Online Dating Blog

Update: When I originally wrote this article, eHarmony was giving Tuesdays out as free time. Since I wrote this, eHarmony has now given a Thursday out as the free night instead. With that in mind, I’ve updated the article from “free Tuesdays” to “free weekday”.

For the past several weeks, eHarmony has been having free weekday events. eHarmony has been known for giving away free time to its service for years, but this is a new approach: one day a week, eHarmony is free to use in the evening.

eHarmony is currently testing the weekday approach to see how its users like (or dislike) it. So it’s not clear how long these free weekdays will continue, but I can say there is another scheduled for this week. If you wanted to give it a shot, be sure to create your profile in advance (as only the evening hours on one day during the week are free and you don’t want to use one of those hours creating your profile).

I imagine some people won’t like the free weekday events and will say, “free weekends are so much better!” However, before you write the free weekdays off as not giving you enough time to find success, I’d like to compare these to the traditional eHarmony free weekend.

The Free Weekend vs. Free Weekday Events

There’s no guarantee the free weekday events will continue. My optimism about this promotion aside, eHarmony may find that its users hate it and will end it in short order (and then I’d assume they’d go back to free weekends).

Still, they might stick around and to those people who may not like free weekdays, I wanted to talk about how this different approach from eHarmony might actually be of benefit to you:

Better Opportunity for First Dates?
So with the free weekend, generally to get to some first dates you need to work quickly. You’ll probably be on eHarmony every day of the free event and will need to move the communication along each day. Not only that, you’ll need to find someone who does the same.

If you aren’t able to move things along quickly, you may find yourself having to decide between subscribing or waiting a month to continue the conversation (assuming there will be another free event next month).

With free weekday events, you still need to put an effort into taking advantage of the free time you’re given, but now you have the potential to move the conversation along every week. This could translate into more first dates: yes, it might require a bit more patience and first dates may be built over two or three weeks but the opportunities are still there. Basically, time is more on your side: everything doesn’t hinge on moving the conversation along at breakneck speed in a three or four day window.

The free weekday events are also nice because I’m sure many of us have had someone contact us right after a free weekend finished. What do you do now? With more regular, shorter free events the answer is more straight forward: you wait a few days and continue the conversation then.

You Shouldn’t “Lose” Time
Second, eHarmony’s free weekends have generally turned into free events. What I mean is that most often eHarmony is giving out 3 or 4 free days, not 2 (as you might expect with a free “weekend”). If eHarmony transitions to free weekday events, you don’t lose the amount of free time you get…the only thing that changes is when you’re using that free time.

So, if you get 4 days in one weekend or 4 days over a month, they’re not taking time away…although that’s assuming that each week would have a free day!

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So there’s the optimists view of the new free weekday events. If you still hate the idea, the good news is it’s still in a testing phase. However, if you have an account, why not try one of the free Tuesdays and see where it goes? I imagine when Wednesday rolls around you might be annoyed you have to wait, but if the next Tuesday is free as well, you might find you appreciate the new approach!

If you don’t have a free account at eHarmony, you can sign up here. This is also important as then they’ll send you emails for free events, whether it’s a free Tuesday or a free weekend.

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