Love at First Byte

The Harvard Computer Society (HCS) has seen to it that love will be in the air for this Valentine’s Day like never before.

For the 11th consecutive year, the HCS “Datamatch” matchmaking service sought to pair lovelorn (or just adventurous) Harvardians.

And while most campus computer users are no longer connected through cords, HCS is seeking to wirelessly tie the heart-strings of would-be lovers.

Even if true love is not to be found online, a little over 1,200 brave souls took the plunge and worked their way through the humorous 30-question exam.

They trusted the Harvard network with their deepest thoughts on topics such as the great River-Quad debate and their personal preferences for certain members of Snow White’s team of seven admirers.

Wenxin Xu ’09, a Biochemical Sciences concentrator in Wigglesworth Hall, wrote in an e-mail that though he thinks it would be “a lot to ask” for a multiple choice survey to unite soulmates, the quiz was entertaining enough in itself to be worth the effort.

“It would be fun to meet whoever I end up with—not necessarily romantically, of course,” Xu wrote. But, he added, “The survey was so far-out that I think anyone who managed to get through it would be someone worth knowing.”

Xu’s comments echo a view that the HCS student leaders seem to have grasped fully: Datamatch is not exactly serious business. HCS President Steven M. Melendez ’07 indicated that those looking for real love through an algorithm may be barking up the wrong tree. He said that Datamatch is simply a “fun activity” that offers the bonus of a bona fide compatibility comparison with fellow undergraduates.

HCS Project Director Grant W. Dasher ’09 offered some insight into the juiciest bit of the program: those far-out questions.

“A bunch of us from HCS and associated student groups get together with a bunch of pizza and then spend a couple hours brainstorming,” he said.

This decidedly unromantic and unscientific process nonetheless proves to be effective—sometimes. Dasher recounted a few occasions on which existing couples found themselves at the top of each other’s compatibility lists.

The mystique of Datamatch is only strengthened by Dasher’s admission that “nobody has any idea exactly” how the roughly decade-old algorithm that puts the “match” in “Datamatch” works.

Unfortunately for those who planned on using the HCS questionnaire to find a partner who shares a love of the Kong’s crab rangoon, romantic dinners at Annenberg, and the language of the Klingon race, quiz submissions closed at 11:59pm on Valentine’s Eve.

The happily coupled Melendez offered these words of advice to those still left searching after missing last night’s deadline: “Keep looking around, keep trying,” he said. And, he added, “Try Datamatch next year.”