Don't try to ace the psychological test.

Once in awhile, I get letters from folks who are considering eHarmony, and come to me asking advice on how to get the "best" results from your initial relationship questionnaire.

My advice? Just relax, and answer the questions. Don't overanalyze.

After all, the point of eHarmony is to match you with people you'll be compatible with. Trying to "engineer" your results, in my humble opinion, runs counter to that goal. And, if you're not really interested in compatability matching... why aren't you using a more "standard" dating service that won't limit your candidate pool to "compatible" people?

Occasionally, people worry about eHarmony's rejection rate. Well, there are a few things that will cause eHarmony to tell you that you're not appropriate for the service. If you're currently married, you've been divorced three times, you're looking for a same-sex match, or you're extremely depressed or argumentative, the system will reject you. And there is a section of the test that measures how honest you are in answering questions - so, I'd imagine that some people might be rejected because the system feels that they're being dishonest. (And, no, I haven't asked eHarmony about this suspicion, but I doubt they'd be helpful if I did. So, it's just some speculation on my part.)

Okay, maybe my words of reassurance aren't good enough. Some people have high-driven personalities, and don't feel comfortable letting things be. Fine. Here are some other things I've heard:

• Some people have reported that they get more matches when they avoid answering questions with the highest or lowest answers. I can't verify this... but it makes sense.
• One member of our Google group went to the extreme of analyzing the test, in order to "engineer" his personality, and the personality of the person that he was looking for. If you're really interested in this approach... subscribe to the group. It's there. Personally, I'm not a huge fan... but there you go.
• If you're really unhappy with the results of your testing, people have reported that customer service (before you've paid for eHarmony, of course) will often allow people to repeat the test once.

Oh, and, again... wait a day before building your "About me" profile. Don't do it when you're tired.