Mit navn er Amy Webb, og for et par år siden stod jeg i slutningen af endnu et fantastisk forhold der sluttede i spektakulære flammer. Og jeg tænkte: "Hvad er der galt med mig? Jeg forstår ikke, hvorfor dette bliver ved med at ske."
So my name is Amy Webb, and a few years ago I found myself at the end of yet another fantastic relationship that came burning down in a spectacular fashion. And I thought, what's wrong with me? I don't understand why this keeps happening.
Så jeg spurgte alle i mit liv om, hvad de tænkte. Jeg spurgte min bedstemor, der altid har masser af råd, og hun sagde, "Lad være med at være så kræsen. Du er nødt til at gå på dates. Og allervigtigst, den ægte kærlighed finder dig, når du mindst venter det."
So I asked everybody in my life what they thought. I turned to my grandmother, who always had plenty of advice, and she said, "Stop being so picky. You've got to date around. And most importantly, true love will find you when you least expect it." Now as it turns out,
Det viser sig, at jeg er en person, der tænker meget på data, som I snart finder ud af. Jeg svømmer konstant i tal, formler og diagrammer. Jeg har også en meget fast sammentømret familie, jeg har et meget, meget nært forhold til min søster, og derfor ønskede jeg også den samme form for familie, når jeg blev voksen.
I'm somebody who thinks a lot about data, as you'll soon find. I am constantly swimming in numbers, formulas and charts. I also have a very tight-knit family, and I'm very, very close with my sister, and as a result, I wanted to have the same type of family when I grew up.
Jeg er altså i slutningen af dette slemme brud, jeg er 30 år gammel, jeg tror, at jeg skal date nogen i omkring et halvt års tid, før jeg er klar til at blive monogam før vi mere eller mindre kan leve sammen, og det skal ske i noget tid, inden vi bliver forlovede. Og hvis jeg vil til at have børn, inden jeg er 35, betød det, at jeg skulle have været på vej ind i ægteskabet for fem år siden. Så det skulle ikke være sådan.
So I'm at the end of this bad breakup, I'm 30 years old, I figure I'm probably going to have to date somebody for about six months before I'm ready to get monogamous and before we can sort of cohabitate, and we have to do that for a while before we can get engaged. And if I want to start having children by the time I'm 35, that meant that I would have had to have been on my way to marriage five years ago. So that wasn't going to work.
Hvis min strategi var at mindst forvente mig til ægte kærlighed, så skulle jeg tage højde for den variabel, der hedder lykketræf. Kort sagt prøvede jeg at regne ud, hvad sandsynligheden var for, at jeg kunne finde ridderen på den hvide hest? På det tidspunkt boede jeg i Philadelphia, og det er en stor by, så jeg tænkte, at på hele dette område er der masser af muligheder. Jeg begyndte igen med nogle udregninger. Indbyggertallet i Philadelphia: der er 1,5 million mennesker. Jeg går ud fra, at cirka halvdelen er mænd, så det halverer tallet til 750.000. Jeg leder efter en fyr, der er mellem 30 og 36 år, hvilket kun var 4 procent af indbyggertallet, så nu har jeg at gøre med 30.000 mulige mænd. Jeg ledte efter en, der var jødisk, for det er jeg, og det var vigtigt for mig. Det er kun 2,3 procent af indbyggertallet. Jeg antager, at jeg kun tiltrækkes af én ud af ti af de mænd, og jeg skulle på ingen måde have med nogen at gøre, der var ivrige golfspillere. Så det betød dybest set, at der var 35 mænd til mig, som jeg på nogen måde kunne få lyst til at date i hele Philadelphia.
