*At the time of this posting not a single one of the 7 matches I initiated communication with - now going on 13 days from the first - have responded, and it's been two days since Chemistry has sent any new matches. The last one they sent? Based in Washington. So helpful. My email was also not regarding "communication times" - I specifically addressed the validity of Chemistry's memberships. Do you see them confirming that all matches sent are of course active, subscribed members of their community anywhere in this email? I don't. You'd think that would have been an easy one to confirm. If it was true.

Entered on 12/18/2009 at 09:15:13 by Ysauly C:

Dear Member,

Thanks for your question about response times during the guided communication process. We hope that this email gives you the information you need.

Why hasn't your match responded? It's hard to say. There are a number of possible explanations: they may be out of town, busy with work, or they simply may not check the site very often.

You have two options. You can choose to continue waiting for this match to respond, or you can go ahead and close this match by transferring their profile to your Archives. It's up to you.

Want to close this match? Click Chemistry to go to your Active Matches. Click on Not Interested next to their name to move their profile to your Archives.

Please take a moment to fill out this survey to let us know how we are performing.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=a5oX1Z_2f14rEov_2bj7JCb1kw_3d_3d

Best of luck,

Chemistry.com
Customer Care Representative
Ysauly C.

Einstein was very helpful in shedding light on how EHarmony's matching system actually works. Basically, he told me to stop pussyfooting around what I want. I thought the whole point of grinding my teeth through the psychological profiling was so they'd find people who matched me based on those characteristics. Apparently not. Einstein said he wasn't even sure what any of that ended up being used for: the system really only takes what you ask for into consideration in the section where you specify what you'd like in a partner. Which is the part where I usually go...well, as long as he's over 6 feet I'm good. And ignore the rest. Except that it seems that within EHarmony's system, anything checked off at a level less than “utmost importance” will make the system disregard.  So based on the fact that I pretty much have no choices listed for what I want in a partner - including height (I think I chose "would be nice") - EHarmony is, indeed, sending me every single guy in Vancouver. Fantastic.

Can we all please take a moment here and think about what this means? Maybe this won't feel like quite the pie in the face that it is until until you've filled out 10 of these profiles (yes, 10 - new sites!) in less than a week - and, more to the point, paid (for almost all of) them - but EHarmony and Chemistry in particular, are promising lonely singles a chance at happiness based on having access to a highly touted psychological matching system which in the end plays little or no part in how the companies execute the process itself. Which they don't explain in the slightest. But why would they, right? This is an industry built on the misery of others - and their level of success is measured on keeping you just unhappy enough that you'll keep paying, keep thinking that love will be right around the corner if you just hang on. Because they know what they're doing. They have the system. It's still all Shamwow though, right? With classier editing and a better timeslot.

It's vaguely worth noting here that I have absolutely no first-hand knowledge of the ACTUAL inner workings of the algorithms EHarmony and Chemistry match by. Just my first-hand annoyance. And Einstein's theory of relative ignorance. Ha Ha.

New dates!

Thursday: Perfect Match! Ha! Match thinks this guy is 86% perfect for me - and so did Chemistry, except he says he's never even subscribed. ooo the intrigue!

Sunday: Lawyer from POF...well, they're only 15 min. dates - I can be curious for round 2! Did I tell you about the lonely firefighter yet? I met a lonely firefighter. Um, somewhere. I forget.

Site Re-Cap:

CLOSED PROFILES

Lavalife - uuuugh (see previous entries). Also not a peep other than the "we'll get back to you in 24 hours!" auto-response. stellar.

Plenty of Fish - received 26 emails from guys I'd never want to talk to. Mostly felt creepy. The guys I contacted myself turned out much better obviously, clearly if you're willing to sift through the huge, huge haystack it's fine for what it is....(Russian Roulette got back in touch to apologize for how our coffee ended and I think we're going to hang out when this whole thing is over...so that I don't have to write about him again!) but not excited to contact others and just generally feel uncomfortable having my photo and profile up - even under a different name. Clicking on the guys who have viewed my profile was not fun either.

NEW -

Nerve.com - dating site is actually through fastcupid.com. Same as usual although very few in Vancouver and it wouldn't let me switch to Seattle once my profile was up.

