Like many busy singles, I find it difficult to find time to date. The obvious meeting places don't work for me as I'm not crazy about the bar scene and in my church, single, straight men are few and far between. So I turned to two different dating sites online, hoping to find the success that many of my friends have found. Although one of them has turned out to be a good experience, the other (eHarmony) apparently has some affiliates that you might want to know about.
Forgive me if I'm stating what everyone else already knew, but apparently the founder of eHarmony is very proud of his affiliation with a certain Dr. Dobson, lately of "I hate SpongeBob" fame. Dr. Clark (founder of eHarmony) has books published through Focus on the Family's publishing house. I discovered this when I received my free "here's how to get you a man and keep 'im" package that came with a year's subscription.
I'm purposely publishing this on a weekend because 1) I've never published a diary before and 2)I have the horrible feeling most of you already knew this and therefore wouldn't touch this company with the proverbial ten foot pole. However, there was nothing in the diary archives about eHarmony or any mention in the Focus on the Family posts, so I thought I'd give a shout out anyway.
Here is my email to the company:
I received the free books that came with my year's subscription to eHarmony.
Thank you for sending them so quickly. I am closing my account because your
company is affiliated with Focus on the Family, which I consider to be a hate
group. I cannot be in integrity with my beliefs and support that group or any
of its affiliates financially.
Because I signed up less than two weeks ago, I would hope that (in all fairness)
I will not be charged more than one month's full price subscription cost. I
know that one month is the minimum subscription and I believe that it is fair
that I pay that price in full. That would mean you should refund me
approximately $40. In any case, I will be returning the books as I will not
have them in my home and do not feel comfortable donating them anywhere, as I do
not wish them to circulate. I will also be contacting my bank to stop payment
on the other two $80.00 (or so) payments. I hope to hear from you regarding
whether you agree that I am owed a refund.
I must say I am deeply disappointed that your organization would affiliate with
Focus on the Family and Dr. Dobson. My understanding was that this company is
about bringing people together, not depriving certain people of their basic
right to exist. I was shocked and horrified to have contributed to such a
mindset via my subscription and almost got up and went back out last night when
I realized what I had done. However, I decided to sleep on it and still feel
that I cannot, in integrity, be part of your organization in any way.
Please know that I will be telling everyone I know (and posting on my favorite
blogs, Beliefnet and Dailykos) about my experience with your company and what I
have learned.
Sincerely,
(real name)
FWIW, I do see the error in the sentence in the last paragraph (left out some words about "out to go find a computer and dump this subscription") but I hit the send button to them before I realized I needed to edit. To my credit, I did a lot of mental editing overnight. This is much more articulate that what I was mentally writing last night.
Please feel free to offer constructive criticism re: the diary as a whole, as this is my first effort and I have lots to learn.