Online Dating Matching and Compatibility
There is a lot of hype around current online dating matching and compatibility technologies. Some claim to be focused on chemistry or attraction, others more focused on personality traits. Some even go the route of predicting compatibility through the use of the "old horoscope". Whether you are looking for a friend a fling or your soul mate, it is worth looking at how these techniques or "technologies" came about. Also, let's investigate the actual validity and current status in the field of some of the most popular methods.
You would think that compatibility testing and matching processes began with the advent of the information technology era, but this is hardly the case. To get closer to the origins of the fascination with matchmaking you need to go farther back...way back. Try Lupercalia and the ancient Romans.
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In ancient Rome, February was considered the formal start of spring and a time of cleansing or purification. According to lore, all the young maidens would write their names on a piece of parchment and place them in a large urn. The single men in the city would then in turn pick out a name and pair themselves with that woman for the whole year. It is said that these matches often ended in marriage! We have come a long way since then.
In the late fifties Art Linkletter matched couples on TV using a UNIVAC computer. Today we have Chemistry.com and eHarmony.com making all kinds of claims regarding their compatibility or matching science. When you review the programs in detail you actually do get a clear sense that there is some fundamental research and very educated people behind both these systems.
In the case of Chemistry.com we have Dr. Helen Fisher who touts being a biological anthropologist, and in the case of eHarmony.com we have Dr. Neil Clark Warren who claims 35 years of research and is also the founder of the company. Both have accomplished records and use established online dating matching methods as the foundation for their research and compatibility profiles. The difference is basically in the methodology and the things they measure.
Dr. Fisher's approach is more biological, asking questions like: What happens in the brain when we love? She actually talks about the testing she and her colleagues did initially with functional MRI scans of the brain. They studied 32 couples who were madly in love and found that, in her words, "very primitive" parts of the brain were stimulated. These parts of the brain dealt with things like obsessive thinking, euphoria and craving. That is the basis for Chemistry.com's whole online dating matching system which includes several different questionnaires. Dr. Clark Warren takes another tack.
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The online dating matching technologies used by eHarmony.com base themselves on the studies of successful married couples. What are their traits? What do they have in common? In essence, instead of focusing on the brain and the biological factors, the eHarmony team focuses on function, on what is actually proven to work in long term relationships. This approach also makes a lot of sense.
Now I don't have any evidence that one online dating matching method has a better success rate than the other. That is for you to test out. Whether your primal instincts or your rational mind is the key to compatibility is destined to remain a question for the ages.