Love in the Age of the Algorithm

In 2017, two Stanford students built a matchmaking survey as a final project for an economics course on market design. They called it the Marriage Pact. The premise was half earnest and half wry: students answered a long questionnaire about their values, and an algorithm inspired by the stable-matching work of economists paired each participant with their most compatible counterpart, a so-called backup plan for the distant future. The project spread well beyond its original classroom, and versions of it have since circulated on many campuses.

The Marriage Pact is a charming footnote in the history of campus romance. It is also a revealing one. It suggests that a generation raised on optimization would like to apply the same logic to love, and at the same time that they suspect love cannot quite be optimized.

The Paradox of Choice

Dating on a modern campus looks very different from the scenes evoked by old yearbooks. Apps have widened the field of possible partners and narrowed the friction of meeting them. A student can scroll through more potential matches in an evening than a previous generation might meet in a year.

That abundance has costs. Many students describe a kind of fatigue: the endless swiping, the conversations that fade, the sense that someone better is always one tap away. Psychologists have long observed that too many options can make choosing harder and satisfaction lower. When everyone is replaceable, commitment can feel like a loss rather than a gain.

At the same time, the old structures that once channeled campus romance, from formal dances to tightly scripted courtship, have largely dissolved. In their place is a looser culture in which relationships can take many forms, and in which the line between friendship, casual intimacy, and commitment is often left undefined.

A generation raised on optimization would like to apply the same logic to love, and at the same time suspects that love cannot quite be optimized.

The Vocabulary of Consent

If one thing distinguishes this era of campus intimacy from earlier ones, it is the centrality of consent. Universities, including Stanford, now devote substantial effort to education about consent, healthy relationships, and bystander intervention. At Stanford, the SHARE Title IX office offers prevention education and outreach on these subjects, and a Confidential Support Team provides confidential, no-cost support for students affected by sexual or relationship violence.

It is sometimes said that consent education makes romance awkward. The better view is that it makes romance honest. Asking what another person wants, and listening to the answer, is not a bureaucratic formality. It is the foundation of any intimacy worth having. Consent understood properly is not a single moment of permission but an ongoing conversation, one that requires attention, respect, and the willingness to stop.

This shift has also given students a richer language for talking about desire and boundaries. Conversations that previous generations might have found impossible are now, at least in principle, part of ordinary relationships.

What Remains Unchanged

For all the technological and cultural change, the deepest questions of intimacy remain stubbornly human. How do you know whether you can trust someone? How do you balance independence with closeness? How do you remain yourself while making room for another person?

College is, for many people, the first time they confront these questions as adults, away from home, with real freedom and real consequences. The stakes are high, but so is the opportunity. Relationships formed in these years, whether they last a semester or a lifetime, often teach lessons that shape everything after.

Perhaps the most valuable advice is also the oldest. Be kind. Be honest about what you want, even when it is uncomfortable. Take rejection gracefully and give it gently. Pay attention to how someone treats you over time rather than how they present themselves at first. And remember that no algorithm, however clever, can do the work of getting to know another person.

A Note on This Column

This section of The Stanford Chronicle will write about dating, relationships, and sexuality for an adult readership, with candor, care, and respect for privacy. We will draw on research where it exists, acknowledge uncertainty where it does not, and avoid both prudishness and sensationalism. Readers who need support should know that confidential resources exist on campus and in the community. The Marriage Pact may promise a backup plan, but the real work of intimacy, now as ever, happens between two people willing to be known.