Dating is Hard:

Operation Match Has the Solution

By Rebecca Burrows

Finding a date can be a herculean task. Today, online dating applications like Tinder and Bumble host millions of users looking for an answer to the perennial question that always seems to be asked around the holidays: “Are you dating anyone?” In a world seeking to connect, reliance on technology to find the “perfect” match is not as recent a trend as you might think. As early as 1965, three Harvard students (Jeffrey Tarr, David Crump, and Douglas Ginsberg) collaborated on a project that would eventually spread across the United States: Operation Match.

Operation Match's mail in order to receive questionnaires. Applicants must be over 17 years old and under 28 years old.

Operation Match's mail in order to receive questionnaires. Courtesy of The Colonial News, March 11, 1966.

Operation Match’s solution to the age-old dating problem relied on eliminating the human error involved in searching for a compatible partner. Instead, the task of creating suitable matches was delegated to the computer, specifically through a partnership with IBM. Questionnaires sent out across the nation to various college campuses required applicants to rate their personal interests and appearances and describe their ideal date. After the survey was completed, students only had to return the survey, and a $3 fee, to Cambridge Massachusetts, and await their results. The results were painstakingly transferred to punch cards and then fed to IBM’s 7090 computer. Eventually, the massive computer would spit out the applicant’s perfect matches. After that, it was up to the applicant to make their move -- by sending a letter asking to meet. In a letter to the editor of the New York Times, Linda Dannenberg recalled that the “delicious anticipation” involved in waiting for results further heightened the excitement associated with computerized dating.

Sample of Operation Match’s survey questions. Including questions that ask about how “you” would take over a door-to-door surveyor’s job asking personal questions, etc.

Sample of Operation Match's survey questions. Courtesy of Nicholas Graham, UNC History on the Hill, May 25, 2016.

Operation Match spread rapidly across the United States in 1965 and arrived at Binghamton in November. The Colonial News, the predecessor of The Pipe Dream, reported that the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity offered “a novel and exciting program to add extra flavor to this year’s dance: Operation Match.” Students unable, or unwilling, to find a traditional date for the dance needed only to submit their questionnaires to the IBM computer facility conveniently located on campus to receive the partner of their dreams, or perhaps simply their partner for the dance. While the results of the Adelphi mixer’s IBM experiment are not further discussed, The Colonial News continued to publish advertisements for Operation Match throughout March, July, and August 1966. These advertisements promised that not only will “you be what your date is looking for,” but “your date will be what you are looking for” -- a lofty promise for a computerized dating system.

By April, competition on the dating scene had intensified as similar computerized dating programs emerged at Binghamton University. “Tryst”, designed by Harpur senior Carl Shoolman and a fellow student, utilized similar self-reflective questionnaires and the IBM computer system but offered three main advantages. Chief amongst these was the elimination of matches from distant universities; instead matches closer to Binghamton University would be provided. Interestingly enough, the questionnaire could be picked up at the Infirmary from the nurse on duty.

Look Magazine's February 22 1966 issue featuring Operation Match's computerized dating craze. Courtesy of Look Magazine.

Operation Match’s popularity, partially owed to IBM’s accessibility and computer processing skills, dramatically increased from its beginning in 1965 through 1966. Look Magazine’s 1966 Valentine’s Day cover featured Operation Match, which vaulted the program to nationwide fame and prompted a multitude of college campuses to create their own versions. Despite the increased cross-campus activity, Operation Match faded away quickly after its founders graduated from Harvard. The Colonial News never again mentions Operation Match, nor its competitor “Tryst, in its 1960s publications.

This excitement for computerized dating, however, paved the way for Harvard’s future Datamatch program - a student-run, online matchmaking service, much later platforms such as E-Harmony and Match.com, and, eventually, apps like Tinder and Bumble. Even with the seemingly weekly emergence of new dating websites, apps, and services, the herculean task of finding a date remains just that -- a herculean task.

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