Archived

Every morning, the e-mail arrives in my inbox “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Here are your ___ matches”.

Every morning, I delete those messages unread.

Perhaps I’m an odd duck among eHarmony subscribers, but I don’t initiate contact with guys.

Why not?

‘Cause I’m there to be found, not to find. I’m interested in marriage–and I’m a complementarian.

So I ignore those messages unless I get the one saying “So-and-so wants to get to know you.”

Then I’ll log in and communicate with the ones who want to get to know me.

Except that sometimes, when I get bored, I’ll read through the matches who haven’t contacted me, archiving the unsuitable ones.

After all, I reason, I’m doing those guys a favor–decreasing how many matches they have to sort through.

So…what does it mean if you’ve been archived?

1. Your profile does not evidence that Christ is the center of your life.
   The one thing you are most passionate about should be Christ. Always. It’s wonderful that you love your family or your job or hard work or sports (okay, maybe I have a harder time with that last one). But you should be most passionate about Christ. If you aren’t, you aren’t for me.
2. You don’t want kids
   I want kids. You don’t. I don’t know why you don’t want kids but I do know that I could never marry a man who didn’t want kids. Why lead you on?

There you go. That’s why I archive.

Short list, huh?

I keep it that way on purpose.

A profile is a tiny snapshot of someone’s life. There’s no way that I can know enough (apart from the above) from the few questions on an eHarmony profile to give a definitive yes or no to a guy.

Which means that I ignore bad grammar (or at least try to) and give the guy a chance. After all, I know people who have terrible grammar who are nonetheless wonderful people.

I ignore a silly choice for the last book you read and enjoyed. Truth be told, I know some very intelligent, well-informed people who aren’t big readers. And that’s okay. I’m not going to nix you on the basis of that.

I ignore mentions of video games and sports (even though I’m not much of a fan of either). So I’m not a fan. That doesn’t mean that my boyfriend or husband couldn’t be (well…honestly, this one’s hard for me. I’d have to see what being a fan of sports and/or video games looked like in order to determine that would be okay.)

The point is, there’s a lot I DON’T know based on the eHarmony profile. Which means I’m not going to be picky about getting to know guys initially.

Turns out, the more I experience in life, the more I agree with that one guy in that one book our college/career women’s Bible Study read last summer.

The most important area of compatibility is Christ.

29 Dimensions may increase the odds that your “matches” will be compatible in that one area–but really, it’s that one area that counts.

Otherwise, you’ll be archived.

(In the course of writing this post, I discovered one more automatic archive item. If your favorite author/preacher is Joel Osteen, you’re going to be archived. No ifs, ands, or buts.)