If my strategy was to least-expect my way into true love, then the variable that I had to deal with was serendipity. In short, I was trying to figure out what's the probability of my finding Mr. Right? Well, at the time I was living in the city of Philadelphia, and it's a big city, and I figured, in this entire place, there are lots of possibilities. So again, I started doing some math. Population of Philadelphia: it has 1.5 million people. I figure about half of that are men, so that takes the number down to 750,000. I'm looking for a guy between the ages of 30 and 36, which was only four percent of the population, so now I'm dealing with the possibility of 30,000 men. I was looking for somebody who was Jewish, because I am and that was important to me. That's only 2.3 percent of the population. I figure I'm attracted to maybe one out of 10 of those men, and there was no way I was going to deal with somebody who was an avid golfer. So that basically meant there were 35 men for me that I could possibly date in the entire city of Philadelphia. In the meantime, my very large Jewish family
I mellemtiden var hele min meget store, jødiske familie allerede gift og godt i gang med at få masser og masser af børn, så jeg følte, at jeg var under et enormt gruppepres for at få gang i mit liv.
was already all married and well on their way to having lots and lots of children, and I felt like I was under tremendous peer pressure to get my life going already.
Jeg har nærmest kun to mulige strategier på dette tidspunkt, som jeg prøver at regne ud. Som det første kan jeg følge min bedstemors råd og på en eller anden måde mindst-forvente at jeg støder ind i den eneste ene ud af de 35 mulige mænd i hele byen Philadelphia med 1,5 millioner indbyggere eller jeg kunne prøve online-dating. Jeg kan faktisk godt lide ideen om online-dating, fordi det er baseret på en algoritme, og det er i virkeligheden en simpel måde at sige at man har et problem, man vil anvende nogle data, køre det gennem et system og finde frem til en løsning. Online-dating er den næstmest populære måde for mennesker at møde hinanden på, men det viser sig, at de algoritmer har været anvendt i tusindvis af år i næsten alle kulturer. Faktisk var der i jødedommen "Kirsten Gifteknive" allerede for lang tid siden, og selvom de ikke nødvendigvis havde en algoritme som sådan, så gennemgik de bestemt nogle formler i tankerne, f.eks. vil pigen kunne lide drengen? Vil familierne finde ud af det med hinanden? Hvad vil rabbineren sige? Begynder de at få børn med det samme? Og giftekniven vil overveje alle disse ting, sætte to mennesker sammen, og det vil så være det. Men i mit tilfælde, kunne data og algoritmer så føre mig til min ridder på den hvide hest? Jeg besluttede mig for at melde mig ind.
So I have two possible strategies at this point I'm sort of figuring out. One, I can take my grandmother's advice and sort of least-expect my way into maybe bumping into the one out of 35 possible men in the entire 1.5-million-person city of Philadelphia, or I could try online dating. Now, I like the idea of online dating, because it's predicated on an algorithm, and that's really just a simple way of saying I've got a problem, I'm going to use some data, run it through a system and get to a solution. So online dating is the second most popular way that people now meet each other, but as it turns out, algorithms have been around for thousands of years in almost every culture. In fact, in Judaism, there were matchmakers a long time ago, and though they didn't have an explicit algorithm per se, they definitely were running through formulas in their heads, like, is the girl going to like the boy? Are the families going to get along? What's the rabbi going to say? Are they going to start having children right away? The matchmaker would sort of think through all of this, put two people together, and that would be the end of it. So in my case, I thought, well, will data and an algorithm lead me to my Prince Charming? So I decided to sign on. Now, there was one small catch.
Der var dog en lille hage. Mens jeg meldte mig til de forskellige datingsider, havde jeg faktisk meget, meget travlt. Men det var faktisk ikke det største problem. Det største problem er, at jeg hader at udfylde nogen form for spørgeskemaer, og jeg kan bestemt ikke lide spørgeskemaer der er ligesom Cosmo-quizzer. Så jeg tog mit cv og kopierede ind fra dét.
As I'm signing on to the various dating websites, as it happens, I was really, really busy. But that actually wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that I hate filling out questionnaires of any kind, and I certainly don't like questionnaires that are like Cosmo quizzes. So I just copied and pasted from my résumé.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
I den beskrivende del øverst skrev jeg, at jeg var en prisvindende journalist og en fremtidstænker. Da jeg blev spurgt om sjove aktiviteter og min ideelle date, skrev jeg møntning og at kunne flydende japansk. Jeg skrev meget om JavaScript.
