http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/science/29tier.html?scp=10&sq=game+theory&st=nyt

At the end of the day, it can be well argued that love is what we all strive for as individuals. Unfortunately, love is a tricky thing and by that, I mean difficult and hard to find just the right person who will love you and all your weird tendencies. In response to this, online dating websites have persisted in competition for years claiming to be able to find your one and only soul mate. In a New York Times article by John Tierney, the idea of algorithms for finding love is examined. Such algorithms have been developed by psychologists and sociologists who have utilized personality tests as the means to match individuals on traits, such as emotional temperament and social approaches.

Hence, the concept of the online dating service can be viewed as a network constraining how the buyers (those seeking love) and sellers (those profiting from your lack of love) interact. With the goal of a perfect matching, most online dating services have reverted to these algorithms instead of allowing individuals to choose mates themselves. As stated in the article, when given the choice to choose mates on their own, individuals have been shown to date less than 1 percent of the profiles studied and such dates have ended unsuccessfully as well. Furthermore, it is likely that with similar ideal traits, individuals would choose the same mates over and over again, resulting in a constricted set among the buyers. As a result, the use of algorithms can be viewed as a mechanism to remove constricted sets as a central planner (the online dating service) eliminates competition by collecting buyer valuations and assigning the matches with the maximum payoffs.

Thus, it is highly subjective whether or not these algorithms, in which coordination of personality tests are used to assign individuals to different mates, achieve perfect matchings (market-clearing prices). I am arguing neither pro or con as companies have yet to demonstrate scientific evidence that such methods are even accurate. What I am arguing, however, is that these online dating sites have become a permanent fixture in our society today and several implications arise from that. We must consider them in light of accessibility as not everyone has access to a computer, which inherently creates power imbalances. We must also ponder the notion that such services aim for social welfare maximization not in the name of love, but quite possibly for the call of ‘money, money, money.’ Lastly, we must acknowledge the fact that love, no matter the means to achieve it, is difficult to attain, sometimes tricky to hold onto to and surely impossible to forget.