eHarmony Is Giving Me No Matches

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eHarmony is very committed to their matching system. The site takes the approach that it would be better to give its members no matches than to give them bad matches. eHarmony will even reject applicants that they feel they can’t provide adequate matches to. In some ways, it’s good to see eHarmony being so honest but it does cause problems. If you’re not getting any matches, a number of things could be happening.

  • When I used eHarmony, I was living in a small town but I had limited my searching radius to around 25 miles. Even though eHarmony has more visitors than any other dating service, most of these people do not live in the woods in western Pennsylvania!
  • You might have a profile that is more difficult to provide matches for. It is likely that some personalities that are easier to match than others. If there are people with personalities that the service can’t match at all, there are likely those who are easy to match and those that are hard to match. This isn’t a bad thing, it just makes you unique.
  • Your personal matching settings may be too strict.

What Can I Do To Get More Matches
Unfortunately, requesting for more matches when using the service will only work (at most) once a day. If you request more matches and are told there are no new matches, requesting more again the same day won’t help. About the only thing you can do improve your matches is alter your matching preferences:

  • You can increase the distance you’re willing to meet someone from. Be sure you’re willing to have a longer distance relationship if you change this because your new matches will be further away!
  • You can change your personal preferences for your matches such as whether or not you are willing to date those with children.
  • You can widen the age range of the people you’ll be matched with.
  • You can change the ethnicities you’re willing to date.
  • You could try to convince eHarmony to let you retake the personality test but you’ll have to call them to do so. The longer it’s been since you took the test, the more likely they are to allow this.

There are some other areas you can change in your personal preferences. To view all of the settings click on “My Settings” at the top of your eHarmony account and then select “Match Settings”. Note: if you change these settings to be more inclusive, clicking the “Find More Matches” can provide you more matches immediately.

Alone with No Matches

I’m Still Not Getting Matches!
This is the situation I ran into. I really liked eHarmony but between my personality, my location and the distance I was willing to travel for a relationship, eHarmony wasn’t able to provide me with an adequate number of matches. As I’ve said, I appreciate their honesty as it helped me make the decision to use another service where I could pick from all the members. I chose Match.com and eventually met my wife. You could also try another matching service like Chemistry.com or MatchMaker if you prefer the matching service model. I believe that eHarmony is the strictest when it comes to matching so these other services may be a little more match-count-friendly.

Also, you could take a break from eHarmony and allow matches to accumulate. You can do this by ending your subscription but do not close your account. After a month or two, if you feel you’ve collected enough matches you could sign up again. Also, during this time where you’re not paying for the service, you can still take advantage of eHarmony’s free weekends. These can occur as often as once a month.

Unfortunately, eHarmony’s greatest strength is often its biggest weakness. If you are unable to find a significant number of matches it’s time to find another service. The service is excellent but if you’re not being provided matches, it’s not worth much at all.

 

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About the Author:

Brad initially struggled with online dating but over time became quite successful using it. He met his wife using online dating and has been giving advice and helping people improve their results since 2007. He has written a Free Online Dating Guide to help others find success with online dating. You can learn more about his personal experience using online dating and running this website here.

Comments

  1. guest in New England  January 10, 2010

    Hi there! I enjoy looking over your site from time to time. Based on info here, I took advantage of eHarmony's free weekend/weeks the last two times. While it is really hard to fully evaluate my matches because they will not let me see photos of them, all I got were a very large number of incredibly THIN matches, big age differences, big differences in pursuits and occupations, etc. I was very surprised at how little these men wrote in their profiles and of course had almost no way to evaluate their attractiveness. They assured me they could see my photos.

    I'd also like to point out that I had been rejected from eHarmony less than a year ago. I made no big changes in my answers, just took the 'test' again, and 'got in'. No phone call to them was needed. Do they need women age 55? perhaps. I believe I was probably rejected originally because I express needs for independence and value excitement, conversation, creativity and spontaneity…I already KNOW lots of men my age (those who are not able to date younger) want LESS of all that, which is why I am on line dating in the first place!

    I'd like to read about others' experiences, especially women my age, with the eHarmony free weekends. Is there a place I might look for this?

  2. Brad  January 10, 2010

    Yeah, the free weekends are a really long-shot at finding success. Occasionally eHarmony will have 5-days free but in either case it doesn't take much to realize their goal is to hope you start a conversation during the free weekend and then end up subscribing once the free weekend runs out. Still, since the gamble is free I recommend those dating online to give it a try (if only to see what the service is all about).

    If eHarmony is preventing those taking advantage of the free weekend from viewing photos, though, that's not cool. If it's a free weekend, it should be a free weekend!

    As far as reading about other women with free weekend experiences, I've not seen many people discussing free weekends (out side of advertising that they're occurring). You might try checking eHarmony's forum at http://advice.eharmony.com/boards/. While eHarmony technically owns this forum I've found many of the conversations there are pretty candid. You might check the Using eHarmony section to see if anyone has similar problems with the free weekends.

    • ChrisJ  July 29, 2015

      During “free communication” events, you cannot view photos, skip ahead to eH Mail or use eH Mail. When they run these offers (say on Facebook) they’ll tell you their stipulations now (they didn’t about a year ago). I did have a match during a free communication event he to the short answer state and I sent her an email, but the three little dots just kept blinking until the website timed out (so I knew it was a free communication event person who was not a subscriber.

      What eH really needs to do it send an email to anyone that hasn’t logged in in say six months to a year and tell them they will remove thier profile unless they logon to the site or call the customer service number (if they forget their logon info). But of course they won’t do that because then they’d have NO ONE to match you. eH Terms of Use say they can remove profiles for any reason, but how do we as subscribers know (that’s right we don’t)? Its in their and their shareholders best interest, not ours.

