Computer assisted dating

Should apps give you dating advice? It's something we've though about at Metropolis.

The app Coffee Meets Bagel, for example, gives you profile prompts and icebreaker questions. Hinge has canned prompts that help you reveal your personality and sense of humour.

But is this a good idea? We think not.

An "historical" precedent

You may be familiar with the story of Cyrano de Bergerac, popularized by the movies Roxanne (with Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah) and Cyrano de Bergerac (with Gerard Depardieu).

Cyrano is a charming and intelligent nobleman with a big nose. He's in love with the beautiful Roxanne, but doesn't have the courage to ask her out because of his looks. Christian, on the other hand, is good looking but dumb, and also fancies Roxanne.

Cyrano is persuaded to write letters to Roxanne on Christian's behalf, and because of the letters she falls in love with Christian. Clearly this isn't going to end well. **Spoiler alert** It doesn't end well.

Computer assistance

Now, we're not suggesting that people will fall in love with a computer assistant that helps people craft perfect profiles and send witty and charming messages. But it would certainly muddy the waters.

Getting a feel for a someone's personality based on a dating profile is hard enough at the best of times. But if computer assistants made all the profiles look "good enough", online dating would be even more of a crapshoot. How would you separate the good from the bad?

So we've decided that the Metropolis app won't give any advice, and will let people's true selves shine through.

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