We Really Clicked

In the past three weeks, I’ve been browsed 253 times, though I wonder if that number includes the twice-daily peek I take at my own profile, like a quick glance in the mirror as I pass by. Tickle.com first lured me to its domain with a promise to rate my intelligence. While other indicators have given me a good read on my own mental candlepower (solid annual report cards, successfully playing along with Jeopardy!, a decent employment exam at Outback Steakhouse), recent unspectacular GRE results had left me wounded. Forty multiple-choice clicks later, I was back up there where I belong, “extremely higher than average.” I was identified as a “facts curator” in the company of geniuses like Bill Gates. My self-esteem in good repair, I got briefly addicted and dug up every other Tickle quiz I could find: the “Ultimate Personality Test” (Observer—kind-hearted, intuitive, good mediator); the “Values Test” (Loyal Rebel—honors relationships and truth-telling); the “What Breed of Dog are You?” test (Chihuahua—energetic, devoted, and passionate). I ended my binge of self-love with the “Confidence Test” (Your Confidence Level is High!)

Tickle founder James Currier said the idea for his website came to him in a 1998 Harvard Business School class. After he and his peers took a career personality test, he noticed a dramatic improvement in their interpersonal relationships. “Everyone is interested in themselves,” he said. Perhaps it is true that you must first love yourself before you can love others.

Tickle’s quizzes are divided into “Fun tests” (Who’s your TV Family? How Hip are You?) and “Ph.D. Premium” tests. The latter deal with serious topics like “Relationship,” “Career,” and “Personality.” Tickle claims that these little exams are “Ph.D.-certified.” By this, they mean they are “the highest-quality and most-scientific tests available on the Internet, meeting standards on par with the academic world,” said a Tickle spokeswoman named Christy Albright. “Each test takes five to ten months to design, construct, validate, and launch.” If a solid record of profitability and a recent ninety-four-million-dollar acquisition by Monster.com are any indication, Tickle is doing something right. While the site gives away teaser test results, it makes bank through in-depth Ph.D. analyses, a plethora of pop-ups, and emailing priveleges in the “Matchmaking” domain, which I succumbed to in order to contact a certain blond jokester.

Ty Tashiro, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, is skeptical of Tickle’s methods and claims. “Most licensed psychologists would question the ethics of giving psychological feedback with no expert around to explain or work with the results,” he said. He would say that. Still, this may explain Tickle’s consistently positive feedback, which, in my experience, is not at all “on par with the academic world.” At best, Tickle provides keen insight into the human psyche; at worst, it is a high-tech fortune cookie.

After my last real-world relationship dissolved, I leapt from Tickle’s self-indulgent quizzes to its “Matchmaking” area. Time to move beyond self-love. The good news was, I could take my test results with me. I created a profile and filled out the TrueMatch questionnaire, well on my way to discovering love matches. Searching my digital archives, I found just the right photo to present myself as attractive, charming, and hip. It would be my passport to love.

While getting acquainted with the bells and whistles on Tickle’s matchmaking service, I requested a Chemistry Report with myself. I was greeted with the headline, “Will tdapra and tdapra sizzle or fizzle?” There was my photograph, posted twice, side by side, each over-the-shoulder gaze looking out through the computer screen with a mix of intrigue and playfulness. I looked like a pair of sassy identical twins. According to Tickle,

What will make you sizzle:
Feeling safe and comfortable
Frequent relationship check-ins
Someone’s who’s interested in making
the relationship unique
Someone’s who’s equally excited by the
world around you

What will make you fizzle:
Getting too comfortable in a rut (We have
been watching a lot of “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns.)
Your partner needing to check in on feelings
a lot (We thought this was a good thing!)
Getting confused about who does what in
the relationship (Yes, this could be a problem with us.)
Butting heads (There’s that Loyal Rebel factor.)

Over the next couple of weeks, I exchanged emails with a half-dozen guys (for a monthly fee of $19.95) and met one for coffee. While passing notes with electronic admirers gave me something to look forward to while checking my in-box, meeting in person proved to be less than spectacular. After my first cup-of-something-warm encounter, I returned home, ever so glad to be back in the company of myself (“feeling safe and comfortable”). I turned on my computer and immediately checked my email for more potential love matches. When I browsed my list of Tickle favorites, I caught a glimpse of my photo and noticed the little orange fuel gauge above it at full capacity. “Compatibility rating: 100%.” I clicked on “Chat with me,” and a laughing blue box popped up. “Unfortunately,” it read, “you cannot chat with yourself.”—Tara DaPra