I want to tell you from the outset that my story has a happy ending. I eventually met the man of my dreams, and we had a storybook wedding. We started a family, bought a great house, and are in the process of living happily ever after.

But for many years, I dated the wrong men, and though we were initially happy, all of my relationships came to a pretty terrible end. In between, I patiently agreed to be set up, I went to bars and clubs, and even tried “least expecting” my way into true love. After a particularly bad date one night, which culminated in my drinking half of a bottle of wine and scribbling a whole bunch of formulas and theories down on notebook paper like a crazed mad scientist, I realized that we’ve all been going about finding our matches the wrong way. Whether we’re dating in the real world or online, we’re relying too much now on hope and happenstance. And these days, algorithms, too.