There's a new internet site out there called Chatroulette. Basically, it lets you chat with random strangers and then hit next and move on whenever you get bored with that person. It's a harmless diversion! It's the kind of thing you know everyone you know is going to do once. Like sex in a turnpike dunkin donuts bathroom. It's not the kind of thing anyone would think twice about except for the fact that it's on the...internet! It's not a craze - the Macarana was a craze! This is an internet site that will very quickly become a repository of 5% curiosity-seekers and 95% free-floating dongs.

http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/headlines/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart---march-2010/clip273960#clip273960

Happy New Year! Yep, I'm back - just needed a mini-break from stranger-dating and shopping my life all over the internet! I know, I know, hard to imagine. Keep your eyes on this space- we're starting design work on the new site at the end of the week, excitingness is rolling full steam ahead! And of course more dating...um, fun. ha! Well, that is if there are any more dates to be nailed down in Vancouver...ok, dates I can convince myself to go on. I'm three days off my 30 days deadline but have no fear, I'll keep plugging along. I'm dedicated like that. In the meantime, I thought I'd leave you with a little gem from SeekingArrangement:

So what's my little gem? I signed up without a picture and received this wonderful little profile - it had a message attached, but you can't read them unless you submit a pic (damn!). I've since canceled my account and yet I have full access to the profile.  Forever. Oh Seattle Santa, leg and ass man, since you're so proud of yourself, I thought it only fair to make your offering available to everyone. Hey! Maybe a sugar baby will get in touch through FindMeDateMe! It's like kismet.

Seattle Santa Leg And Ass Man's Profile

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.)

(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.

It’s getting fun people! Day 5 and I’m getting asked out on dates…but I can't remember who they are! Oh my god, I’m a guy. Ok, so I’m kidding, sort of – but I’m definitely getting very sweet emails asking for dates...by names that don’t ring a bell. Which is all E-Harmony’s fault. Their user interface is not user friendly by any means – names aren’t associated with pictures when you go down the list, so there’s no quick way to remember who the heck you like. Yes, I suppose I could have paid attention to something like their names if I wanted to be all personal about it – but at this stage? I was just trying to slog through the glut of profiles.

Oh, yes, that. I am now convinced that E-harmony doesn’t do the slightest in terms of special matching. They’ve been overloading me with “meet your new match!” notices just about every hour, and not one profile I've reviewed shows anything to suggest that these men would be a better match for me than for my landlord. E-Harmony has this aura and pedigree surrounding the company because of their supposedly amazing knack for psychological profiling – everyone I spoke to who knew of E-Harmony but had never actually tried the site was even under the impression that it took months to find you the perfect match because of their whole complicated system.

Well, hello everyone, let me be the first to spill the paint on E-Harmony's pristine image: I was asked the exact same psychological profiling questions as on the other sites - just extended and ad nauseum - except they did include a number of questions about my sexual compatibility which I found intrusive and inappropriate (but I answered in the spirit of participation). Matches were produced immediately. Slowly at first, now non-stop. I don’t know for sure, but I'm quite sure I’m being matched with daters simply based on generic preferences like drinking, smoking, location, whether I like to dance or watch movies, want children - you get the point. Which would be fine – except they’re promising something much more in-depth – AND wasted over an hour of my time with their inane psychological profiling. Only to now be sending me basically any guy in Vancouver. Oh, and Blaine, WA. I thought the point of paying was quality over quantity. Seriously? I’m doing better playing Russian roulette with Plenty of Fish. More on that later.

So – back to not knowing who my dates are – E-harmony sent me so many profiles (and remember they have this 50-step “guided communication process”) that the only way I was going to get a date by next week was to cut to the chase: I sent a cut & pasted “hi! Your pic and profile seem sweet – but I can’t deal with this system – here’s my email address if you’d like to chat” email to the top seven. Yes, yes I did. I know, bad me. What else is a girl trying to sincerely date on 30 sites to do? So...there has been a little confusion in the gmail account...along with the Plenty of Fish and Match date scheduling. Sigh. Better than an ordinary life, right?

(And you, if you happen to find me here and were one of my seven of course I meant it and I’m sorry I couldn’t be witty seven different times. Please send your hate mail to E-Harmony)

First dates on Sunday! Video blogs start sunday too! woo hoo!