Yup, ’tis true. Not that I’m all that excited or proud of it. Its quite embarrassing not to mention a major slam to one’s self-esteem but it’s has to be some sort-of record, right? Like people who’ve won the lottery twice or (and this seems more fitting) those sad souls like Roy Cleaveland Sullivan, who’ve been repeatedly struck by lighting through out their lives. (In ol’ Roy’s case, it’s a whopping seven times. Number seven did it. Not such a lucky number after all, poor guy)  Now, it’s not like I signed up, got rejected and thought “oh they probably just didn’t read my answers correctly” or “damn computer glitch” and then tried again the next day. Oh no. You see it took me almost 3.5 YEARS to get past the initial humiliation of having a computer system tell me, “Dear Miss – We regret to inform you that……well, hmm…how do we put this? You’re nice n’ all and we appreciate you taking 45 minutes of your life that, lets face it, you’ll never get back just to fill out our hundreds of ridiculous “personality dimension” questions but….well, about that. See, turns out you’re just un-matchable…and therefore, undate-able. Given our 95% success record of coupling perfection, we just cant have your unusable profile that ruining our odds. What we mean to say is…..its not us, it really is YOU.” 

It was only after I was severely duped by an ex-boyfriend (turns out it was ME in that one too, given I didnt have a penis n’ all….) that I decided to give eHarmony another shot. Given my methods of meeting people in person were failing miserably and I was faced with the most horrific first (and LAST) blind date of my life with a potential serial killer from J-Date, I got up the gumption (or due to my constant level of rejection, suddenly became incredibly masochistic) to sit back down and give ol’ eHarm’s “24 dimensions of personality profiling” another try. Maybe NOW I was more “matchable” and “worthy of a soulmate”. Now once you’ve been rejected by a human, you err on the side of caution when taking another approach to the situation. But what happens when you’re rejected by an inanimate object that’s made up of microchips, wireboards, a few lights and a fan? Do you get it new anti-virus protection to make it feel safe? What about defraging it’s hard-drive? (cause when was the last time you did that huh?) Detach it from the printer & speakers so it can have some “alone” time? I was perplexed. Adding insult to injury, even the fact that I was resorting to an ‘online’ format as my method to meet people again was difficult, let alone what the hell to say in an effort to get them to approve me.

As I began the process, I realized very quickly that it seemed as if I was forced to make black and white decisions for non-black & white questions. Complex questions that I didn’t have such a cookie cutter answer for. Example: 

“Which describes you best:  I like to spend my week nights at home alone  – OR –  I like men of less than average height.”

Nonetheless, onward I pushed through the mandatory labyrinth of “in-depth” questions. I’d filled them all out before, but this time I was well aware of what I was up against. I mustn’t make the same mistakes again, for another rejection letter might be on the horizon and NO ONE wants to be rejected, period, let alone twice. I finally finished, carefully deliberating each answer and hitting “finish” with a fully satisfied and confident mouse click. Then….it happened. The “ding” from my inbox telling me there was a new message. The second I opened it, a familiar stench began to appear as I read the following: 

“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.”

Oh come ON!!!!! AGAIN?!?! What did I do wrong this time? I had to read it again because it was just ridiculous at this point. It was there in the re-read that I saw it. How could I have missed it before? The words were staring at me, clear as can be, yet I’d missed it the other 100 times I’d read this same message before….”eHarmony is based upon a complex matching system developed through extensive research of MARRIED COUPLES.”  AHH HAA! Now it makes sense. Given the divorce rate in this country is about 50%, then I doubt it’s a stretch to think that the majority of the couples they used to create the stupid “24 different personality dimensions” profiling questionnaire are now separated any way. Thinking this, whether it’s actually true or not, made me feel like less of a leper and more worthy of finding a connection outside the world of cyber-space. That and when searched on google, over  260,000 results come up for “eHarmony rejection”. Seems like I’m not the only one who’s been denied the ability to be couple’d from one of the world’s top dating sites. To my fellow rejects….you are not alone. There’s so many of us, in fact, that maybe there should be a dating site specifically for those deemed “undate-ble” by all other common dating sites? (Just sayin;…..) I, however, will no longer be in need of their services. Luckily for me, it turns out I am rather ‘date-able’ after all and I didn’t even need to fill out some lengthy cockamamie questionnaire to just meet my soulmate. He had been there all along; waiting patiently for me to stop looking for love in all the wrong laptops and get out of the house long enough to notice him, noticing me. The rest, along with my interest in eHarmony, is history.