Since its release on June 13, there’s already been plenty of discussion as to whether Materialists is more of a romantic comedy or a state of the nation on modern dating. There have also been questions around how well it captures its protagonist’s profession of matchmaking. Well, who better to ask about love, dating, and matchmaking than matchmakers themselves? The age-old tradition is alive and well in New York City. We’ve assembled a crew of five matchmakers—helping singles find the kind of love romantic comedies have made us believe in—to weigh in on how well filmmaker Celine Song’s new movie has captured their jobs.

TIME: Do you think Lucy is a good matchmaker? Why or why not?

Samantha Daniels: When I started, I was essentially Lucy. I was trying to find love for myself while being paid to find love for others—Matchbook, my book, takes place in that period of my life. But it can be hard when you’re navigating your own love life as you’re trying to help other people find love. She starts off well, but as the movie goes on, she becomes burned out, and that takes away from her effectiveness. 

Liana Bell: There’s no denying that she seemed to be able to deliver what the client wanted, but maybe not always what they needed. I think Lucy is great at the mathematical component, but it’s not purely mathematical, as she discovers. The bigger component is a creative one, nurtured through intuition as opposed to stats. As Lucy evolved through her lived experience, she began to discover that the checking-boxes approach did not work. Just as the caveman in the movie reinforces, love is easy when it’s kept simple, but it seems we’ve turned it into this complex list of requirements.

Bonnie Winston: I do think she’s a good matchmaker because she acts as a vessel of hope. Her clients come searching for love, and whether they believe it or not, she believes it. Whatever you do in life, if you have someone who believes in you, it can shift your entire perception. 

Erin Butler: She’s invested emotionally in her clients. She has heart and she’s vigilant for them. Those are things that matter. However, Lucy says that it’s a smart investment to make big physical changes like that invasive surgery to increase your height. I think that shows a poor side of her matchmaking. I think a lot of what makes matchmaking good is hard work and emotional intelligence.

Maria Avgitidis: No, and the fact that she gets offered a promotion is insane to me. She does things I’d never do or allow my employees to do. First is fraternizing [with clients]. The second is how she takes notes on a match. When I saw the notes she took on the man who assaults his date, I was like, fire her! She has about three sentences, and two of them were quantitative answers, like age and income. We write essays on every potential client because we have to present this metric to make a case for each match. I will never set up a match with a client if that match is not absolutely enthusiastic. Then she stalks the match! Your lawyers would tell you, fire this employee and press charges.

Lucy mentions that burnout is common for matchmakers—what is it about the job that’s so draining?

Butler:  It’s a very Hollywood presentation of burnout: OK, you’re burnt out. Go have a four-week vacation. I don’t know if I would call it burnout, but there is no other job quite like this one. You’re dealing with a person’s biggest hopes and dreams, biggest fears. It can be very hard when all that hard work comes crashing down. Or you can’t get past certain hurdles. You don’t have much control. You can’t control how people behave. 

Winston: Burnout for me doesn’t exist because I have a staff that does other things. For instance, we have a Director of Client Relations, so she will curate our clients’ dates. I love what I do. I was born to do this. I loved it when I didn’t get paid, and I love it now. I made my first match at 16 years old. I have clergy-like hours; my clients know they can call me seven days a week at any time. I act as a coach, mom, sister, and matchmaker.

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See the full episode here:

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How Divine Intervention handles serial-dating mentality and the notion of quality VS. quantity

American psychologist Barry Schwartz powerfully sums up the challenge we face when choosing a romantic partner in today’s world in his 2004 novel The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.
 The whole idea behind Schwartz’s book is that people assume that more choices gives one more freedom to make decisions which then lead to greater welfare. This idea is flawed—especially when it comes to dating—and Schwartz suggests we should opt for being “satisficers” making good enough choices, which will lead to happier lives, as opposed to being “maximizers” who need to exhaust all choices before making a decision. In addition, Schwartz claims maximizers are usually left feeling doubtful about their choice even after having made one.   

As matchmakers at Divine Intervention, our job is to reverse the paralysis current and prospective clients experience during the matchmaking and early-stage dating process.
Paralysis—one of the core concepts of The Paradox of Choice.

Too many choices leads a person into feeling paralyzed and unable to make a decision to go exclusive with someone and stop seeing other people. Dating apps and online platforms have enabled hundreds of thousands of people within close proximity to meet; but because of all the options out there, people are afraid to stop dating around altogether, in fear they might miss out on meeting the right person.
 
