February 2008
Volume 31/Issue 5

So, What's Your Other Major?
Double majors aren't just for overachievers.
Wellesley In the Winter
Stop scowling at the snow and grab your camera.
Grassroots 101
Young voters are taking a stand to make a difference.
A Match Made in...?
Click and tell with TheMatchup.net.
"It's Okay Pluto, I'm Not a Planet Either"
You can't change the history of the universe without a fight.
Agenda
Events at MIT, Wellesley, and in the Boston area for February.
A Letter to the Editor

A Match Made in...?

Looking for Mr. Right on TheMatchup.net

{by macherie edwards wc '11}

JULIE CAMARDA WC '08

I once thought that online dating was reserved for the desperate or socially inept among us, but then I discovered thematchup.net -a dating and communication website built in 2004 by student organizers at Harvard and MIT. The site provides its services free of charge to students, faculty and alumni from Boston area colleges and universities including Harvard, MIT and Wellesley. Glowing recommendations from my classmates ("My friend found her husband on The Matchup!") coupled with the fact that I attend a women's college were enough to convince me to create a profile.

Although The Matchup doesn't have a questionnaire as extensive as eHarmony.com's 436-question beast, getting started was more difficult than I had originally anticipated. I thought I had a pretty appealing profile until my friend reviewed it, rejecting everything but the headline, "Willing to lie about how we met." My personal essay was our first challenge. The prompt asks how your closest friend would describe you and although it's not required, a disclaimer warns that those without an essay are eight times less likely to receive a message. We came up with a few witty sentences describing my likes and dislikes, and against my better judgment, my friend included a sentence urging bachelors to "take a break from analyzing graphical curves to consider real ones." After we carefully chose and uploaded the allotted seven photos I was ready to get started. The Matchup allows you to filter your search for a potential mate by school, ethnicity, age, major, political view, religion and amount of time spent watching sports, among other oddly specific things. Overwhelmed by my options, I chose not to filter my search and ended up with 1,061 results.

The profiles posted on the site range from the stereotypical (nature-backed profile pictures) to the unusual (a Star Wars-themed profile complete with a photo album full of movie stills). You must use an email address from a participating college or university to create an account on The Matchup. This boosted my confidence concerning the caliber of men on the site, until I ran across a 41-year-old temp worker with a questionable profile. Determined not to be deterred by a man who was hairy, bald and obviously not a Harvard graduate, I sifted through profiles until I found a handful of guys to message. I realized that the website's claim about the power of the personal essay was true. It's nearly impossible to message someone without any information regarding their interests.

I messaged five guys, and one responded almost immediately. He is a martial arts-practicing senior at Berklee College of Music who was particularly interested in the line of my essay regarding my curves. We exchanged messages for several days, and although The Matchup's terms of use prevent me from directly quoting them, I can assure you that his responses increased in intensity. Barely a week went by before he suggested we meet -and before I had become slightly uncomfortable. In my next message, I decided to casually mention that more time must pass before my curves would be revealed. He claimed that he was not bothered by this, saying that he would message me back with a time and place for us to meet. Despite my initial pessimism regarding the guy, his message made me quite optimistic.

I remained optimistic until three weeks went by without news from him. I became convinced that this was because I made it clear that I wasn't using The Matchup as a sex service. The anonymity of the internet gave me the courage to call him out. I had to do it for all of womankind. I decided to send him a message expressing my dislike for his behavior. Although he offered up excuses of being busy and sick, my removal from his friend list on Facebook, followed by three more weeks of silence, led me to believe that I was right.

I was ready to abandon my experiment when a 25-year-old MIT grad student messaged me with an invitation for coffee. I accepted, but immediately decided that I needed a companion to shadow me on the date. I don't know if it was out of kindness, curiosity or a mixture of both, but my good friend accepted the position. I was feeling pretty disillusioned after my first experience, but decided that at the worst the date would be good fodder for an article. I exchanged numbers with my date, and we agreed to meet later at a bookstore and café. As my "date shadow" and I boarded the Senate bus, I began to get nervous. I didn't know much about this guy, including his real name. He must have been thinking the same thing, because moments later my phone rang. "What do I call you?" he asked. "MaCherie," I replied, "What do I call you?" There's no need for me to come up with a fake name to protect his identity because phone static coupled with an accent prevented me from ever truly learning his real one. My trusty date shadow laughed as I wondered if I could get through a whole date without having to say his name. I fantasized about riding the Senate bus in a complete circle back to Wellesley. My friend talked me out of it, asking "Where's your journalistic integrity?"

I gathered all of the courage I could muster and walked inside the bookstore. My date and I grabbed a table and began one of the weirdest dates of my life. He knew that I was 18 before he asked me on the date but seemed concerned with our age difference, asking, "Am I your first grad student?" Thankfully, the waitress came before I was forced to come up with an answer. I decided to order a piece of carrot cake. "Are you sure you don't want the tiramisu," he asked, "It has a little rum in it." I politely declined and decided that it was an exceptionally good time to go to the bathroom. Upon my return, I noticed my date admiring my date shadow. She just shrugged at me when I made secret eye contact. Although I thought the night was going pretty badly, my date asked me to go for a walk after we finished dessert. He was in a hurry to leave, but I had to stall due to the waitress's inability to produce my friend's check. The evening continued on at the awkward pace we had set forth, complete with an accidental run-in with the date shadow after I decided to change directions on the sidewalk. We ended the night with an awkward hug at the bus stop, while another Wellesley woman looked on sympathetically.

Although I'll no longer have the "all for the sake of journalism" mantra my friends and I developed to fall back on, I'm going to continue to use The Matchup (don't worry, potential dates, there will be no more articles documenting my experiences). I've even convinced a few of my friends to sign up. I'd like to think that it's because my bravery was inspiring, although most likely it's because searching for Mr. Right on the internet is much easier than taking a forty-five minute ride on the Senate Bus to find him.

MaCherie Edwards WC '11 (medwards[at]wellesley[dot]edu) may be lovely as a summer's day, but she has yet to find amor on The Matchup.