eHarmony Blog.com

(Republished in entirety with permission from Gabriel89706, dated 2 April 2009. Thank you for sharing your story with us. I hope others can add useful advice.)

Yes, I have met a gal!

Mind you, I signed up 12/31/08 and met several women through eHarmony at a local place of amicable choosing. I met my Joanne on 3/8/09 in person and we’ve been hitting it off since! So it took me 2 months and some change to meet her, but I actually paid for a year subscription because I was committed to meet someone for a serious relationship, perhaps more if it worked out.

Through eHarmony I encourage you to quickly ask to meet several average to great women of your choosing in person for several reasons:

Practice meeting women! We all need to experience new women and gain confidence. Keep in mind that without some hands-on experience with all kinds of women, you’ll never get to a comfortable level of conversation necessary to be successful.

I did exactly that! Some gals were not so great looking, others were awesome, still others were average. But always try to meet a gal in person so that you both get your feet wet and you feel a sense of purpose and conviction in meeting a special someone.

Don’t despair when it goes wrong or a gal just doesn’t seem to click with you. Your attitude must be one of “I can always try again.” Always be respectful and agree to disagree where necessary.

So I met and found special someone!

Remember, this is not an easy task…. it takes time and above all else, you must keep trying.

I met Joanne about a month ago and we first met at a place called the Chocolate Bar. Like some on this board, I try to meet somewhere casual but nice. Also, a place where we can just grab a drink and if things go bad, we can slip out quickly. But if things go great, you can talk and order another drink for as long as you need.

While we conversed, we both found we had tons in common, equal education, and a chemistry that “clicked” but at the time I was trying not to get my hopes up too much because this gal was cute!

We talked for about 2 hours….

After that I said we should meet for dinner later that week, and we did. The dinner was great, the conversation was grand, and I now I really knew I liked her and that she really liked me!

After dinner I then spontaneously offered that we catch whatever movie we could catch at the spur of the moment and managed to just make the beginning credits of Slumdog Millionaire. The movie, for those that haven’t seen it, is basically a love story, and I couldn’t help but wonder how great that fit with my plans! I made the move to hold her hand and she goes “What took you so long?”

After the movie I made the move to kiss her and it was great!

She mentioned she had to go to a wedding the next day for some friend, I suggested she not go alone and basically invited myself to the wedding with her.

We go to the wedding the next day and things heated up big time….

And I’ve been on an emotional high since!!

So the moral of this story: Don’t give up, keep trying to actually meet women, and remember the name of the game is to actually date women in person. Use eHarmony to do some screening and keep in mind that it should be used to communicate that you want to meet and get to really know someone.

In case you haven’t noticed, plenty of folks complain about not getting responses from matches. This is true, but we don’t really know all the situations a person is experiencing at the other end. Always allow a few days (7 days max) for some sort of response but remember the goal is to meet and date someone. If no response is forthcoming, close the match, and say “This match did not communicate.” You move on, plain and simple. But do everyone a favor, actually communicate or close the match. Don’t keep anyone hanging, it’s just plain lame. I’ve closed tons of matches that leave me hanging for days, most annoying! You close a match and move heck on!!
If a match is trying to communicate, you’ll know it for sure, and those are the ones you ask to take out and experience a dating life that everyone wants in the first place. I personally loved taking an iffy date out, go dancing, go dining, and just enjoy someone elses company. Being lonely sucks but why must you rule-out every girl? Be proud you’ve got a date to take out! Don’t be one of those guys that have to only go to a bar to enjoy someone’s company. Go skating, go dancing, go, go, go!

My personal goal with eHarmony was to have at least 1 date to take out per week. I was mostly successful with this goal, but there was at least a couple of weekends that it didn’t work out.

Last piece of advice:

Be a man! Make the decision to ask a girl out, where, and when. Most women here will appreciate that to no end….

If anyone wants to add some useful advice, feel free! Just be sure it’s useful advice that encourages growth and not the bad kind of advice that bashes eHarmony or others in general.

I happen to think eHarmony does a great job of trying to get us to connect with others, which is exactly what I wanted in the first place!! The reality is, many members have a hard time “communicating”. The reasons members have a hard time communicating are as long and boring as you can imagine.

Good luck guys, keep it up, and don’t give up!

Gabriel