So in the descriptive part up top, I said that I was an award-winning journalist and a future thinker. When I was asked about fun activities and my ideal date, I said monetization and fluency in Japanese. I talked a lot about JavaScript. (Laughter)
Så dette var åbenlyst ikke den bedste måde at vise mig fra min sexede side. Men den helt store fejl var, at der var masser af mænd, jeg kunne date. Disse algoritmer fremkaldte et hav af mænd, der ville invitere mig på masser af dates -- hvad der viste sig at være forfærdelige dates. Der var f.eks. Steve, it-fyren. Algoritmen satte os sammen, fordi vi deler en forkærlighed for gadgets, vi deler en forkærlighed for matematik, data og 80'er-musik, så jeg lod ham invitere mig ud. It-fyren Steve inviterede mig ud på en af Philadelphias fine, ekstremt dyre restauranter. Vi gik ind, og lige fra starten kom vores samtale ikke rigtigt i gang, men han bestilte en masse mad. Han så faktisk slet ikke på menukortet. Han bestilte flere forretter, flere hovedretter, også til mig, og pludselig var der bunker og bunker af mad på vores bord, også en hel masse flasker vin. Vi nærmer os enden på vores samtale og middagens slutning, og jeg har besluttet at it-fyren Steve og jeg ikke hører sammen, men at vi deles som venner, og så rejser han sig for at gå på toilet. I mellemtiden kommer regningen til vores bord. Og hør engang, jeg er en moderne kvinde. Jeg har det fint med at dele regningen. Men it-fyren Steve kom ikke tilbage. (Gisp)
So obviously this was not the best way to put my most sexy foot forward. But the real failure was that there were plenty of men for me to date. These algorithms had a sea full of men that wanted to take me out on lots of dates -- what turned out to be truly awful dates. There was this guy Steve, the I.T. guy. The algorithm matched us up because we share a love of gadgets, we share a love of math and data and '80s music, and so I agreed to go out with him. So Steve the I.T. guy invited me out to one of Philadelphia's white-table-cloth, extremely expensive restaurants. And we went in, and right off the bat, our conversation really wasn't taking flight, but he was ordering a lot of food. In fact, he didn't even bother looking at the menu. He was ordering multiple appetizers, multiple entrées, for me as well, and suddenly there are piles and piles of food on our table, also lots and lots of bottles of wine. So we're nearing the end of our conversation and the end of dinner, and I've decided Steve the I.T. guy and I are really just not meant for each other, but we'll part ways as friends, when he gets up to go to the bathroom, and in the meantime, the bill comes to our table. And listen, I'm a modern woman. I am totally down with splitting the bill. But then Steve the I.T. guy didn't come back.
Og det var altså en hel måneds husleje.
(Gasping) And that was my entire month's rent.
Jeg behøver nok ikke fortælle, at jeg ikke havde en god aften. Jeg løber så hjem, ringer til min mor, ringer til min søster, og mens jeg gør det, efter hver af disse forfærdelige, forfærdelige dates, underholder jeg dem med detaljerne.
(Audience gasps) So needless to say, I was not having a good night. So I run home, I call my mother, I call my sister, and as I do, at the end of each one of these terrible, terrible dates, I regale them with the details. And they say to me,
De siger til mig, "Hold op med at brokke dig." (Latter) "Du er bare for kræsen."
"Stop complaining." (Laughter) "You're just being too picky."
