Is eHarmony Best for Serious Relationships?

It is one of the strongest candidates, because the whole site is built around people who want something serious. Whether it is best for you depends on your city and on what you bring to it, and no dating app can promise that. The sensible move is to test it against one swipe app for a few weeks and keep the one where serious women answer.

The site describes its members as relationship-minded singles looking for lasting love, not casual dates. At sign-up, each member says whether they want something casual, serious or not sure.

Every new member also takes a long Compatibility Quiz before matching starts. That takes effort, and effort is a filter. A woman who answered the whole quiz and said she wants something serious has told the site more than a woman who tapped a photo in a second.

Those two steps are the real advantage. On a swipe app, intentions are mixed and you do the sorting yourself in the first few messages. On eHarmony, part of it is done before you see her.

It cannot make anyone mean what they said. A woman can pick serious at sign-up and change her mind next month. A man can pick it because it sounds better, then ask for something lighter on the second date.

It also cannot tell you how many serious women are near you. eHarmony does not publish a count of members by age or area. It claims millions of members and more than two million relationships since launch, but those are the company's own figures, and nobody outside can check them. So the site cannot tell you whether your area is full or thin.

eHarmony is not the only place where a serious woman is looking. Hinge describes itself as the app designed to be deleted, and paid Hinge members can filter by dating intentions. Bumble lets people choose a dating intention and filter to people whose choice matches. OkCupid builds its Match percentage from answers that include what each person wants.

So the real contrast is between sites that sort for you and apps where you set the filter yourself. Neither is automatically better. A man who is patient with a quiz may like the first. A man who wants to see more people faster may prefer the second.

a dating coach's rule applies to all of them: your page attracts what it announces. Write one plain line about what you want and the women who answer mostly want the same thing.

Some serious women never try it. They may not want to pay for messaging, or they may find the quiz slow, or they may prefer the app their friends use. A site can be full of people who want a relationship and still miss half the women near you.

That is why a dating coach says to test more than one app. Each has its own mix of people and its own way of showing you to them, and he knows men who failed on one and did well on another. A thin list on eHarmony is a reason to look elsewhere, not a verdict on you.

Answer the quiz as you are, not as you think a woman wants. Answers shaped to impress produce matches who suit a man you are not.

Write two or three specific sentences for each question. "I want a relationship" says little. "I want someone to cook with on Sundays and argue with about where to go next summer" gives her a picture and a reason to reply.

Write to women soon after you spot them. Pick one detail from her page and ask about it. Keep it short, and leave her something easy to answer.

After a few friendly messages, suggest a place and a day. On a site where she has said she wants something serious, a clear invitation is welcome, not pushy. coach gets from a first message to a phone number in about four to seven messages.

Basic membership is free. It covers the quiz, browsing members and the first likes and opening messages. Premium removes the cap on messaging, shows every photo and tells you who viewed your page.

It is sold in multi-month terms that renew automatically unless you cancel before the term ends. coach treats paid features as multipliers on what you already have. If chats are starting and you hit the limit, paying makes sense. If nothing starts, the pictures and the first lines need work first.

Run eHarmony and one other app for the same three weeks, with the same pictures and the same written lines. For each, count likes that became matches, matches that replied, replies that became plans and plans that became dates.

Then add one more number: of the women you spoke to, how many said they wanted something serious. That last count is the one that matters here. If eHarmony gives you more of those conversations, it is best for you. If the other app does, use that one, and keep eHarmony as a quiet second.