These Days, There's a Price to Pay For Meeting Your Match
Jordana Willner
Originally published San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, February 13, 2000
FORGET NATURE, karma and kismet. My single friends are taking matters and checkbooks into their own hands. They tried it the old- fashioned way. But for single, financially independent, emotionally secure women used to pursuing and getting what they want, waiting around for true love is hardly their style.
They are ready for relationships, and though their harried daily journey of work and life hardly aligns them with eligible single male prospects, their proverbial clocks have ticked on. Thus my friends decided that deliberate, proactive strategy was necessary to jump-start their love lives and ensure the options they desired. And in recent months, no fewer than six women in my life have paid money for a professional, targeted search.
The methodologies differ, but the idea is the same: engage local services to help them meet men, often prescreened for compatibility, who also want relationships. Several friends are using online personal ads, listing extensive facts and photos that offer insight into who they are and what they want. Other friends have joined activity clubs, touring everything from museums to hillsides in packs of upbeat, engaging singles.
Still others participate in meet- and-greet gatherings where a master of ceremonies separates people into small groups in which they can mingle and exchange phone numbers. Some people I know are lunching in small, preassigned mixed groups of single professionals in the hopes of finding a match. One friend even went to a pricey matchmaking service that gave her an extensive personality assessment, promising to match her with similar personality types until she finds a mutual physical attraction.
The good news is that my friends now have dates. They are meeting men, going out, enjoying themselves, sampling a variety of different people and activities, and having companions for all those times they wished they didn't have to go stag.
The bad news is that they now have dates. They are meeting men, going out and reacquainting themselves with all the predictable traps and games of grown-up, modern, recreational dating. At first, the smorgasbord of possible suitors and potential scenarios was exciting. My friends gleefully reported on new prospects, amazed and energized by the array of people suddenly accessible to them. But as reliably as these services deliver dates, they still compensate for little more than an introduction.
Once two people are together for their first meeting, the origin of their acquaintance seems to lose its import, and the chaos of dating presides. On the other hand, while the road to true love can be both rocky and expensive (especially with the higher-end matchmaking services) the disappointment of any missed connection or lost opportunity is greatly assuaged by the knowledge that another match, another e-mail, activity or luncheon will soon follow.
Real-life dating has limited prospects. Service dating, my friends are finding, seems to provide a steady flow of options. Natural selection never provided such guarantees.
Which is probably why so many people are tossing themselves into the matchmaking ring. Once, these institutionalized methods for meeting people were, at best, considered ``alternative'' and, at worst, stigmatized as ``desperate.'' But bars are attracting fewer prowling singles, an entire generation has grown with the knowledge of AIDS and the caution necessary when meeting new people, and the affluence and ambition of many modern singles produces a hefty list of requirements. As a result, maximizing dating time and efficiency with a built-in screening process is as sensible as using a headhunter to find the right job or a wine expert to select the appropriate year.
But then again, what is sensible is not always appropriate for matters of the heart. My friends don't need men for economic support, social comfort or to have children. Because they simply want a partner with whom to share their full lives, they are (and have every right to be) selective. They are actively participating in their own matchmaking -- why shouldn't they get exactly what they want? Because the quest for a mate is not as straightforward as selecting the options you want on a new car, and people rarely seem to meet and fall in love with the type of partner they would have described if given the chance.
Thus my friends and their fellow searchers face a conflict: They have opened themselves up to a huge pool of eligible singles by joining various services, yet by specifying what they think they want and don't want, they are actually limiting the size of their potential dating sample.
The business of dating brings science, numbers and probability into the favor of every searching single out there. But by taking the sorting away from nature, that elusive universal uniter called chemistry is often forgotten.
My friends are all dating now, some casually, some halfheartedly, and some exclusively. Whether they find love and commitment or simply continue an efficient and steady flow of prospects remains to be seen. But if they keep it up, one of them is bound to meet their match. Whether they find true love is another story.
