The Dating Game

By MERRILL MARKOE

The next century will be a time of many informational breakthroughs. Most notably, the battle between the sexes will take on a new complexion because it will be scientifically documented that men and women are completely different species of animals (not unlike, say, hyenas and pumas, although there will be a lot of heated arguments about who gets to be the pumas).

Once everyone accepts that we're speaking different languages, a computer system will be developed that allows instantaneous intersexual communication to occur. For the first time, certain simple but formerly bewildering transactions will become clear. At the end of an evening out, when the single man of the future says to his date, "I had a nice time. I'll call you" (I predict that men will still be using this line), the woman to whom he is speaking will immediately hear in her headset: "What he means is that while he thinks you are attractive, he's concerned that you already have expectations of him that he will never be able to meet. He's associating you with his needy, castrating mother because she had the same hair color as yours."

By this time, sex and dating will be so dangerous (owing to the numerous rampant communicable diseases and personality disorders) that they will be attempted only by the kind of thrill seekers who now do things like bungee jumping, sky surfing and eating at Denny's. By the year 2020, in fact, "casual dating" will be a popular arena sport. People too terrified to pursue something so hazardous themselves will witness actual live human beings who, for big money stakes, will eat dinner with and then perhaps (if dinner goes well) become intimate with people they are attracted to but basically know nothing about.

Because the average person will be far too cautious to risk even a single totally worthless encounter, we will see the transformation of the medical clinic into a kind of after-hours meeting place where nervous but lonely people will be able to undergo a battery of health tests and, while awaiting the results, stop by the bar to enjoy a trendy snack with others who may have the same ailment. (I predict that honey-roasted songbirds will be the snack of choice by then because they will turn out to be the last remaining edible creature that is domestically plentiful, low in fat and still has not been made into a trendy snack item.)

All of this escalating terror will, oddly, increase the number of marriages taking place, even though we will see the divorce rate rise from 1 in 2 marriages to 2 in 2. These alarming statistics will cause the birth of a new nuptial tradition. Savvy couples will create the most intimate bond two people can share by agreeing to get married and divorced simultaneously. At that point, they will possess so much file data about each other that they will negotiate in advance the terms of every day they plan to spend together, deciding what annoying habits they are willing to tolerate and, more important, what personal details each one will permit the other to use either in court or in the eventual tell-all book. "Looking at me cross-eyed" could emerge as the most common charge of misconduct in the personal nuisance suits that will clog the legal system.

Playing right into that will be the amount of specific evidence people will have accumulated about each other as "compulsive video documentation" becomes the most common new addiction. By the year 2010, TV networks will decide to give all video-equipment owners a shot at their own show as long as they promise to supply footage that is extremely disturbing. Recorded evidence of violence and malicious mayhem will draw such astronomical sums that criminals contemplating an illegal activity will consult with movie developers during the important planning stages of the crime. They will thus make sure that the approach they are taking with regard to plot and details is the one that will have the best eventual effect on sales figures and marketing potential.

This blurring of the line between life and entertainment will culminate in a scandal when a giant underground facility is discovered in the Midwest that is being used as a breeding lab by desperate talk-show producers who have been completely out of new guests since the mid-1990s. It will be discovered that the producers have been assembling affable humanoids from the fat, tissue, bone and spare parts of celebrities who have undergone a lot of plastic surgery, training the "guests" to cultivate zany or inappropriate hobbies and schooling them in how to tell 10 different 15-minute anecdotes about themselves. This will constitute their entire life-span, after which they will + be melted down and reworked for an additional booking.

Yes, it's going to be a bold new world, full of brand new dysfunctions, addictions and disorders: a million new things to worry about! But that's progress.