For those unfamiliar, “The Myth of Sisyphus” is a 1942 essay by Albert Camus detailing, you guessed it, the myth of Sisyphus, a man who according to Greek mythology, had committed some transgression against the gods and was sentenced to push a boulder up a haill, only to have it roll down when nearing the top, for all eternity. Camus’ reflection on the myth can be summarized as this: we must say that Sisyphus is happy in his toil, even free, as he can find happiness in defying the gods by embracing his repetitive task. To a similar end, I believe we can all find similar happiness through the ultimate absurdity of Notre Dame’s dating scene: the cold, unfeeling algorithms of CrossPathsND and Marriage Pact.
In my short time at Notre Dame, I’ve come to enjoy CrossPathsND and Marriage Pact release days as mini-holidays. My excitement stems from two points: one, maybe I’ll get matched with that cute girl from class, and number two, perhaps to a lesser level of excitement, I get to help my friends craft opening lines on Instagram to their matches. I’d wager that most of you feel a somewhat similar level of excitement for pretty much the same reasons. Invariably, most of us fall into similar categories of outcomes: we don’t get matched with the partner of our dreams, are quickly ghosted or the dining hall date goes terribly. Nonetheless, the boulder falls back to the bottom of the hill, so why do we continue pushing the boulder of love up the hill?
The modern dating scene is often seen as confined to dating apps, thus, the so-called “gamification” of dating has been on the rise. How do I optimize my profile for the best match, if there is such a way? How can I ensure that when I eventually swipe on my best match, they’ll be interested? Intimacy was never designed to be this type of zero-sum game, and the apps have even adapted to that. Take Hinge, for example. Their main selling point is that it’s “designed to be deleted.” I don’t intend to call out CrossPathsND or Marriage Pact for promising something they can’t deliver on, as you could totally find your future spouse through their service, but their non-swiping system does shift the conversation out of frame: maybe the boulder isn’t the perfect match we’re looking for; perhaps it’s the incessant hope that this time, the algorithm will make sense and match you with the person you need, not the archetype you want.
That same hope drives us to keep playing the game. A “WarGames” fan might say that the only winning move is not to play, but I contend that the absurdity of continuing to opt into a system you’ll probably never win is part of the fun. Raging against the dying of the light in as small of a context as a matchmaking survey still does something to satisfy that urge to defy the algorithms’ cold indifference. Like Sisyphus, we continue to push our personal boulders, and though the brief pain of losing a 10/10 match will inevitably hit us, the excitement of waiting for the possibility of success, no matter how absurd the likelihood of it is, will always outweigh that heartbreak.
At the end of the day, don’t take failure in these matchmaking services too seriously. I think we all know this already, but it’s just a fun thing to do that brings the campus together in excitement for a week or two. Revel in the absurdity of the algorithm, and who knows, maybe it will find favor in your profile, and push the boulder over the hill just once.
