The lovelorn and lonely now have a new avenue for connection: their kitchen.
Refrigerators can ping you when you’ve let them open (and are being programmed to be more conversational, to boot). They can make grocery lists, order needed items from the store and pretty much establish a sense of self-reliance and independence that should terrify those waiting to bow to our new robot overlords. Small wonder that fridges are now entering the realm of organizing more aspects of our lives, including dating.
I’m hardly one to complain about the newfangled fanciness of fridge technology (the one currently sitting in my kitchen has a temperature adjusted wine drawer, after all.) This new app from Samsung, however, is anathema to those of us who value the privacy of our vegetable crispers — Refrigerdating claims to pair fellow food-obsessives based on the content and appearance of their fridge.
"We hope people can meet under more honest or transparent circumstances with the help of the contents of the fridge, because that can tell you a lot about the personality," said Elin Axelsson, PR manager at Samsung Electronics Nordic based in Sweden told CNET. As such, the company recommends against staging your fridge to appear more organized or sophisticated (although some might applaud the extra effort.)
Whether or not this method actually reveals anything other than the inside of your fridge, let alone the inner workings of your head, remains to be seen. The success rate also seems doubtful, especially with moderately alarming communiques such as the following recommended by the company: “A good icebreaker is to send a personal message that reveals something about yourself and at the same time try to compliment the other eg: ‘Hey, love that spicy taco sauce, makes me think of my exchange semester in Mexico’.”
As a society programmed by Iron Chef opening credits to recite Brillat-Savarin’s oft-misquoted credo of “tell me what you eat; I will tell you what you are,” one would think that using our food choices to whittle down potential paramours would be a no-brainer. Yet, some academics remain skeptical that the link between fridge and feelings is so simple. “We might have preferences for some foods that we grew up eating,” Peggy Policastro from the N.J. Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health at Rutgers University told The New York Times. “And although some food choices may tell us something about your cultural background, not everyone purchasing Goya beans is Latino.”
Realistically, dating in the digital age is difficult enough without adding an additional layer of judgement, although one could argue that this peek inside a person’s fridge is no different than initial impressions on a first date’s dinner choices — and in both cases, well done steak is still a deal breaker.
