FOR more than three years, Jennifer Silver, 33, a freelance marketing consultant in Manhattan, trolled online dating sites looking for love. She tried Match.com and JDate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the worst experiences,\u201d Ms. Silver said. When one potential date didn\u2019t bear the slightest resemblance to his photo, she walked right past him, thinking he had stood her up. \u201cPeople were very dishonest,\u201d Ms. Silver said. She hired a traditional matchmaker instead.<\/p>\n
One might think that in an age of unparalleled access to potential dates through the Internet, matchmakers would be scraping for business. Instead, their business is on an upswing, according to John LaRosa, the author of a report by the Marketdata Enterprises, a research firm. Matchmakers now number more than 1,600 in the United States, up from 1,300 in 2004. He also notes that \u201cmatchmaking overall has lost its social stigma for many people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the success of these headhunters for the heart can be attributed to a reaction to the well-publicized
\npitfalls of online dating. Matchmakers have also helped themselves by adapting some of the same technologies that their online competitors use.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are getting a bit burnt out\u201d by the lack of privacy and abundance of misinformation found on dating sites, said Lisa Clampitt, the executive director of the Matchmaking Institute, a school in Manhattan.
\n\u201cYou could be successful online, but it\u2019s random,\u201d Ms. Clampitt said, describing situations in which daters send e-mail messages to 20 potential mates at a time or profess to be 5-foot-7 when 5-foot-2 is more like it.
\nMatchmakers prescreen potential matches, focusing on long-term compatibility rather than \u201cshort-term chemistry,\u201d Ms. Clampitt said.<\/p>\n
While online sites allow unlimited fantasizing, matchmakers encourage clients to take their heads out of the clouds. \u201cSometimes we will get a guy who is a good-looking man, but no Brad Pitt, and he wants a thin model,\u201d said Shoshanna Rikon, the owner of Shoshanna\u2019s Matches, a Yenta-style matchmaking service in Manhattan that includes an in-person interview and a Web presence, and charges about $1,500 for eight dates. \u201cWe try to be more realistic with who we set him up with.”<\/p>\n
Another sign of the rise of the go-between: 80 matchmakers gathered on Friday in Weehawken, N.J., for a two-day conference that the Matchmaking Institute, which organized it, bills as the first of its kind here. Its keynote speaker, Mark Brooks of Online Personals Watch, told participants that matchmakers offer \u201ca chance to connect\u201d and \u201ca chance to authenticate\u201d prospects in ways the Web sites can\u2019t. He pointed out that the problem for matchmakers has always been casting a wide enough net; for online sites the problem has been narrowing the pool. He advised both to find common ground.<\/p>\n
Among the other presenters was Julie Ferman, who owns Cupid\u2019s Coach in Los Angeles. In an interview before the conference she said that when Internet dating took off a decade ago, it seemed like \u201cpersonal matchmaking would be a dinosaur.\u201d Instead, she said, the \u201cbig chasm\u201d between their businesses has narrowed as matchmakers have begun using a more hybrid approach.<\/p>\n
Cupid\u2019s Coach teams up with Internet dating sites to give parties. When the singles show up, Ms. Ferman meets them, takes their photographs, gets their contact information and adds them to her database of 12,000 names. Clients typically sign up through her Web site or send her an e-mail message; she follows up with an interview.
\n\u201cI will only refer them once I have met them personally,\u201d Ms. Ferman said.<\/p>\n
A 2006 survey undertaken by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that while 52 percent of the 16 million people who have used online dating sites had mostly positive experiences, 29 percent report mostly negative experiences. Most said that \u201cmany online daters lie about their marital status,\u201d the report said. And according to a 2007 report by JupiterResearch, the percentage of people browsing those sites is stagnating.<\/p>\n
Major online sites like Match.com are catching on to singles\u2019 concerns. Last December, it rolled out Match Platinum, a matchmaking service, in Dallas, its first test market. Match Platinum promises confidentiality. Its matchmakers interview subscribers over the phone and handpick dates for them. Feedback afterward helps home in on what the client did and didn\u2019t like. The premium service costs $2,000 for six dates versus $34.99 for a month of do-it-yourself browsing online.<\/p>\n
Other hybrids combine online technology with tradition. At JRetromatch.com and Sawyouatsinai.com, Jewish dating sites, singles select a matchmaker, who then combs through the lonely hearts database for clients. JRetro\u2019s fees start at $12.95 a month and Sawyouatsinai\u2019s at $9.95.<\/p>\n
Elove.com, one of the larger New York-area hybrid offerings, is an Internet service that gives each participant a 90-minute in-person interview, and then follows up with criminal background and marital status checks. Once approved, photographs and videos are taken and posted by the matchmaking service. Subscribers are then given a password to search elove\u2019s database.<\/p>\n
Matchmaking \u201cis more about the quality of the individual than the amount of people that you date,\u201d said Gary Ferone, the owner of Great Date Now, a traditional service with eight locations in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Mr. Ferone said that 80 percent of his 400 clients had \u201ctried one form of Internet dating or another.\u201d He, in fact, met his own wife six years ago on Match.com, but started his business because he was put off by the laborious process of sifting through hundreds of online prospects.<\/p>\n
Even so, Great Date Now embraces technology, using search engines to help drive singles to its Web site, where they fill out questionnaires. Those questionnaires are reviewed by matchmakers, who then contact the potential client. Mr. Ferone, whose firm, he says, has facilitated more than 100 marriages, charges those clients $2,500 for unlimited introductions.<\/p>\n
April Hunt, 49, a divorced teacher from Milford, Conn., said she turned to Great Date after she had unsuccessfully sought a mate on eharmony.com. Matchmakers, she said, \u201cget a feeling for your chemistry and I don\u2019t think that comes across online.\u201d She found the service\u2019s policy of doing background checks reassuring. \u201cThey were protecting me and my children from people who might say they were not married but they were, or maybe were not reputable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Last February she met Tom Morgan, 63, a divorced home inspector from Mystic, Conn. Today, they are considering moving in together.<\/p>\n
Pleased with his experience, Mr. Morgan added that he felt that the hefty fees charged by services like Great Date equaled more serious seekers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith online dating you are one of a million,\u201d said Ms. Silver of Manhattan. So last spring she opted to hire Ms. Rikon. \u201cWhy not turn to someone who will be looking out for your best interests?\u201d Ms. Silver said. She says she struck gold on her third fix-up. Since June she has been dating \u201ca professional in his 30\u2019s,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Monika Galius, 37, an industrial engineer from Pasadena, Calif., turned to Cupid\u2019s Coach after being disillusioned when the umpteenth potential online date fizzled. On her eighth prescreened match she met Mark Auburn, a 42-year-old computer consultant from Manhattan Beach, Calif.
\n\u201cAccountability by far is what helps,\u201d Ms. Galius said.<\/p>\n
She and Mr. Auburn are to be married on Nov. 18.<\/p>\n
By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER
\nPublished: September 30, 2007<\/p>\n
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