Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness

by Kathryn Schulz

How those companies themselves generate matches is its own mystery, since the algorithms they use are proprietary. One way or another, though, they codify what is obvious about looking for love: to turn up a potential mate, we must somehow narrow the search area, impose upon the giant pool of possibilities some restrictions with respect to geography or physiology or taste in TV shows or preferences about household pets. One difficulty with doing so, as almost anyone who has ever tried online dating can tell you, is that no matter how numerous and specific such constraints may be, they will still screen in plenty of terrible matches. But the more serious problem is the opposite one: those same constraints, the ones that we ourselves select, may screen out someone perfect—because, in matters of love, we have no real idea of what we are looking for. Or, rather, we have a great many ideas, any of which may be wrong.