A classic example of The Paradox of Choice is when our team does date feedback follow up to see how our client enjoyed the date we set them up on and hear a statement like this:

“I really loved meeting John, he is just about everything I am looking for; however, I would still like to continue to meet your next match for me.” 
 
In this example, our client is demonstrating symptoms of a maximizer and is fairly satisfied, but doubtful in making a firm decision to stop meeting other people. She is solely hanging onto the fact that there are other bachelor(s) out there to be met, and so she will move onto the next one with the idea that said next match will be “perfect.” Perfection doesn’t exist; however, maximizers believe that if there are so many choices out there, then they need not to settle for anything but perfection. This process is exhausting and disappointment lurking around the corner.
 

Three ways Divine Intervention aims to reverse the Paradox of Choice for their clients: 

• Providing a low-volume, finite amount of introductions of higher quality to clients
• Providing a long-term membership (up to a year) for time to get to know their matches without the burnout and without feeling the need to dismiss and move onto the next match quickly
• Guiding clients out of the maximizer mentality by educating them on their patterns and deciding collectively to make a shift in thinking towards “less is more” when it comes to dating, and that it’s not always just a “numbers game” 

Tired and exhausted from dating dozens (or hundreds) of people and feeling like you’re just a number? Call us today for a consultation and find out how we help you do dating differently.
 
Want to know more on The Paradox of Choice? Check out Barry Schwartz’s Ted Talk here

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Written By Rob Klovance

John was striking out in his bid to find someone in Calgary. Christine was bummed about all the dead ends and wasted time she had with online dating in the past.

Click! A string of six-hour phone calls, then trips between the cities, followed.

 

“It’s like we hardly saw each other during the week,” says John, who’s in a senior management role in a large company. “If we were both working from home, she’d be upstairs and I’d be downstairs. We both go to the gym. We’d spend a few hours together in the evening, and that was great.”

 

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Ryan says he was careful to ensure that Carrie felt safe on this second date by sticking to his checklist of best practices, including meeting in a public place during the day. They lunched at Vancouver’s renowned West – which sadly closed its doors last January after 20 years – and the two discovered they had common interests, several mutual friends, and the same birthdate.

 

Carrie says that on her two previous “dates” through Divine Intervention, she recognized there was “no spark”, but continued to see the men and is still friends with both of them today. But Ryan is different, a constant in her life and a potential live-in partner down the road.

 

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First came the pandemic. Then came a broken ankle from a slip on a slick patch of grass. The year 2020 was off to a rough start for Mary (not her real name).

“I had given up – I just couldn’t be bothered to try to find someone for a romantic relationship,” says Mary, recalling those dark days. “And with COVID… yuck! The whole thought of dating someone was like a big fat ‘NO’.”

A designer who often works as a buyer of furniture and other items for film and TV sets, Mary had long ago sworn off dating anyone she worked with. In her early 60s, she felt no need to start anything new and figured she was fine on her own. Her last relationship had ended with the guy cheating on her.

But a call from Susan Semeniw of Divine Intervention Matchmaking changed everything. Susan broke through Mary’s reluctance with a plea to give some guy on Vancouver Island a 30-minute shot on the phone. “Thirty minutes? The first time we talked, the call lasted almost four hours,” gushes Mary. “On other calls, we talked as long as five and six hours. This guy is way more than just a nice guy. He’s very unusual. Intelligent, kind, with a sense of humour, and his conversational skills are epic.”

Susan had initially held back on showing Mary a photo of the guy. When she finally sent one, it was of a buff dude in a blazer. “I thought, well, he’s a nice looking man,” says Mary. “And wow, he’s really in very good shape. Even in a blazer I could still tell. That was different than what I’m used to – any athletic guys I had dated were built more like tennis players. But he was nice looking.”

Meanwhile on Vancouver Island, 67-year-old teacher Ian (not his real name) was falling hard for this sparkplug of a woman he had never met. And after nearly two months of marathon phone calls, it was time they got together.

“From the start, there was this affinity we felt for each other, and it grew into something more,” says Ian, a Clark Kent intellectual whose Superman years were spent in the world of pro sports.

Dinner, a ring, and a promise

Two months into their virtual dating, Ian didn’t just want to meet Mary. He wanted her to get acquainted with his adult son and his best friend, too. Mary agreed to the meeting, on her terms.

“At the time, I wasn’t feeling great about myself and didn’t want to dress up,” says Mary. “I told him: ‘There will be no high heels. There’s going to be nothing.’ He talked about places to go for dinner and I said: ‘I don’t want anything fancy. Would you mind just making dinner at home so we could have a quiet night and I can put my foot up?”

