Siri Meets Soulmate

Imagine if Apple’s Siri was combined with a location-based dating service, just a bit more powerful than the ones Jenna Wortham profiled yesterday in the New York Times.

One day, a voice in my ear said, “Alex, this is Soulmate. Please stop. I’d like you to meet someone special.”

Rushing through the brick plaza outside Boston’s Faneuil Hall, late on a gorgeous summer afternoon, the words almost didn’t register. I was tired from a tough day at work, and wanted to catch the T early enough so I could run along the river before the sun went down.

I kept moving for a few hundred feet before it dawned on me that this was the first time that Soulmate, my new social GPS unit, had ever come to life. Given to me as a gift by my concerned parents, who were almost as tired as me of a succession of flawed girlfriends, it had spent three months sitting silently on my phone, never making a peep.

Think of Soulmate as a dating service with ESP. It broadcasts all of your interests, dislikes, bad habits, unique qualities, personal characteristics and dreams in a quarter-mile-wide circle that follows you everywhere you go.

The data is encrypted, thank God, so your office mates won’t be able to discover that you really like cuddling by the fire and giggling at bad jokes, to use a purely hypothetical example. Only other Soulmate software units can “read” the data.

Although the technology is complex, the idea is pretty simple. If you ever cross paths with a potential soul mate, Soulmate stops you both in your tracks and introduces you.

At last, I stopped.

For a moment, I actually froze. Did she stop, too? Was she staring at me now? Do I look stressed out?

I tried to look casual. It didn’t work.

Then I remembered the instructions. “Match us up,” I said to my phone.

“Excellent,” replied Soulmate. “Julia is 240 feet to the northeast of you.”

I have a bad sense of direction. “Which way is northeast?”

“Turn around and she will be ahead and slightly to your right.”

Summoning my courage, I turned around. As I did, Soulmate prompted me, “Please take out your phone.”

Soulmate introductions often take place on crowded city streets or at parties or public events, so the service created a simple step to help people find each other. You are supposed to actually take out and hold your phone – something no one ever does since the advent of wireless earpieces and voice activated dialing – so the other person can spot you.

I took out my phone, holding it somewhat awkwardly in front of me, and started walking forward. It was dinnertime, and the restaurants and bars were filling up quickly. People were hustling across the plaza, many in groups but plenty on their own. I could see dozens of women in front of me.

Then I saw her. Julia has red hair that falls onto her shoulders, and her hair stood out against the ivory color of her blouse. She, too, had her phone out, but had an expression and pose that suggested she was debating whether to bolt before I showed up. Then she saw me, and I actually managed a welcoming smile.

“She’s 92 feet in front of you,” Soulmate said.

“Shut up,” I said, turning off my phone.

Julia was stuck now. She returned my smile and walked towards me. As I was calculating how to greet a perfect stranger my phone identified as my soul mate, Julia broke the ice. She gave me a big hug.

“Hey, Alex. I’m Julia.”

You can learn a lot from a hug. Julia was a warm and outgoing person, in great shape. She was both soft and hard, if that makes sense. Soft in the right places, but in wonderful shape. A runner, I guessed, like me.

She pulled away and looked me right in the eyes, for a long time. Her eyes and her lips sparkled.

“Why don’t we sit on the bench?” I suggested. One was right next to us.

She looked at me for another few seconds, then smiled and said, “That would be nice, Alex.”

Julia was a researcher from Yale, in town for a week to attend a neuroscience conference at MIT. Being a public television producer who generally made programs about gardens, dogs and old houses, it was pretty unlikely I would have ever crossed paths with her.

Sorry, if I don’t speed things up this story will take five years, eight months, two weeks, four days and – let’s see – 27 minutes, which is how long it’s been since Julia and I met. We have only been apart for seven nights since.

Thanks, Soulmate. Both of you.

Written by Bruce Kasanoff of Now Possible, where science fiction meets business.

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