the.com/matchmaking
Outsourcing the terror of choosing to someone with better spreadsheets than feelings.
means The deliberate business of pairing people up — romantically or otherwise — by someone acting as go-between rather than leaving it to chance.
from A straightforward compound: 'match' meaning a suitable pairing or equal (from Old English 'gemæcca,' a mate or companion) plus 'making.' The phrase 'make a match' for arranging marriages was common by the 1600s, and 'matchmaking' solidified as its own word not long after — originally mostly about marriage brokering, long before it stretched to cover sports pairings, dating apps, and job-candidate algorithms.
- origin
- formalized in 19th-century jewish and chinese communities as survival logistics
- jane austen
- wrote entire novels mocking professional matchmakers' meddling
- algorithm era
- apps just automated the aunt who wouldn't stop asking
- success rate
- arranged marriages statistically as durable as chosen ones