Så jeg sagde; "Fint, fra nu af tager jeg kun på dates, hvor jeg ved, at der er wifi, og jeg tager min laptop med. Jeg putter den i min taske, og så har jeg en email-skabelon, som jeg udfylder for at indsamle oplysninger på en masse forskellige datapunkter i løbet af daten for at bevise for alle, at empirisk set er alle disse dates virkelig forfærdelige. (Latter) Så jeg begyndte at holde styr på ting som virkelig dumme, akavede, seksuelle bemærkninger; dårligt ordforråd; antallet af gange, en mand tvang mig til at give ham high-five.
So I said, fine, from here on out I'm only going on dates where I know there's Wi-Fi, and I'm bringing my laptop. I'm going to shove it into my bag, I'm going to have this email template, and I'm going to fill it out and collect information on all these different data points during the date to prove to everybody that empirically, these dates really are terrible. (Laughter) So I started tracking things like really stupid, awkward, sexual remarks; bad vocabulary; the number of times a man forced me to high-five him.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Jeg begyndte også at kigge på nogle tal, og derudfra kunne jeg beregne nogle sammenfald. Det viser sig af en eller anden grund, at mænd, der drikker whisky hænger sammen med fræk sex fra starten.
So I started to crunch some numbers, and that allowed me to make some correlations. So as it turns out, for some reason, men who drink Scotch reference kinky sex immediately. (Laughter)
(Latter)
Well, it turns out that these probably weren't bad guys.
Det viser sig, at de sikkert ikke var dårlige fyre. De var bare dårlige til mig. Algoritmerne, der satte os sammen, var heller ikke dårlige. Disse algoritmer gjorde præcis det, de var designet til at gøre, nemlig at tage vores brugerskabte oplysninger, i mit tilfælde, mit cv, og matche dem med andre menneskers oplysninger. Det virkelige problem her er, at mens algoritmerne fungerer helt fint, gør du og jeg det ikke, når vi står over for tomme felter, som vi skal udfylde med vores oplysninger. Meget få af os har evnen til at være totalt og hudløst ærlige over for os selv. Det andet problem er, at disse hjemmesider stiller os spørgsmål som: er man et hundemenneske eller et kattemenneske? Kan man lide gyserfilm eller romantiske film? Jeg leder ikke efter en penneven. Jeg leder efter en mand. Okay? Der er altså en vis mængde overfladiskhed i de data.
There were just bad for me. And as it happens, the algorithms that were setting us up, they weren't bad either. These algorithms were doing exactly what they were designed to do, which was to take our user-generated information, in my case, my résumé, and match it up with other people's information. See, the real problem here is that, while the algorithms work just fine, you and I don't, when confronted with blank windows where we're supposed to input our information online. Very few of us have the ability to be totally and brutally honest with ourselves. The other problem is that these websites are asking us questions like, are you a dog person or a cat person? Do you like horror films or romance films? I'm not looking for a pen pal. I'm looking for a husband. Right? So there's a certain amount of superficiality in that data.
Jeg fik så en ny plan. Jeg vil blive ved med at bruge disse online-datingsider, men jeg vil behandle dem som databaser, og i stedet for at vente på en algoritme, der sætter os sammen, vil jeg prøve at vende hele systemet om. Med den viden, at der blev brugt overfladiske data til at sætte mig sammen med andre mennesker, besluttede jeg mig i stedet for at stille mine egne spørgsmål. Hvad var hver eneste mulige ting, som jeg kunne komme på, at jeg ledte efter hos en partner?
So I said fine, I've got a new plan. I'm going to keep using these online dating sites, but I'm going to treat them as databases, and rather than waiting for an algorithm to set me up, I think I'm going to try reverse-engineering this entire system. So knowing that there was superficial data that was being used to match me up with other people, I decided instead to ask my own questions. What was every single possible thing that I could think of that I was looking for in a mate?
