Matchmaker Says: To Tell or Not To Tell

The relationship with your matchmaker is unlike any other in your life. There’s trust, respect, camaraderie — yes. But, you’re not friends in the traditional sense…you’re working together to achieve a very serious and important goal.

What does that really look like and what should you discuss in your first matchmaker meeting? We asked our matchmaking team to address this topic by laying out the ideal dialogue between matchmaker and client. Here’s what made the cut:

THINGS TO TELL YOUR MATCHMAKER

• Share and define desired characteristics, with anecdotes and examples (i.e. what does “adventurous” mean to you”? What does it mean for someone to be “passionate”?)

• Reasons why someone should date you. Be specific. Avoid using generic phrases like, “I’m successful” or “I’m kind.”

• What scares you about dating? What excites you about dating?

• What’s the last thing that made you laugh so much, you cried?
  This one often stumps people but can be indicative of someone’s humor/what brings them pure joy.

• Decide with your Matchmaker the best frequency of communication, as well as the best medium, (e.g. email, phone, text, etc).

• Preferences relating to wanting/not wanting to marry, have kids, religion, political views, ethnicity — and clarify how important these preferences really are to you when balanced with other characteristics or criteria.

• Your honest thoughts about every match. The better the details, the better your future matches. You needn’t begin a sentence with, “I don’t want to be mean but…”

“Your Matchmaker is not here to judge you, only understand you.”

THINGS YOUR MATCHMAKER MAY NOT NEED TO KNOW

• Desired shared interests. Interests are fleeting, plus it’s okay (good even!) to have different interests.

• Family and/or personal drama that does not relate to your dating life.

You might think a viral pandemic would really get a matchmaker down. And for a moment, I was concerned. Let’s face it, nothing spells trouble in the romance business like a contagious virus! But it didn’t take long for me to consider potential silver linings…savings for my clients in terms of time, expense and stress chief among them.

That said, after personally planning, executing and collecting feedback from many virtual dates, I see that while those are the most obvious perks, they are neither the only nor the most beneficial reasons to take your next date virtual.