And so it begins - "New Match Received"

It did not take long to receive my first "match." Within minutes after completing my extremely long personality test, my inbox was inundated with emails boasting of potential suitors who - according to the website's tagline - were compatible matches.

A little background on eHarmony the website and my personal foiree into the unknown world of online dating...I chose eHarmony after much consideration of various other websites like:

• match.com (I heard and read mixed reviews commenting that this one was for frisky singles, and was more closely linked with more casual encounters - something I was hoping to move away from)
• Jdate (I'm not Jewish, so out this option was passed over quite immediately. However, my close personal friend was at the time a member and had some relative success, which helped my confidence in the general idea of joining a website which charged for their services)
• chemistry.com (I didn't know much about this one, and found the couples in their tv advertisements to be extremely irritating. Plus, there were no offers to try this website at the time, and I wasn't about to invest time and money into something without doing my proper research)

As for eHarmony; a combination of appealing television commercials (its amazing how easily I am swayed with good advertisement), a free trial, and super attractive online pitch - got me hooked. After a short stint on their "free communication weekend" offer back in August, I vowed to join once I had settled into my new post-college graduation life in Chicago. This took longer than expected, but thankfully my eHarmony profile lay dormant while I spent the summer galavanting around the city trying to taking dating into my own hands.

Fast forward past one "prefer to remain unmentioned" one night stand, a great homecoming weekend fling with my senior year sweetheart, and an unstable/stressful hook up relationship with a member of my circle of friends. After one lonely, cold, wine diluted evening I took the plunge into online dating pool. This was during one particularly slow work day, and I was tired of searching for funny distracting websites and felt my gchat buddies were saturated with sad stories of previously-mentioned hook up boy. And that's all it took, faster than checking out with a Cart full of shoes from Zappos.com, I was now an online bachelorette.