I agree you often find love, friendships when you aren’t looking Often the things of most value are found when you aren’t looking for them. I can fully attest to that.

I was on eHarmony, off and on, for several years. I have met a lot of nice women on the site, some are now friends, but I have not found “the one”. I have not been on eHarmony now for well over a year and a half.

My impressions are that, while the site has excellent questionnaires to determine one’s’ preferences, and those of potential mates, it appears from the matching function that this information is rarely, if ever, used to match two people together. I have been “matched” to some people that, when we met, I had to wonder what the matching system was keying off of- thin thread was being used to draw a link in compatibility? Sometimes one would have an “ah-ha!” moment, and it would be apparent- some potential interest in some esoteric past time… It was text-matching something commented upon in one’s bio, not exactly resounding compatibility matching.

As Stephanie has commented, she wants RESULTS, perhaps by volume (more dates). I know my complaints to eHarmony were that I had too much volume- (as of the last time I looked at my closed matches, there were some 1600 in there, and no, I did not close all of them – some ladies decided to close contact before we had a chance to even say “Hi”). I just couldn’t go out on dates enough during the week to keep up with the new matches- how could anyone reasonably be expected to keep up with 5-8 new matches PER DAY? That’s a lot of typing, back-and-forth questions and answers, and a lot to keep straight. I told eHarmony that I’d rather have only one match a year that was exactly right (whatever that might mean ) ), as I have time for people who are very close to what is best for me in a mate (and of course, myself, for the other person), but I don’t want to consume all free time working through a huge number of slight potential mates.

What dating all boils down to is a numbers game- the old adage one has to kiss a lot of frogs to find one’s prince (in my case, princess) is really true. One has to put one’s self out there, and meet LOTS and LOTS of people. Have I been successful? To varying degrees, but I’d say at this moment I’ve been close, but no cigar.

Hope springs eternal, however. The big point here is don’t give up. Keep trying! One never knows when one will meet “the one”, as the other comments here attest.

I firmly believe every encounter/date prepares one for meeting the right person. Perhaps God is not quite done preparing us for our mates, or our mates for us. All in good time. Enjoy life, do the things that make your heart sing. At some point, God will place us on a path that will intersect with that person best suited for us, and we, them.

Good luck and God bless.