Contributed by: Jet on Sunday, September 29 2013 @ 11:21 am
Last modified on
Many of us resist the idea of a blind date. First, there’s the fact that often you’re “fixed up” with someone solely because you’re the only single person in the right age bracket that the “fixer-upper” knows, so you’re essentially two random people thrown together. But even assuming that’s not the case - that a mutual friend really does believe the two of you would be great together - there’s always a heavy dose of skepticism. Why should someone else know me better than I know myself?
Thus, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that such skepticism also rears its head when it comes to online dating sites. On some level, you’re assuming that a computer thinks it knows best. You look at potential matches with a cynical eye: “Ugh, how could this site think I’d be great with this person? They’re not my type at all! This person was in a seminar with me four years ago and we loathed each other! If this is the best they can come up with I don’t know if I should continue at all.”
But the truth is, these are only excuses we tell ourselves. No matchmaker is forcing us to go on a blind date; no family member is slapping us with a heavy-handed guilt trip. We can contact and respond to whom we please. If we don’t like our pre-packaged “potential matches” and think we can do better, we can always try a few custom searches of our own.
Additionally, dramatically incompatible results might point to the fact that at some point down the line, wires are getting crossed. Maybe we’ve listed something in our profile that is sending an unintended message - not only to an algorithm, but to other potential matches as well. If you don’t understand why you keep getting matched up with jocks, maybe you shouldn’t list a baseball game as a first date option if you’re actually ambivalent about it.
Or maybe, just maybe, those matchmakers and computers might actually see something we don’t. There’s no harm in messaging a few “pre-made matches” in addition to those we’ve found ourselves; maybe we’ll learn something new. Maybe the match wouldn’t be that random after all. A first-contact email isn’t even as binding as a casual coffee meet-up; what do we have to lose?