I like to think that by and large I'm a pretty lovable person.

As Valentine's Day approaches, I think a lot about the people who care about me. I have two great kids who think I'm awesome (well, my 18-year-old does most of the time, anyway); a best girlfriend I've had for 30-plus years who has stuck with me through a whole lot of ups and downs; and co-workers whose company I truly enjoy and who I think feel the same way about me.

But the one I think about the most is my husband. He is a wonderful man who accepts me despite my considerable flaws and idiosyncrasies. For a long time, I thought I must be the most lovable gal in the world to have landed someone as incredible as my husband.

A few years ago, that theory got blown to bits by a little Internet company called eHarmony.com.

My husband and I used to have a friend who was a single guy. His relationships always ended badly, and he wasn't getting any younger, so he decided to try putting his profile on eHarmony.com.

Because I'm a writer and he wasn't and my husband is a photographer and he wasn't, our friend came over to our place to craft his online dating profile. I was intrigued by the questions he had to answer, and the fact that the computer was storing up all his answers to spit out a scientific summary of who he was.

The next night at supper, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea.

Since you only had to pay if you wanted to communicate with your computer-generated matches, and obviously we wouldn't, I thought hubby and I should both fill out online questionnaires and see what eHarmony.com had to say about us. Also, since you could narrow your searches by only requesting matches from within a certain mile radius of your location, I thought it would be a hoot to see if the computer matched hubby and I up.

My husband refused to participate in my experiment, but I got online and started filling out the survey anyway.

It took a half-hour, but I answered all the questions. After I had answered the last one, the computer asked me if I was ready to see my matches.

Heck yeah, I was! Give 'em to me!

I hit enter.

After a half-hour of telling eHarmony.com all about the wonder that was me, I was greeted with a message, the first line of which read "We're sorry ..."

Apparently, I was the sorry one. The message went on to say that eHarmony could not match me with anyone WITHIN A 100-MILE RADIUS.

Holy guacamole! What kind of unlovable freak was I?

It didn't matter to me that "this happens with about 20 percent of our applicants." Like I wanted to be a member of that club of losers!

I'm not usually one to dwell on things, but that really stuck in my craw. I went over my answers in my head.

I was fighting with my mom when I filled out the survey. Had that colored all my answers and made me sound bitter?

Under things I was passionate about, I listed my Cocker Spaniels. Was that a red flag that I was a weirdo?

I said I liked to take naps. Did that mark me as an unmotivated slacker?

For the rest of that night, I kept talking to my husband about the fact that I was such a monster no one could love me.

Finally, he looked long and hard at me.

"No, honey," he said, in his most sincere voice. "It's not that YOU'RE not good enough for any of them. It's that none of THEM are good enough for YOU."

I blinked quickly a couple of times. My husband, who is not one to say mushy things, had just said the sweetest thing ever to me.

In that moment, the shame heaped on me by eHarmony.com disappeared, and I was whole again.

So take that, eHarmony.com. I didn't need you or your dumb computer matching system. I found the perfect guy for me all by myself.

Happy Valentine's Day ... I hope you're all lucky enough to find the loves of your lives.