If you've reached out to eHarmony to help find a serious relationship, then clearly you're serious about a finding a relationship. But getting the most from eHarmony isn't always simple or obvious, and the more unique your life the more intentional you need to be about how you direct this wonderful tool.
Single Moms place a premium on two facets of their dating search – saving time and proceeding safely. So we sat down with the people who know more about eHarmony than anyone, their Customer Care team, to discover the tips, tricks, and strategies that can make their system work faster and more efficiently for you.
1. Pay Special Attention to Your Distance Settings
Whenever a new user starts eHarmony they spend a moment thinking about the geographic range from which their matches are chosen. Clearly, the wider the geographic range the greater the number of matches that will be available. For years eHarmony has encouraged users to move one step past their comfort zone, and accept matches from as wide an area as possible.
Moms have an extra layer of consideration when choosing their geographic range. Spend some time thinking about your willingness to move your family, and your comfort level dating someone who might live 30 or 40 miles away. You may decide that choosing a narrow geographic range, which creates a smaller match pool and a potentially longer period of time to meet the right man, is the best approach considering your children.
2. Make Sure Your Heart Is In It
One of the most common mistakes single moms make is creating a profile that brings into question their desire for a new relationship. Your match profile is your "first impression." It is essentially the only piece of information a man has to go on when deciding whether to respond to you. Profiles that describe a woman who is firmly focused on her children to the exclusion of practically everything else can be confusing. Make no mistake, as a parent everyone knows and expects that your number-one priority is your children. However, it's important to understand that the men who are using eHarmony are in search for a life partner who shares their desire to work together and build a strong and loving relationship. A woman who seems to be totally overwhelmed with her profession, her children, and her responsibilities may leave a man asking, "When would we have time to build this relationship?"
3. Looks Matter
Launching a search for a relationship partner is no small task. It is, in fact, a new stage of your life – a new chapter where you'll need to change and grow in important ways. Some degree of that growth and change will come from your attitude. Some degree of that growth should be physical. This is a time to look your best, so make a deliberate decision to embrace this effort. Moms can feel guilty about taking the time and money needed to pamper themselves, but a search for a relationship is about all aspects of your life – including your appearance. Being a mother and being sexy are not mutually exclusive. Make sure you create photos that show you at your best – smiling, happy, and beautiful. Let your friends help! Call them up and say, "Honestly, what do you think I need to do to look my best?"
4. Mention Your Children but Don't Focus on Them
It is vitally important that you mention your children in your profile. They are the most important people in your life, and telling potential partners that you have this priority is a natural part of sharing your story. It is not, however, appropriate to focus on your children in your profile. Your matches want to get to know you. They want to hear about your hopes, dreams, hobbies, and accomplishments.
One of the absolutes of eHarmony, according to the Customer Care team, is that users with well-crafted and complete profiles get more communication that those with incomplete profiles. Users who elaborate on themselves and write past the obvious answers are more interesting than those who don't bother.
Also, it should go without saying that including personal information about your children in your profile is unnecessary and inappropriate. Information about their schools, their sports organizations, and other social activities has no place in a profile about you.
5. Use Your "Match Flexibility" Wisely
At the bottom of your "My Settings" page you'll see a collection of match flexibility settings. You have the ability to indicate how important each of these categories is to your search. The range runs from 1, "not important", to 7, "very important".
How important is your match's distance from you?
How important is your match's religion to you?
How important is your match's religious denomination to you?
How important is your match's ethnicity to you?
How important is your match's education to you?
How important is your match's income to you?
How important is your match's height to you?
How important is your match's age to you?
How important is the amount that your match smokes to you?
How important is the amount that your match drinks to you?
We would never suggest that you deemphasize a category that is very important to you. For example, if you don't want to be with someone who smokes under any circumstances, by all means, make that known by indicating a 7. But it is important to realize that 6's and 7's in these categories can rule out large numbers of great candidates.
If you choose a 7 for religious denomination, the matching system will only select matches who share your specific denomination. You can image how layering strict matching rules on top of eHarmony's already stringent compatibility system can seriously limit your candidate pool.
So, think hard about each choice. Does it really matter to you if the man of your dreams is 5'9" instead of 6'? Do you really want to miss out on meeting a compatible, interesting guy because he is 7 years older than you? Or never finished college? Wouldn't you rather make your judgments after meeting him?
