Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Dating System.

When I was in college, one of my professors told me how he used to run (within the student community) an Internet dating system. No clever profiles or carefully-angled photos: all you needed to put was your name, your times of availability, and a decent helping of good faith. Once a week it would match up everyone, assigning each person a partner, a time, and a date activity.

The cool part: it was completely random. No "match percentage," no "29 dimensions of compatibility," no lists of interests--it didn't even consider gender or orientation. (You could meet a great friend... "or discover something about yourself," said the professor, who was kinda one of those professors, y'know.)

I think this is great. More than great; if I knew how to code it I would be building a version of this right now. Because I think over-selectivity is one of the banes of modern society. When I was in elementary school we had three TV channels and no VCR. Now I've got BitTorrent and Hulu, I can watch anything I want at any time. And, y'know, I'm not sure that I'm happier. Options are cool and all, but I don't discover shows any more, I select them. If a show sounds bad to me but I'd actually love it, or if I've simply never heard of a show, I'll never watch it.

As with TV shows, so with people. The ability to only interact with people who share your politics and subculture and fetishes and look good to you is awesome... but it's a goddamn curse. Saying "I only want to meet 20-something single kinky libertarian straight men who enjoy science fiction but also hiking" is all about closing doors. It's not that I necessarily want to date a 40-year-old vanilla Christian Conservative--but the fact that I'd never even talk to him makes my life boring and insular. And the fact that I also might not talk to a 20-something single kinky hippie straight man saps my chances at Ultimate Pairing Happiness.

Most of the good friendships and relationships in my life (online and not) came about randomly--we were in the same Bio class, we were next-door neighbors, we found each other's blogs with the "random" function, we got assigned to the same shift. Hell, I still talk to a guy I met three years ago when he dialed my phone number at random out of the phonebook.

I believe that we would like more people than we think, and the selectivity and ultra-narrowing effects of traditional online dating keep us from realizing it. Bring on RandomDate! As singles and as human beings, we need it.





(In all seriousness, if I can figure out the technical aspects I'm going to come up with a cute name and launch this puppy. At least for the Seattle area, maybe nationwide. I'll make millions.)

17 comments:

  1. I'm on it. I'll let you know when I've got something functional.

    I'll want a cut of your millions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. *blink* 20-something libertarian geek who enjoys hiking and sci-fi? Shame we're on opposite sides of the continent.

    Anyway, I'm a programmer, the idea sounds simple enough. Mail me? chris.hexx@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oho. A race, then. :D

    ReplyDelete
  4. The assumption that the more you have in common with a person the more compatible you'd be in a relationship is ridiculous anyways. Whether people would be interested in such a service though, is another question.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I dunno, sounds like Pandora internet radio. You start with a song you like and the music genome project takes it from there. I've found some good albums that way.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Pandora is excellent, though unavailable in my country. If you like it though, you might also enjoy http://musicovery.com/index3.php?ct=xx it's similar, but you can discover new music quicker and it looks prettier.

    Oh, on topic though, I'd say her idea is actually the opposite of Pandora, she specifically means to omit any information that compares the two, but availability and location. It would be like starting out with the Sex Pistols on Pandora and ending up with Godspeed You Black Emperor, two bands with little in common (except for greatness). The idea being that you could discover and enjoy something very contrary to your already established taste.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "I only want to meet 20-something single kinky libertarian straight men who enjoy science fiction but also hiking"

    Ha! There are more of us than you think :p. Much like Chris, I'm unfortunately on the opposite side of the country.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Something like what you want already exists: http://www.crazyblinddate.com/

    I suspect few people use it. I have not, but I suspect I might like the type of people who would.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Question: If you know absolutely nothing about the person you're going to meet other than the general time and location, how would you even recognize them?

    Also, this service would be useless to me because I don't live anywhere near Seattle or any of the cities Crazyblinddate.com covers. Plus the times I'm available are usually "never". ;p

    ReplyDelete
  10. "20-something single kinky libertarian straight men who enjoy science fiction but also hiking"

    WTF? How are you both on the East Coast, and you say there are more of you...where the fuck were you when I was looking?


    I'm taken now, but still!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Bardock42 - I'm really not sure how much interest there would be in this service, but it appealed to me, and hey.

    Bruno - Fortunately, that doesn't cover Seattle. Also it's a little different--it's gender/orientation targeted and does allow some information to be exchanged and does make "matches" based on silly quesitons. And it's basically a very minor offshoot of OkCupid.

    Anonymous - It's simple to set up a signal--wear a red bracelet or whatever. It could even be merch (I'm thinking big!) to sell official recognition tokens, but really any little thing can work and be communicated to both people in the same message that gives the date assignment.

    ReplyDelete
  12. dorkiewitch: Well, I've been in and out of the country for the last seven years for various reasons, and when I'm in country, I try and spend as much of it as possible south of the Mason-Dixon Line ;)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Sorta like 007 dating. You walk up to random strangers in a coffee shop and say "The Falcon flies at midnight." And the response is "On the second Tuesday of next week" and then you know.

    You might end up on a lotta watchlists.

    ReplyDelete
  14. LOL, because I live in Tennessee. I've been all over the internet looking for hot guys, & almost every ad I've seen has been shockingly illiterate. I do not think this service would work well for me. The idea of getting beyond your prejudices & "you can like more people than you'd think" sounds nice in theory. But the mind recoils in horror at going on a date with a person who: thinks the word "well," as in "I am well today," is spelled with an apostrophe; WRITES AN ENTIRE PARAGRAPH IN ALL CAPS; or is (like one poor soul on CE Casual Encounters) "lokking for you're used pantys."

    ReplyDelete
  15. Ah yes, the way to a woman's heart; Correct spelling.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Sounds similar to what OKcupid's crazyblinddate.com does.

    ReplyDelete
  17. D'oh! should have read other comments...

    ReplyDelete