Jeg begyndte at skrive og skrive og skrive, og til slut havde jeg akkumuleret 72 forskellige datapunkter. Jeg ville have en, der var jøde…isk, så jeg ledte efter nogen, der havde samme baggrund og tanker omkring vores kultur, men som ikke ville tvinge mig til at gå til shul hver fredag og lørdag. Jeg ville have en, der arbejdede hårdt, fordi arbejde er ekstremt vigtigt for mig, men ikke for hårdt. For mig er mine hobbyer i virkeligheden bare nye arbejdsprojekter, jeg har sat i gang. Jeg ville også have en, der ikke kun ville have to børn, men som havde samme indstilling til opdragelse som jeg, med andre ord en, der ville have det helt fint med at tvinge vores børn til at begynde med klaverundervisning i treårsalderen, og måske også computerundervisning, hvis vi kunne få det til at fungere. Ting som det, men jeg ville også finde en, der ville tage til fjerne, eksotiske steder med mif, f.eks. Petra i Jordan. Jeg ville også have en, der altid ville veje 9 kilo mere end mig, uanset hvad jeg selv vejer.
So I started writing and writing and writing, and at the end, I had amassed 72 different data points. I wanted somebody was Jew-ish, so I was looking for somebody who had the same background and thoughts on our culture, but wasn't going to force me to go to shul every Friday and Saturday. I wanted somebody who worked hard, because work for me is extremely important, but not too hard. For me, the hobbies that I have are really just new work projects that I've launched. I also wanted somebody who not only wanted two children, but was going to have the same attitude toward parenting that I do, so somebody who was going to be totally okay with forcing our child to start taking piano lessons at age three, and also maybe computer science classes if we could wrangle it. So things like that, but I also wanted somebody who would go to far-flung, exotic places, like Petra, Jordan. I also wanted somebody who would weigh 20 pounds more than me at all times, regardless of what I weighed.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Så nu har jeg 72 forskellige datapunkter, som ærlig talt er ret mange. Jeg gennemgik dem derfor og prioriterede den liste. Jeg inddelte den i to lag med punkter, hvor jeg rangerede alt begyndende med 100 og helt ned til 91, og opstillede ting som, at jeg leder efter en meget klog mand, som kan udfordre og stimulere mig, og balancerede det med det andet lag og et andet sæt punkter. Disse ting var også vigtige for mig, men ikke nødvendigvis nok til at bryde kontrakten.
So I now have these 72 different data points, which, to be fair, is a lot. So what I did was, I went through and I prioritized that list. I broke it into a top tier and a second tier of points, and I ranked everything starting at 100 and going all the way down to 91, and listing things like I was looking for somebody who was really smart, who would challenge and stimulate me, and balancing that with a second tier and a second set of points. These things were also important to me but not necessarily deal-breakers. (Laughter)
Da jeg havde gjort alt dette, lavede jeg et scoringssystem, fordi jeg ønskede at lave en matematisk udregning på, om jeg mente, at fyren, som jeg havde fundet online, ville passe til mig. Jeg tænkte, at det krævede mindst 700 point, før jeg ville gå med til at send emails til nogen eller svare på en email. Ved 900 point ville jeg gå med på en date, og jeg ville slet ikke så meget som overveje nogen form for forhold før nogen havde krydset 1.500 point-tærsklen.
So once I had all this done, I then built a scoring system, because what I wanted to do was to sort of mathematically calculate whether or not I thought the guy that I found online would be a match with me. I figured there would be a minimum of 700 points before I would agree to email somebody or respond to an email message. For 900 points, I'd agree to go out on a date, and I wouldn't even consider any kind of relationship before somebody had crossed the 1,500 point threshold.
Det viste sig, at det fungerede ret godt. Jeg gik igen online. Jeg fandt Jewishdoc57, der så virkelig godt ud, utrolig veltalende, han havde besteget Fujiyama, han havde gået på Den kinesiske mur. Han kunne lide at rejse, bare det ikke var på et krydstogtskib. Så jeg tænkte, jeg har gjort det! Jeg har brudt koden. Jeg har lige fundet den jødiske ridder på den hvide hest, som min familie drømmer om.
