OK, first things first, horror stories about scary things happening to women: I work in the media (newspapers) for a living. Here's a little hint about the news: Things are news because they're abnormal. I doubt that every, most, or even a significant percentage of guys that you'll come in contact with on eHarmony are psychopathic throatslitters.


I think the safety advice lizard47 offered is pretty solid, and it's better to be too safe than not safe enough. When the time comes for me to actually do a face-to-face with someone I meet on here, I would expect (heck, I would hope) they've got the brains to consider such things -- but at the same time, I don't want them to treat me like I'm on the Ten Most Wanted List and assume I'm going to turn into Michael Myers at the first opportunity. Kind of a turn-off, you know?


But, onto the main issues here.


Based on what I would see myself doing, yeah, the guy came out of the gate quicker than I would. A lot quicker, really, Honestly, it makes him seem painfully desperate and needy. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm kind of desperate, too, but I'm sure as heck not going to show it.


Also, writing a one-sentence response wasn't that bright and he took the "little bit about himself" part a bit too literally. But, then again, if I was more comfortable expressing myself talking than writing, I probably wouldn't have tried using eHarmony yet.


At the same time, I could see a couple of things you did that I wouldn't have been keen on.


First, if I read what you're saying right, you waited from Monday until Saturday to send the first e-mail. That would be five days. In the digitial age, five days waiting for an e-mail isn't much different than waiting for decades. At the very least, a quick courtesy e-mail saying "Hey, I really want to put some thought into this and I have a pretty hectic week, so it might be a few days before I send you something, hope that's OK" probably would have been a good idea.


Second, I too would be wary of somebody who doesn't put their photo up. Any matches I get that lack a photo can hope for "maybe" status at best.


From my perspective, I'm spending $240 a year to be on here, which in my line of work is a decent chunk of change, and I would expect that to be the same most people on here. That means I'd expect most people using eHarmony to be serious about making this thing work for them. And I'm going to want somebody that's interested in me, warts and all (don't actually have any warts, but you get what I'm saying).


So, even though I'm not exactly waiting for the phone call from GQ to schedule the cover shoot, I have a few pictures of myself up. The way I figure, the worst anybody can say is they don't think I'm attractive, and it's not like I've never heard that before.


One final thought: Please don't let a few instances of jerkiness in your past cause you to paint a broad brush of shame across half the human population. I still hold out hope my gender that the ratio of good guys to drunk morons/sex maniacs/creepy stalkers/complete psychopaths is a couple hundred to one at the worst.