The Code for Love and Heartbreak - Jillian Cantor Page 0,8
like themselves. Izzy and John are about the same height and they do both have blond hair. And maybe that’s what those dating apps George was making fun of on NPR are thinking, too.
Physical features, I type.
Then: Location/proximity. Belief system/religion. Background. Values. Age. Political affiliation. Sexual preference/orientation...
And there it is, methodical as can be. I’ll code an app to pull all this data, and then I’ll match who belongs with whom at our high school. Just like that, I’m going to write the code for falling in love.
Chapter 4
By Friday, at our second meeting of coding club, I have a rudimentary mock-up and prototype of my app, which I’m tentatively calling 1-Factor, the mathematical term for a perfect match in graph theory. I haven’t mentioned my idea to George again, so when I pull out my thumb drive, and pull everything I’ve been working on up on my screen at our meeting, George’s eyes widen. First, with surprise, and then with either hurt or annoyance, I’m not sure. I look away, ignoring the flicker of remorse in my stomach for not including him. He didn’t want to be included, I remind myself.
“What’s this?” Ms. Taylor hovers over my screen, pulls down her glasses and squints a little.
“An idea I’ve been playing around with,” I say, and I tell them all how I’ve made a list of factors important to falling in love and assigned them all a value. To actually create an app that would match everyone in the school correctly, we’d have to create a database, get Jane to skim socials or set up some kind of survey to gather the data. But for now, on my prototype, I’ve done a sample match of Ms. Taylor and Mr. Weston, pulling relevant data about them on my own from what I could find in Google searches, their social media profiles and the school website. Knowing that they both already liked each other, I used this to create my algorithm. I also invited Mr. Weston to join our meeting today. He walks in now, just as everyone is staring at my screen and I’m explaining what I’ve been working on.
“Cool,” Hannah says, pushing her red curls back from her face, gathering them in a mock-ponytail with her hands, so for the first time I see her face clearly. She has small cheekbones, big sea-glass eyes, and I wonder if by the time she’s a senior, she’ll grow into her hair and become a force.
“Not cool,” George mutters under his breath, his eyes trained on Mr. Weston, his words aimed at me. He’s upset I went behind his back and created the prototype without him, but he’ll come around once he sees it.
I demonstrate for everyone how, based on all the data points I entered, Ms. Taylor and Mr. Weston come to a ninety-six percent likability match. In order to come up with this, I had to weight age, background (they both did their undergrad at Rutgers) and common physical features (they are both medium height with black hair and glasses) the highest. And in order to truly make this accurate on a larger scale, we’ll have to do more research and collect a lot of data on what variables really should be weighted more than others, what really does lead to a perfect match. But for now, I offer them this example.
I look back up from the screen, and Ms. Taylor’s face is bright red. Mr. Weston’s staring very hard at his scuffed black shoes.
“This is just...just...” Ms. Taylor stops talking, then lets out a strange high-pitched laugh, and I cringe. I never meant for this to be so awkward. It had felt straightforward, and mathematical, and right, in my head last night. But now that it’s all out here and we’re all staring at each other, I regret inviting Mr. Weston. I thought I was helping them both, that they would be excited and grateful. But neither one of them look anything close to excited.
“Well,” Mr. Weston finally says, looking up, after a moment of silence that feels like way longer than sixty seconds. But I check my watch—it hasn’t been. “I have to go home and, um, let my dog out. I’ll let you all get back to your meeting.”
“Yes, of course,” Ms. Taylor murmurs.
“Ms. Taylor.” He smiles at her, and his eyes crinkle a little behind his glasses, so I don’t think he’s angry or upset. Is he interested? “I’m glad to know we’re a statistical match.”