The Radio Smellfinder

Okay, short version: This is a patent application about finding people who smell nice.

Long version: Imagine you wanted a relationship, but you found the actual task of meeting people unacceptably complicated. We’ve all been there, right? So you get on the internet and you try online dating. You make a profile, meet someone cool, you spend weeks chatting, and then finally! Finally it is time to meet them! You put on your best skirt and tie, you sculpt your hair into an immense pompadour, and you step bravely into the unknown.

Only problem, they smell bad! It isn’t their fault or yours–some people are just smellologically incompatible. You give them a respectful fistbump and the two of you go your separate ways, never to smell one another again. Back to the grind, with nothing to show for it.

Surely, there must be a better way? What if a bunch of people submitted their sweat and spit to a lab, and then used a radio beacon to find one another? Enter the inconspicuously named “personal radio location system”: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20120013462A1

Now, this is just one example. The inventor filed dozens of patents relating to wireless communications and dating, of varying levels of creepiness. But what this example does is provide a step-by-step illustrated process for taking samples, including spitting in a cup, swabbing your cheek, and scrubbing your armpits.

A laboratory then performs an analysis: “In one embodiment, a probe from an analyzer 134 may be inserted into the bag 128, which will convey the aromas to a chamber where a chemical analysis is conducted.” In this way, they determine your “genetic attributes,” which are stored in a database along with less aromatic information for matching purposes.

Now, why would anyone ever do this? The inventor clearly understood that there might be some hesitancy, so the application describes pressure being applied by doctors and religious leaders:

Besides finding someone who smells nice, the invention lists other benefits. For one, it can help keep you from sleeping with your cousins (paragraphs 214-221). For another, it can help promote fertility (paragraphs 222-226). A variety of eugenic motivations follow–pages and pages of them. Plus it can improve “responsivity,” if you know what I mean.

With all this focus on pheromones, it’s understandable if you forgot this was all about a radio beacon. Once you have your armpit profile data analyzed, you can use a “MateFinder™” device to identify when a compatible person is in the vicinity.

And then it’s just a matter of walking right up to your future-spouse, ostentatiously stretching your arms over your head to emit your pheromones, and letting nature do what it does best.