Why I Hate E-Harmony, Chapter 4

Okay, listen.

I joined eharmony because a friend asked me to. This is my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. Not like I hadn't thought about it before. Not like I didn't wonder, more than once, if my hesitancy to sign up for internet interaction was what was really keeping me from Romeo and my romantic illusions of my own private Verona. This friend, who shall remain nameless, did not want to join by herself. She plied me with the idea that entering into such an experience together would be a bonding token of our lasting union. We could double date together, she assured. We could laugh about it when we grow old.

Now that I'm about two months older and wiser, I do laugh about it. Hah, hah.

I laugh alone, however, because my nameless friend's application was rejected. Flat-out denied. "Unacceptable," they said. "Inapplicable for candiacy." By this time, I had already finished typing in the expiration date on my credit card, and was happily whiling away my second glass of wine. Her rejection, when I became privy to it, really only encouraged my false sense of security,

"Oh. So they really do pre-screen . . . ."

But enough with the reasons. I think I really finally joined because, in my ferverent attempts to change some aspect of my unyeilding personality, I wanted to know if there was really anything to this "committed relationship," "boyfriend," "i-know-his-mother's-name-and-use-it" kind of lifestyle with a man, and I was incorrectly guessing that a pre-screened relationship-py kind of place like eharmony was the place to find it.

Beep. Incorrect.

But I can't be bitter, because if nothing else it might just be acceptable material for a new book. Mostly because . . .well, I don't HAVE a book, and also because I've convinced myself of a conspiracy theory I've constructed that involves the corporation driving young singles to drink and destruction as they slowly degrade their mortal defenses while reading their poorly assigned matches, resulting in mass revenue due to their undisclosed business partnership with Prozac, Xanax and Wellbutrin, among others . . . products we will all be taking after our memberships expire.

Today they sent me my possible soul mate Luis. Luis is a mechanical desigenerrr who has children. I didn't misstype, that is how Luis chose to spell his chosen profession. His life's work. His bread and butter. Let's not even address the fact that I requested not to be matched with people who already have spawned. But maybe Dr. Warren thinks that my situation is really so dire that I need to broaden my horizons. Maybe you are as fascinated with Luis as I am and want to know more about his life. I have copied and pasted his "most influential person" section because I was just on e-harmony and I am so appalled that I had to share.

[The most influential person in Luis's life has been:

i cant really know because their is many ppl in history! like benjermin frankline, plato, leonardo da vincci, jesus, martin luther king jr., pancho villa, los 6 nono eruez del catillo de chaputepec. any man or woman that made life more humain 4 man kind!!]

Seriously? Seriously, Dr. Warren? Is this really the best that you can do? You matched a writer with someone who thinks it is grammatically acceptable to use numbers in place of speech while constructing a sentence? I think it was a special touch to introduce me to Luis at the same time that you reveal your new advertisement banner to me.

"EXTEND YOUR MEMBERSHIP!!" it says, in big bold letters next to a nicely super-imposed image of a cleanly-scrubbed Asian couple who presumably found each other through this sugar-coated mass communicated vortex door to hell, and are so in love and caught up with their mutual affection that they can not stop nuzzling. They are caught forever in the e-harmony spell of mid-nuzzle, right there for everyone to see. "E-harmony was always intended to be a 12 month program. It takes time...." the advertisement continues for a few more lines. I couldn't tell you what the rest actually said, because at this point I was already frantically clicking the "sign out" button with such a vengence that I think I sprained my index finger. As we all know, that's a very important digit for a writer. And for a woman, who clearly isn't going to get her satisfaction from anyone with her $60 a month e-harmony subscription.

The Beginning

I am a masochist. I had a moment of self-discovery today, a few hours earlier when I was standing in my kitchen, eating yogurt with one sock on, (because the urge for yogurt hit while I was still peeling them off and really, who am I to deny these cravings?). Somewhere in between pureed strawberry bits and low-fat dairy, I was musing about my crackup relationship with e-harmony, and I had one of those epic moments of clarity. My screwed up revelation: Misery really turns me on. Epic movies, impossible relationships with impossible people, tortured moments, esoteric disjointed poetry, cheap teenage paperbacks filled with gothic violence, old words and ripped pieces of lace. All of this stuff really gets me going.

Really, this shouldn’t be such a big surprise to me, as I’ve always recognized my self-destructive streak. The first time I heard the word “nihilism” it rolled around on my tongue tasting like candy, and I scribbled it down on the corner of a piece of paper in an instinctive heat, knowing it would one day be on my tombstone, my divorce certificate, scrawled in permanent tattoo on my bum.

I’m not exactly sure where this feeling first began. I probably got screwed up real early, back when my babysitter would play “Labyrinth” on replay for us kiddies to keep the lot of us all slack-jawed and silent for hours on end. All those years of watching David Bowie strut around in a shattered wig and tights clearly did something to my state of mind. I started off life believing that goblins were real, David Bowie was God or something real close to it that deserved a capital letter, and every man should have a nether region of impossible size that defied the laws of gravity and common sense.

None of this did any good to my still-forming mind, I’m sure. But whatever the affects of early exposure to rock-icon-in-hosiery, more recently I’ve become consumed with a sense of urgency about life that flying to Spain, piercing various parts of my body and riding on the back of motorcycles barefoot just can’t cure. Whatever it is, a desire to live or an ill-concealed death wish brought about my own mortality served to order on the solemn face of a prescription pad, a simple blip in the cosmic crisis of a girl in her 20’s, or something else, the thought occurs that it might be time for a change.

Can one girl of relative height and subsequent station give up her taste for desolate storylines and the languorous taste of danger, neck sweat, and dirty olives? Would I be happier in committed relationships, pearls, and longer hemlines? Are the bad girls or the good girls really having more fun?