You come home from a first date. You deflate into your couch in a wine-induced haze and begin to process the fact that you have just BURNED through your most valuable commodity – precious, irreversable time – two hours of it, to be exact. You proclaim to your dog / group chat / pillow: “CAN SOMEBODY JUST MANAGE MY LOVE LIFE FOR ME?!”
News flash – somebody can. This somebody happens to be Emily Holmes Hahn of LastFirst Matchmaking, one of the early pioneers of the matchmaking movement and the only person I ever trusted to briefly govern my love life (read all about it here!)
Since I last spoke to Emily two years ago, the world has become a different place – a cultural mishmosh of female empowerment and chauvinistic rebuttal, of communal dating fatigue and a simultaneous quest for genuine human connection. Curiously, matchmaking happens to be on an exponential rise, with more (affluent, time-constrained) individuals choosing to delegate their love lives to the pros. I pinned Emily down to discuss what it’s like to be a love guru in the time of the swiping epidemic, “dating greed” and #MeToo.
Since we last spoke, swiping apps have become even more prevalent – and yet, the matchmaking industry is booming! What’s the correlation?
Ironically, the growing frustration with dating apps is very helpful to our business. It’s so cheap and easy to just “get a date” nowadays – all you need is a working thumb and a phone —and so great dates have become scarce. Dating on apps is de-energizing because by this point everyone has been on more than a few dates where the person looked nothing like their profile photos, or misrepresented their age/background/weight/career/etc. As a result, we’re often going into first dates with an inherent negativity and jadedness. And how can we expect to really connect if that’s the energy we’re going in with? It’s an unhealthy cycle.
This is where LastFirst steps in. There’s clear value in using a matchmaker to date in a more targeted way. We put a lot of thought into hand-selecting matches based on each client’s preferences as well as our own professionally-developed instincts! With this level of attention, you can be pretty sure that your Thursday night will be spent with someone you’ll connect with, on many levels. So with that, LF dates become “an occasion.” They are evenings you dress well for and show up on time for, and everyone comes in with open and positive energy. And that’s already half the game!
Speaking of getting ready, you used to have some awesome Dating Rules that you have since nixed. Why?!
Yes! We now have no rules whatsoever here, thanks to what you wrote about them in the last DBag Dating piece! We also realized that if we put too many extra formalities onto our introductions, people start to overthink them. Also, to me there really isn’t one set of rules or tips that can apply to every client, so I now give them more personalized, informal advice based on what I know about them individually and what I think will resonate with them.
What is your favorite piece of advice to give clients?
If things are going well, don’t be afraid to show it! Most of our clients are very ‘over’ dates that play cool or hard-to-get. Showing enthusiasm with a big smile and open, flirtatious body language is a great way to cue to your date that you like him/her! It’s unfortunately rare now for people to show their emotions this way on a first date.
Has the #MeToo movement affected the dynamics of matchmaking in any way?
It has affected this business very much. Both men and women are going into dates with a different level of expectation as to what kind of behavior and vocabulary is acceptable, and this has made my whole Team feel safer about sending people out on blind dates. On a personal level, the movement has given me the strength to stand up to potential male customers who don’t take sales meetings with me seriously or (less frequently) to clients who have tried to bully or intimidate me if they didn’t like one of their dates. I’m lucky to mostly work with amazing men who are very respectful of the Team and myself , but the movement has also challenged us to raise the bar for the type of man we choose to represent here at LastFirst.
There is pushback that #MeToo is “taking the fun out of dating.” What’s your take on this?
I hear that, but I think we are doing ok! As a confidante to lots of men, I do sense some newfound confusion or doubt about making a move when a date is going well. I think this is actually a really healthy “self-check”, but I also advise to not overthink things too much, and to just read the girl’s body language and energy for clues as to what would be received well in the moment.
What do you think is the most common mistake that people make when dating?
