Living in Harmony

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eHarmony dot com - the site that matches you with your ideal partner, not just for a date, but for a fulfilling, longterm relationship. So they claim.

There's the small detail that they assume compatible people are those who have things in common, as opposed to those who want and can offer complementary things to each other.

A man who likes to play lots of golf doesn't want a woman who plays golf - he wants a woman who doesn't mind when he does. A woman who hates to cook probably doesn't want to marry a fellow kitchen disaster, and neither does she was to live with a gourmet chef.

There's also the other small detail that they don't want any of those nasty queers and lesbos contaminating their site - perhaps they think it'd be used by closeted men in outwardly happy marriages to find men to have real relationships with. You know, like most of the other dating sites in the world.

For a while they tried redirecting men like me to CompatiblePartners dot com, but now they've closed it down. Probably that's a mercy, because I wasted half an hour of my life filling out their dumb survey - or 'personality test' - out of morbid curiosity.

Now, I have absolutely no desire for a long term relationship, or a marriage, gay marriage, civil partnership, domestic partner contract, or any other variation on shackling yourself to another human being because, for some bizarre reason you think enjoying each others company means using each others bank accounts, and breathing each others nocturnal gaseous emissions.

So far as I can see, loving each other is not a good reason to live together - especially as living together tends to kill the relationship. If you're in love, good - enjoy it before it fades. Don't rearrange your life around the hope that it won't fade.

I sleep better alone. I eat, surf, work, create and think better, alone. I've tried the pair bonding thing, and I could only be myself at work. That's where we all bitched about our partners.

So I filled out the questionnaire, revealing my feelings about a barrage of vaguely worded questions, and they found me a match.

Singular. I am compatible with exactly one person in their database. And he's a 50 year old Indian doctor who enjoys trips to the opera.

I wonder if there's a dating site for cynics?

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