Turn on the video—to find true love

Press, 1 November 1984, Page 15

Turn on the video—to find true love

By

HELEN HOWARD

Features International

It had to come. After lonely hearts clubs and computer-dating, the ultimate way to a potential partner’s heart has arrived, in the form of a video cassette. In America, what’s known as “video-dating” is resulting in thousands of successful partnerships and marriages, according to Lorraine Johnstone, head of “TapeDate,” a New York company which makes video tapes and sends them to potential partners, for an initial fee of $2OO. “We use our computer-dating system to select the right pairings but, whereas we have previously sent clients a written file on a potential partner, they now get a five-minute video film,” she says. “It’s given the dating *business a whole new dimension.” With this new development, com-puter-dating, one of the fastestgrowing businesses in the world, is expected to expand even more dramatically in the next 12 months. Another New York dating organisation, People provides

the very latest TV studio, where clients, after going through makeup and being rehearsed by a professional director, face the video camera, speak their autobiography, and describe the sort of partner they want. Several United States TV networks have even made videodating a popular off-shoot of showbusiness. A top-rated show runs videos of single men and women to an audience who are invited to pick who they believe are the most compatible couples. In at least a dozen instances, the encounters have led to marriage

. . . and TV cameras have eavesdropped on the wedding ceremonies, too.

Charmaine DeVelio, aged 24, who married a car salesman, Danny Meeks, after they were paired up by a TV audience, says “I didn’t feel at all embarrassed to have my husband chosen in this way. The moment I saw Danny, I knew he was the right guy for me.

Tm just so grateful that we

were able to meet. If it wasn’t for TV, I’d still be in New York and he’d be in Los Angeles, and we would never have got together. I’d recommend video-dating to any lonely people.” Not surprisingly, Japan, the mecca of electronic development, is also cashing in on video and computer dating, after centuries of relying on traditional matchmakers who would arrange marriages between suitable couples. Latest entrant in the field is the electronics giant Mitsubishi, which sponsors the “Diamond Club.” For a $l5O fee, a hopeful partner-seeker is entitled to a two-year membership and introductions via computers and video. Also interested in setting up a string of computer and videodating agencies is the Soviet Union, which has sent a team of observers to probe the success story of

Europe’s two biggest computerdating agencies, Dateline in London and the Altmann Institute in Frankfurt. A spokesman for Dateline says: “Russia is faced with a soaring divorce rate and droves of single people are falling over themselves to find new partners. “The situation in Britain is heading that way, and there is likely to be an explosion of singles once the results of changes in the law permitting divorce after one year become apparent.” Dateline has 350,000 singles as members, of which an estimated 44 per cent are divorced. A survey carried out by the agency of a cross-section of singles revealed that more than 20 per cent had at some time tried computer-dating. Why the boom? Dr Robert Mullan, lecturer in social studies at the University of East Anglia, says:

“Meeting people is becoming more and more difficult in a world where so many of us are on the move. “People are no longer content to restrict their lives to one single social class when seeking friends. Neither are the pub or workplace the popular meeting grounds they used to be. “Finding compatible friends, especially for busy people, is something a computer with wide choices is particularly well equipped to do.” Intending members of Dateline, for a fee of $l6O, fill in a questionnaire describing what they are looking for in an ideal partner. The computer then selects six compatible people. Any subsequent computer run costs $5. The agency, which has the largest share of the UK market, says it attracts 2000 new members a month. The origin of computer-dating was, perhaps predictably, the United States, where students at Harvard in the early 1960 s experi-

mented with match-making via primitive computers. But resistance to partner-picking via computer still remains very real 16 years after it was introduced in Europe. The most popular criticism is that it is too impersonal. For those with such scruples, the old-fashioned method of advertising for a friend and partner still remains popular. In Britain, the magazine “Singles” will provide this service for an advertisement fee of $27.80. It is claimed that more than 20 replies per advertisement are received. It is still a popular form of attracting partners, but surveys show that it is losing out to computer-dating. As Robert Mullan says: “The computer is rapidly becoming just another fast, efficient tool around the house. “That fastness and efficiency is now an accepted part of helping to rform friendships, even marriages.”