Chemistry.com - Matchmaking Service
Chemistry.com is a relatively new dating site from the creators of the Match.com service, and is designed with the assistance of a biological anthropologist who specializes in human attraction, Dr. Helen Fisher. She worked with thirty-two different couples in an MRI lab in order to find the actual components of the human psyche that develop, maintain, and encourage attraction between people, i.e. the titular ‘chemistry’ of human emotion. She used her findings with the site engineers of Match.com to create the partnering algorithms of Chemistry.com as accurate and efficient as possible for anyone using the site.
After filling out the free registration form on the main page, you’re immediately guided through the complete personality test that is the main attraction of Chemistry.com. The introduction lets you know that the questions may seem odd, but reminds you that they are based on the research of Dr. Fisher. This becomes apparent with the first question, which is about the length of the fingers on your right hand. The second page of the “Interpersonal Matrix” is just four questions – your order as a child in your family, what kind of relationship you’re looking for, how neat you tend to keep things, and what type of people you would group most of your friends with – the choices for the last one being Social Crowd, Intellectuals, Adventurers, etc.
Following the Interpersonal Matrix are three pages of Self Perception, which starts with a question about how you feel managing others, then moves on to a sensory perception test to figure out how well you can visually match the sizes of two hexagons with a timer. The third page of the Self Perception section is actually a pretty standard “lifestyle” questionnaire asking the requisite questions with regards to smoking and drinking habits, views on children, etc. When you’re finished with that page you begin the Communication Dynamics part of profile creation, which begins with a few questions about how you would interact with a potential partner, then moves on to ask about your opinion on public displays of affection, your choice of preferred activities on a Saturday night, and then rounds out the section with a series of multiple choice questions about your personality, with the answers all ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree for the various proposed scenarios.
Following this is an eight page section regarding your personality traits and preferences to try and best ascertain what you find attractive and your sense of trust. After answering all of those questions there are two more questions to complete your analytical profile, and then you begin the actual profile creation. This follows a rather standard pattern – hair and eye color, height and weight, etc. You fill out the information about your desired match, which is unique in that it has analog sliders of how important each trait is. After giving a few more details about your tastes you are done with profile creation with the exception of uploading a photo, which can either be done online or through a concierge service with the website.
With a complete profile you can view your personality type as determined by your answers, choose to immediately subscribe as a premium member, or just view your first set of matches. Unlike a lot of sites that make you look for your potential partner, Chemistry.com finds them for you and then uses a system called the 1-2-3 Meeting to try and find out if you share a mutual affection. Results are generally very accurate, but if they’re not, there’s no pressure to stay in an uncomfortable situation – you can easily back out of any match with no questions asked.
Chemistry.com really goes above and beyond for trying to find the best way that people click, and succeeds thanks to the incredibly intense amount of research that went into finding the best compatibility measures for different matches. Anyone who’s looking for a serious dating site that wants to do the right job the first time should give Chemistry.com a try.