      If I did meet my other half through eH, I’d be singing praises about them, bit like most of the people that have used eH, I’ve met few people and for the time, money and effort expended, it simply wasnt worth it.

  3. kristin  December 5, 2011

    I did not like match, as I did it last year and one of the matches were suitable. Even though people were paid members, they still used that site and a phone sex site, meaning they would contact me to talk on the phone and would ask me to have phone sex, and did not ask me to meet them. I am looking for a serious relationship. Eharmony was better in finding more serious matches, but I got hardly any matches who would respond to my questions or complete the process or answer my emails. Some people would open up my mail and agree to open communication but would not respond to my email and I do not get what the point of that is, perhaps just to read the email. I used my best pictures, and had people, even men look at them and they agreed they were good. I answered my questions straight to the point and outlined my interests. Only a few matches a week are in my area and that is upsetting and frustrating. Last year I did eharmony the same time as match and almost met somebody, but he stood me up, so I settled on a man I met on a free dating site, and he turned out to be a jerk. This year, after my friends ran out of men to introduce me too, which was my first choice in meeting me, I joined eharmony again. So far I only met one man who turned out to be a mean jerk. I talked to a few people on there, but most of them do not complete the question process and many people view my profile but do not answer my questions and these are not the most attractive men nor do they have such impressive profile. What are they looking for and what do they think they are going to find? Is it just that the dating market of men has gone down hill? Have men today been made to believe by their family some how that they are such prize packages that they are too good for ordinarly people like me? Mot to sound negative either, because I do like eharmony in some ways, but I am just so frustrating with the dating process and so frustrating with not getting a date for weeks or even so much as an email.

    • Alexandra  May 18, 2018

      I did not like match, as I did it last year and one of the matches were suitable. Even though people were paid members, they still used that site and a phone sex site, meaning they would contact me to talk on the phone and would ask me to have phone sex, and did not ask me to meet them. I am looking for a serious relationship. Eharmony was better in finding more serious matches, but I got hardly any matches who would respond to my questions or complete the process or answer my emails. Some people would open up my mail and agree to open communication but would not respond to my email and I do not get what the point of that is, perhaps just to read the email. I used my best pictures, and had people, even men look at them and they agreed they were good. I answered my questions straight to the point and outlined my interests. Only a few matches a week are in my area and that is upsetting and frustrating. Last year I did eharmony the same time as match and almost met somebody, but he stood me up, so I settled on a man I met on a free dating site, and he turned out to be a jerk. This year, after my friends ran out of men to introduce me too, which was my first choice in meeting me, I joined eharmony again. So far I only met one man who turned out to be a mean jerk. I talked to a few people on there, but most of them do not complete the question process and many people view my profile but do not answer my questions and these are not the most attractive men nor do they have such impressive profile. What are they looking for and what do they think they are going to find? Is it just that the dating market of men has gone down hill? Have men today been made to believe by their family some how that they are such prize packages that they are too good for ordinarly people like me? Mot to sound negative either, because I do like eharmony in some ways, but I am just so frustrating with the dating process and so frustrating with not getting a date for weeks or even so much as an email.

  4. John  April 4, 2012

    As someone living outside of Pittsburgh, your comment about finding anybody in the woods of westeren PA rings true. Heck, finding even just freinds is hard. It’s funny, because as soon as I expand my search into Ohio, the search results started to really roll in.

    Also, it’s interesting that you mentioned that e-Harmony was for older people looking for marriage. I’m in my early-mid 20’s, wasn’t too picky about who I got outside of a few obviously important things, and got exactly 1 result. I was having a much better time with the free sites, and in particular gocupid. I found a lot of good matches, and a few great ones, so at least I’m making forward progress.

  5. Brad  April 7, 2012

    Yeah, John, it’s funny but I got a lot of Matches from Ohio as well!

  6. Regina  October 13, 2016

    Well I have been on eharmony for 3 months and have yet to get a hello. I opened my distance and have not so good options from all over the world. Most have been 10 plus years my senior? I don’t want that. I have sent messages but no responses and i would even take an “I’m not interested” to let me know that these are actually real people. I even saw one picture of a man that i recognized from a cigarette commercial. I don’t even know what to think about that. I am paid up till November but I think I will cancel my prescription.
    From the other people I have talked to, it has been mentioned numerous times that eharmony is not really for all the races and ethnic groups. I am starting to believe that now from the options I have been sent that are supposedly the best match for me.

  7. jim  December 24, 2017

    Hi Brad,
    I just started the online dating scene with eharmony and christian mingle. I live in the St Louis area where the population is around 2.8 million people. The thing Ive noticed is that both dating sites are mostly matching me up with people in small towns way outside my area. What the heck with that?! is it coincidence or do you think that these dating sites match you up with people far away on purpose to make you stay longer on the site and therefore pay more? How is it possible that I’m not getting more matches from a city with nearly 3 million people? What do you think, Brad?

    • Mike K  January 15, 2018

      Jim – it does seem that you should be getting more matches. I know that eHarmony claims that they would rather give you NO matches than give you BAD matches, but it’s frustrating. I think it’s possible that even though you might live in a big city that they may just not be able to match you well?

  8. RW  February 3, 2018

    St. Louis City has around 315,000 people not 3 million- The State of Missouri has around 6 million, with the St. Louis Metro area 5-6 counties having a population base of 2,811,588.
    So the milage range and zip code you input has the biggest efffect-