With eharmony, you can "fast track" communicate... which means messages from the start I think, instead of those steps. I tried them for a couple months but after the initial influx of matches, got a bunch of crap. And whoever said it above regarding the picture being the most important... that's completely true. And I hated that I resorted to that too, since I'd rather just meet a person face-to-face to judge their personality and physical beauty like that. A picture isn't always good, and sometimes it's too good.
