Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Honesty is the key ingredient

In response to TheNarcissist....

I dont think its eHarmony's intention to bypass the "getting to know you" stage of the relationship. It's intention is to pair up those that have the same values and interests based on the answers to the personality profile. It's pretty obvious that you can sway the results to make you appear better than you are, but you have to be dishonest, with yourself, intentionally or otherwise. The intention is to pair up people who are ready for a serious and real relationship based on honesty. If you arent honest from the beginning, just like a relationship that begins on a barstool or in a club, the odds are higher your relationship will fail.

As someone who has used the site, I never felt as if I bypassed any experiences I have had with other relationships that didnt come from the site. I didnt skip any part of the relationship. There still was the getting to know you phase. It just started at a different place. Instead of the typical "she was wicked hot and liked the same music as I, so I asked her out. Turns out she's as dumb as a bag of hammers and thought Neil Armstrong was Lance's dad! Yeah, I nailed her, but I wont call her again. The blue honda on the corner over there is her car, she's stalking me right now." There was the, "She really likes being outdoors and we are going to go climbing on saturday with her brother and sister. She is really smart and has a lot of the same wants I do in life." If both of you are looking for a real relationship, and your not just trolling, then the site can help you find someone like you. It doesnt let you troll for "hot chicks/dudes." It lets you decide, based on the others profile and then answers to varied degrees of deeper personal questions, if you want to get to know the other person more. It still takes work to make the relationship work, but it starts the relationship off in a place where you can begin to take off that mask sooner than your normally would. I didnt feel like I knew my girlfriend before I met her, but I did feel like we could be friends instantly instead of wondering that for the first few weeks of dating.

The sites functionality works if you are honest with yourself and so is the other person. If you arent honest with yourself, you wont find a real relationship. You might find a good sex buddy, but if thats all you want, there are cheaper ways to get that. Your leaving too much to chance with the Harm, to find that nymphomaniac stripper who loves to be bent over the beef jerky display at the am/pm during her lunch break and wont make you call her unless your hard and ready to go. Just go to Yahoo! personals for that, her name is Sharon, I saw her ad yesterday.

Not to dis TheNarcissist. He has valid points. I agree some of the statements in the commercials are ridiculous. I just think he is misinterpreting the intention of the service. The intention is to allow you to see that person across the room and begin talking to them without inhibition and start out with (supposed) honesty. It's about seeing the (supposed) true colors of the other person without as much risk of finding out they hate the thing you are most passionate about after a month of doing it everyday with you. There isnt anything but honesty that will make a relationship succeed or fail. The Harm tries to push you toward the honest and emotional side of the relationship rather than the masked and surface level beginnings that a lot of people are tired of when they first meet someone. It's up to the individual to decide how they want to begin, and continue, their relationship.

Song of the day... Doesnt Anybody Stay Together Anymore by Phil Collins

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