eHarmony and Me
December 4, 2025
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I decided to “just see what’s out there.”
It’s not working for me, this mail-order-bride business. At least this is what online dating services seem to be: shopping for love on Amazon and expecting next-day delivery.
It’s been ten years since my wife of fifty years succumbed to breast cancer. I’ve lived a solo life since then with no dating, comfortably enjoying and nurturing close relationships with my two daughters. I even relocated from Honolulu to New Haven so I could be a short drive from each of them.
I think I was driven to consider a dating service after my wife’s sister died of cancer herself. She and I had gotten into a weekly routine of long telephone conversations when we would kvetch about everything from kids to pets to politics.
With her death, I lost that connection.
So out of simple curiosity, I decided to “just see what’s out there.” I signed on to a six-month membership in eHarmony.
eHarmony puts you through a lengthy personality test that determines how you match with others, calculated against their personality profile – your “compatibility score.”
According to eHarmony, most of their members are seeking not a fling but a long-term and meaningful relationship. I didn’t realize it until I got into the guts of my self-analysis, but this seems to be what I, too, am after.
Here’s what I wrote as my profile:
I'm a retired widower who can't sit down. I publish books, a blog, and write poetry that's appeared in dozens of literary journals. I work with the ACS to teach patients to write poetry to ease the stresses of cancer, and I conduct Zoom classes for the public on writing healing poems. I don't look my age, am reasonably fit, personable, and know how to make people laugh. At various stages in my life, I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king. But I have a vacuum that wants to be filled by a confidante.
A confidante. Hmm.
My six-month subscription is ending next month with no results.
I’ve received more than a dozen likes and messages from women I match with, but I haven’t responded to any of them – for a number of rather ridiculous reasons:
• She lives too far away• Her name is the same as my daughter’s• She identifies as a political conservative• She keeps a pet• She plays golf• She loves to write (One psychotic writer in the house is enough.)• She’s looking for someone to share “all that life has to offer”• She’s a realtor
I’m savvy enough to know the laundry list above has nothing to do with my inability to connect. The whole dating service concept is farkakte
– messed up.
When I met the young woman who became my wife, I didn’t ask for her political position. I didn’t care if she had a dog. In fact, she could have checked all the above items, and her kiss would have been just as sweet.