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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 8. 1966.

The American way of love

The American way of love

From a recent announcement: "A computer demonstration will be held …"

From a recent announcement: "A computer demonstration will be held …"

In The United States, there is a weekly tragedy. A boy sits in his university dormitory and grinds his teeth. His blue cord suit hangs pristine in closet. His greenbacks, rolled up in his trouser pocket, press against his leg. His Mustang stands quietly outside the window, poised to take off for adventure.

The Pages of Samuelson's Economics lie unturned in front of his eyes. If he thinks about it all much more, his eyes may begin to swim. For it's Saturday night, and he doesn't have a date. Oh. why can he not find a woman? Oh, to be a getter of women!

Somewhere else in vast America, at the same moment in time, a young woman sits. She listens to the radio, and distractedly runs a comb through auburn hair. The open Samuelson on her desk is also ignored. Her dorm is strangely quiet tonight. Almost all the other girls are "out." Oh. to be a getter of men!

Oh, if only someone, somehow, could bring these two melancholy spirits together! They would be snatched from tragedy. promised golden times. If only someone would save them, and the thousands and thousands of other young Americans who are also yearning to reach the sunfilled, sandy shore!

Wait! Check that emphatic teardrop.

Latter-day Hero!

Someone has come. A lifesaver. A hero of the twentieth century. His name is Jeff Tarr, and he is only an undergraduate at Harvard University.

With humanitarian sympathy, keen initiative, and a sharp feel for money, Tarr has singlehandedlv introduced a major new remedy to the social dilemma of educated young America. He calls it "Operation Match." It is a dating service run by computer.

The idea is simple. A lovelorn university student sends away for a "Compatibility Research" questionnaire.

He completes and returns it, along with three dollars. Then he waits, while an Ibm 7090 computer "matches" his qualities and specifications with other individuals stored in the machine's "memory." Soon a letter comes in the mail, listing no less than five names and phone numbers.

Both Sexes

It's not only the boys who subscribe to the services of Operation Match. In fact, the girls are just as keen, it not more so. There is no doubt about it. "Computer Cupid" is sweeping America.

What a dag!

In two years of operation. Tarr's service has been called on to grapple with over 200,000 barren love lives, and by the ever-mounting number of cries for help throughout the continental United States, it has proved a distinct capacity for holding loneliness at bay.

How does Tarr go about "taking the blindness out of a blind date?" The questionaire he sends out requires 135 coded answers and includes queries on your sexual experience, ethics, height, belief in God. interest in tv. and of course what qualities you would like to see in your Match mate. There is even a special code to identify where you com? from, to make sure that the computer doesn't insist you drive from your varsity in Virginia to pick up your date In California.

The only competitor to Operation Match comes out with a somewhat more intellectual questionnaire. Called "Contact," this service admittedly caters to the sophisticated "Ivy League" varsities in the Northeast. Contact asks its clients, for example, to assess on a scale from one to five their "verbal fluence," "tempo of life," and capacity for "emotional expression.''

Only offering 100 boxes to fill in with the correct code (35 less than the Match form), the Contact questionnaire is proof that even the triumph of science can take itself with a grain of salt. Contact's computer happily processes reaction to this one: "The computer is invading too

many aspects of our personal lives."

Success

The astounding success of the computer as a matchmaker in America must go beyond the novelty. When the enthusiasm is so strong, what lies behind it becomes a serious question.

One answer lies in American dating habits. The American emphasis on dating places great pressure on those who find themselves without a partner when the weekend rolls around. And the unhappy fact is, that many of the varsities in the United States which are not co-ed are located in pastoral corners— perfect for cloistered study but fatal to keeping any kind of normal heterosexual society.

The upshot is that students in these retreats adopt a weekend mentality, and they are prepared to go to any length—often travelling hundreds of miles—to find some kind of company with the opposite sex.

