
To discover the filtering process in autonomous mate selection I looked into the online dating website Eharmony.com. This site absolutely follows the seven stages of mate selection as discussed in class. The questions to be answered to find your perfect mate narrows the selection of potential mates from a pool of eligible’s to the individual person you will pursue.
1. Step one is to find a pool of edibles
- By going on a dating site, you are automatically exposed to eligible potentials looking for another mate themselves.
-EHarmony is the dating site I will look at and this website shows the millions of potential mates.
2. Decide Gender preference-Decides if within the pool you are looking in, if you are looking for a male or female and if you yourself are male or female.
- The first question asked on the web site is “I am a ______, seeking a _____”
3. Look for People within Propinquity and sex ratio
- Looks for people in a relative area you are currently living in.
- The second question on the website asks for the individual’s postal code and country.
- Looks at how far you are willing to search to find mate.
4. Does Endogamy and Exogamy have an affect in choosing mate?- Endogamy is choosing someone within a group and exogamy is choosing someone not in our group (for example not choosing our relatives)
-I believe that if someone is looking on an internet dating site the factors of endogamy and exogamy won’t be a concern.
5. Homogeny- Choosing someone in our age region, religious background and ethnicity.
- The next questions on the website include “how important is your match’s age to you” and then show a scale from not at all to very important.
- It then asks questions about current marital status, education levels, and the importance of your mate’s education to you. It asks about income, occupation, height (importance)
- It asks for ethnicity and the importance of your match’s ethnicity and the ethnicities you would be willing to accept as matches.
- Then asks what religions you affiliate with yourself, what religions you would accept you’re matched to be affiliated with, and the importance of your match’s religion.
6. The next step is to look at value and role similarity
- This is often one of the things that we think about the most.
- The EHarmony website next addresses this step.
- The website asks questions such as: I do things according to plan, I take time out for others, I feel unable to deal with things, I love to help others, I seek adventure, I often leave a mess in my room, I carry conversations to a higher level, I get stressed out easily, I often make others feel good, I am good at analysizing problems, I usually stand up for myself, I am easily discouraged, I can handle allot of information, I waste my time, I catch on to thinks quickly, I usually wait for others to lead the way, I love order and regularity, I often do nice things for people, I get angered easily.
- It also asks questions such as: I am looking for a long term relationship that leads to marriage, exclusiveness within a relationship, importance to have close friends within their life, ect.
- Looks at potential mate’s love of children, beliefs, personality, ability to communicate, similar ideas about parenting, partners interests, animal rights, volunteering, healthy diet, church involvement, ideas about the environment, living skills, helping less fortunate ect.
- Talks about looking for partners who smoke or don’t smoke, drink or not, have children in their home, accepting those children in the family, and the want to start another family.
7. The last step is to choose cohabitation or marriage.- This step would be prior to the mate selection.
-The steps in the website do ask about wanting to have a long term relationship leading to marriage.
EHarmony is a website the shows each of the steps for finding a potential mate through the filtering process. It doesn’t miss a step and infact goes into each one in detail with many questions and selections that can be made within each stage. This website, I’m sure, helps many people in finding a potential lifelong partner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y_FLOGDSCoThis Youtube Video shares the success stories and some details about how Eharmony works.