Recently, columnist for Woman’s Day magazine, Andrew Postman, decided to try out the latest trend in fashionable dating: genetic profile matching. He and his wife both participated, just for fun, to see if the new science thought they were as good a match as fourteen years of wedded bliss had shown them to be in real-life actual experience. And lo and behold, the service, provided by a genetics matching company in Oklahoma, agreed with their own assessment of their marriage, rating them as a good match.
In reality, gene-based matching services are still in their infancy, and their prediction of compatibility between couples is still highly suspect. Currently, according to Postman, such tests actually only test the part of the DNA strand that is known to contain certain interesting parts; such as the gene that makes us like certain smells and not others. Based on the samples the Postman’s submitted, it appears that they should “like” the smell of one another. And then, based on another strand, the likelihood of the two of them having healthy children together is pretty high. Again, not a bad thing to know if you plan on making babies together. Another strand offers what some of the services say is a predictive quality of sex between the two people who have submitted samples. This is based on the degree of arousal the two parties will likely experience based on the pheromones their bodies produce, and resultant studies that have shown which people with which kinds of pheromones are aroused by others, and/or vice versa. Of course, we all know that great sex is more than just how aroused we get with a partner, but still, it might be something worth noting, like say on your Facebook profile?
Clearly things haven’t progressed that far, as there are still very few people who have sent samples to such a site, and even fewer who would be willing to be paired together simply because a science lab somewhere told them they would probably really like the smell of one another, make great babies together and have hot sex, were they to give it a go. Aren’t there?
Even if there might be, it’s certainly going to take some time for the word to get out and for people to start submitting samples, and then for them to decide to post such information on a profile, for say, Facebook, or more likely a site such as match.com or eharmony. But after that, who knows, maybe it will become as standard as all the other stats people are willing to offer about themselves in their search for true love.