Would Romeo and Juliet be matched online?

By Howard Axelrod

IN A cluttered studio apartment on the outskirts of Verona, Romeo sits down at his desk and picks up his quill. His best friend Benvolio has been at him again. Time is running out for marriage, Benvolio has said, and there’s only one cure for his latest heartbreak. Online dating.

Resigned, his handsome brow furrowed, Romeo scratches and blots his way through a profile. “By a name, I know not how to tell thee who I am,” he begins, “nor am I equally at ease in jeans or formal wear.” Then, in spite of himself, he continues, “I cherish jousts of words, and jousts of love, and those who romance beyond words.” Not entirely appalled, he opens his Mac, takes poetic license with his height and build, adds a selfie shot in the bathroom mirror, and prays for the best.

Meanwhile, across town, Juliet has just logged in. Through her 20s she swore, especially to her mother, that marriage was an honor she dreamed not of, but with tenure now a lock at the university, her Facebook news feed overwhelmed with friends’ photos of weddings and babies, and her remaining Netflix options grown chidingly thin, she has begun to long for a partner.

The numbers suggest Romeo and Juliet are doing the right thing. In the United States — let’s assume they’re in Verona, N.Y. — roughly 100 million people are single, and about 40 million people have tried online dating. The superabundance of potential matches is new. In 1950, only 22 percent of American adults were single, but now the figure is nearly 50 percent. Also new, perhaps due the increasing role of technology in American life, is that the stigma of online dating is largely gone. In 2013, a Pew Research study found that 59 percent of Americans agreed with the statement: “Online dating is a good way to meet people.”

But does an increase in options, and an increased ability to navigate those options, actually increase the likelihood of finding love? What impact does the online-consumer model — a virtual warehouse of potential partners, stocked according to an algorithm designed to suit your stated tastes — have on forming a committed relationship?

For one thing, Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t find each other today. Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers met at a masquerade, which meant a party’s limited options and almost no information about each other, except the touch of Romeo’s hand and the heated flirtation of their words. But today’s Romeo and Juliet have a shopper’s catalogue of choices and set their search parameters to find exclusively what they’re looking for. And given the centuries-old feud between the Montagues and the Capulets, they’re not looking for each other. Perhaps Romeo, like most of the Montagues, is short; perhaps Juliet, like most of the Capulets, is a bit stout. In person, they find many types of people attractive. But with online dating, given the option to rule out the short and the stout, they do.

Which raises another question: Does a more bounded context, with fewer choices and less sense of control, help us with what the theologian William F. May calls “an openness to the unbidden?” And, even more complicated, do the greatest love affairs come from finding what we’re looking for, or from finding what we don’t know to look for — from the alchemy that flares when the unbidden happens to find us?

As with most questions of love, there are no easy answers. But these questions do prompt an important distinction between great love affairs and great committed relationships, which may not entirely overlap with each other. For securing the latter, many of the singles I asked said they find Internet dating helpful. They prefer a large pool of prospects and the power to vet those prospects in advance. Granted, certain indignities can result from the efficiency approach: One friend told me she felt like a horse whose teeth her date was inspecting before purchase; another said she feels like she’s dating everyone and no one at the same time. But for the privilege of casting a wide net, and of not having to catch a stranger’s eye in public when he’s likely looking at his phone anyway, online daters endure.

For great love affairs, though, having so much control may not be as helpful. It’s hard to start a fire with a checklist and an algorithm. No one trusts love at first click.

But sometimes online dating outfoxes itself. About six months ago, a man from Los Angeles was passing through Logan airport; his smartphone geo-located him; his OkCupid account included a South Boston woman’s profile as a possible match. Bored waiting for his plane, he looked. She saw he’d looked. By the time she messaged him, he was back in LA. Neither one was interested in a long-distance relationship — their search parameters said as much — but they started messaging. Eventually, they went offline and started writing letters. Maybe not with quills, but with paper and ink. “I was 30 years old,” she said, “and he was the first man to send me flowers.”

This fall he’s moving to Boston. They’ve already met each other’s family. Theirs is a modern love story — one of both control and the unbidden, one of both playing the averages and following an exception. May all online daters be so lucky.

