e-HOOOOOLY Crap!

Monday, October 25, 2010
8:40 pm  Make it stop!

Okay, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but this e-Harm thing is out of control.  Apparently I'm compatible with every man in the tri-state area AND THEY WON'T STOP TRYING TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME.  NOW, I understand how e-Harm works -- it's a sheer numbers game!  If they tell you you're compatible with 25 guys a day, you're bound to get along with someone.  No one would reject that many men for days and days.  I know what the evil people at e-Harm are thinking: Eventually she'll cave...

It's legitimately giving me anxiety (shocker).  I wake up in the morning and I've got at least 10 new emails from e-Harm telling me about all the guys who have sent me five questions.  This is the first step in the e-Harm "getting-to-know-you" process.  If you find someone with a profile that's appealing (read: they have an attractive photo), you can choose five questions from a long list to send to that person.  If that person isn't totally skeeved out by you, they respond and send their five questions.  The list is of entirely multiple choice questions.  Examples include "How often do you work out in a week?" to hypotheticals like "If you were in a relationship and your partner took you to a party where you knew no one, what would you do?"  Answers to that one are like "I would stick close to my partner and let him/her introduce me" or "I would strike out on my own and meet people" or "I would ask to skip the party."

So, over the past few days everyone and their brother has been sending me the five question thing.  At first I was hesitant, but at my mom's encouragement, I started to respond.  At the very least, this whole thing has really made me think about how I am in a relationship and what is important to me in a "partner."  God, I hate that word.

But of course, there are always the creepers.  E-Harm gives you an option to skip all the normal communication steps and just go straight to emailing or chatting online.  To do this, the interested party (the creeper) sends a note saying they want to initiate contact or whatever.  Then the innocent party (me), has to accept or decline.  If you accept, you have to first read a letter from e-Harm about online safety so these dudes can't find you and you don't end up in a ditch after being raped and murdered.  Comforting, no?

So far two guys have sent me such requests and I think my intial reaction was to scream "Oh, HELL no!" and slam my computer shut.  Then I called my mom.

My mom is a whole other part of this e-Harm experiment.  She's way more interested in this than I am, so I gave her my sign-on so she can pre-screen my prospects.  I see no problem with this.  It's kind of like a throw-back to the olden days when parents would pick your suitors.  She's definitely more lenient and forgiving than I am ("Mom, he's 23 and balding..."), but maybe I need a little more of that.

In conclusion, I'm sticking with the e-Harm experiment, even though it gives me anxiety, because I paid for it and it really does force me to think about what I'm really after.  If the thought of signing on to my e-Harmony account really makes me nauseous, maybe that's a sign.  Maybe I'm not ready for a relationship.  Or maybe I'm just not ready to risk it with crazies online.

Only time will tell.  I've got three and a half weeks to go...

Love,
Tara