Is eHarmony a Religious Dating Site?

No. eharmony's own FAQ says it has no affiliation with any religion and that its membership pool is not dominated by any faith. It welcomes members of all religions and backgrounds, so you do not need to be religious to use it. Religion is simply one of the preferences you can set, and a woman may care about it more than the site does.

The statement is direct. eharmony has no tie to a religion, and no single faith dominates the people on it.

It also says it is for whatever relationship you want, and that it leaves defining what makes a relationship to the people involved. In other words, it does not hand you a set of values. You bring your own, and so does she.

There is a separate eharmony page about Christian dating, but its FAQ states that the site as a whole is not Christian. A Christian page on a general site is one more audience being served, in the way a site can have pages for different cities.

Religion appears as one of your Member Preferences. You can set it if it matters to you. eharmony says you can filter based on faith, with the feature available within some Premium membership tiers.

That setting works in both directions. A man who is religious can use it to find women who say they share his faith. A man who is not religious can use it, or leave it off, so that his list is not limited by a category that does not matter to him.

If you are not religious and you simply leave it open, nothing is asked of you. You are not required to fill in a belief to take part.

The site is neutral, but the women on it are not all neutral. For some, faith decides who she will date. She may have said so on her page, or she may bring it up in the first few messages.

That is not a reason to avoid the site. It is a reason to be ready for the topic. If you are asked about it, answer in plain words about what is true for you.

If you are not religious, you can say that without apology and without a speech. If you are religious in a casual way, say that, not something more devout. And if you hold your faith seriously, say so early, because that is the kind of thing that decides whether two people continue.

eharmony warns that very specific settings for geographic range, ethnicity, religion, smoking or drinking can leave you with a small number of potential matches. Each one is a slice taken out of the people near you.

If religion matters to you, keep it, but do not stack it with a narrow distance and three other filters. If it does not matter, leave it blank. A man who adds a preference out of habit and then wonders why the site shows him so few women has done it to himself.

When she asks about your beliefs, treat it as a normal question and answer it in a sentence or two. Then ask her something back. How she answers tells you more than the label does.

What you want to avoid is guessing what she wants to hear. A man who says he is devout to match a woman's page, and then has to keep it up over dinner, ends the date early. Women pick up on this quickly, and a date that begins with a small lie rarely recovers.

You do not need to pay to find out whether the site suits you. Basic is free, with no time limit, and you can take the Compatibility Quiz, browse suggestions and send Likes. Setting a faith filter sits in some Premium tiers, so decide whether you need it before paying.

a dating coach's rule is to test any paid feature and judge it by what it produces. Run the free version for two or three weeks and count: Likes returned, replies, plans to meet and dates that happened. If the free membership gives you conversations and faith is the one thing blocking you, then a paid filter is worth considering.

Whether the site is religious is a smaller question than how you come across on it. Clear photos, honest answers and a simple invitation to meet do more for you than any setting. A woman who shares your values will find them on your page, and the quiz does the early sorting for both of you.