Dating Decisions Via Technology?

You may have seen in the news that big business is using brain scanning technology to better sell product to their customers. EEG systems are being used to register the desires, wants and needs of consumers – which is a scary, almost dystopian vision of the future to any sensible pair of eyes!

It might be a whimsical flight of fancy, but I couldn’t help my mind from wandering on this one. Do you suppose, in some version of the future, these kinds of systems might be used by dating agencies to gauge the perfect match? After all, the questionnaires they throw at members on arrival these days are as thick as phone books. With one of these gizmos they could simply hook up the brain-monitor and find out all they need to know about cultural, dining and sexual preferences with the click of a mouse-pointer. And perhaps this artificial approach to coupling might actually work (if you throw the bizarre ethics of it all out of the window first, of course!)

Even further, perhaps family arguments will go out of the window as we register our disagreement with a database and use a computer to settle all quarrels? With that kind of technology, they could halve the divorce rate…

It’s a fine idea, but ultimately our old friend common sense must come into play. We are human beings, and our choices must come uniquely from within ourselves, mustn’t they? Our dating choices – even the ones that are huge mistakes – must come from within or from the recommendations of the ones we trust. And away from the imaginary, even shopping decisions shouldn’t be decided by a robot-commitee… where’s the fun in that?

In the wayward world of dating, mistakes are par for the course. We make mistakes so that we can progress. Our brains evolved they way they did so that memory takes care of it all for us. If we make a bad decision, then discover the consequences of that bad move, memory will step in and ensure we don’t do it again. That is, unless we have issues that prevent us from doing this.

The use of technology to monitor our emotional world is an idea that worries me. Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but attempting to read one another’s minds to find out what we truly desire seems too close to science fiction novels from the 20th century. Philip K Dick would have had a field day!

Ultimately, the best way to find out what people want – be it a customer, a relative or your partner – and to uncover what they truly desire, is to use the most complex tool in the world. Far better than any computer brain scanner and more advanced than any scientific procedure. Use that thing at the front of your face to ask them, then use the ears on the side of your head to listen. The result may be murkier and less easy to decipher, but it’s the tried and tested method, and time after time has been proven to work just right.