just standard don't do anything stupid advice like invite the guy to your home or to a private place where he might chop you up and kill you? Or are you telling me the elves behind the site are monitoring our communication and will offer advice before we talk? I have trouble thinking that's what it is, but if its' a standard message, why do we have to wait for 4 rounds of questions and some must haves before we get to read it?

I know this is a system for a reason, they believe it works. I should just go with it and stop analyzing - right, not that easy for me! That being said, they matched me with a minister from Peterborough...I'm just saying...

I haven't heard back from the other guy I answered his questions and sent him mine, let's call him *Kansas. That's okay by me, I'm just keeping you in the loop :-) Didn't hear back from icebreaker boy yet either - let's call him *Chicago.

What else? Oh! I forgot yesterday, you can request a picture from matches. I've done this 2 or 3 times now. I liked their profile and I'm only going to know if I want to further communicate if I can see a picture. I'm not on here to make nice friends, I love my friends and can meet new ones in the real world, I'm looking for something else on here and we've already committed to trying this online thing and be judged by our words and profile so we have to put our pictures out there too. So I'm requesting it. One guy asked me to answer some questions but didn't put up a picture so let's make a deal - you post a picture and then maybe I'll answer your questions...

F*&! it, I'm sending Denver my must haves/can't stands. Or am I...aargh...

Oh and so much for my wait and see, I'm going to initiate conversation with this cute teacher from yesterday. Let's call him *Philly.

Day 2 tally:

New matches worth discussing: 0
Questions sent that were answered: 1
Questions sent & waiting to be answered: 2
Pictures requested: 2
Must haves/Can't stands sent: .........?? !!!!

Day 1

Saturday...

Today is the day. I became a full member of eharmony and got to look at all of the potential matches that were waiting for me. Some have requested communication, some have sent icebreakers - I'll explain below...

Stevie is coming over later and I'm dying to wait until she gets here to have someone to go through this with! I can't wait, I have to see some of these guys so I log in, pay, and get started! There are about 25 guys in my "matches" section to check out. I've read their profiles now I want to see if any of them strike chemistry with me in their pictures.

I think I'm realistic, if there are a few in the 25 that might interest me to talk further, I think that's pretty good. But I've never done this before. How harsh do you be? How open should you be? It feels pretty shallow to disconnect communication based on a few pictures. And yet, I'm not 16, I know what I'm attracted to and what I'm not attracted to and put that together with some statements in a profile and I start to get a feel for what I'm doing on here.

There are a couple of guys that seem kind of cute! One of them has requested communication with me - what does that mean? If you follow what the site suggests which is "guided communication" then the request means he can ask me five questions - selected from a list of get to know you better type questions. I have the option of answering with one of the multiple choice answers or write in my own for under 200 words. There is a guy I want to answer his questions...so I do. Then I get a screen where I can now ask him five of the same list of questions. I select a few of the same he sent me and some of my own.

Topics include, where you see yourself living in 15 years, the type of schedule (how busy or available) you want your partner to be, what you like to do on a Saturday night, where you'd go on a vacation, what you'd do at a party where you don't know anyone other than your date, etc. Something about this guy, I kind of like. Great, I'm hooked :-)

Stevie shows up and helps me go through the rest of the guys on the site. Lots of no's - naturally. I didn't expect this to be the super-smart-super-model-single site of my dreams, I just hope there's someone on here to go out with and maybe connect with - and in just the first day, I think there will be. Heck, I just answered questions to a guy I am looking forward to hearing from!

Other things I've learned...you can skip the whole "guided communication" stuff and go for a "fast track" where you end up talking right away - you can have a secure phone call, you can request pictures from guys that don't post pictures - who doesn't post a picture! I'm on there man, what are you afraid of? I really liked a profile of this one guy and then he didn't have a picture. That put me off. You can tell a guy why you're closing the communication/match, or choose not to. I've done both - things like I think our values are too different based on our profiles, or I'm not feeling the chemistry, or the ever popular, "other".

If you get a closed communication notice you can read the message and then the site actually gives you the option to send one more message - only the person that closed the communication can reopen it but you can ask them to take another look at you. Weird? Maybe but I suspect people get pretty judgemental after being on this for a while and if someone doesn't respond quick enough you might close communication before they have a chance to. I had a closed communication with a guy I didn't know about because I wasn't a member. His reason was "other" so I'm not going to pursue it. Too bad, he was kind of cute and I liked his tattoos...oh well!

Icebreakers - a less aggressive hi, I'm interested. Where you can select from a list to say you like someone's smile or ask them to fill out more of their profile. I like those, or I like getting them I should say. I also like that you can only send one each and then you have to move forward or not. Unlike "poking" on facebook which seems to go on forever for no particular reason with most people. I got an icebreaker from a guy that said "Your profile caught my attention, let's chat!". He's cute for sure but there's very little info in his profile so I sent him an icebreaker back that said "You seem interesting, why don't you finish your About Me questions?" - it's not ideal. It's not exactly what I wanted to say but I think I'll have to just go with it, it was the best option on there - Stevie agreed! Man it helps to have someone to ask questions to when you're doing this for the first time!

And ahahaa, there's someone we know on here! Well I don't know him exactly but he's an actor we recognize from the show who is friends with someone that works on the show. Too funny. I'll have to ask her what she thinks, I wasn't moved either way by his profile but it's amusing and a little uncomfortable to recognize someone...

I have moved some guys to a maybe list, not sure why. I just don't want to be too quick to close communication, I'm going into this with an open mind. Maybe after a week or so on here I'll revise the maybe list. Hopefully there will be more guys I'm communicating with so that I'll know those maybe's are actually no's.