Well, as it turns out, this worked pretty well. So I go back online now. I found Jewishdoc57 who's incredibly good-looking, incredibly well-spoken, he had hiked Mt. Fuji, he had walked along the Great Wall. He likes to travel as long as it doesn't involve a cruise ship. And I thought, I've done it! I've cracked the code. I have just found the Jewish Prince Charming of my family's dreams.
Der var bare et problem: Han kunne ikke lide mig. Det var nok den eneste variabel, jeg ikke havde overvejet nemlig rivaliseringen. Hvem er alle de andre kvinder på disse datingsider? Jeg fandt SmileyGirl1978. Hun skrev, hun var en "sjov pige, der er Glad og Udadvendt." Hun skrev, at hun var lærer. Hun skrev, at hun var "fjollet, sød og venlig." Hun kunne godt lide at få folk til at grine "meget."
There was only one problem: He didn't like me back. And I guess the one variable that I haven't considered is the competition. Who are all of the other women on these dating sites? I found SmileyGirl1978. She said she was a "Fun girl who is Happy and Outgoing." She listed her job as "teacher." She said she is "silly, nice and friendly." She likes to make people laugh "alot."
På dette tidspunkt vidste jeg, efter at have klikket på profil efter profil efter profil, der så sådan her ud, at jeg skulle lave nogle markedsundersøgelser. Så jeg skabte 10 falske mandlige profiler. Nuvel, inden jeg mister jer alle sammen -- (Latter) -- må I forstå, at jeg gjorde det udelukkende for at indsamle data om alle andre i systemet. Jeg havde ikke nogen skøre Catfish-agtige forhold med nogen. Jeg indsamlede bare deres data. Men jeg ville ikke have alles data. Jeg ville kun have data fra de kvinder, der kunne blive tiltrukket af den slags mand, jeg virkelig, virkelig gerne ville giftes med. (Latter)
At this moment I knew, clicking profile after profile that looked like this, that I needed to do some market research. So I created 10 fake male profiles. Now, before I lose all of you -- (Laughter) -- understand that I did this strictly to gather data about everybody else in the system. I didn't carry on crazy Catfish-style relationships with anybody. I really was just scraping their data. But I didn't want everybody's data. I only wanted data on the women who were going to be attracted to the type of man that I really, really wanted to marry.
Når jeg slap disse mænd løs i naturen, fulgte jeg nogle strenge regler. Jeg kontaktede ikke selv kvinder. Jeg ventede bare på at se, hvem disse profiler ville tiltrække, og jeg ledte hovedsageligt efter to forskellige datasæt. Jeg ledte efter kvalitative data, hvordan var humoren, tonen, stemmen, kommunikationsformen som disse kvinder havde til fælles. Og også kvantitative data, hvad var den gennemsnitlige længde på deres profil, hvor meget tid gik der mellem beskederne? Det jeg prøvede på at opnå her, var, at jeg som person ville være lige så konkurrerende som SmileyGirl1978. Jeg ville regne ud, hvordan jeg maksimerede min egen profil online.
When I released these men into the wild, I did follow some rules. So I didn't reach out to any woman first. I just waited to see who these profiles were going to attract, and mainly what I was looking at was two different data sets. So I was looking at qualitative data, so what was the humor, the tone, the voice, the communication style that these women shared in common? And also quantitative data, so what was the average length of their profile, how much time was spent between messages? What I was trying to get at here was that I figured, in person, I would be just as competitive as a SmileyGirl1978. I wanted to figure out how to maximize my own profile online.
En måneds tid senere havde jeg masser af data, og jeg var i stand til at lave endnu en analyse. Det viser sig, at indhold betyder meget. Kloge mennesker har en tendens til at skrive meget -- 3.000, 4.000, 5.000 ord om sig selv, hvilket alt sammen muligvis er meget, meget interessant. Udfordringen her er dog, at de populære mænd og kvinder holder sig til 97 ord i gennemsnit der er rigtig, rigtig godt skrevet, også selvom det ikke altid virker sådan. Det andet kendetegn ved mennesker, der gør det godt, er, at de bruger et uspecifikt sprog. I mit eget tilfælde er "Den Engelske Patient" min absolutte yndlingsfilm, men det fungerer ikke at bruge det i en profil, fordi det er et overfladisk datapunkt, og nogen er måske uenige med mig og beslutter, at de ikke vil på date med mig fordi de ikke kan lide at se en tre timer lang film.
