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MATCHMAKING SURVEY

 Our Matchmaking Machine was wildly popular last year, so whether you’re a newbie or a veteran to our services, let us handle the work of finding you a perfect partner for the evening. If nothing else, you may end up with a funny story to tell!

Mwah!

It seems that the interwebs have become inundated with matchmaking sites lately. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, here’s another one. The newest site, nChooseTwo allows members to not only list their own crushes (up to 10 at once!), but to suggest matches between your friends and their crushes (or people who you think they would look oh-so-adorable with). The site is open to all students of Harvard and MIT (expanding our opportunities, no?); just register with your student email address. There is no list of names and there are no awkward photos – just the potential to catalyze matches you’ve been mulling over in your head but didn’t know how to initiate.

nChooseTwo

According to the site, “Privacy and security are our top priorities – no information about romantic intent is revealed unless the attraction is mutual, and we are constantly considering user feedback to make our site more useful and more secure.” It’s a win-win situation. No embarrassment if the match is not accepted. Here’s a sample matchmaking scenario from the site:

For example,

say Eve suggests a match between Adam and Beth. Eve shows up as an anonymous matchmaker to Adam and Beth.

If Adam clicks ‘Accept’ and Beth does not, Beth and Eve never find out that Adam clicked ‘Accept’. And vice-versa.

Instead, if Adam and Eve both click Accept, then Eve’s identity is revealed to them. Adam, Beth, and Eve are notified that this match is succesful, and good times are had by all.

Patty's not here, so we'll just have to fend for ourselves.

No harm, no foul. It’s almost time for Valentine’s Day, everyone, so let’s get to matching up our friends and even ourselves! Harvard has the potential for romance. It just needs an anonymous kick-start.

UPDATE: nChooseTwo has extended its services to the BU community!

Here at the Voice, it’s pretty obvious that we have a special place in our heart for internet memes, particularly those that take advantage of online anonymity. That’s why we fell in love with I Saw You (at Harvard), a CS50 project serving as the “source for posting and browsing missed connections,” according to its founder Tej Toor ’10.

Browse through the first page to see if anyone is professing his/her love to your oblivious “Hunky Australian philosopher” blockmate. A more interesting aspect of the site is the posted stats, collected from the submission demographics. Of all four classes, seniors are submitting the most sightings, perhaps in attempts to take advantage of the last opportunities to get to know the Serena van der Woodsen lookalike or the guy stuffing his face with pita chips at brain break. But most surprisingly, sightings occur more frequently at the 12 Houses than anywhere else on campus. Looks like more than a few people are too shy to chat even in the dining hall.

Read Noice’s favorite declarations of unrequited love after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

FEATURETTE: Voice editor Alisha Ramos ’12 attended the aphrodASIA Speed Dating Event hosted by the CSA on Friday, October 30. These are her impressions of the event and the phenomenon of speed dating in a culture like Harvard.

Well hey. This is awkward.

Speed dating is the least romantic situation that exists. It is intimate in all the wrong ways. The bottles of San Pellegrino on the rose petal laden tables remain untouched by couples until the event is over. Like many of the heel-wearing, hair-gelled participants, the romantic fixtures and dim lighting can’t help but seem embarrassingly artificial. This is not a real date. The person across from you does not know you. You are sitting not in a fancy restaurant but in the empty, wooden expanse of Leverett Old Library. Yet you are given three minutes to rattle off everything you can about yourself without scaring the other person away. Soon, the questions become protocol rather than intrigue. “So what year are you?” a date asks me in unison with the guy next to him.

Speed dating requires endurance and agility. You must balance a calm demeanor while ignoring the fact that you are attempting to appear attractive to eighteen complete strangers. I have never been through a job interview, but I imagine this is what it would be like, but maybe eighteen times worse. What should be an enjoyable night of getting to know new people soon devolves into a frantic scurry to sell, sell, sell–yourself.

Also required is an amazing ability to focus. You are seated inches away from the couples next to you; the urge to eavesdrop on conversations (or non-conversations) is in constant battle with the willingness to listen to your own partner, however boring or intriguing. Before you can untangle the adjacent conversations from your own, the announcer harkens the end of another three minutes. Hands are shaken, and a new body sits across from yours. Read the rest of this entry »