Is Hiring a Matchmaker Worth It?

Hiring a matchmaker is worth it for a fairly narrow kind of man. He already does well once he is on a date, he wants a serious relationship, and he would rather pay for the search than run it himself. For a man whose trouble starts earlier, with getting noticed or getting a reply, it usually is not worth it, because the introduction still sends the same man to dinner.

Matchmaking firms describe the product in similar terms. You get a personal search, women who have been recruited and vetted, and introductions chosen by hand instead of by a feed. At the higher tiers, firms add coaching, image consulting and feedback after each date.

That last item is worth more than it sounds. Very few men ever hear an honest account of a first date from the woman's side. A matchmaker who passes that on, and changes the next introduction because of it, is giving you something the apps never will.

What you are not buying is a result. Nobody can sell attraction, so read any contract that hints otherwise twice.

Picture a man in his late thirties with a demanding job. He gets dates without much trouble, and they tend to go well. What he lacks is the hours to sort through strangers, and he has a clear idea of the partner he wants.

For him, a matchmaker is a sensible trade. He pays someone to do the searching and screening, the part he has no hours for. He keeps the part he is good at, which is the evening itself. He can also judge the service fairly, because he knows what a good date feels like and will notice quickly whether the introductions are any good.

Now picture a man who gets few replies online, whose first dates rarely lead to a second, and who hopes a professional will finally put the right woman in front of him.

A matchmaker will introduce him to someone. The date will then go the way his dates usually go, because whatever was going wrong comes along with him. He has paid a lot to meet one woman at a time instead of several, and he has learned less than a month of ordinary dates would have taught him.

a dating coach has said he knows very wealthy men who paid a matchmaker a large sum for a few hand-picked introductions. For some of them it worked, and for a lot of them it did not. The fee bought the introductions. It could not buy what happened after them.

In the model where paying clients fund the search, the people in the database join free and are introduced only when they fit a client's criteria. That makes your own list the most important document in the whole arrangement.

If the list is long, few women fit it and introductions arrive slowly. If you wrote it from a picture in your head rather than from dates you actually enjoyed, you will meet women who fit the list and leave you cold.

So write it from experience. Think about the women you had the best evenings with and what they had in common. Keep the handful of things that genuinely matter, and let the rest go.

Contracts differ more than the first sales conversation suggests.

Some include unlimited introductions for the length of the membership, and others set a fixed number. If yours is fixed, ask how long the wait between introductions usually runs, and what happens if the number is not reached before the membership ends.

Check the reach of the search as well. A local search costs less than a national or international one. If you live in a large city, local may be all you need, and paying for reach you will not use is just a bigger bill.

Finally, ask what the feedback after each date looks like in practice. Find out whether it is a phone call, a paragraph or a single line, and whether the next introduction actually changes because of it.

Before spending serious money, find out which of those two men you are. Get your photos and your messages on the dating apps into good shape, then go on a handful of first dates and pay attention to how they end.

If they go well and you are simply short on hours, a matchmaker may be worth every dollar. If they fall flat, you have found the real problem for a fraction of the price, and it is worth fixing before anyone introduces you to anyone.