In this world, the problem of meeting others becomes a real one. One solution has been the "mixer"—a kind of informal ball organised, for example, by a girls' varsity, to which boys from varsities near and far are invited. The mixer, however, has built-in limitations. The shy boy, and the girl who no matter what her many other qualities, may not be a dazzling blonde, will come out of mixer after mixer with no more than an added sense of failure.

Discontent

Into this discontent, Operation Match has come to make meeting others easy. No more fears about those awkward first moments. A subscriber to Match knows, before he goes to the telephone, that the name printed on the Ibm card in his hand will be someone as eager to meet him as he is to meet her.

One American student of economics, an active client of Operation Match, puts it this way: "The essence of the service is one of economic efficiency—that is, in the dating markets there are both mands and supplies of [unclear: p] who, due to lack of [unclear: mo] and imperfect informal never get together."

However, the strength Operation Match comes [unclear: f] even greater streams—[unclear: f] tudes embedded deep in American ethos. First, then a satisfying democracy a the whole thing: each [unclear: s] scriber, no matter how [unclear: ugl] beautiful, stupid or [unclear: smart] assured of five dates. [unclear: At] on paper, no one gets [unclear: a] ter deal than anyone else, fact, there is even [unclear: a] question on the Match which politely [unclear: in] whether you would be [unclear: w] to contact more than names. Thus each can comfortable in the [unclear: kno] that if he gets his five [unclear: na] and his buddy gets [unclear: seven] it is onlv because the fri evidently feels he [unclear: can] with such abundance.

Scientific

The scientific basis of [unclear: Op] ation Match is also satisfy It is easv to have [unclear: confi] in its operations, for [unclear: thev] conform to the rigours [unclear: on] Ibm 7090. Also, to the [unclear: An] can student, who is [unclear: raise] a series of national [unclear: mu] cho ce examinations [unclear: at] watershed in his education career, Match's page 7[unclear: mul], coded Questionnaire as a familiar air about it.

A student can regard his eaponse on this form in the same hopeful way he regards is College Board examinatons.

A good performance on College Boards will probably [unclear: ean]ean acceptance to the [unclear: vars] of his choice. His answers [unclear: I] the Match form may well [unclear: ring]ing him the girl of his most [unclear: reclous] dreams.

Unfortunately, the fulfilment occasionally lags behind the hoping. The same economics student quoted above, whom I shall call Earnest, [unclear: rites] "I should also report, [unclear: n] grounds of intellectual integrity, that the computer services for dating arc not the ultimate in arranging affairs of the heart. For instance, one [unclear: oy]. I know asked for a female who was quite liberal about sexual activities. The comuter did what was beckoned. The lucky guy will not date the girl before her divorce is [unclear: nal,] however!

"Moreover," Earnest continues, "computer questionnaires seem to bring out the [unclear: ar'] in females. According to he returned question sheets, [unclear: w] young ladies applied who did not claim to be a brilliant combination of Marilyn Monroe and Professor Ezra [unclear: ound.]

"From one of my ghastly [unclear: nd] eldritch experiences, I requested ... oh, I better not but it in writing! Anyway, the [unclear: pshot] was a 5ft 10in 2101b rude. That girl was stronger and more prudish than any girl I've ever known!

I should relate," Earnest [unclear: oes] on. "that I have had [unclear: ome] fine dates through this service. Upon returning from [unclear: acation.] I rapidly decided to idulge in some Femaleus mericanus. Match came through. Now worn out, with an aching back, a mind, and a lethargic outlook. I conclude mv report."

Syndrome

There is others suggest, a possibility that Operation Match also brings out the [unclear: liar]" syndrome in what Earnst would call the Maleus mericanus.

Match's director Jeff Tarr lans to make computerised ating international by operting in Europe this coming orthern summer.

Undoubtedly, he has not yet considered expanding his each to the Antipodes.

But think of it!

For a pound. Tarr and his computer would make you a promise, as they have in America. A promise of mystery and adventure and reams - come - true. Who nows? You might even hit the jackpot and discover on our Ibm card the name of the New York fashion model who is "Miss Match of 1966." Any buyers?