It's Friday, reader. You don't have a date tonight, do you? That's because dating does not exist at Penn. The love lives of our students have been reduced, by a combination of the monstrosities that are Greek life and alcohol, to nothing more than a series of embarrassing stories. Mine usually involve falling down. Plus, we are not Villanova. We are smart and therefore homely. But even the homely have genitals, so let's see what we can do.
The answer has been literally staring us geeks in the face all along -- computers. It's the world's greatest science-fiction fantasy come true: The machines have Learned How to Love. Well, at least we've taught them to understand love on a mathematical plane -- matching online profiles based on a compatibility percentage. The stigma surrounding Internet personals is fading. Younger and more attractive people are using them to find friends, significant others and all-purpose playmates. The future is now.
Businesses like Spring Street Networks have built an empire on the hopes and lustful dreams of lonely and computer-savvy singles all across the country. They offer access to a huge database of personal profiles on many popular magazine Web sites, including Nerve, Esquire and The Onion. Match.com is another such site, more popular locally. A membership fee enables users to send one another messages or chat live, but posting a profile is free. These aren't all just a bunch of circus freaks. Some of them are actually normal, attractive and witty. Or at least think that they're normal: "myall4urs: I am not doing this because I am dateless. I am a dateful guy."
The first step is filling out a lengthy profile. Gone are the days of SWF and GBTQDBN/SM in the local weekly paper. Questions vary from site to site, and responses can be paragraphs long. Somewhere between checking off the two-word phrase that best describes your daily diet and depicting your hair as either "teased" or "wind-blown," it starts feeling like you're auctioning your genitals off on eBay.
Nevertheless, here's a few tips for your big debut: Submit a photo that doesn't obviously show you took the picture of yourself. That will make you look very alone. Conversely, do not post a picture where you have clearly cropped an old girlfriend or boyfriend out. Also, self-conscious profiles do not help anyone: "Big_Dann76: Ok, this is what it's come to! Who would have thought that they would have to pick up dates off the computer!"
Weak. Third, if your favorite "latest read" was The Da Vinci Code, for the love of God, pick something else.
Click "submit" and you're on the fast track to getting a date. By perusing personals using a location or mutual interests function, or by selectively responding to interested parties, the computer has edited out basic compatibility problems. Non-smokers are saved the heart-wrenching moment when a date lights up outside the restaurant. The ultra-religious avoid the atheistic. Vegans, Republicans, parents, drug addicts -- categories become modern-day matchmakers. The results can be astounding. New members are bombarded with e-mails and electronic "winks." Many find their schedules suddenly packed with upcoming dates, even achieving a level of sexual activity they dared not dream of.
Check yes if you're sold! Because in order to make this system work, all attractive young people need to get plugged into the grid. This is just the beginning. Companies like Spring Street are making a lot of money, and demand means expansion. Soon you'll be able to indicate all kinds of X-rated body part sizes or how far you'll go on a first date. GPAs, tax histories, break-up histories, two percent or skim milk -- the demand for information will grow until it's eventually consolidated into Total Information Awareness for Singles.
This past weekend, my ex-boyfriend came into town. After four years, we'd broken up in a bad way. The visit volleyed between nostalgic affection and accusatory hell, and he ended up taking an earlier train back. We hugged goodbye awkwardly in the rain, trapped in a terrible cliche in front of too many people. On the phone the next day, we decided we'd try not to see one another or talk for a while.
So this dating in the real world? Perhaps if I'd known he doesn't like olives or that his turn-offs included cloudy days or that he was just looking for a "laid-back girl," things would never had ended this way. Perhaps the impersonal, mathematical logic of compatibility percentages is the most efficient path to love in the future, though the profiles are still peppered with red flags like gratuitous uses of "LOL" or a passion for Nickelback. Nevertheless, I've experienced the real world. I choose the Datrix.
Jessica Lussenhop is a senior English major from St. Paul, Minn. Textual Revolution appears on Fridays.
