Hot and Bothered: Part II of The eHarmony Experiment Diaries

This is part II of the latest jillstory epic. Read Part I

The first thing I did once I was an official subscriber was check out D's profile to see if the person I had found on Facebook was the same one I was talking to. It wasn't. But this wasn't a pleasant surprise. It turned out that I had talked to D before on another online dating site a few years ago and it didn't go well. I stopped talking to him at one point and then a week and a half later he emailed me on a tirade about how he thought we had something good going but that I turned out to be just like all the rest. Although he was not the scary biker guy I had found in my Googling, he was still intimidating looking--very large, as in, that-guy-has-to-be-on-steroids-or-a-descendant-of-the-hulk, large, and given that I had experienced his ranting before I had to wonder if there was something chemical going on there. I sent D a message to say that I didn't feel comfortable meeting up right away and then I closed him as a match. My instinct knew and it was right. I continued to learn in this experiment that it was a pretty reliable resource.

I checked out the rest of the matches I had been blindly communicating with and then e-mailed Lisa to give her the highlights:

K the Middle School Teacher

IS HOT. OH MY GOODNESS HE LOOKS LIKE JOHN STAMOS. There is even a picture of him holding an acoustic guitar. I haven't heard anything more from him though so perhaps he's found another lovely lady he feels more connected to. Boo.

T, 31, Commercial Writer/Producer

I didn't contact him and he didn't contact me, yet, but when I clicked on his profile today to check him out I realized that he was in Red River College a year behind us! I always thought he was cute but probably a bad idea. I never would have thought he'd have a hard time getting a date though. I am going to ask my Good-Wooden Leg friends who worked in radio if they know him.

J, 37 the Sales Consultant

Last night I got a message back from him. He told me about his work (furniture sales) and for the THIRD time asked me how many times I go to the gym/week and where I go (Dude, same as I told you the first two times, GoodLife, 4-6x a week). At that point I closed the communication. This morning I checked him out. He is attractive, too bad he can't remember details and has that icky salesman factor. Perhaps he should consider building a spreadsheet for better success.

So there were some matches that definitely looked appealing, and some that were the typical flakes or icky slicksters. My first date happened on February 27 with A, an engineer grad with his own construction company. What a re-introduction to dating. Oh my. I didn't stop after that date only because I figured it couldn't possibly go worse than that.  (Sorry Kasia, tune in tomorrow... ;)

eh baby, what's your sign? The eHarmony Experiement Diaries

It feels like it is time for another epic jillstory. I thought I'd save this one for May, when I'd have a conclusion for you, but it seems to have reached an interesting mid-point, so I'm going to share what I've got so far.

In February I decided to sample eHarmony on the Free Communication Long Weekend. I love the Lee and Ann Marie commercial. Come on, even their names sound cute together. Maybe there is a Will out there for me?

With eHarmony (eH) you don't browse the whole pool of single guys, they send you matches, supposedly based on your mutual compatibility. During the free weekends you can open up a profile, fill out the questionnaire, and receive and communicate with as many matches as you please. The catch is that when you're just a sampler you don't get to see the photos of your matches.

This is true blind dating. I decided it would also be an interesting experiment in seeing what attracted me when I didn't have a photo to look at. My first batch of matches included architects, marketing professionals, teachers, doctors and engineers, oh my! These weren't just men, they were professionals. I like very much.

eH uses a guided communication process. You start by trading five multiple choice questions that you select from a provided list. The questions ask about your idea of a romantic night out, your preference for the type of place to eat out, and how busy of a schedule you can accept from your partner. The next stage is the short answer questions. You can select three questions from the list or write your own. After you both respond to those you trade your lists of Must Haves and Can't Stands--10 qualities you have selected from an eH provided list. If this goes fine you then get to move to the final stage which is Open Communication, where you can trade emails through the website. I know, what an ordeal, right? I had a lot of matches I was at various stages with. It was getting hard to keep track of them all so I put them into a spreadsheet, listing their names, age, occupation, notes on things I was attracted to and things I was not attracted to in their profile, and communication stage. Yes, I am an organized dater. By the end of the free weekend I had reached the final stage with a couple of matches.

My first date request came on the Friday from D, a 29 year old chef.

He said,  "Rather than spend time trading emails back and forth I prefer to meet up and see if this online chemistry exists in person as well."

Normally this would be my philosophy on things too, but I had an uneasy feeling about him. Also, he sent me his Hotmail address with his full name so I did what any sensible person would do--I Googled him to see if I could find a photo. All I knew about him physically was that he was about a foot taller than me. I found a Facebook profile which did not ease my mind at all. He looked, well, scary. If I was casting someone for the roll of the bad guy on a motorcycle who has been emotionally damaged beyond repair, I'd pick him. I was bothered by the fact that I was judging him this way, but this feeling in my gut would not go away. I did not answer him right away.

On V-Day you may recall that I got together with Lisa and some other girls for dinner. I shared with them the profiles of the guys I was talking to. They too felt there was something just a bit off with D the chef, based on his emails and profile. Lisa however gave her Best Friend vote for K, a 35-year-old middle school teacher who liked travelling, canoeing, the outdoors, and played the guitar. When I read his profile she said, "You have to talk to him, he sounds perfect for you!" I was waiting on his reply to my last round of questions at that point.

