OK Cupid and The Horatios*

OK Cupid claims to be the Google of online dating. When you sign up, you answer a frillion multiple-choice questions (or fewer, if you're in a rush) about your personality and lifestyle:

• Do you like to cook? [yes]
• Do think voting is important? [YES]
• How often do you watch televised lawn-bowling? [never]
• How severe is your addiction to World of Warcraft? [what?]
• Etc.

Based on your answers, OK Cupid points out people who have similar interests and who presumably will have enough in common with you that you can make it through a 1-hour coffee date.

Also, it's free. And I have Scottish ancestors.

After nearly a month on OK Cupid, I've received messages from a variety of matches. Inexplicably, seven of them have been named Horatio/Huratio/Horattio/Hporatio* (the 'p' is silent). What does this mean? Is there some sort of OK Cupid algorithm that's determined that my next boyfriend should be a Horatio? We may never know the answer.

This anomaly has prevented me from simultaneously dating several matches at once, since I would be sure to mix up Horatio with Hporatio with disastrous-if-entertaining results. Common sense dictates that you don't go on a first date with Horattio until you've determined that Huratio is unsuitable. Right?

*names have been changed to protect the anonymity of unsuspecting blog-subjects.