Chemistry-it’s not just for scientists anymore!
Published by Kyso Kisaen May 7th, 2006 in Punkass!“You know,” you’ve said to me a hundred times if you’ve said it to me once, “I’m really interested in looking into online dating. But those sites are so uninspired! Age, appearance, location, education…are those the only things that matter about a person? Is there any way to take current online dating techniques and cross them with the SAT, a psuedo-scientific personality exam and maybe some graphic sliders? Match.com and the Onion’s personal ads didn’t do it for me, and I’d like to believe it was because they never saw the *real* me.”
Why yes! Match.com combines the fun of making an online dating profile with the tedium of taking an inexplicable standardized test-they call it Chemistry.com, because calling it SameCrapDifferentMarketing.com didn’t get past the focus groups. Although, I am unfair-I created a profile and found that there was new crap! Starting, with no explanation, this:
They do explain the finger-length thing, if you go to thier media section:
Research shows that finger length reveals how much estrogen or testosterone a person was exposed to in the womb. The Chemistry Profile ™ uses this biophysical information to help predict long-term chemistry.
Well thank god-I’m so relieved that there is good, hard science behind this that I am not going to ask to see the research, or if the scientists who published it addressed the applications of their work to online dating-I’m sure they mention is right in the abstract. It’s good that we don’t ask, since the “see research findings” link sends you here.
They also claim that chemistry.com is a result of research in brain chemstry-and that their questions are “unusually meangingful and engaging.” Like these ones here:
or these:
I’m impressed. Those are some meaningful and insightful questions…but where’s the brain chemistry?
Oh, there it is:
And there! Look quickly!
So this profile goes on and on forever, and eventually, you’re given some matches that you should run out and meet really quick and then run back to your computer to rate, in that how-was-that-Amazon-purchase sort of way. The reason for the hustle?
The longer an online relationship continues through email, the more likely partners are to be dissappointed when they meet face-to-face.
Oh.
When I saw those hexagons, I thought it was a six-carbon phenyl ring. Sadly, chemistry.com seems to be low on chemistry.
Christ, what a letdown.
What would be cool is if they had a way to test your pheremone levels to see if you’d be hot for each other.
Actually, if you’re really looking for something like that, okcupid.com _does_ combine personality “tests” and sliding bar graph thingies with the usual demographic data. It’s an incredible time-waster, cause there are literally hundreds of user-created tests and quizzes and crap. But it’s fun.
There’s probably a fortune to be made from a dating agency with DNA test included, guaranteeing you a partner with different MHC genotype.
It probably wouldn’t make a blind bit of dfference, so you could throw all the samples away and save the expense of actually doing the test.
If I ran a dating site, the compatibility test would have only one question:
Do you like to have sex with 30-year-old married guys with glasses and a so-five-years-ago-goatee?
Yes |X| No | |
That is just heinous and wrong.
It should be
Do you like to have sex with 46-year-old married guys with back hair and a so-thirty-five-years-ago-beard?
Yes | | Hell Yes | |
Daaaamn. Auguste got s3rv3d.
I didn’t just get served, I got ROBO-SERVED.
For those of you who hate WMP, this works better.