No I Don't Want No Scrubs

I had been on eHarmony for about a week, and so far the results were less than spectacular. 50 computer nerds later, there had been a limited number of glimmers of hope within the group. Now, I will remind you once again that this was nothing more than a social experiment. But I was still holding out hope that there were at least a few normal guys on eHarmony. So I was surprised when I checked my new matches (on my birthday, actually) and found that I had been matched with a seemingly normal, cool guy. We'll call him.... Wyatt. Here are just a few things about him:

• Police Officer
• Marine, who had served in Iraq
• Solid Christian guy, who works with his church high school group
• Has his bachelor's degree
• 6'3" (I'll just go ahead and admit that I like tall guys. Gotta improve the gene pool!)
• Owns his own house (wait, so he doesn't live with his mom like all my other matches???)

So, lets just say that he fulfills a few of what I would consider "desirable criteria." I mean, seriously, a cop AND a marine in one!

So, he ended up contacting me with a few initial questions.

I suppose I should probably explain how eHarmony communication works. Each person, after answering the 5 million questions, then makes a profile page. On this page, you can put general info (age, profession, etc,), what you are passionate about, your interests, things you can't live without, what you are looking for in a partner, and other random info. You can also post pictures for your matches to see. Once you are matched with someone (based on the questions answered previously) they are able to see your profile. Only your matches can see your profile. After reviewing your matches, you have 3 options:

1. Do nothing. This will leave the match in your "new matches" category, and can be accessed later.
2. Close match. This will list the person under your "closed matches" section, and they are no longer able to contact you.
3. Begin communication. This has 4 phases. If the person receiving the communication is satisfied with what the other user has to say, they can continue to the next level of communication. Both users can also close the match at any time, therefore ending all communication as well. The phases are:

• Initial questions. You are able to select 5 prewritten questions, and send them to your match. They are then able to answer from multiple choice answers, or write in a short answer of their own if none of the others are appropriate.
• Must haves/can't stands: This is a list that each person creates. There are technically two lists. One with everything that you could never accept in a partner (I.e. Racism, lying, cheating, smoking, drug use, laziness, etc. Apparently some people are fine with these things???) and the other with everything that you require (I.e. education, values family, honest, wants children, spiritual, etc.).
• Second questions. Similar to the first, except that you are able to write them yourself. Also, there are no scripted answers. The person answering the questions is able to write a few paragraphs in response to the questions. There is room for 3 questions.
• eHarmony mail. This is basically email. It is all within the website, and does not give out any personal information. This can be used to email your match with whatever questions you may have, or just to get to know them in general. This is the final phase of communication, and it remains at this level indefinitely. The idea is that the people involved with either eventually close the match, or use this to exchange information (phone number, email, etc.) and continue communication outside of eHarmony.

So, as I was saying, Wyatt contacted me with a few initial questions. Now, the social experiment wouldn't be complete if I didn't communicate with my matches. So I answered his questions, and responded with my own. Pretty soon, we had gotten to the eHarmony mail phase.

Not only was he a marine and cop, but he also seemed to be a legitimately nice guy. We seemed to have a lot in common, and I began to think that maybe eHarmony does work! Being the nice girl that I am, I bluntly told him why I was on eHarmony, and that I wasn't interested in a relationship. I thought that maybe I had found a nice friend in a similar career field to my own. I enjoyed getting to know him. He seemed like a really nice guy. I'll remind you that he had sent me all of the questions. I didn't initiate anything.

And then... he just disappeared. So much for that! It seems that his subscription ran out, and he he didn't want to renew it. At least that's what he said, right before he vanished off the face of the eHarmony planet. But there was something interesting about this claim: his profile never disappeared. Now I'm not an expert, but I believe that if you stop paying your subscription, your profile gets closed down after a short period of time. So I found it interesting that his never went away.

And then, just today, something surprising happened. I checked my new matches, and found something... interesting. It seems that I had been matched with another Wyatt, of the same age, from the same town. Hmm...... fascinating. When I went to his profile, I found something even more interesting. It seems that this guy also had the same career, and the same pictures. I couldn't believe it. It was the SAME GUY, with a different profile.

I figure that there are 2 possible explanations for this:

1. He decided to renew his subscription, but had to create a whole new profile for some reason.
2. He is a complete sleaze.

I went back to his old profile, and it's still there. It still hasn't been cancelled. So I'm definitely leaning towards the second option. Opinions?

So the moral of the story is: even the seemingly nice guys are scrubs. And a scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me.