罗密欧与朱丽叶网上适配吗？

作者：霍华德·阿克塞罗德

维罗纳近郊，一个邋遢的单间公寓里，罗密欧坐在桌前，拾起自己的羽毛笔。他的挚友本弗里奥刚劝说过他。“快些结婚吧，也只有网上约会才能治愈你最近的心伤。”

剑眉微皱，罗密欧无奈提笔写起自己的简介，涂涂改改：“只一个名字，我无法告诉你我是什么样的人，不能告诉你我同样喜欢牛仔和正装。”不由自主地，他继续写道：“我珍惜思想的碰撞，渴望倾城的爱情，追逐无言的浪漫。”怀着丝紧张，他打开了自己的魅可，选了个适合自己身形的艺术照背景，附上一张浴室镜子前的自拍照，祈愿找到理想的恋人。

与此同时，邻镇的朱丽叶刚登上网上约会帐号。双十年华时，她就尤其对母亲发过誓，结婚这种荣誉并非她的梦想。但终身任教以来，朱丽叶的交际范围已局限于学校。她的脸书每天都充斥着朋友们的结婚照甚至宝宝们的照片，而她却每天看网飞，到现在也快无片可看了。不由得，她想要个伴了。

数据显示罗密欧与朱丽叶的选择很正确。在美国（我们假设他们在纽约州的维罗纳），粗略估计有1亿单身男女，其中约4千万人都有尝试网上约会，该人数实在前所未见。1950年时仅22%的美国成年人是单身，而今这个数据直逼50%。此外，或许因为科技在美国人民生活中的作用愈发重要，网上约会如今变得习以为常，不像以前那么让人羞耻。2013年，皮尤研究所发现59%的美国人认同网上约会是认识新人的好方式。

然而，增加了备选对象、提高了浏览便捷度就果真有助于我们找到爱情吗？线上消费者模式（用算法筛选出合你胃口的适配者组成虚拟仓库）对建立伴侣关系又有何影响？

首先，罗密欧与朱丽叶在今天或许不会结缘。莎翁笔下的这对苦命恋人在一次化装舞会上首次见面，而舞会人数有限，彼此间互不熟悉。他们俩仅有的交流是指尖触碰及一些情话。但在今天，罗密欧与朱丽叶都有确定的商品详单，直指符合条件的“商品”。而鉴于蒙塔古家族和卡普莱特家族世纪交恶，他俩显然不在对方的供选范围内。或许罗密欧是典型的蒙塔古式短小身材，而朱丽叶则是卡普莱特式微胖身形。面对面他们能找到很多心仪的类型。但在网上，他们首先排除了身材短小和微胖身形的人，彼此间也便无缘了。

这又引出了另一个问题：更多限定条件以减少备选对象，并降低主观操控真能帮助我们达到神学家威廉·F.梅所提出“达观对待无常事”的境界吗？另外，更加复杂的是，美好的恋情是缘自我们的自主选择，还是缘自我们走马观花之余意外惊喜从天而降的魔法呢？

大凡爱情相关的问题都很难回答。但这些问题确实明确了恋爱和伴侣关系的重要区别，虽然两者有相交之处。为使后者更加稳固，单身受试者大都认为网上约会很有帮助。他们更喜欢有大量的选择，并能提前从中筛选。的确，这种高效的方式会让人不适：我一个友人说她就像马一样让购买者事先检查牙齿；另一个也说她既感觉在跟所有人约会，又像是从未和人约会过。但他们都忍了，因为网上约会能助他们广撒渔网，因而不再需要在公共场合努力吸引一个陌生异性的视线，而那人或许正忙着看手机。

而对于恋爱，大量筛选条件或许并无益处。无干柴不成烈火，而一个清单加上一个算法显然燃不出烈火，也没人会相信“一键钟情”。

但有时网上约会反而出人意料。约6个月前，一个洛杉矶人回家途中飞机经停罗根机场，他的智能手机定位了他，他的OkCupid帐号立马调出一个波士顿女性的信息作为他的适配对象。恰好他正等飞机，无聊着翻看了这位女士的信息。女士得知有人查看了自己的信息后便回发了短信，但男士已回到了洛杉矶。他俩都对异地恋兴趣缺缺——他们的择偶参数证明了这点——但他们开始互发短信。最后，他们开始线下互通信件。只不过他们或许用的不是羽毛笔，而是油墨打印。“我已经30了，”女士说，“而他是首个给我送花的男人。”

今年秋天男方准备搬去波士顿。他们此前已经见过对方家长了。他们的故事是现代爱情的好例子——既有限制又打破了限制，既是寻常故事却也出人意料。祝愿其他网上求偶者也终得真爱。