Tempted to join eHarmony

Last updated on: May 10, 2011 at 8:41 am by Kathy Tuan-MacLean

Tempted to join eHarmony 2011-05-10T08:41:00-04:00 Kathy Tuan-MacLean

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I’m feeling tempted to sign up with eHarmony.

Not because I’m ready to find another husband—I’m very satisfied with the one I have. But because I’m just slightly addicted to personality tests and eHarmony is one major personality test!

This past weekend I went on a girls’ weekend with 5 friends to celebrate a 40th birthday, and one of the tasks was signing her up for eHarmony. It took at least 2 hours and we only got about 70% through the whole thing.

Of course, it’s a lot slower answering questions when your friends constantly debate every response because we’re all convinced we know you better than you know yourself! On top of that, it was tricky to figure out how others would perceive our friend in light of the larger eHarmony population which we assume tends to be slightly less educated than a group where 3 women have doctorates, 2 from Harvard.

A big debate was whether “intelligence” should be a top 4 characteristic. After all, despite how extremely brilliant my friend is, many of her other character qualities actually outshine her brilliance (which is saying something), her kindness, her loyalty, her courage. But stack her up against everyone else and everyone decided intelligence should be up there.

We clearly were over-thinking the test.

But the more questions we answered, the more I wanted to see what eHarmony would say about me—and who eHarmony would think should be my future soulmate.

I’m curious because I’m almost 100% sure no computer program would ever match me with Scott. We’re polar opposites on almost every spectrum out there. He’s an ISTJ, I’m an ENFP (on the Myers-Briggs for those not yet initiated into one of my favorite personality tests, one in which I’m even a certified trainer!). He’s from Maine, I’m from Hawaii. He’s conservative bordering on libertarian, I’m liberal bordering on socialist. He’s White, I’m Chinese. The list goes on.

About the only things we have in common are a steadfast love for Jesus and that we both like foods from every culture and nation.

Frankly, anyone without both these character qualities would have been deal-breakers for me. When I found myself broken-hearted at age 26, I made myself at least look at guys as possibilities. In the most subtle way I knew, I asked any single guy, “What do you like to eat?”

Almost all of them said, “Oh, I’m a really boring eater. I’m a meat and potatoes guy. I don’t eat vegetables.” At that, I crossed them off my list.

The first time I ate a meal with Scott, we were in a group of 10 new InterVarsity staff at our staff orientation. Independently, we both ordered spinoccoli pizza at Uno’s. I was too broken-hearted in that moment to feel a spark, but I tucked away the fact that Scott ordered spinach and broccoli on his own.

Months later, when we weren’t yet “officially” dating, we drove my sister back to Brown University and ate at a Thai restaurant near campus. He thought the curry was the hottest thing he’d ever had as he sweated and gulped water. My sister and I weren’t similarly affected, but the fact that he enjoyed the torture of spice was a good sign.

eHarmony had questions on spirituality, but none on food. I think they need to revise their whole algorithm. Maybe they should hire me to help them. That way, I can take the test!

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