Neil Clark Warren

Neil Clark Warren thinks he's the best match for EHarmony Inc. In a move that caused his friends to call him crazy, the 78-year-old EHarmony founder came out of retirement in July to become chief executive, looking to resuscitate one of the most recognized online dating services that was struggling amid increased competition. "We'd gotten a bit lost," Warren said recently at the company's Santa Monica headquarters, decorated with hundreds of photos of couples who met on the website.

Neil Clark Warren thinks he's the best match for EHarmony Inc. In a move that caused his friends to call him crazy, the 78-year-old EHarmony founder came out of retirement in July to become chief executive, looking to resuscitate one of the most recognized online dating services that was struggling amid increased competition. "We'd gotten a bit lost," Warren said recently at the company's Santa Monica headquarters, decorated with hundreds of photos of couples who met on the website.

Neil Clark Warren, founder of the online dating site EHarmony.com Inc., does matchmaking by the numbers. Subscribers fill in 436 answers on a questionnaire. The company's computers then use a secret formula to match people using what Warren calls the 29 "dimensions" of a successful relationship, a system based on his decades of experience as a psychologist.

Coming soon to EHarmony: Adam and Steve. The Pasadena-based dating website, heavily promoted by Christian evangelical leaders when it was founded, has agreed in a civil rights settlement to give up its heterosexuals-only policy and offer same-sex matches. EHarmony -- known for the mild-mannered television and radio advertisements by its founder, psychologist Neil Clark Warren -- not only must implement the new policy by March 31 but also must give the first 10,000 same-sex registrants a free six-month subscription.

Coming soon to EHarmony: Adam and Steve. The Pasadena-based dating website, heavily promoted by Christian evangelical leaders when it was founded, has agreed in a civil rights settlement to give up its heterosexuals-only policy and offer same-sex matches. EHarmony -- known for the mild-mannered television and radio advertisements by its founder, psychologist Neil Clark Warren -- not only must implement the new policy by March 31 but also must give the first 10,000 same-sex registrants a free six-month subscription.

As of today, EHarmony comes out of the closet. The adamantly heterosexual dating website, which has accepted only male-female couples since its inception in 2000, is launching a gay matchmaking service called Compatible Partners ( www.compatiblepartners.com).

First comes online love, then comes interactive marriage. That's the plan for dating site EHarmony.com Inc., which today launches an Internet service aimed at strengthening marriages. "We call it a marriage wellness service," said company founder and pitchman Neil Clark Warren, 71, whose ebullient manner and upbeat commercials have been parodied by Jay Leno and on "Saturday Night Live."

EHarmony Inc. Chief Executive Gregory Waldorf has resigned from the dating website that he's run for almost five years. Waldorf, 42, will be replaced on an interim basis by Greg Steiner, EHarmony's president and chief operating officer, while the board conducts a search for a permanent CEO, the Santa Monica company said Tuesday. "As EHarmony begins its second decade, the time is right for me to step down," Waldorf said in a statement, without providing a reason for leaving.

The online dating site EHarmony.com has reached a settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought by gays and lesbians who said the service discriminated against them. As part of the proposed agreement, the company will pay more than half a million dollars and make its website more "welcoming" to seekers of same-sex matches, according to court documents filed Tuesday. The Pasadena-based company had already launched a service last year for gays and lesbians, called Compatible Partners, as part of an unrelated settlement with the New Jersey attorney general's civil rights division.

Online matchmaker EHarmony.com said Monday that it raised nearly $110 million in venture capital in what experts said was a vote of confidence in the online dating industry. Pasadena-based EHarmony sold preferred stock to 14 investors including Sequoia Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures, two of the early backers of Internet search titan Google Inc. The company declined to discuss terms of the deal.

Neil Clark Warren, founder of the online dating site EHarmony.com Inc., does matchmaking by the numbers. Subscribers fill in 436 answers on a questionnaire. The company's computers then use a secret formula to match people using what Warren calls the 29 "dimensions" of a successful relationship, a system based on his decades of experience as a psychologist.

Calvary Church of Santa Ana will have a prime rib Valentine's Dinner at 7 tonight. Guest speakers Kevin and Margie Johnson will discuss their remarriage after eight years of separation. Cost is $30 per couple. The church will have an American Red Cross blood drive from 3 to 8:15 p.m. Thursday. The church is at 1010 N. Tustin Ave., Tustin. (714) 973-4800. Author and Bible teacher Joy Dawson will lead a Revival Conference at 6 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m.

LOVE is an unruly emotion, an uneasy alliance of joy, grief, anger, loneliness and a longing that is rarely fulfilled. Born white hot, it either mellows to a state of warm cocoa or chills into a form that is harsh and distant, like an iceberg drifting out to sea. I sing today of a love grown cold and a love rediscovered, and the extremes of reaction that each position engenders. I write of love in a time of youth and love in a time of e-mail.