🚀 go-pugleaf

ktappe@omni.voicenet.com (Kurt Tappe) writes:
>This is a warning concerning the nationwide dating service Great
>Expectations.

I think you're waaaay over-reacting.  Of course, I paid extra to get a 
membership I could resell when I was done with it one way or another.  I 
think Great Expecation's worst mistake is "post-sale" customer service.  You
really can get the message "thanks for the cash -- lot's of luck, sucker." 
I have yet to meet a new member who wasn't at least a little disillusioned. 
I went out with one woman who was furious with GE when we met. Things
didn't pan out for us, but we stayed good friends.  A coupld months later, 
she met another guy (through GE) and now they're happily married.

The question is: what do you want that brought you to GE and what is it 
ultimately worth to you?  I knew what I wanted.  I wanted some realistic 
hope that I could meet a woman with a 3-digit IQ in Dallas, Texas (no easy 
feat). I've met several such women through GE.  About a year ago, I became
too busy to deal with trying to start a relationship, so I went "inactive". 
Around the time I was going to go active again, I met someone outside of GE. 
If that leads to marriage, I can sell my membership.  Otherwise, I can
re-activate it.  Gone is the pressure of trying to make something work with
someone who isn't quite right because I dread not being able to find someone
else.  Before I joined GE, I spent a lot of time on activities I didn't
really enjoy because I thought I might meet someone.  As I indicated, I'm a
really busy guy and my spare time is too valuable to waste like that.  I'd 
rather be surfing the net than cruising a singles bar, actually.

Does this sound like the sales pitch?  I guess it does, but I went in 
already having decided that these issues were real and they were important. 
I think your warning is good reading, though -- these services are expensive
and the sales pressure is intense.

It's like buying a car.  The best thing to do is walk on the lot knowing 
what you want to buy and how much you want to spend.  If you wander into a 
dealership "thinking you might want to buy some kind of car," you're bound 
to leave with a bad deal.  Speaking of deals: these people do deal.  One 
person I met had a deal where she'd get a refund if she didn't pick anyone 
in 30 days.

To address some of your points:

>3. Great Expectations, unlike their competitors, does not do any computer
>matching of clients at all.  YOU do all the work, going through page
>after page of notebooks full of eligible people.  YOU decide who to
>attempt to date while they do little or nothing to help you, not even
>narrow the search.

GE in Dallas had this multimedia system -- it was part of what hooked me. 
It sucked.  The book search is not that hard and can actually be fun.  As 
you say, YMMV.  Read my answer to #4 and you'll see why I think it's better 
than computer dating.

>4. No guarantees whatsoever are made concerning you getting anything for
>your investment.  If none of the people you choose want to go out with
>you, or if you get chosen by nobody, you're just out of luck.  No
>recourse.

For those who don't know, the GE system works like this:  You find someone 
by picking a profile and then watching their video.  If you like them and 
they are "active", you can select them.  They get a notice.  Then, they come
in and check out your profile and video.  If they like you, they select you 
back and you get each other's full name and phone numbers.

The cool thing about this is that if you do meet someone, you know they 
wanted to meet you.  It wasn't some other person, or some algorithm that 
decided you should meet, but the two individuals.  Hey, I think computers 
are neato, but there is no algorithm in exstistance (other than the one 
encoded in my brain) that can decide if I'll think someone has a cute smile
or if they way they word something on their profile will strike me as
particularly witty.

As Kurt points out, if nobody select you or the people you select don't like
you, you're out of luck.  Still, this differs from "the real world" in two
important ways: first of all, the people you have to choose from are all 
looking for relationships.  No more "[s]he's cute, I wonder if [s]he has a
[boy/girl]friend."  Secondly, you have an opportunity to find out something
about what sort of person they are -- through the profile and video --
*before* you invest any time in a date.  So, yes, there are no guarantees,
but the odds are stacked heavily in your favor.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Forsythe     | Windows 95: The first OS to be obsolete before it was
forsythe@onramp.net  |             released.