I read in the LA Times (members only content now) earlier this week that the online matchmaker eHarmony.com was granted a patent for their complex profile-matching system.

eHarmony.com has received a U.S.Patent for a “method and system for identifying people who are likely tohave a successful relationship.” That process includes having mate-seekers answer more than 430 questions, such as “Do you smoke?”; “How much does the word ‘dominant’ describe you on a list of 1 through 7?”; and “How often do you feel depressed?” Compatible pairs are then identified using a “marital satisfaction index” based on rankings in 29 categories, and eHarmony only pairs people when it is 95% confident that their compatibility rating falls in the index’s top 25 percent. Happy customer Melinda Miller, a 32-year-old middle school teacher in Celebration, Fla., met her future husband througheHarmony and says: “The chemistry between us was amazing right from the start — and I know that sounds funny because how can you have chemistry over the Internet? But we had complete compatibility between our personalities.” eHarmony costs $50 per month or $250 per year and rejects one in five people who complete the free questionnaire if they are judged to be “not the marrying type.” A company executive says: “We try to be nice. We tell them our services probably won’t be useful.”

An old friend and a couple of relatives of mine, all women, have met promising potential partners using the service.

Heather thought we should both take the eHarmony questionnaire and see how compatible the service thinks we are (although we don’t need outside confirmation to know that we are supposed to be together). I don’t think it works quite that way; there’s probably no way to compare two profiles without actually signing up, and even then, it would probably only match our profiles up if we came up close to each other on the compatibility matrix. Living at the same address might give us a locale boost though, so who knows. We’d like to ask one of our local eHarmony subscribers for a peek into the system.

Not that commonality of taste is the lynchpin of a successful life together, but we started thinking about the specific things we have in common. Beyond the fairly obvious: our faith, ethnicity and geography, we came up with a short list of uncommon intersections:

- we both hate the film “What About Bob?”
- neither of us drink coffee
- we are both happy to live without television
- we both think kids are happier with toys that leave more to the imagination
- both of us like taking long driving trips

While I’m sure there are more, especially in areas that we’ve discovered good things together, what’s easier for us to see are the ways in which our predelictions are usually different. Most of them arise from the fact that while I tend to only half-heartedly engage reality, Heather’s inclination is generally to engage and subjugate it. While my vision of “a good day” is a quiet one in which little happens and I’m finally able to think without distractions (maybe I take an hour to wash the dishes by hand or alphabetize our music), Heather’s is of a day of controlled chaos in which a giant mess is made and something new and wonderful (a quilt? laundry soap? reorganized closet space?) is created. But we’re good together, and getting even better.

To quote Jeffrey McDaniel, from his poem The First Straw (published in Dust-up):

I used to think love was a non-stop saxophone solo
in the lungs, till I hung with you like a pair of sneakers

from a phone line, and you promised to always smell
the rose in my kerosene. I used to think love was terminal

pelvic ballet, till you let me jog beside while you pedaled
all over hell on the menstrual bicycle, your tongue

ripping through my prairie like a tornado of paper cuts.