Predators, in the game of love

It can be comforting to have a stranger step up and offer to take over your search for a partner. Here are warning signs to watch for

- Simran Mangharam

"The man I am meant to marry will have a scar on the right side of his forehead," a 29-year-old client of mine said recently.

Like so many single people who approach me at such thresholds (understandably, the end of any decade intensifies both loneliness and desperation), this young architect was determined to use all the resources available to her, in her search.

Among the resources she had identified was an "astrology" app. It brought her great peace, she said. Where dating apps and matrimonial websites had offered her only vague pointers, this gave her "something to go on".

She understood that the basis for such predictions was slim to nonexistent, she said, but wasn't that also true of the algorithms that app-builders used, particularly those seeking engagement (and revenue) over results?

Intrigued by her conviction, I decided to follow in her footsteps for a sense of what this world was like. I went to Instagram, where she said she had discovered the app.