Couple finds love online

By Mary Garrigan, Journal Staff Writer | Tuesday, February 21, 2006

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Newlyweds Steven and Cheryl Smart look a lot like a commercial for eHarmony.

In fact, the Rapid City couple could be one.

The Smarts are among the estimated 8 million people who have filled out the online dating site’s exhaustive 436-question personality profile in the past five years. More importantly, they are among the more than 90 eHarmony clients who now tie the knot on an average day.

According to new polling data from Harris Interactive, there were an estimated 16,630 marriages between eHarmony couples from September 2004 through August 2005.

Those numbers are proof that eHarmony’s patented Compatibility Matching System works, says founder Neil Clark Warren, a clinical psychologist and relationship expert who launched the site in 2000.

It worked for the Smarts. Their compatibility — discovered online and later proved in person — is evident as they talk about their online romance. They intertwine fingers, touch tenderly and smile constantly.

They met on eHarmony’s Web site in July 2004, nine days after Cheryl, the single mother of a 12-year-old son, registered with the matchmaking service. She had rarely dated in the eight years after her divorce, content at age 42 to raise her son, run her Rapid City hair salon and be single.

“My sister made me do it,” Cheryl explained of her first foray into online dating. “It was completely out of my comfort zone. Internet dating? It seemed so creepy, so sleazy.”

That negative image of Internet matchmaking is rapidly being replaced by the idea that online introductions are simply another way to meet people. Increasingly, Americans of all ages are turning to online dating services such as Match.com, Yahoo Personals and SeniorsCircle.com.

Two out of every five single people have tried Internet dating services, and its revenues are expected to grow to more than $640 million by 2008, according to Jupiter Internet research. Of the leading dating sites, eHarmony is the most expensive, starting at $49.95 a month. Match begins at $29.99, Yahoo at $19.95. Spark Network’s largest site, American Singles, starts at $34.95.

“The increase in the number of people turning to online relationship services like eHarmony to find their soul mate has resulted in a significant number of marriages nationwide,” Dr. Galen Buckwalter, vice president of research and development at eHarmony, said. “As this burgeoning trend continues, eHarmony should see dramatic increases annually in the number of people who marry as a result of being matched on the site.”

Steven was 43 and never married when he registered with eHarmony two months before Cheryl joined. He had tried other online dating services but found no matches that interested him. Living near Milwaukee, Wis., more conventional dating methods had led to mostly urban-oriented women who did not share his love of the outdoors or small-town living, he said.

By the time he went online, he was looking for companionship but not thinking about marriage, Steven said.

“We both were really good at being single,” Cheryl said. “We were satisfied to be single.”

Today, six months after they married atop Harney Peak in a Labor Day wedding ceremony, they both seem satisfied with matrimony, too. They are delighted by their good fortune at having found love through e-mail.

“We couldn’t pay eHarmony enough for what they did,” Cheryl said.

One of the things eHarmony did for its fee was send them both the same private e-mail to say that it had identified a “highly compatible” match for them and encouraged them to check out the other’s profile on the Web site. For Cheryl, that life-changing e-mail arrived the same day she had earlier decided to close out her eHarmony account, having gotten a bad case of cold feet about Internet dating, despite the 25 to 30 matches it had already provided her.

Steven, initially drawn to Cheryl’s South Dakota address, liked what he read online. “South Dakota interested me. I had never met anyone from South Dakota before,” he said.

Within 24 hours, they had each decided to move past the four levels of privacy protection and anonymity that eHarmony’s communication channels provide. Soon, they were communicating directly with each other through e-mail.

Not everyone finds true love online, of course, and Internet dating horror stories abound. Issues of credibility, false advertising and fraud leave some users feeling victimized and preyed upon. Like any online transaction, people should exercise caution, do background checks and use good judgment.

Cheryl and Steven spent the next two months conversing daily by e-mail and telephone. They kept discovering what eHarmony already knew — they were deeply compatible people with similar temperaments and personalities who shared the same core values.

“We think so much alike, it’s funny,” Steven said.

“Sometimes, I think he’s a mirror image of who I am,” Cheryl said. “To the core, we have the same values about life.”

At least, they did online.

The question, of course, was how they would feel about each other face to face.

They agreed to meet for the first time in Sioux Falls on Labor Day weekend 2004. Being practical people, they had Plan A and Plan B for how to spend the weekend.

Even a year and a half after they first met, it is obvious that they never needed Plan B. “The chemistry was there. We were definitely attracted to each other,” Steven, who eventually left Wisconsin and moved to South Dakota, said.

But distance, they say, was essential to their successful courtship.

“It’s amazing how much the physical gets in the way of really getting to know someone,” Cheryl said. Forced by the geographic distance between them, the couple focused on getting to know each other intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically long before they dealt with the issue of physical attraction.

Early on in the process, Cheryl liked that eHarmony’s questionnaire never emphasized physical characteristics.

“There was never any physical attraction questions, nothing that asked me if I liked tall, dark and handsome, or if I wanted to only date men taller than me,” the 5-foot-11-inch Cheryl said.

eHarmony bills itself as the Internet’s top “relationship service,” and its profile is by far the most comprehensive and exhaustive. It took Cheryl about three hours to complete. Her new husband admits he did it in about 45 minutes.

Steven, who happens to stand a burly 6-foot, 2-inches, said he now sees benefits in long-distance dating exactly because it forces people to get to know each other in depth.

Cheryl, who once thought Internet dating was creepy, now has a whole new set of adjectives to describe it.

Safe. Respectful. Private. Comfortable.

“I can’t say enough good things about it,” she said.

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8410 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com