Ian agreed, made a yummy souvlaki dinner and baked a pie. It turns out the intellectual athlete could cook. He also let her chill while he headed to his home gym for a workout, check in to ice her ankle, and introduced her to the son he lived with.

“I adore his son,” she says. “The two of us get along like a house on fire.” The second time Mary visited Ian, he had a surprise for her: a sapphire ring he had picked out for her weeks before he met her face-to-face.

“When I bought the ring, I was thinking, you haven’t even kissed this woman or held her hand,” he recalls with a chuckle.

“We had this virtual relationship, but there was such a great mutual attraction. I had found someone who was from the heart, and cerebral. There’s just something about her giving spirit. What we have is just so natural and right. It’s hard to explain it.”

When Mary was presented with the wrapped gift, she guessed it was jewelry but wondered why, because Ian knew she didn’t wear much jewelry. “And then I saw the ring, and that’s when he said ‘I love you’,” she says.

A word of advice to others: Always have hope

Ian and Mary are in it for the long haul. Ian is renovating his Island home to accommodate Mary.

His advice to others working with his Susan is to trust her judgment.

“There were several women [with Divine Intervention] who showed interest, and she rejected the idea because she knew they wouldn’t be right for me,” he says. “I had about four dates through the service before I met Mary. She’s one Susan really thought could be a great match. I’m still pinching myself and wondering how this all happened.”

Mary can’t believe it either.

“This is a one-off, I’ll tell you that, “ she says. “I’ve never had that thing with somebody where we just clicked this much. I admire him, he’s a really good man, and we have so much fun together.”

*** names have been changed for privacy

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Thought and creativity are key, says B.C. executive matchmaker

It’s a crazy time for couples, and also for singles looking for love. We’re either supposed to be observing social distance rules under COVID-19 pandemic guidelines, or we’re too close, too much of the time.

“If you’re living with someone, you’re probably home more than usual, and that makes for a lot more intensity,” says Susan Semeniw, who helps singles and couples with advice as the head of Vancouver-based Divine Intervention executive matchmaking service. “Whatever issues you may already have around your relationship, they’re just going to be heightened and exacerbated.”

Meanwhile, singles are either breaking the rules by hanging out in bars in search of love, or trying to make dating work by phone or Zoom. “What I’m hearing from women who are dating,” says Semeniw, “is that most guys don’t know how to social distance, especially if there’s a drink involved. So if you’re going to see someone in person, just make sure that you discuss rules first.”

Heading into Valentine’s Day, here’s a grab bag of advice from Semeniw – plus some creative “date night” ideas – for either starting or rekindling romance.

Valentine’s Day is overblown… but get it right

Semeniw stresses that Valentine’s Day is just one day a year, and while it can be important to women in particular, it shouldn’t be seen as the barometer of a relationship’s health.

“It’s like a marriage versus a wedding,” she says. “It’s more important to acknowledge a person on a regular basis and really put some thought into your time with them. So while you can make Valentine’s Day special, you don’t have to spend a lot of money.”

Women still love to receive cards, says Semeniw, especially when they’re meaningful. She says a card with something thoughtful like “20 reasons why I love you” tend to carry the biggest impact. Valentine’s Day can also be a good time to offer an apology. “If you’ve been a bit of a cow during COVID, because you’ve been more stressed, you’re not alone,” she says. “Acknowledge that you haven’t been at your best.”

To spice up Valentine’s Day, consider some of these ideas (plus the list of specific “date night” ideas at the end of this story):

• A photo collage or digital slide show that take the two of you down memory lane.
• Takeout dinner from one of your favourite local restaurants.
• Re-create a memorable date or favourite meal, while sticking to COVID restrictions.
• At-home spa experience, complete with bubble bath/salts, scented candles, a favourite magazine or two, a bath pillow and/or a pre-packaged facial mask. Extra points for running the bath when your partner is 15 minutes from home, and turning the lights down low for a grand entrance.
• An evening of travel planning, for a long-awaited getaway once COVID travel restrictions are relaxed
• Sharing a dinner and/or a movie with another couple, via Zoom or Netflix Party.

Dating? Rediscover the art of good phone

As part of Semeniw’s executive matchmaking, she spends time helping men and women prepare for their first date. And she recommends that the first virtual meeting shouldn’t be via Zoom, but on the phone, for a short and predetermined amount of time (with an option to extend if things are going well).