--Jordana Willner wrote a monthly "Next Generation" column for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1999, 2000, and 2001
Originally published San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, February 13, 2000
FORGET NATURE, karma and kismet. My single friends are taking matters and checkbooks into their own hands. They tried it the old- fashioned way. But for single, financially independent, emotionally secure women used to pursuing and getting what they want, waiting around for true love is hardly their style.
They are ready for relationships, and though their harried daily journey of work and life hardly aligns them with eligible single male prospects, their proverbial clocks have ticked on. Thus my friends decided that deliberate, proactive strategy was necessary to jump-start their love lives and ensure the options they desired. And in recent months, no fewer than six women in my life have paid money for a professional, targeted search.
The methodologies differ, but the idea is the same: engage local services to help them meet men, often prescreened for compatibility, who also want relationships. Several friends are using online personal ads, listing extensive facts and photos that offer insight into who they are and what they want. Other friends have joined activity clubs, touring everything from museums to hillsides in packs of upbeat, engaging singles.
Still others participate in meet- and-greet gatherings where a master of ceremonies separates people into small groups in which they can mingle and exchange phone numbers. Some people I know are lunching in small, preassigned mixed groups of single professionals in the hopes of finding a match. One friend even went to a pricey matchmaking service that gave her an extensive personality assessment, promising to match her with similar personality types until she finds a mutual physical attraction.
The good news is that my friends now have dates. They are meeting men, going out, enjoying themselves, sampling a variety of different people and activities, and having companions for all those times they wished they didn't have to go stag.
The bad news is that they now have dates. They are meeting men, going out and reacquainting themselves with all the predictable traps and games of grown-up, modern, recreational dating. At first, the smorgasbord of possible suitors and potential scenarios was exciting. My friends gleefully reported on new prospects, amazed and energized by the array of people suddenly accessible to them. But as reliably as these services deliver dates, they still compensate for little more than an introduction.
Once two people are together for their first meeting, the origin of their acquaintance seems to lose its import, and the chaos of dating presides. On the other hand, while the road to true love can be both rocky and expensive (especially with the higher-end matchmaking services) the disappointment of any missed connection or lost opportunity is greatly assuaged by the knowledge that another match, another e-mail, activity or luncheon will soon follow.
Real-life dating has limited prospects. Service dating, my friends are finding, seems to provide a steady flow of options. Natural selection never provided such guarantees.
Which is probably why so many people are tossing themselves into the matchmaking ring. Once, these institutionalized methods for meeting people were, at best, considered ``alternative'' and, at worst, stigmatized as ``desperate.'' But bars are attracting fewer prowling singles, an entire generation has grown with the knowledge of AIDS and the caution necessary when meeting new people, and the affluence and ambition of many modern singles produces a hefty list of requirements. As a result, maximizing dating time and efficiency with a built-in screening process is as sensible as using a headhunter to find the right job or a wine expert to select the appropriate year.
But then again, what is sensible is not always appropriate for matters of the heart. My friends don't need men for economic support, social comfort or to have children. Because they simply want a partner with whom to share their full lives, they are (and have every right to be) selective. They are actively participating in their own matchmaking -- why shouldn't they get exactly what they want? Because the quest for a mate is not as straightforward as selecting the options you want on a new car, and people rarely seem to meet and fall in love with the type of partner they would have described if given the chance.
Thus my friends and their fellow searchers face a conflict: They have opened themselves up to a huge pool of eligible singles by joining various services, yet by specifying what they think they want and don't want, they are actually limiting the size of their potential dating sample.
The business of dating brings science, numbers and probability into the favor of every searching single out there. But by taking the sorting away from nature, that elusive universal uniter called chemistry is often forgotten.
My friends are all dating now, some casually, some halfheartedly, and some exclusively. Whether they find love and commitment or simply continue an efficient and steady flow of prospects remains to be seen. But if they keep it up, one of them is bound to meet their match. Whether they find true love is another story.
--Jordana Willner wrote a monthly "Next Generation" column for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1999, 2000, and 2001
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