I think the main problems stem from the aforementioned ‘swipe/meet/repeat’ mentality. In that way I guess apps have equally helped and hurt us. For example, we just sent a new client on a first date with a girl we thought would be perfect for him. He called the next day and we were right – he used every nice phrase in the book while describing his evening with her. He then concluded the call with: “For the next date, can we try someone just like her, but with blonde hair?” This is not a unique case. It happens all the time with both men and women. We call it ‘dating greed’ – the very common mindset that someone taller, blond-er, better educated, is just a thumb flick away. And then that wonderful romantic connection that you had with that “not-exactly-as-you-pictured” person gets diminished!
What makes for a good potential match? How much of your choices are informed by your instinct, do you ever set up people who are not a good match “on paper”?
Our work is one part science, three parts instinct! There really is no logic to what makes a good match. Of course we’ll respect a client’s basic preferences, but at the end of the day the best matches are based purely on our professional feminine intuitions! With that, we absolutely do set people up who may not look perfect ‘on-paper’…in fact, many of our marriages have started this way!
Do you ever feel that the business aspect of matchmaking somehow devalues the romantic factor? I mean, you use Salesforce to make love happen!
Yes and no. There’s no question that a first date arranged by any matchmaker is going to feel more deliberate and less serendipitous than a first date based on some chance meeting and immediate connection. But, with dating apps creating this haphazard frenzy of singles swiping around, hoping to meet The One through a computer algorithm, our approach is much more humanized. We do use the benefit of technology in our office as a mean of support– to facilitate a very personal search that we’re conducting.
You’ve mentioned that more women have been signing on as paying clients. I think that’s a very powerful manifestation – a desire to be proactive and take full control of your life. Do you ever feel that men are intimidated by these women?
Yes, and I’m so excited about this trend! When I first started LastFirst, most women were signed on to the ‘Guest Membership’, which is free for them with the exception of a small entry fee. But the reactive positioning of only being called when we have a client match for them isn’t enough for some.
Also, in today’s dating climate, for reasons I won’t get into, straight, educated, attractive and successful men have a real advantage over women with the same attributes. It’s a climate that promotes male abuse of power and casual hookups over real relationships. So it isn’t a surprise that we are receiving more and more female client applications, as women want to take this matter into their own hands and be in the driver’s seat of their matchmaking journeys.
I’m happy to say that we have no problem finding men who are intrigued–not intimidated– by a woman who is confident enough to retain us! Of course there are always a few non-modern thinkers we need to ‘screen’ out, but in general I really am pleased with the male responses when I pitch female clients. Currently ⅓ of our Clients are women, and I’m aiming to have a 50/50 split soon, as I feel we have an amazing platform to change the female dating-scape for the better!
Do you match same-sex couples? If not, do you plan on doing so?
I would love to! Unfortunately, we don’t have a big enough network yet, so I simply don’t feel comfortable charging for it. It’s definitely something I would like to do in the future – in the meantime, I am happy to match people up with my gay friends!
Last question for our readers! What do you look for when recruiting for your network and how does one apply?
We have developed a set of 75 questions that we ask all people, day in and day out, with up to 5 interviews per day. It gets pretty tedious…kind of like first dates! So with that, we end up “accepting” the people who really light up the room with a unique energy, new perspectives, interesting experiences and enthusiasm about our service. I love meetings where we veer completely off-script and end up having amazing conversations about travel or theatre or fashion, or anything at all! I love learning from the people I interview. Fascinating human interactions are really what keep me at this job!
Our application process is simple: write a few lines about yourself and send some non-professional photos via this form, and if we sense a fit we will reach out to schedule an interview. Typically we charge for these meetings but we will waive our consulting fee for all DBag Dating readers! If we have a client who is a match for you, we’ll introduce you right away, and of course we’re happy to talk you through our paying-Client programs as well!
Um, if that’s not a sweet deal, I don’t know what is. Thanks Emily!