And my approach is to be fairly passive on this, it's hard enough for me to be out there doing this, going against my new tactic of not asking guys out, letting them ask me so I'm going to let guys ask me for communication and see where that takes me. So far there's just one or two guys on here that I wish would send me requests to communicate that haven't. We'll see how long I deny my own nature before I send those guys questions or icebreakers. For now, I'm looking forward to hearing back from the first couple of guys I've connected with.

So...tally for day 1:

Questions Answered and Asked back: 2
Icebreakers Returned: 1
Cute Guys: Somewhere between 2-5 of 25
Guys I'd like to hear from that I haven't yet: 2

To E (harmony) Or Not To E (harmony)?

I'm a 32 year old single woman living in the fabulous Metropolitan city of Toronto. I have a great career in television, an amazing group of friends and a very active social life. I play sports, run a book club, take guitar lessons, see bands, movies, go to the theatre, museums, symphony, everything this great city has to offer. So where are the men in this city that I'm doing it all alone?

Working in tv, I am surrounded by some of my good friends and a diverse group of young people with whom to share all of life's experiences. It's winter in Toronto and this leaves us all inside more often having more and more water cooler-type conversations. Inevitably, our dating sagas and duds are a frequent topic...

There seems to be a consensus among my friends (male & female, single and coupled) that the pool of great single men is lacking here. No offense guys, just speaking of a survey of experiences and looking around at the big group of amazing, hot, single women I have the pleasure of knowing. This is not in any way meant to be one of those man-bashing blogs, au contraire! I am hoping this blogs ends with some sort of happily ever after!

I've never online dated. I've always been fairly anti-online dating, saying it's not for me, I don't trust it or myself. I like that chemistry of meeting someone and the process of flirting in person. I know there are success stories out there but I personally don't have people in my immediate circle that have had anything other than a smattering of dates and hours of fun checking out, flirting with and talking to other single people. But no relationships. I also love my life and thinks it's very full as is and going on a number of bad dates on my fairly limited free time just doesn't sound like it's for me.

So where does eharmony come in? We got to talking in the office last week. A particularly frigid and depressing week - I love Toronto but there are days in January and February that can be nothing short of oppressive and we all feel it. I was feeling it. My friend, let's call her *Stevie, and I had just both had mediocre Friday night dates - hers a new guy and mine just someone to pass the time with a few times a year (don't worry, it's very mutual). A guy friend in the office talked about his new foray into the online dating world of okcupid and a familiar conversation about online options ensued: plentyoffish, lavalife, etc, etc... eharmony. Wait, what's eharmony? Isn't that the service with those adorable couple commercials? Stevie says she filled out a profile a year ago but has not paid for it, the profile was really long and kind of fun, I should just do it for the fun of it. They send you matches but you can't see them until you pay, no harm, no commitment, just fill out the profile? Sure, why not?

There's something about eharmony that's very intriguing in ways other online sites aren't. They claim to actually match you to other people based on a number (29 dimensions for anyone interested) of factors based on your initial questionnaire. It is long and kind of fun to fill out. I love surveys though so that was an easy sell on me! And they'll send you matches right away to see if you think it's worth paying the money.

So I filled it out. The next day I had a flood of emails from eharmony saying I had new matches. I read all of their profiles and was impressed with the ways they seemed fairly compatible with me. Lawyers, a guy in film, a teacher, some consultants, sales reps, some IT people, graphic artists, a wide array of men and all local! You can choose your geographic preferences but it was still good to know there are a number of guys in Toronto on here to possibly meet.

I was interested. It isn't like other sites where you randomly search for people with no direction other than hopefully hotness. They send them to you and if you want to see their pictures you have to pay. That's fair I think. There's a certain level of commitment to meeting someone real - at least in my head and that's what we're here to find out! - when you've paid for a service. How much? $250 CDN for a full year - yikes. That's a lot of money - sort of, it's about $20/mth. Or, $3 months for I think $120 - would have to check my facts there so it's about $40/mth that way. Or...$60 one time fee for one month. $60? Sounds like a deal if it means I meet someone great - it's even a bit of a deal to go on a few possible dates. And not that much to lose if nothing comes of it. I was interested.

I read everything on the site, I read the creator's story, I read the "science" behind the matching, I read the real couple success stories, I read the fine print on what they would do with my credit card info if I only picked the one month (they charge you automatically for $50 for another month). I read the blog where some people complained it didn't work for them and down to the answers that said it does seem to work best for 30-somethings in densely populated areas...And they continued to send me matches of totally good sounding guys. And guys requesting communication with me...

So I start to survey my friends what they think: To E (harmony Or Not To E (harmony). Guys, girls, single, coupled, friends, co-workers - all a resounding YES, DO IT! I also threw the idea out there that I'd create this blog to go along with it so they could all follow along - I'm sure that had a bit to do with the fervor behind the YESSES! but taking that into account they all still said yes. Stevie wants to do it too but wavers, I was still not sure.

Cut to: It's Friday night. And payday. I have a clear credit card and a world full of curiosity about these guys that are supposedly matched for me. One of my best friends, *Natalie, happens to be in town that night and drops by for some glasses, er, um, bottles of wine and I tell her what I'm thinking about. This is a friend who's advice and opinion I take very seriously. She's seen me at my best and worst in the past several years and vice versa. She is so excited by the sound of eharmony and me doing it that she gets up goes to her wallet and hands me $60. Not taking no for an answer, "call it a late Christmas, early birthday, for the wine we've just had whatever present!" I guess I'm signing up. But it's 4am so I think I'll wait for tomorrow!