The Mother of All Swipes
A working-class woman from East London invented computer dating more than half a century ago
By Marie Hicks
Scrolling through pictures, swiping right or left on a touchscreen, effortless and nearly instant contact in the event of a match… these are the experiences that define contemporary computer dating. But computer dating has been around for far longer than Tinder, Grindr, or even the personal computer.
The first computer dating systems looked something like this: Your preferences were written down, usually in questionnaire form. They were punched onto cards. You received a printout with addresses, so you could write to your matches. Or perhaps, if you were lucky, a phone number. No pictures, and no information about their preferences, were included.
The standard history of computer dating claims that it was invented, like so many other things, at Harvard University. By young people, of course, who were definitely men and, it seems to go without saying, white. In the 1960s, a computer dating service called Operation Match appeared to take the world by storm. It began by matching up students at Harvard, and then quickly moved on to advertising and selling its services nationwide — much like OkCupid and Facebook (which began life as Facemash, a Hot or Not…
