Don't you want somebody to love? In fact, don't you NEED somebody to love? In this day and age, there are so many possible ways to try to meet a potential mate, many people are not sure what way is best. Some looks for love in bars, others try their hand at online dating websites, still others are set up on blind dates by well-meaning friends, family, and coworkers. Professional matchmakers once considered archaic, the realm of "Fiddler On The Roof," are now enjoying a renewal in relevancy. Why would someone choose to see a professional matchmaker? To find the answer, one must look at the alternatives. Take looking for love in a bar for example. One problem is that you will only find people who enjoy drinking socially. Right there, one would be missing out on a whole subset: teetotalers. One also misses out on people who are simply not comfortable with the whole bar "scene," or consider it sleazy. People may consider themselves too young or too old to be relevant in this scene. Also, it is easy for people to misrepresent their intentions. For example, a woman looking to meet a man for the purpose of a relationship may get swindled by a man looking for a one night stand (or vice versa of course). If one looks at online dating, at a superficial level it solves a few of these problems. One does get a wider cross-section of people, all neatly categorized for convenience (although people that are not terribly computer literate will still be left out). Still, it is difficult to categorize oneself into the choices given, and harder still to sum oneself up in a paragraph. People can also easily misrepresent things such as height, post old photographs, or claim to have jobs that they do not really. Others may find that they just cannot capture their visual appeal in a photograph. Blind dates may seem to solve these problems... it is much harder to misrepresent oneself when there are mutual friends involved. These friends will be sure to explain that he is 5'9" and not 6'2", or that she is a bartender and not a nursery school teacher. People setting up friends or family members will obviously have this person's best interest at heart. But are they too close to the situation to really see it properly? Often not. One hears story after story of mis-matched blind date couplings, who go home to confront their "setter-upper" with the accusatory question, "Why on earth did you think I would be a good match with HIM/HER???" Professional matchmaking may take the best aspects of all of these ways of mate-seeking. One gets a wider cross-section of people than either bars or mutual friends. However, the matchmaker can still ensure that there is no misrepresentation involved. It is in the
matchmakers' best interest to create a successful match, they they are not so involved as to be biased. They are personally removed enough from the two matches so as not to be biased. More and more people these days are giving professional matchmakers a try.
