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I once shared an office with a detail-oriented and devoted online dater, and thus was privy to many a profile-tweaking-session. "Wait, do I really want someone who listens to Hall & Oates?" she'd mutter, brow knit. Or else she'd report on the previous night's date: "It was all right, but he's shorter than me. I just don't know if I can do it." This woman was attractive, educated, funny, successful, and at 40, really wanting to find The One, lickety-split.

As an old married lady, I'd find myself saying things like, "Well, you know, if you really like each other, you probably won't care that he likes Hall & Oates, or it he's short." After all, I've been surprised to learn that my soul mate/life partner enjoys football, hates garlic, and thinks cats are demonic. I never would have programmed those parameters into my perfect mate profile. And yet...

"Impossible!" Email deleted. Sorry, guy.   Well, in case my discerning former coworker is still on the prowl, she might want to try the newest trend in online dating—genome dating. Lone Frank writes in the Huffington Post that a Swiss company called GenePartner "has taken the search for a mate to a new level by developing a biological matching system using your human leukocyte antigen, or HLA, genes to find your perfect match." You take a q-tip swab to your inner cheek and that of your potential mate, stick it in the mail, and then the love scientists (ok, that's my term, not theirs) offer an analysis of your results.





Frank tried this out with her boyfriend and a coworker and found that she and her boyfriend were rated at around 60-70% compatible, "a fine match." Turns out her colleague was, genetically speaking, her perfect mate. "This genetic combination is typical for a very satisfying relationship, which also offers a high level of physical attraction," said GenePartner's head of research. "You will presumably retain a passionate and highly fulfilling relationship." (Read the whole essay for Frank's thoughtful response to this news.)

See? I knew it. Sometimes the certain sparky oomph that makes a relationship work isn't anything tangible at all, but something mysterious, ethereal, difficult to define. Or...maybe I have that completely wrong. Maybe Frank should ditch her boyfriend and make genetically perfect superbabies with her playboy coworker. When I think about it that way, there's something a little scary about this practice, like romantic eugenics. It makes me glad I met my husband in the innocent last century, before such technology would likely have warned him towards someone taller, with more financial prospects, and much, much better eyesight.

More on finding the perfect mate:
Match your personality and relationship style
Are there really such things as soul mates?