Well, one month later, I had a lot of data, and I was able to do another analysis. And as it turns out, content matters a lot. So smart people tend to write a lot -- 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 words about themselves, which may all be very, very interesting. The challenge here, though, is that the popular men and women are sticking to 97 words on average that are written very, very well, even though it may not seem like it all the time. The other hallmark of the people who do this well is that they're using non-specific language. So in my case, "The English Patient" is my most favorite movie ever, but it doesn't work to use that in a profile, because that's a superficial data point, and somebody may disagree and decide they don't want to go out because they didn't like sitting through the three-hour movie.
Og optimistisk sprog betyder meget. Dette er en ordsky, der fremhæver de vigtigste ord, der blev brugt af de mest populære kvinder, ord som "sjov" og "pige" og "kærlighed." Jeg blev klar over, at jeg ikke skulle gøre min egen profil dummere. Husk på, at jeg selv skrev, at jeg taler flydende japansk og kender JavaScript, og det havde jeg det fint med. Forskellen er, at det handler om at være mere tilgængelig og hjælpe folk med at forstå, hvordan de bedst kan nå ind til en.
Also, optimistic language matters a lot. So this is a word cloud highlighting the most popular words that were used by the most popular women, words like "fun" and "girl" and "love." And what I realized was not that I had to dumb down my own profile. Remember, I'm somebody who said that I speak fluent Japanese and I know JavaScript and I was okay with that. The difference is that it's about being more approachable and helping people understand the best way to reach out to you. And as it turns out, timing is also really, really important.
Det viser sig, at timing også er virkelig, virkelig vigtigt. Blot fordi man har adgang til nogens mobilnummer eller deres instant message-profil, og klokken er to om natten, og man tilfældigvis er vågen, så betyder det ikke, at det er et godt tidspunkt at kommunikere med de mennesker. De populære kvinder på disse onlinesider venter gennemsnitligt 23 timer mellem hver kommunikation. Det er det, vi normalvis ville gøre i den almindelige kurtiseringsproces.
Just because you have access to somebody's mobile phone number or their instant message account and it's 2 o'clock in the morning and you happen to be awake, doesn't mean that that's a good time to communicate with those people. The popular women on these online sites spend an average of 23 hours in between each communication. And that's what we would normally do in the usual process of courtship. And finally --
Der var også billederne. Alle de populære kvinder viste hud. De så alle sammen godt ud, hvilket viste sig at være en skarp kontrast til det, jeg selv havde uploadet.
there were the photos. All of the women who were popular showed some skin. They all looked really great, which turned out to be in sharp contrast to what I had uploaded.
Da jeg havde alle disse oplysninger, var jeg i stand til at skabe en superprofil, som stadig var mig, men jeg var nu optimeret til dette økosystem. Det viser sig, at jeg gjorde et virkelig godt stykke arbejde. Jeg var den mest populære person online.
(Laughter) Once I had all of this information, I was able to create a super profile, so it was still me, but it was me optimized now for this ecosystem. And as it turns out, I did a really good job. I was the most popular person online.
(Latter) (Bifald)
(Laughter) (Applause)
Det viste sig, at rigtigt mange mænd ville på date med mig. Så jeg ringer til min mor, jeg ringer til min søster, jeg ringer til min bedstemor. Jeg fortæller dem disse fantastiske nyheder, og de siger, "Det er vidunderligt! Hvornår går du på date med ham?" Og jeg sagde, "Jamen, faktisk går jeg ikke på date med nogen." Husk på, at i mit scoringssystem skal de nå en minimumsgrænse på 700 point, og det gjorde ingen af dem. De sagde, "Hvad? Du er stadig at for kræsen."
