A Simple Swab of the Mouth…. then Love Eternal?

So, if someone offered you the following for few hundred bucks:

eternal love, The One, guaranteed to be your only Love Match in the world, with a simple swab of the mouth, would you do it? Doesn’t even hurt or tickle like the Covid-19 swab?

It’s online dating on steroids, except no online dating profiles, messaging back and forth, the whole photo thing. No dating, you’re immediately in love. Eerie, anyone?

Courtesy of Netflix

This is the premise of the new Netflix 8-part series, The One, starring Hannah Ware as the brilliant biochemist/DNA genius who unfurls the secret of love in chemicals in our body. (Ok, so much for my scientific perspective, not sure what it picks up in DNA, but, yep, people fall in love…at first site once matched).

I read the book a few years ago, the series keeps up with the cold ruthless scientist who will do anything to keep her The One matchmaking gig going----so it’s a mixture of a murder conspiracy/creation of a bold new matchmaking service.

Except, if you ask me, no one looks happy. They meet their match---one gets run over by a car; another drowns. Hardly matchmaking nirvana. Did I mention after they pay beaucoup dollars for the swab, receive their match, meet their match, they instantly look like they are in a drug induced euphoria?? This didn’t occur in the book and this is where it rides off the tracks a bit as no drugs are involved.

So, what would really happen if DNA scientists could engineer this?

· Kind-of-happily married with 3 kids poses the ethical questions and temptation for the swab

· People married and madly in love---is it titillating to see if you chose the right one? And how could you have?

· One partner takes the DNA test and the other does not

· Bye-Bye billion-dollar online dating industry

· We’ll sure miss It’s Just Lunch, Match and Bumble…or not

· No more dating, no more does he like me to your friends

· Chaos

· No more double dates

· Bar/restaurant revenue drying up as people settle in happily with new mates

· Will there be a Sadie Hawkins dance for middle schoolers, or will they have been swabbed?

Singles who have been out in the online dating world may see this as an answer to their prayers. Others may see it as the sequel to The Social Network.

And I’d be out of a job I love!