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"If you are up for it, you can enjoy a romp with Mr. or Ms. Right-for-the-night. But when you find yourself in a position to get lucky, you should heed a few rendezvous rules to ensure a seamless one-night-only performance."

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"As consenting adults, it’s absolutely fine for both of you to do what makes you happy. The key is to make your intentions clear with your date and call it what it is: sex with no strings attached."

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"One-nighters need not call or check up on the whereabouts of the person they shared the evening with. Acting as if your near-anonymous night of passion was a first date will just confuse sex with love. Don’t let desperation lead you to dialing and turn you into a lovesick fool."

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I'm married, and so I don't use this service. But if I were single and a member of eHarmony, I'd think long and hard about whether to drop them in favor of a matching service more concerned about the health of my relationships than about money.

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ORIGINAL: rgod

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I'm married, and so I don't use this service. But if I were single and a member of eHarmony, I'd think long and hard about whether to drop them in favor of a matching service more concerned about the health of my relationships than about money.

Why would you, as a married person, take the time to come to the singles forum and dispense advice on what online service a single person should or should not be part of? What is the purpose of this? Is it to condemn people? Singles are lectured constantly by married people who approach singlehood theoretically. How would you feel if I, as a single person, went to the married folder and started telling you that you should not be involved with a particular marriage ministry, that was helpful to you and to those you knew, because of an article on their website? Or if I, who do not have children, started telling you to never listen to Jim Dobson because of something that he said? (I don't know of anything - I'm just stating a hypothetical situation). Wouldn't you find me to be a bit presumptuous or the very least, not credible?

I'm not disagreeing with you on certain aspects of eharmony. It is not a Christian site. I don't think anyone is under that impression anymore. Christian sites often contain some questionable people. But many singles choose eharmony because there are a high percentage of marriage-minded Christians there. The decision that they make be part of it, continue, or discontinue is between them and God, not an external observer who has decided to post an opinion on a topic that they are not personally involved in.

I'm sorry to come across so strongly, but this kind of unsolicited theoretical advice can be grating. And when you post an opinion, others will respond. I'm sure I'll get responses as well since I've stated my opinion so strongly. Again, I'm not disagreeing with the facts you stated, but I really question your motivation for posting this and giving unsolicited advice here. If I've misconstrued something however, I'd be happy to hear you out.

rgod

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ORIGINAL: rgod

lpt -

Sorry - I realized that I came off too strongly and I tried to edit the post before you read it, but I was too slow. I think that this is a bit of a sensitive topic for me as I've had to deal with insensitivity on the part of many married folks for a little while now on a variety of issues. I don't mind advice from married people, but it is difficult sometimes hearing advice from someone who was married from a very early age since a lot of it tends to be theoretical. As this is not the case and you have experience being single, I do apologize. (Actually I would have apologized even if you had no experience). I think that I jumped the gun here and probably should have asked more questions. I also really appreciate your interest in single adults and will read your background information.

To answer your question ..

rgod

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And, just a little thought based on the conversation thus far, I think sometimes married folks can give good advice to us singles seeking a mate for the simple reason that they have that insight into the marriage relationship ... and also that single folks can sometimes give married folks insight that they haven't considered. Maybe it all has to do with perspective ... sometimes we can lose sight of the forest because there are too many trees blocking the view.

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You, lpt, have done a lot of people a great service by alerting us of such advice on the site, especially those who haven't decided to use said services.

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ORIGINAL: lpt
But if I were single and a member of eHarmony, I'd think long and hard about whether to drop them in favor of a matching service more concerned about the health of my relationships than about money.