Yahoo Personals - large dating population in Vancouver. Was surprised to find out this is a paid site - had understood it was free. Is technically free to sign up and make profile searchable - not sure how long I can coast along as free if I want to get in touch with others though. Will leave it until profile is approved in 24 hours in any case. They have a nice feature that I haven't seen else where: you can choose to withhold your profile as private and only display to people you contact - also make a big deal about registering with a first name instead of a "username".

Singlesnet.com - Same old but quick and painless sign up. Another one of these US sites that I think I'll need to switch my location to Seattle for...but I'll give it a couple days (there was a big "lots of Canadian singles!" ad on the front page but when I signed up the quick matches were all in the US and...Chilliwack. yay.)

I signed up on your site just under a week ago - today is the first day I had the chance to check in. I couldn't understand why I was looking at my little mailbox - with smile/winky things in all three sections: dating, relationship and intimate. I knew I had only set up one profile for the relationship section - and I was pretty sure no one can see or contact you unless you're both in the same section. So imagine my shock when I found my way to SETTINGS and saw that my profile and picture were in all THREE sections. Let me repeat the key part just in case you missed it: my photo and profile have been public in your INTIMATE section since Thursday. Without my knowledge or consent.

I have used Lava on and off for years. I am well aware of how the site works and that if I ever wanted my profile in a particular section it had to be added each time. I remember this specifically because it was always a bit tedious to repeat. But it was definitely a choice - without question for the intimate side! Which isn't just "intimate" - it's hardcore, an extremely personal and specific choice to make, not to mention a horrendous place to find out that your very recognizable photo has been posted for the last four days! I'm absolutely furious and I just don't understand. I went through your extensive legal disclaimers: code of ethics, terms of use and privacy statement - there isn't a single word of warning to users explaining that profiles will immediately be posted in all three sections unless preferences are changed. Nothing even to release you from this kind of liability - which I have to say is well, surprising considering you've covered all other bases. This is clearly a new change - since what, the new membership fee structure from this summer? From where I'm standing this looks like a deliberately sneaky and underhanded omission.

I actually came back to the site today intending to pay a membership fee. Now I feel sick.

Of course I can't argue that other sneaky clause - oh I'm sure you know the one - the new spiffy one buried in the Terms of Use, which is linked all teeny right at sign-up? Juust so we won't have the foggiest that we're actually agreeing to hand over our pics for your advertising pleasure across whatever random sites with whatever content you like! Well, not until we realize we're signed up for porn dating, freak and find that handy little settings tab...where all sorts of nifty secrets from your people are revealed! Like a checkbox we had no idea we checked off! (That would be because your Terms of Use? Doesn't give us the option to check one off. Right. Seeing as we'd say no and all.)

So. I would like a legitimate explanation as to how my profile ended up in the intimate -slash-porn-dating section of your site. Might as well include another for how I ended up with the dating profile too - I mean, it's not like I had naughty fairies logging in to post and wink for me.

And while you ignore this email, I'll start looking into how many other members you've pulled this on. Great. (Maybe it's just me, right?)

(sent Dec 17th @ 5:45 pm via the internal Chemistry Customer Service "Contact Us!" box)

I was matched with Txxxx here on Chemistry - it had been over a week, hadn't heard anything - and then curiously enough I was matched with him (as an 86% match) on Match.com! So I thought, ok, maybe he's not ignoring me, I might as well send an email..and he got back to me right away! To my surprise he said he remembered filling something out for Chemistry, but that he had never joined the service. So - here I am 9 days into my Chemistry membership and as you'll see in my account, not one of the men I contacted has returned my initial contact. Which I'm starting to seriously wonder about - because even on Match, where I'm finding the guys to be rather rude, I get at least some kind of response. Are these actually active profiles from members of Chemistry? As of today I was also told by the system that there are no more profiles for me. At this point I would like a refund because it's impossible for me to contact members directly by email, I have no proof you actually have active members in your system - basically there's no way for me to actually connect and ask to meet anyone!

Please let me know your thoughts because I whole-heartedly tried out your system: I submitted to your never-ending profiling, tried your matching requirements two different ways, and I'm still getting nowhere! If I'm doing something wrong, please let me know. Otherwise, please refund my membership and terminate my account.

Thank you.

*For those of you who don't know, Chemistry is the fancy-pants service launched by Match to compete with EHarmony.