film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

youvegotmail-peak.jpg

Shut It All Down. Internet Dating Has Reached Its Inevitable Disgusting Peak

By Vivian Kane | Miscellaneous | May 26, 2016 |

By Vivian Kane | Miscellaneous | May 26, 2016 |



Perhaps one of the greatest changes to our daily lives over the last decade or so has been the rise of online dating. It’s become a multi-billion dollar industry, and the stigma— at least for most humans— has been nearly if not entirely erased. It’s not a last resort dating Hail Mary or something any couple needs to be even remotely ashamed of. But apparently, there was an end to this road that could risk putting all of us off the entire platform of online dating forever.

Introducing Instant Chemistry, which strives to answer the question of why you just “click” with certain people and not others. They want to base relationship matches on that chemistry (the instant kind) you feel when you meet your person. And to do so, all you have to do is spit your spit into one of their spit receptacles, send it back, and have them match your saliva with that of prospective partners.

Excuse me one second.

Yup, find love through test tube saliva-swapping. They haven’t trademarked the term sa-love-a, but I’d like to offer it up to them at not cost, except to possibly consider the option of shutting down their operations forever.

Now, from the sound of it, your spit isn’t actually being matched with strangers’ mouth water. At least not at this point. It’s more to determine the compatibility of two current partners. You know, if you just can’t tell if you and that person you live with should be together, why not spit in some jars and send them off to a lab to have your DNA analyzed for “bio- and neuro-compatibility”?

If this all sounds a little too Gattaca to not be creepy, know that this company is quick to avoid the murky ethical waters of genome-mapping or straight-up eugenics. Instead, they focus on something called the Human Leukocyte Antigen. From The Guardian.

HLA is what allows us to recognize the self: is this body mine or other? It controls what bacteria grows on and in you, producing your unique odor and taste, leaving you unbothered by your partner’s early-morning scent, their tongue, hair and hollows.

Cool, cool cool cool. So this went from super gross to disturbing to rubbing “morning scents” together (meaning, I guess, back to weird and gross). In addition to HLA, Instant Chemistry also takes into account four less well researched elements. Yes, even less well researched than morning scents.

[The] others rely on extrapolating psychological profiles from four behavioral genetic variants: your serotonin transporter, oxytocin receptor, dopamine receptor, and a dopamine enzyme.

According to the couple behind the company, “most couples are ‘average’ - it’s an arbitrary scale, but scores usually fall in the 70-75% range.” Yes, a married couple invented these tests. And if you’re wondering what their score is, it’s 86%. So, an “arbitrary” scale, that’s definitely not a disturbing eugenics experiment, and happens to slant the inventors heavily towards the more magical connection end of things. And all for only $199? I know what you’re thinking: “SIGN ME UP.” Or maybe you’re thinking more along the lines of what one of the other geneticists that Guardian journalist emailed for comment, who responded with “I spent three minutes reading what this company is offering, and my impression is it is total delusion. I really cannot waste more time on this.”

ROMANCE!


Vivian Kane met her almost-husband here on Pajiba. Which she is frequently being reminded does constitute “online dating.”