CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/15/2024

BookHampton presents Jeff and Patsy Tarr launching 'Operation Match: Jeff Tarr and the Invention of Computer Dating'

Thursday, August 15 at 5 PM, East Hampton bookseller BookHampton presents Jeff Tarr—creator of the world's first dating service, developed when he was a 1962 Harvard freshman—in conversation with Patsy Tarr, author of the new book, Operation Match: Jeff Tarr and the Invention of Computer Dating. Discover how Jeff transformed college social life and sparked a cultural revolution! Reserve a spot here.

In the fall of 1962, Jeff Tarr, a teenager from a small town in Maine, began his freshman year at Harvard University. By the time he graduated, he had developed and launched the first-ever computer dating service, upending courting rituals at colleges across the United States and becoming a minor celebrity in his own right. Tarr’s innovation arrived in a nation whose campuses were still in step with 1950s notions of morality, propriety and tradition—many northeastern college dormitories were still segregated by sex, and bars weren’t a place for singles to meet and mingle. In just a few semesters, Tarr brought computer algorithms to the people, propelling America’s youngest adults headlong into the swinging ’60s. As the sexual revolution and women’s rights movement gained steam, and as civil rights victories mounted and the Vietnam War dragged on, Tarr’s new vision for how young men and women should pair off rode a surging wave of cultural change.

Operation Match follows Tarr’s adventure from the dateless Saturday night where a little beer and banter with his roommate sparked an idea, through the process of perfecting a dating questionnaire, to late nights feeding thousands of punch cards into a rented IBM mainframe, to matching tens of thousands of young men and women, for better or for worse. It also traces his transformation from an anonymous, awkward, Kennedy-loving college man to a voice of the New Frontier, appearing on the Today Show and the Tonight Show and, of course, having more dates than he could ever have dreamed of.

Jeff Tarr After launching Operation Match, the first college computer dating service in 1965, Jeff Tarr went on to pioneer the use of computers on Wall Street by creating algorithms for investing in risk arbitrage. Jeff currently chairs Junction Advisors and divides his spare time among his family, his numerous philanthropic interests, and a burgeoning interest in thoroughbred horse racing.

Patsy Tarr has been a dance enthusiast for most of her life. She founded the 2wice Arts Foundation in 1983 to support dance through the publication of two award winning magazines, Dance Ink and 2wice. Operation Match is the inaugural book of her new venture, 2wice Books. Patsy met Jeff the old fashioned way: Through a blind date.

Revolutionizing Romance: An Evening with Jeff and Patsy Tarr
Thursday, August 15: 5 PM
BookHampton
41 Main Street
East Hampton, NY 11937
Reserve a spot here