It’s a jungle out there. Dating, I mean. Having recently left the married life, I am currently footloose and fiancé-free. I’m living in a city where I’m sans-support groups/friends/wingmen and I’m a member of a really, really tiny church So most of my normal avenues of acquiring dates are cut off. I’ve never been into the bar scene (“I dunno . . . what’s YOUR sign?”). Nor have I had a lot of good luck with personals ads. I met my ex- that way. ‘Nuff said. So it seemed like a good time to turn to one of the perennial bright spots in e-commerce: online dating.

The idea behind online dating is deceptively simple: eliminate all those who are not in the market for a mate, and then use computer databases and data-mining techniques to narrow your search down to a manageable list of eligible, potential mates.

eHarmony.com and match.com are the big kids on the dating block. There are a lot of other sites, too: Cupid.com, Singlesnet.com and the like. There are also dating sites that specialize in narrower demographics, such as SeniorsMeet.com (older singles) and AshleyMadison.com (marrieds who want to be single for an hour or two). Most sites run an average of $30/month; the cost of one cheap date. Not unreasonable, really.

I could have tried them all, I suppose. But for the purposes of my . . . um . . , research, I’ve concentrated on eHarmony and Match. At the risk of sounding clinical about matters of the heart, these best-known dating sites take significantly different approaches to achieve the same “goals.”

eHarmony puts members through a battery of psychological quizzes. The questions are designed to reveal your personality to match you to your ideal mate. The site sends you profiles of members who match your profile, allowing you to specify your location (not much point to finding your dream girl if she’s half-way around the globe).

Once you receive matches, you can either wait for them to contact you or initiate contact. You send your love interest five questions from a preset list, clearly designed to screen for certain, uh, tendencies. There’s a complete list of 57 questions here, but here are two samples:

1. If you decided to stay at home for the evening would you tend to:
A: watch TV
B: clean
C: talk on the phone
D: read

35. With which sentence do you agree most?
A: A sensible person avoids activities that are dangerous.
B: I sometimes like to do things that are a little frightening.

OCDs psychos answer (just kidding, I hope), then send you five canned questions. You answer. You can then send them three more questions. But this time, you get to write your own queries.

After exchanging these questions, you are allowed to email your match directly, using eHarmony’s service to preserve a degree of anonymity. At some point, you can choose to exchange phone numbers, meet or break things off.

Match.com asks you to fill out surveys, and provides you with a variety of matches based on your preferences. They send you five matches per day, plus a occasional “Like at First Sight” match that they feel is particularly appropriate. On the other hand, they also send you “Matches by Mail” that are pretty lame. I received matches for women in Hawaii and the UK. (I’m in Louisiana.) Not helpful.

Even worse, in my profile I specify an age range and preferences for race, weight class and educational background. Matches by Mail (as far as I can tell) completely ignores these preferences—both mine and theirs. This makes for a huge waste of time.  Once you start chatting online via match.com, you can agree to move to your own email system, exchange phone numbers or meet.

Neither service requires members to post pictures. Big mistake. In my experience, many women think they can sort out the guys that base their interest on looks alone by leaving their pics off the site. What they don’t realize is that while some guys are shallow, ALL guys are visual – and what someone looks like plays a significant role in attraction. (I don’t make the rules. I just comment on them.)

And if men are guilty of exaggerating certain of their own attributes, there are a lot of women that claim “average size” when “eat a salad, whydoncha” would be a far more accurate description. My impression of women who don’t post pictures is that there must be a reason they don’t. Somehow I don’t think it’s because they are so hot that they don’t want men to court them simply because they are drop-dead gorgeous. A more likely scenario: they are uncomfortable with their own looks, and are hoping to get a guy interested with the idea that, by the time they are hooked, looks won’t matter.

Good luck with that.

Who wins this love match throw-down? That depends. Three months in, and I’ve not yet bought a ring. (Nor did I expect to, but I thought I’d share.) I’ve met a couple of women via both services. I prefer Match.com over eHarmony, but Match.com is far from perfect. As a way to entice new users, their free, three-day trial allows visitors to “wink” at others on the site. What sounds like a fun feature brings all the charm of the Nigerian Letter Scam to online dating.

The e-commerce side of things also bears examination. Both sites pitch you to sign up for at least three months. Both allow you to go month-to-month. And both will helpfully automatically charge your credit card to renew your contract UNLESS YOU SPECIFICALLY CANCEL THE SERVICE IN ADVANCE.

The irony here: for their site to be successful (for you) the idea is to meet your match as quickly as possible. For the site to be successful (for them), they need to keep you around, and dating, as long as they can. While there’s some built-in “churn” to any dating business model, this is one business that is almost completely dependent on unsatisfied customers.

For the record, I can tell you that online dating is a lot like “analog” dating. I’ve met lots of women who should be listing “Mayor of Crazytown” on their profiles. (Here’s a clue ladies: I’m not interested in taking a trip down repressed-memory lane. As we board Luv Airlines, please leave your emotional baggage at home. And keep those arms and legs inside the vehicle until the relationship has come to a complete stop.) On the other hand, I’ve already met a couple of nice women who I’m enjoying getting to know better. And since I would have never met them without the online services, that’s not a bad deal.

Can computer-proficient nerds find love online, boldly going where no Star Trek forum member has gone before? The jury is out. Hopeless romantic that I am, my guess is “yes.” As with all pursuits of the heart, your results may vary.