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ORIGINAL: rgod

There are a few "Christian" sites out there that are a bit better and I'll probably stick with those. I've decided not to list on any more secular sites because there aren't enough Christians there, and even if they profess Christ they tend to be sketchy. I do agree that if a Christian site or station was looking for ad revenue and they only wanted to endorse Christian products, that eharmony is probably not the way to go; but again, each site has to make a decision about who they will accept revenue from (only christian or christian and non-christian). There are several other services that are professing Christian sites that would be a better fit.

rgod

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ORIGINAL: Prairiehiker

I've read some of Warren's books on dating. His personal values are based on his Christian faith but he doesn't impose them on any members that join his dating site or people that reads his books. He runs a business. Even though it was originally viewed as a faith-base site, it is not anymore. He doesn't advertise it as such. What he advertise is that marriage base on compatibility is more likely to survive and thrive and be successful compare to marriages based on two incompatible people. It's the same for Christian or non Christian marriages. Two Christians does not necessarily make a good marriage because there's other factors that affects marriages; not just faith.

A lot of faith base (Christian faith) org are distancing themselves from E harmony because of the way E has been opening it's doors to a wider market. Hey, people that do not belong to our faith wants to connect with other people too. And though a lot of people clearly do not follow our rules for dating, we should not expect them too as they don't have the same belief as we do.

If you're on E and was given a match, read his/her profile and see if his Christian faith and values jump out from his profile. Those should be very evident when you skim someone's profile and if they are not, then they probably aren't practicing Christ followers. If not, just click and say "next". Let's not waste too much time criticising the dating site. It's just a medium for meeting people.

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ORIGINAL: benelchi

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ORIGINAL: Prairiehiker

I've read some of Warren's books on dating. His personal values are based on his Christian faith but he doesn't impose them on any members that join his dating site or people that reads his books. He runs a business. Even though it was originally viewed as a faith-base site, it is not anymore. He doesn't advertise it as such. What he advertise is that marriage base on compatibility is more likely to survive and thrive and be successful compare to marriages based on two incompatible people. It's the same for Christian or non Christian marriages. Two Christians does not necessarily make a good marriage because there's other factors that affects marriages; not just faith.

A lot of faith base (Christian faith) org are distancing themselves from E harmony because of the way E has been opening it's doors to a wider market. Hey, people that do not belong to our faith wants to connect with other people too. And though a lot of people clearly do not follow our rules for dating, we should not expect them too as they don't have the same belief as we do.

If you're on E and was given a match, read his/her profile and see if his Christian faith and values jump out from his profile. Those should be very evident when you skim someone's profile and if they are not, then they probably aren't practicing Christ followers. If not, just click and say "next". Let's not waste too much time criticising the dating site. It's just a medium for meeting people.

I don't think the answer is quite that easy, as an owner of a Christian based business that caters to other business that are not necessarily Christian owned I have also been faced with questions about what are the ethical boundaries we will not cross. My company designs and maintains computer servers and networks for other companies. All of the founders of my company are Christians, but not all of our employees are Christians. Some of the ethical issues we have been challenged with at our company are things like, do we allow a non-Christian sales person to sell to a Internet PORN company or an abortion clinic, etc...? Do we allow our non-Christian sales people to "entertain" our non-Christian customers at a "strip club" or similarly ethically questionable establishments when our competitors are doing so? For us, the answer has been NO because we believe doing so would seriously affect our Christian witness even though we personally did not engage in these activities. People really do understand that at some level the owners of the company really do have control of what happens in their business. In the case of E-Harmony, I think the big question is does Neil Warren simply allow his site to be used by non-Christians while upholding Christian values or does he cater to those who are non-Christian by compromising Christian values. In this case, I believe he has clearly chosen the latter, and as such he has clearly tarnished his own Christian witness before a world that desperately needs to see Christ in him.

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does he cater to those who are non-Christian by compromising Christian values

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ORIGINAL: iwillfearnoevil

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ORIGINAL: lpt
But if I were single and a member of eHarmony, I'd think long and hard about whether to drop them in favor of a matching service more concerned about the health of my relationships than about money.

Ted - I vaguely seem to recall you posting another negatives about eHarmony previously here or elsewhere. what do you recommend for a matching service more concerned about the health of our relationships than money. i've yet to see any free Christian dating sites with an active membership but am not experienced in this area.