“I always recommend to have a phone call first,” she says. “Make it relatively short, and always leave them wanting more. Later on, go ahead and move to Zoom if you’re comfortable, and be mindful of how you look. It’s a visual medium, so wear colours that work, take care with lighting, and smile.”

Semeniw is also big on walks, hiking, or snowshoeing, which can all be done within social distancing guidelines and which all provide ample opportunity to talk.

“For the most part people are taking more time to get to know someone,” she says. “At the end of the day, chemistry does happen in person but you can really create a connection and bond with someone on the phone, too.”

One couple that recently got together through Semeniw’s matchmaking service, a man from Calgary and a woman in Vancouver, were initially resistant to spending much time on the phone. But after a short first call went well, they found themselves engaging regularly in four-hour calls in the early months of the pandemic. They’ve since spent lots of time together in person, and are considering getting a place together… and perhaps even marriage.

As a relationship progresses, Semeniw recommends opting for phone calls over texts or emails. The lost art of a good phone call is on the rebound in COVID, and it reduces the chance of being misunderstood.

5 ideas for making that date, or date night, special

Remember the fun things you used to be able to do to share an evening with a date or your partner? Now think of how you might replicate that experience from the safety of your home, or at a safe distance, during this time of COVID-19 restrictions.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, here are some ideas to get you going as you explore dating or “night out” options.

1. Cook up a night to remember

Whether you’re on an online date or at home with your partner, cooking together can be a fun way to break the routine. You can tackle a new recipe you’ve found, join an online cooking class, or cook together at an in-person (but distanced) cooking class. Vancouver’s Dirty Apron, for example, has a variety of classes Tuesdays through Saturdays with reduced numbers in their kitchen. Dirty Apron’s February 12 Ocean Inspired Couples’ Class, for example, features a menu of warm lobster and sturgeon caviar salad, salt crusted whole sea bream, and lemon basil crepes.

Did you know? Small appliances such as toaster ovens, Instant Pots, and air fryers can use up to 75% less electricity than using the oven or stovetop for the same recipe. Check out some great recipes at powersmart.ca.

2. Order in

Help keep your favourite restaurant afloat with takeout or food delivery. If you’re on a distanced date, consider ordering from the same place then sharing your meal and impressions of the food via Zoom.

Did you know? A December survey by Restaurants Canada found that 48% of small and medium-sized independent restaurants in Canada were facing the danger of permanent closure.

3. Virtual travel

Take a stroll down memory lane with a partner by viewing a digital slideshow from a past trip or revisiting a favourite location via one of several virtual travel sites online. Consider recreating a memorable meal you had on a trip. And if you’re just getting to know someone, why not take them on a guided virtual tour or embark on a destination totally new to both of you. Some virtual travel sites charge a fee, while many are free, including 360cities.net, and globotreks.com.

Here are a few specific virtual tours available online:

• Louvre courtyard with tourists at night (360-degree video)
• Cappadocia, Turkey virtual tour (YouTube video)
• Top 10 places to visit in Greece (YouTube)

Did you know? While there’s nothing like actually travelling to a place, the carbon costs of international travel – especially by air – are enormous. Flight-related CO2 emissions for a family of three flying round trip from Vancouver to France is 7.74 tonnes. That’s the equivalent of driving an SUV from Vancouver to Yoho National Park in the Rockies (and back) 10 times. One solution: once travel restrictions are lifted, consider travel in Canada, and try to take fewer international flights, for longer vacation durations, rather than flying somewhere each year.

4. Night at the museum

Google Arts & Culture is a treasure chest of visual experiences that include visits to many of the world’s top museums, including the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. For maximum visual impact, find the tours via a browser on your smart TV or plug your TV into a laptop.

Did you know? A 2020 46-inch ENERGY STAR® Smart TV uses about a fifth of the electricity of a 2010 42-inch plasma TV.

5. Attend a virtual concert

You can catch the energy of a live concert by searching YouTube for live concert footage – sometimes for a whole concert – on YouTube. Or for generally better sound quality, opt for in-studio segments or fantastic NPR Tinydesk performances that have featured the likes of Dua Lipa, Michael Kiwanuka, Ty Dolla $ign, Billie Eilish, and John Legend. If you’re more into the alternative scene, Seattle’s kexp.org has a great archive of in-studio sessions.

Did you know? Musicians have lost revenue from doing live shows, and in many cases, it’s their biggest revenue stream. If you want to support a musician, consider buying band merchandise or music from their official site and/or purchasing their music from the likes of bandcamp.com.

