Opposites attract, except when it comes to appearance. Or at least that's the premise of a new dating website which claims that it will find you your ideal "face-mate."
New York Magazine reports that Findyourfacemate.com — don't bother heading to that link, the site hasn't launched just yet — is based on the idea that couples are more likely to look alike than non-couples:
In a 1989 study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, male and female “raters” were asked to judge the faces of 60 couples (some real, some strangers included as a control) on a nine-point scale, where 1 represented no similarity and 9 indicated the hypothetical case of opposite-sex twins. The average score for non-couples was 3.52; among actual couples, the average was 4.05. Concluded the study: “The results suggest that the observation of facial resemblance among couples appears to reflect a real phenomenon.”
So following the reasoning that facial similarities seem to help with initial attraction, Findyourfacemate.com decided to use a "facial-recognition technology developed by Face.com, which zeros in on nine points on each face — the eyes, ears, nose, chin, and the corners and center of the mouth — to find similarities" between potential romantic partners.
The result? Little more than you get from any other dating site.
As Findyourfacemate.com founder Christina Bloom explains, "chemistry and the face matching is the required first step." Everything beyond that is up to you and your partner.
Or as Jezebel's brilliantly blunt Anna North put it:
Ultimately, dating is a crapshoot, whether online or off. Whether going out with your face-mate is more likely to lead to lasting love than dating, say, your favorite-kind-of-cheese-mate is anyone's guess. One thing's for sure — it's more likely to get you mistaken for your lover's sister, which is always a great recipe for romance.
Findyourfacemate.com will be launching sometime this month. There don't appear to be details regarding whether there'll be any membership fees or what you should do if you're matched with your evil twin.
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Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's a bit obsessed with Twitter, loves to be liked on Facebook, and really wouldn't want to date a mirror image of herself.