eHarmony: Defending Marriage

I'm a heel. You may (or may not) remember my adventure to see if Cyndi and I are compatible. We completed the free eHarmony profile survey to see what type of match we would be. It turns out we're not any type of match. No matter how narrow the geographic search criteria, we did not show up as a compatible match for each other according to their other profile points. She says it's because the computer can't tell how funny and mean she is and that I need funny and mean. Maybe.

What their match points supposedly can tell is who would be a better match for us. So now, when I do something awful, Cyndi can hold Sheldon from San Diego over my head. I still have Bear Wife,* who, I am sure, could kill Sheldon so I don't worry about him. I do worry though, that I can no longer go to "my" Starbucks.

As Cyndi (and good sense) says, I have no way of knowing who any of the people offered to me as matches really are (you have to pay to see them), but I am willing to bet that I know one of the people that came up as a match for me. I suspect she is a regular customer from Starbucks I used to chat with. It's all fun and games until you realize you're messing around with people looking for real relationships. Cyndi thinks, even if it is her, she would have no way of knowing that I did this. She's probably right, but I still feel pretty foolish... and mean. It was just a video game until I was forced to recognize the people attached to the names. Nothing brings the consequence of your antics to light quite like the lives of real people. So I haven't been back to "my" Starbucks in a while. Like I said, I'm a heel.

But now, setting aside the moral implications of my research as any good social scientist should, I wonder how many eHarmony marriages will end in divorce. It would be interesting in the long run to compare the endurance of eHarmony marriages with others. I don't know what I think of compatibility as a possible measure of future success. I suppose the more you have in common with someone in key areas the more you will enjoy spending time with them, or possibly, the more potential there is for finding things you may enjoy doing with each other. But people seem to change over time, circumstances change, experiences alter people, anything can happen to make a couple that seems compatible now, incompatible in the future. It may be that people are looking for something to keep them together and the idea of "compatibility" as some objective measure might be that. Maybe I can't speak to this because Cyndi and I apparently aren't compatible, but I wonder if the idea of compatibility, even if it's an illusion, can serve as a "glue" through those times when a couple might otherwise want to call it quits. It may be that the idea of compatibility is generally more binding than the idea of commitment for the spirit of our age. We may stick together, not because we decided to do so no matter what, but because it is proven that our partner can make us happy; maybe we're willing to work through these temporary obstacles or over the bumps in the road to that end. Like I said, maybe.

I tend to think people don't have what it takes to be married until they decide to stick it out and at the end of it all, have developed more fully what was necessary to have a good marriage. But I tend to view a lot of life that way. How unromantic- relationships as character development. I guess it's a little romantic- a la the Tin Woodsmen. We'll see how it turns out.

I Love You Sweetleaf
One More Saturday Night- Grateful Dead
The Harder They Come- Jimmy Cliff
Holiday- Weezer
Mike Mills- Air
Go With the Flow- Queens of the Stone Age
Silver- Pixies
In The Summertime- Mungo Jerry
Flamenco Sketches- Miles Davis

*Bear Wife is just that; she's a wife that is a bear. There isn't time for more exposition than that.