The free communication weekend ended at midnight after the holiday Monday. I had found a coupon though to sign up for a three-month membership for only $60. This sounded like a reasonable price for an experiment. I was excited about the matches I had received over the weekend and more than curious to see who I was actually talking to. I decided to go for it. My mission would be to keep an open mind and just do it for the experience. I wanted to learn about dating, the people out there and what worked for me. If I happened to find a real, true match in there, even better. It's now been almost two months of e-meeting and dates. What a journey.

It's times like these

If I ever had a radio morning show I now know who I'd want to be my co-host. We'd be intelligent, informative and funny, but the only music we'd play would be the Foo Fighters.

Sometimes you turn a corner and you find something. You don't know what exactly it will end up being, but in the moment it's just nice, and everyone needs a little dose of nice now and again. It's good for your circulation and those special enzymes that put sparkles in your eyes and a radiance about your face.

I am a new day rising
I'm a brand new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
Do I stay or run away
And leave it all behind?

It's times like these you learn to live again
It's times like these you give and give again
It's times like these you learn to love again
It's times like these time and time again

Times Like These--The Foo Fighters

The Write Dress

I went to a writing workshop on Saturday. It was put on by the Manitoba Writers' Guild and was free to members. I and seven others met with the afternoon's moderator, a local publisher, and shared five pages of work for feedback. I wasn't ready to present any of my novel yet so I tweaked and edited my Dear Diary, Today I Met a Dress post. There were three people who read before it was my turn and I went through my usual bout of insecurities about the work I had chosen. When I read I could hear nervousness in my voice. It was shakey and I couldn't seem to fix it. When I finished I looked up and waited for someone to say something. I never breath during that moment of silence before the first comment.

The feedback was pretty good, actually. The hard part about doing a group share like this is that everyone brings with them his/her own perspectives, ideas and preferences about what the story should be. This can be helpful sometimes, but frustrating too when it seems that your audience didn't "get" your story. Fortunately, I had two encouraging reviews from women who did understand the character. The mediator author seemed to see more in the story than I knew was there. He made a round about comparison of it to Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. At that moment I realized that I need to get back on the writing horse. I've been spending Friday nights reviewing and lightly editing but that's not enough. Not if I'm going to be Sylvia Plath it isn't. Then again, Plath wrote for a women's magazine, had her personal journals published, battled mental issues and committed suicide. Perhaps she's not quite the right girl to model myself after.

I met another dress this week: a happy pink silk Halston Heritage cockail dress. I tried it on--for fun only, because it's price tag said Three-hundred-and-No-You-Can't-Have-Me-Sixty-Five dollars. But once I try something on, it's pretty hard to get it out of my head. Oh it was beautiful. And somehow, when I looked in the mirror I saw me, at a fabulous party or gallery thing (Amara did tell me about an event at the Art Gallery I should go to) or something fabulous that would call for a fabulous me in a fabulous dress. That's what young professional and fashionable women like me are supposed to be doing, right? I promise myself, when I have my book deal, I can buy the the hottest, most knock out dress that three-hundred-and-yes-you-deserve-this-sixty-five dollars can buy.

This is why I don't watch movies

I know, I know. Where have I been, where's my novel, who did I see, what did I do. I'll tell you another time. Right now I'm here to tell you about Remember Me, this movie preview I went to tonight.

A week or so ago I was reading the Freep online and saw a contest for movie passes to this Robert Pattinson film. I watched the trailer and decided right at that moment that I HAD TO SEE THIS MOVIE. I'm not all looped for Robert P. but this looked to be something that had a brooding bad boy who was really good deep down, a young, innocent blonde girly who captures his attention and some family drama. PERFECT.

I entered the contest and forgot all about it. Until I won. Yay! I emailed Lisa to see if she could go with me. No dice, she had something on. Sister? Working. Friend Tonia was delighted to get the invite though so we set the plans up. This afternoon though she sent me a note saying she was under the weather and couldn't make it tonight. Fine. I'm an independent gal. I went to a Kieth Urban concert solo, I can sit in a movie theatre surrounded completely by strangers. Amara does it all the time.

So I went to the gym and then went to the movie. I got there about 20 minutes ahead of start time. A little late, Jillian. The theatre was packed already. I went up and down the aisles asking, "is that seat taken? Is that seat open?" I mean for crying out loud, there was only one of me, usually there are single seats open everywhere. I went to the very top of the near aisle where there appeared to be an empty space beside an amorous young couple. Young Romeo and Juliet though were, uh, busy. Young. love. Oh yes, I love it on TV, on the radio, I love it coming out of my pen but when it stands between me and the last empty seat in the entire theatre, well, it's just plain rude.

I sat, I watched. It was nothing like the trailer. I'm going to try not to spoil it here, but feel free to stop reading now.

I don't like movies where they kill off loveable pets and animals. It completely ruins the thing for me. I do not pay good money to be introduced to Fluffy or Spike only to have to say goodbye to him when he meets his maker in a cheap attempt at a plot twist. Okay, no animals die in this movie. It's safe from that, but essentially the equivalent of that happens. There I was with my Nike trail runners stuck to the Coke-shellacked floor trying to figure out where in New York this story was going when, final credits-minus-five-minutes, it hits. Oh My Deity. And there I was, with no one to turn to with slack-jaw and no words.

No one should have to watch that movie alone. Remember Me. Indeed, I will.