By the Numbers

It is in the nature of paradigms that they will shift. Often suddenly and of their own accord, giving little chance for preparation, seat-of-the-pants adjustment and adaptation often being the only recourse. The true trick is that what can seem like a sudden change usually happens over a matter of years, with various indicators along the way that tend to missed. Leading to the sensation of waking up in a different world with little notion as to how one got there. Something that has been referred to as the "Rip Van Winkle Effect."

One of the more recent developments with a trajectory along these lines is the rapid increase in the popularity and use of not only dating sites (which are basically Lonely Heart’s sections moved from the newspaper page to the computer screen), but dating apps. Both methods of keeping someone at a distance, perceived if not physical, during the early stages of the courtship process. It could even be argued, with a heavy heart, that the word "courtship", in the truest sense, has become yet another funny reminder of a bygone era, like "courtesy" and "discombobulate."

The stand-up comedian and all-around gadabout Russell Brand once quipped that he had "the art of seduction down to a gesture." At roughly this same time, the programmers and marketers behind Tinder, Grinder and to a lesser extent OkCupid, were getting dating down to a science. Literally reducing the process finding a potential mate to a mathematical equation. The problem with this notion, the flaw at the core of the hypothesis is that people are not math equations and have more complexities, eccentricities and shades on an individual level than can ever be captured, 
let alone calculated or understood by a data stream. No matter how many stats are collected or how powerful or exact the processor, there is still the matter of all those darn, irritating "emotions" to account for. Something humans have still barely learned to manage after thousands of years of practice.