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Humans are hard wired to crave social, meaningful relationships with others and to find love. This “loveconnection” is top of mind more so than ever. Relationships give us strength and help us stay positive.

Here is our commitment to you to help you through these changing times.

• We are available to offer you help, guidance and assistance with your love life.
• We’ll talk, Facetime, zoom, email and text and be a sounding boarding, love coach, matchmaker for you as needed.
• We continue to work with our clients and database community at facilitating meaningful connections in a safe and responsible manner in accordance with health guidelines.
• We will be flexible as to timing and everyone’s comfort level with dating. We will adapt and customize our packages accordingly.

What does this mean for dating and meeting people?

We are encouraging phone calls to get to know someone and build rapport after someone has been pre-qualified for you. We will offer you tips on how to give “good phone.”

• http://36questionsinlove.com/  is a great guideline on getting to know someone.
• For others that are comfortable with technology we recommend facetime or video calls. We will offer tips on how to present your best foot forward.
• If both parties are willing participants, for now we are coordinating safe “social distancing” dates outside with walks.

Know that you’re not alone, that others are going through this alongside you. Regardless of how you’re affected, we are here to help, listen and adapt with you. 

#InThisTogether #Strength #Love #HumanConnection #Support

Below are some additional coping mechanisms that may also help:

• Avoid watching, reading or listening to news that causes you to feel anxious. Check for updates at specific times during the days opposed to all day long. Make sure that your information sources are credible.
• Have a support group that you check in with regularly that you can share how you’re feeling with no judgement. This can be one person or a group of friends or family members.
• Maintain familiar and healthy routines as much as possible. Exercise regularly (outside by yourself or online), keep regular sleep routines and eat healthy food.
• Practice daily gratitude. Write down or say out loud at least one thing you are grateful for everyday.
• Consider meditation to relax. Two good apps that come to mind are: CALM and WAKING UP.
• Make it a goal to learn something new that you’ve been putting off  that you’re interested in. Some ideas are learning a new language, becoming a better cook, artist, etc. Sign up for a class that can improve your personal or business growth.
• Subscribe to a site or newsletter that delivers a daily dose of positivity.

Sending strength and love.

Susan Semeniw

President, Divine Intervention Matchmaking

Click “Get Started Now” on this website to arrange a convenient talk time to see how we can best help you.

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Barry Schwartz, a U.S. psychologist, powerfully sums up the challenges faced when choosing a romantic partner in today’s world. Schwartz’s 2004 novel outlines that people often assume, more choices gives you more opportunity. This idea is flawed — especially in the world of dating. Schwartz suggests we should opt for being Satisficers making “good enough” choices which will lead to happier lives, as opposed to being Maximizers who need to exhaust all choices before making a decision. Maximizers are usually left feeling doubtful about their choice even after having made one.

Paralysis: One Of the Core Concepts of the Paradox Choice

As matchmakers at Divine Intervention, our job is to reverse the paralysis current and prospective clients experience during the matchmaking and dating process.

The selection of CHOICE can often lead a person into feeling indecisive and paralyzed. A person may feel overwhelmed on whether to go exclusive with someone, or continue exploring their options. Dating online has opened the doors for thousands of people within close proximity to be matched. This huge selection of choice however makes it difficult for people to STOP dating around,  in fear they might miss out on meeting the right person.

Classic example of The Paradox of Choice is when our team does date feedback follow up to see how our client enjoyed the date we set them up on:

“I really loved meeting John, he is just about everything I am looking for; however, I would still like to continue to meet your next match for me.”

This demonstrates symptoms of a Maximizer –

Although satisfied, she does not want to make a firm decision to stop meeting other people. She is solely hanging on to the idea that there are other bachelor(s) out there to be met, and will move onto the next in hopes that next match may be just be “The Perfect Match”

Perfection doesn’t exist however –  Maximizers believe that if there are so many choices out there, then they need not to settle for anything but perfection. This process is exhausting and disappointment is likely to arise.

3 ways Divine Intervention is trying to reverse the Paradox of Choice for our clients:

• Providing a select amount of introductions of higher quality to our clients;
• Providing varied lengths of membership, for time to get to know their matches without the burnout and without feeling the need to dismiss and move onto the next match quickly;
• Guiding clients out of the Maximizer mentality by educating them on their patterns and deciding collectively to make a shift in thinking towards “less is more” when it comes to dating and that it’s not always just a “numbers game”

 
Tired, confused and feeling like you’re just a number? Email info@divinematchmaking.com and find out how we help you do dating differently.
 
