Seen too many dating profiles like this one: “Hi. I’m Beverly. I’m passionate about lasagna, I root for the Blackhawks, and I have a pet turtle named Wally.” A swipe left for sure—reject! Turns out, there’s more to Bev than carbs, pucks, and reptiles. When CookieMatch, our dating service, enhanced her profile with an account of her online life—what she clicks on—you see a far more intriguing woman. She’s fascinated by the graffiti of ancient Pompeii; she’s reading up on 19th century magic tricks; and she has an ongoing interest in herbal aphrodisiacs. Voila! Bev’s become an alluring right swipe.
CookieMatch subscribers download an app that uses clicking data, stored in their computer’s Cookies folder, to build a CookieJar—an AI-generated summary, based on clicking habits, of the subscriber’s passions, fears, and obsessions. So when a cute guy pops up on your screen, and you’re wondering, “Sweetheart or creep?”—ask for his CookieJar.
That’s what Dolly did when she first saw Nico on her phone. “I asked for his CookieJar. After he sent it along, my interest soared. I saw that he was giving a lot of attention to the teeth implant people, and—being a dental hygienist—I thought we could really connect around his dental stuff. Then I noticed that he chases the anti-itch sites nonstop—powders, gels, pills, meditation protocols—he clicks on all of them. Great! I’m a very itchy person myself, especially in the middle of my back late in the day, and I’m looking for a you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours kind of relationship. Also, his CookieJar mentions that he clicks frequently on ads for ‘Ukrainian beauties looking for love.’ That’s so sweet! It’s especially meaningful for me since I have a grandfather from nearby Romania. So with high hopes, I swiped right, and we connected big time on our first meet-up. Now, we’re going to spend a month together in Bucharest, the Romanian capitol, so I can look for long lost relatives and Nico can get his teeth fixed for cheap.”
Mike’s CookieMatch experience was classic. After noticing Greta on CookieMatch, he asked to see her CookieJar, and was delighted with what he found. It was all about health—Greta searched for information on every imaginable ailment. Liver spots? Bunions? Droopy eyelids? Click!-Click!-Click! She couldn’t help herself. Ads with warning signs got heavy attention. This one: “Click here for the six early signs of kidney disease (number #2 is really scary)” gave Greta goosebumps.
Mike was fascinated. As a self-educated, alternative-health coach, he believed that proper pillow choices can cure anybody of anything. He had become a certified pillow guru and had created a hugely popular series of podcasts: “Pillow Cures for Dementia,” “Moroccan Pillow Arrangements for Stress Reduction,” “Seven Pillows of Wisdom.” His extravagant home collection included pillows of every shape and stiffness. Curing hypochondria was one of Mike’s specialties, so he took the plunge and asked Greta out.
After spending four evenings checking out Mike’s home inventory, Greta found the pillow of her dreams—a large, soft, dog-bone shaped beauty called Bowser III. Overnight, Bowser eased most of her health anxieties while Mike melted her heart. She moved in with him three months later.
Two other CookieMatch subscribers, Kitty and Conrad, exchanged CookieJars on a whim. Conrad was only mildly interested in Kitty’s humdrum online life—she tracked local gasoline prices, followed preschool teaching trends, and researched top-rated eye masks for quality sleeping.
Conrad’s jar, on the other hand, turned Kitty’s head. He kept an eye out for the oddball and the futuristic: Rube Goldberg coffee makers, mechanical clocks that replace “cuckoo” with modern expletives, and advances in electric car technology. Clever animal antics got his attention every night between midnight and 5 AM: a squirrel breaking into a break-in-proof bird feeder, a hamster driving a miniature Maserati, a cockatoo picking out Sweet Betsy from Pike on a xylophone.
Enchanted, Kitty invited Conrad to brunch. They hit it off, though not, at first, for romance. Instead, they launched a business together, the Sir Bounce-A-Watt chain of charging stations for electric cars. Each station would come with a coffee bar, and, to keep children amused, six bouncy castles and a small, smart-animal-oriented zoo. For the first zoo they purchased a sparrow that could tweet The Yellow Rose of Texas.
The day they opened their first station, romance finally arrived—at midnight, in bouncy castle #4. “It was thrilling,” Conrad reported, adding, “but I couldn’t fall asleep in that castle until Kitty handed me a fantastic sleeping mask. I had my best snooze in decades.”
A fall wedding is planned.
Our recommendation is clear: if you’re looking for the inside story on someone you might be attracted to, then CookieMatch is for you. It’s genius!
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Robert Moll has co-authored two children’s books and six textbooks in computer science and mathematics. His short piece publications run the gamut from The Funny Times to Colorado History magazine and the Journal of Symbolic Logic. He lives with his wife in Amherst, Massachusetts.