Why Does eHarmony Reject People?

Am I the last person on Earth to learn that eHarmony (http://www.eharmony.com) actually rejects people? Over a million people, to be specific. I assumed they just said that in order to make their service more desirable, on the theory that appearing to have higher standards would give them more of an allure. (Remember the immortal words of Groucho Marx: "I wouldn't want to be part of any club that would have me as a member.”)

But a friend e-mailed me the other day and told me that HE – a nice, normal, interesting, creative single guy – got rejected. He forwarded me the eHarmony rejection message, which stated that they were unable to match him at this time, explaining:

“eHarmony is based upon a complex matching system developed through extensive research with married couples. One of the requirements for successful matching is that participants fall within certain defined profiles. If we find that we will not be able to match a user using these profiles, we feel it is only fair to inform them early in the process. We are so convinced of the importance of creating compatible matches to help people establish happy, lasting relationships that we sometimes choose not to provide service rather than risk an uncertain match. Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching model could not accurately predict with whom you would be best matched. This occurs for about 20% of potential users, so 1 in 5 people simply will not benefit from our service. We hope that you understand, and we regret our inability to provide service for you at this time.”

Now keep in mind, I have received eHarmony matches who literally could not compose a sentence without typos in every other word, and they reject my friend, a perfectly normal, articulate, interesting, creative single guy? What gives? My friend had listed “atheist” under his religious views, and since eHarmony has a Christian bent (even though they don’t advertise it), my friend thought that’s probably why he was rejected. A few Internet searches on rejection by eHarmony turned up other atheists who also assumed that’s why they were turned down.

I did some further searching and found an article by Janet Kornblum in USA Today entitled “eHarmony: Heart and Soul,” which discusses how Neil Clark Warren, the psychologist who founded eHarmony, has a divinity degree, and several of his books were published by conservative Christian group Focus on the Family. Interestingly, Kornblum notes that Warren “started out marketing primarily to Christian sites, touting eHarmony as ‘based on the Christian principles of Focus on the Family author Dr. Neil Clark Warren.’ The connection may come as a surprise to today's mainstream users: Nothing in Warren's TV or radio ads…hints at his Christian background.”

But now Warren is trying to distance himself from that and is promoting eHarmony in a secular way, because, in his words, "we're trying to reach the whole world — people of all spiritual orientations, all political philosophies, all racial backgrounds.” Even people who can’t compose a coherent e-mail, if my experience is any indication!

But Kornblum goes on to state that “eHarmony does not reject on the basis of religion; it has atheists, agnostics and even Wiccans among customers, [Warren] says.” And apparently his patented Compatibility Matching System™ does NOT consist of printing out people's profiles, throwing them down the stairs,and pairing them up by how closely they landed next to each other, as I had suspected. Warren says his research has shown that a marriage has the greatest chance of thriving if the two people share at least ten of the 29 “areas of compatibility" that eHarmony matches you on.

Warren is very pro-marriage, so eHarmony is, too. He says that’s why he won’t match gay or lesbian people (which annoys me) – because they can’t legally get married. Even though so many of them want to.

I came across another interesting article from May 2007 in the Washinton Post, entitled “They Met Online, but Definitely Didn’t Click,” in which the author, Paul Farhi, explains the main reasons eHarmony rejects people. Apparently, 30% are rejected because they’re already married. Yes – MARRIED. If you already have such questionable ethics that you’re willing to cheat on your wife or husband on-line, why is being married the one thing you’re honest about!? Crazy.

27% of applicants are under 21, and 9% gave “inconsistent answers” within the 258-question application. Other reasons for being turned down include having been married MORE THAN FOUR TIMES before the age of 60 – I sort of perversely admire anyone who would own up to that -- and anyone who answers the questions in such a way that they seem to be clinically depressed. EHarmony and Dr. Warren claim that they don’t reject anyone on the basis of religion.

But since eHarmony is so pro-marriage, I’m beginning to wonder if they’re prejudiced against people who are divorced. Although I’ve only met or e-mailed with a few guys from eHarmony, none of them had been married before. And whereas on the other dating sites, they show you in the profile whether the person is never married, divorced or widowed, eHarmony doesn’t list that on anyone’s profile. So maybe if you seem to be a little depressed, for example, but have never been married, they’ll accept you. But if you’re a little depressed and are also divorced, that’s too much.

As soon as I get a chance in the next week or so, I’ll try registering as if I’m an atheist, and as if I’m divorced. I’ll let you know what happens!

Links to the articles mentioned in this post: http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2005-05-18-eharmony_x.htm

http://neverblog.net/why-wont-eharmony-reject-me/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/12/AR2007051201350.html