BDCWire
Kevin Slane

Steve Harvey is a busy man these days. Between hosting his radio show and getting women to yell “penis!” on “Family Feud,” he found time to partner with Match.com on launching Delightful, a dating site primarily catering to women “looking to find true love.”

As the author of wildly successful relationship advice book “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Committment,” who else would be better qualified as the CLO (Chief Love Officer) of a major dating site than Steve Harvey?

Sure, some of his views might be considered a bit sexist (Steve on women who want to keep their last name when getting married: “If you want to keep your last name you got, marry your daddy.”), a little scientifically fuzzy (Steve on atheism: “If you don’t believe in God… to me you’re an idiot… Why we still got monkeys?”), and did I mention sexist? (Steve on women’s maternal instincts: “It is in her DNA to nurture a child.”)

Harvey’s hits are all available in this great compilation, “Shit Steve Harvey Says” if you want more life lessons on man cards, homosexuality and gender roles.

That being said, there are plenty of people for whom 1950s beliefs on romance ring true, and who can argue with the fundamental underlying principle of finding true love? So despite my cynicism, I decided to sign up and see if Delightful could work its magic.

Making A Profile
I started off with one of the most difficult tasks in online dating: picking a profile name. I decided that, as a journalist, I wanted to show ladies I was a big fan of wordplay and had a sense of humor.

(Sidenote: passwords on Delightful.com cannot include symbols, so in case any elite hackers out there want the personal information of people like me who sign up for Steve Harvey’s dating website, it’s there for the taking.)
One of the great things about Delightful is how involved Steve is. Just look at this grade-A joke he slipped in when I had to give the site my age.


WOMEN BE LYIN’ ‘BOUT THEIR AGES, AM I RIGHT? Classic Harvey.

Picking Profile Photos
According to an interview with Mashable, Harvey’s number one dating tip is to look better than your photos.


“Unless you plan on bringing those Instagram filters on the date with you, I’d just add photos that look like the real you,” Harvey says. “You want to be a pleasant surprise when you meet your date.”


I decided for my photos, I wanted to show ladies three of my biggest loves: drinking beers while stoically looking away from the camera at sunset…
…long bike rides, and dogs.
I was a little worried my photos wouldn’t give potential true loves an accurate picture of “the real me,” but Steve allayed any fears I had with his encouraging words.

Writing A Bio
Next, Steve wanted me to tell him about myself. I have to admit, having two giant smiling photos of Steve staring at me while I tried to sum up my life in 100 words was a little unnerving, but I did my best.
I think it turned out pretty well.
Satisfied that I’d properly captured my essence in what little space I had, I moved on to what I was looking for in a woman.
And of course, I needed to let the ladies know about all my hobbies.

Steve’s Words of Wisdom
In case it wasn’t clear earlier, Steve really likes to make himself a part of this site. There wasn’t a single moment where his mustachioed visage wasn’t staring directly through the computer screen into my soul.



As I finished registering, I decided to check out the site’s interface. Along the left and right rails I found Steve giving me the eye again, this time offering me his patented dating tips.
To be fair, Tips 1 and 2 are actually pretty helpful in case your date is a total creep. But I was feeling pretty left out by the gendered pronoun usage.


I “want to get to know him,” so drinking is a no-no? I began to worry that drinking a Budweiser in a jumpsuit in my default photo might not net me the attention I wanted. He might think I’m all about “giving up the cookie,” as Steve so delicately puts it.

Selecting My Hobbies
Delightful prides itself on a simplified interface, by which I mean you can only choose from a list of maybe 12 preselected hobbies, including “Religion” and “Friends and Family.” I chose Movies instead, and was prompted to rate how much I liked going to the movies.



The scale was, to put it lightly, not very scientific.
On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “I LOVE IT!!!” and 5 being “SHORT OF OXYGEN, NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT TO ME,” how much do you like going to the movies?
When asked about how romantic I considered myself, I encountered a similarly unbalanced field of choices. The middle, ostensibly neutral, choice was “Quite Romantic.”
Meanwhile Steve and his mustache had some more great tips for me. Though isn’t the phrase “deal-breaker” a Liz Lemon copyright?

Meeting My Matches
Now that I’d filled out my profile to the best of my ability, I was ready to meet my matches. There wasn’t an area to specify an age preference, but I have a pretty open mind on dating above my age group. You can’t put a number on love, is what my Grandma always told me. My Grandpa was ten years older, after all.
I was stunned. I guess I should have expected Steve Harvey’s fanbase to be a bit older, but this was a bit more than I had expected.


I’m not sure what it was in my profile that made Steve and the data wizards at Match.com think I would have anything in common with a 66-year-old woman (other than maybe my love of “Murder, She Wrote”), but it was clear they still needed to iron out the kinks in their true love formula.



Still, I swallowed my pride, sent some messages, and closed my computer, nervous but still somewhat hopeful.

The Catch
The next day I opened up Delightful again, resolving to pursue true love once more. Instead, I found that my profile picture (which had been “waiting approval”) had been deleted.


When I tried to read my messages, I was instead greeted with this.
It turns out Delightful’s commitment to finding me The One wasn’t as altruistic as it seemed. I’d always heard that you couldn’t put a price tag on love, but Delightful proved that adage wrong, to the tune of $29.99 a month.



I prefer the adage of another famous philosopher, Miss Jennifer Lopez, who once said, “my love don’t cost a thing.”






As short as my stay on Delightful was, I still learned a lot about Steve Harvey’s wildly misguided views on love, the needs and desires of women aged 40 and above, and most importantly, myself.