And as it turns out, lots and lots of men wanted to date me. So I call my mom, I call my sister, I call my grandmother. I'm telling them about this fabulous news, and they say, "This is wonderful! How soon are you going out?" I said, "Actually, I'm not going to go out with anybody." Because remember, in my scoring system, they have to reach a minimum threshold of 700 points, and none of them have done that. They said, "What? You're still being too damn picky."
Men ikke længe efter det fandt jeg denne fyr, Thevenin, og han skrev at han kulturelt set var jødisk, han skrev, at hans job var arktisk babysæljæger, hvilket jeg syntes var ret kvikt. Han skrev detaljeret om at rejse. Han lavede mange interessante kulturelle referencer. Han lignede og skrev præcis som det, jeg ville have, så han scorede øjeblikkeligt 850 point. Det var nok til en date.
Well, not too long after that, I found this guy, Thevenin, and he said that he was culturally Jewish, he said that his job was an arctic baby seal hunter, which I thought was very clever. He talked in detail about travel. He made a lot of really interesting cultural references. He looked and talked exactly like what I wanted, and immediately, he scored 850 points. It was enough for a date.
Tre uger senere mødtes vi ansigt til ansigt til det, der viste sig at blive en 14-timer lang samtale, der gik fra en cafe til en restaurant til endnu en cafe til endnu en restaurant, og da han satte mig af ved mit hus den aften, testede jeg ham igen -- [1.050 point!] -- jeg tænkte, ved I hvad, i al den tid har jeg ikke været kræsen nok. Halvandet år efter det var vi ude at rejse, ikke med krydstogtskib, gennem Petra i Jordan, hvor han gik på knæ og friede. Et år senere var vi gift, og omkring halvandet år efter det blev vores datter, Petra, født. (Bifald)
Three weeks later, we met up in person for what turned out to be a 14-hour-long conversation that went from coffee shop to restaurant to another coffee shop to another restaurant, and when he dropped me back off at my house that night I re-scored him -- [1,050 points!] Thought, you know what, this entire time, I haven't been picky enough. Well, a year and a half after that, we were non-cruise ship traveling through Petra, Jordan, when he got down on his knee and proposed. A year after that, we were married, and about a year and a half after that, our daughter, Petra, was born. Audience: Oh!
(Applause)
[What it means...]
Jeg har tydeligvis et fantastisk liv, så -- (Latter) -- spørgsmålet er, hvad alt dette betyder for en?
Obviously, I'm having a fabulous life, so -- (Laughter) The question is, what does all of this mean for you?
Det viser sig, at der findes en algoritme for kærlighed. Det er ikke kun dem, vi bliver præsenteret for online. Faktisk er det noget, man selv skriver. Så hvadenten man leder efter en mand eller en kone, om man prøver at finde sin passion eller prøver at starte et firma, så skal man blot finde sin egen ramme og spille efter egne regler, føle sig fri til at være så kræsen, som man ønsker.
Well, as it turns out, there is an algorithm for love. It's just not the ones that we're being presented with online. In fact, it's something that you write yourself. So whether you're looking for a husband or a wife or you're trying to find your passion or you're trying to start a business, all you have to really do is figure out your own framework and play by your own rules, and feel free to be as picky as you want.
På min bryllupsdag havde jeg igen en samtale med min farmor, og hun sagde, "Godt, måske tog jeg fejl. Det ser ud til, at du fandt på et virkelig, virkelig fantatisk system. Men, dine matzoh-kugler. De skal være luftige, ikke hårde."
Well, on my wedding day, I had a conversation again with my grandmother, and she said, "All right, maybe I was wrong. It looks like you did come up with a really, really great system. Now, your matzah balls ... They should be fluffy, not hard."
Og dér følger jeg hendes råd.
(Laughter)
(Bifald)
And I'll take her advice on that.