Men of the world, watch out! pt. 2: Chemistry.com survey

After my dismaying encounter with eharmony, I went to chemistry.com, which I understand to be an offshoot of match.com. I have heard mixed things about match.com itself; I do know at least one couple that met on that site, but it seems rather meat market-ish. I understand it’s more inclined towards casual dating than serious relationships per se, and so chemistry.com is match.com’s bid to take over some of eharmony’s share of that “serious relationship” market. So I gave chemistry.com a shot.

The questionnaire was quite different on chemistry.com. There was some weird stuff that I doubt has much efficacy (is your ring finger longer than your index finger?) and some odd visual games (which face is fake smiling, and which is not?). Otherwise, a lot of the questions seemed very eharmony-ish, except that there were fewer of them (much appreciated). Overall the evaluation process was a lot less painful on chemistry, and possibly even slightly fun. When complete, it announced that I was an explorer/negotiator. It seems I enjoy new! situations! and! excitement! which is…kinda…true? Hrm.

They sent me ten matches immediately, which were supposed to be complementary; negotiator/directors, mostly. Which means much more laid back or more logical than I. I think. Actually, I don’t think that these personality categories mean a whole lot in terms of who gets sent your way. Or other categories/preferences; chemistry sends whoever it sees fit! I specified that I wanted men with at least a college education, and I’ve gotten a few who aren’t college graduates.

I sifted through the ten and made two “active,” meaning I indicated interest. The rest I “archived,” which I suppose is a polite word for reject. Though if I’m the one doing the rejecting, I can resurrect the archived fellas at any time. (The archive also shows men who have rejected me, along with their reasons for so doing. No resurrections here.). From what I understand, chemistry sends up to 5 matches a day (which is on top of whoever shows interest in you. So you may have 400 people expressing interest, allowing you to see their profiles; chemistry will send you 5 more, which would let you see 405 profiles). But they don’t send more than that in a day, which is fine by me. This process gets a little overwhelming when matches begin to respond.

What I find kind of neat about chemistry is that they supposedly refine the kinds of profiles they send to you in the future based on your reasons for rejecting someone. That is, if you consistently reject men for being, let’s say, agnostic, you won’t get as many agnostics in the future. Also, post first-date, you fill out a survey about how it went, and this further refines the type of match you get. This is how it’s supposed to work, but we’ll see if I actually see any rising trends among my matches…

In sum? Much better than eharmony. Complementarity seems like a better way to go than similarity. Eharmony seems hellbent on matching me with my clone, which does not particularly appeal to me. Photos are available right away on chemistry.com, too, which is a plus. I don’t really see the point in delaying the inevitable, and I’m not going to lie or prevaricate in my photo gallery. I included a full body picture; who cares, honestly?

next: overwhelmed by the mens, at least initially.