Want to know more on The Paradox of Choice? Check out Barry Schwartz’s Ted Talk here

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I would be lying if I said I met a single person who’s never used a dating site or app. It’s 2018 and technology is completely running our lives – and that includes our dating.

Here are 10 single-people problems and how matchmaking substantially helps you land the person you deserve.

1. You don’t have to worry about coordinating your dates

Between texting back and forth to a dating app match, and then actually coordinating a date (between the dates he or she is already going on), matchmakers are scheduling masterminds. No more tracking people down, getting their availability and then rescheduling only to actually flake on the date. With matchmaking, the team simply gets a few available slots to meet and send you an email confirmation. And we don’t like flakes nor do we tolerate them in this business. Any rescheduling is done through us to alleviate any of the stress that comes with that.

2. Matchmakers confirm your match actually looks like their photo

One of the biggest issues with online dating and dating apps is that people are uploading photos from 10 years or 10 pounds ago. Awesome, right? Nope. These aren’t the ideal terms when meeting someone. As professional matchmakers, we request to take our own photo of our clients and send those, as opposed to any of the edited photos a match or client has. It’s more casual, relaxed and gives a person a much better idea of what you truly look like. 

3. We follow up after the date and get honest feedback

Dating apps are notorious for ghosting, an incredibly demeaning term for those who aren’t courageous enough to tell their date that the chemistry wasn’t there. Instead, they decide not to say anything at all, and keep their date wondering if there will be a second date. Our clients are (surprisingly) honest with us during the feedback process because that’s what it takes to find the right person for them. More than that, being honest is part of how we evaluate integrity in a person. This isn’t always the most comfortable part especially of dating especially when we have been conditioned as a society to avoid saying how we really feel.

Related: People Lie about These Things on Dates, So Pay Attention

4. We always have your best interest in mind

Dating is extremely tough these days and matchmakers get it – they are on the journey with you. Exchanging profiles only to hear someone isn’t sharing the mutual interest and don’t feel it’s worth it to go on a date with someone we claim is kind, cool and worth a date, well – it’s their loss.  Yep, you heard that right. If someone doesn’t want to meet our client, it’s them who isn’t ready for love. At Divine Intervention, we have our clients’ backs. 

5. We do all the networking for you so you can focus on what matters

It’s commonplace to just join an app and network that way. And that’s perfectly okay. As a matchmaking company, we pride ourselves in attending a lot of events around the city to meet new people and build our network and nurture relationships. We get that many of our clients are working extensive hours to build their lives and that’s something we support. Leave the networking and meeting of new people up to us

6. Small dating tips and huge impact – that’s how we coach

Most of our clients have great date etiquette, and we support their continuous growth. It’s true that sometimes people don’t always know how to behave on dates. We use what we learn in the date feedback process to help people have better first dates. This is all discovered in the consultation with us as we dive deep into what you’re looking for in a partner and what hasn’t gone right in the past. 

Related: 8 Ways to Create Your Own Luck in Love

7. We pre-screen for looks and values – things you can’t on the apps

Assuming their photos is current and looks like them, it’s hard to gauge if your values and beliefs are the same. These are things matchmakers are screening for because meeting people isn’t the hard part – it’s finding someone who shares your same interests.

8. Analysis Paralysis is stopping us from settling down

There are millions of users online, and with a complete catalogue of singles in your area, it’s no surprise people are moving from one person to the next. With matchmaking, this is a process designed for people who have intentionally decided to settle down. We have designed a process that helps deal with the “department store shopping” mentality, as we say at Divine.

9. Feeling safe and comfortable isn’t as easy to predict before a date

We have met some amazing people throughout this experience, and we want to make sure our clients are comfortable on their dates with people we set them up with. That said, if someone makes us uncomfortable during our meeting, and we meet everyone in person before we set them up, we will not be engaging with them any longer. We use our intuition so you don’t have find yourself on a date that might poorly colour your dating experience.

10. Dating on your own perpetuates your bad dating patterns

It can be really difficult to admit you have a particular dating pattern – and even if your friends all know it, you still don’t know how to stop it. At Divine Intervention, we support you in breaking bad dating cycles so you can get on track with what you actually want in a partner. Having an accountability team for your dating is one of the biggest assets our clients say in the matchmaking experience.

Dating is hard and customized matchmaking is a great way to circumvent the stress many of us feel in today’s day and age. If you are feeling like the apps just aren’t working for you, please book us for a phone call at (604)-488-0866 or email us at info@divinematchmaking.com and let’s find out how we can help.

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