Editor’s Note: Ripe for a memoir. This is a good way to describe the life of Emily Holmes Hahn, resident contributor and founder of LastFirst Matchmaking. After a wine-fueled evening of gasping and gaping at Emily’s latest anecdotes, I cajoled her into recording a mundane Monday of her life (which constitutes of more activities than I take on in a week). Please note that the non-PG parts were left out due to matchmaker-client privileges – personally, I’m waiting for that juicy NYC tell-all! 

5:30 a.m. Wake up to the soft glow of the city outside my window. My inner peace is quickly broken by my puppy Wilfie, demanding to be released from his crate (typical male).

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Remember that scene in What Women Want when Mel Gibson is granted the ability to tap into women’s inherent desires? Well, that’s how Emily Holmes Hahn of LastFirst Matchmaking feels on a regular basis. The sounding board to the romantic preferences of New York’s single set, she generously volunteered to let us in on the perennial mystery: what is it that we are all looking for?!

What Women Want

1. Confidence. All the women we meet at LastFirst are seeking a confident man. There are many formal theories on this, but I ultimately think that women want partners who inspire them to embody the best version of themselves. Insecure men tend to either become pushovers or project their insecurities onto their significant others.

Marina: Just beware of the false bravados that tend to crumble at the first sign of a problem! 

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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.
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“I can only marry someone Jewish. Would you be open to converting?” asked the cute almost-stranger over a bottle of wine in the West Village.

It was our fourth date in the course of a week, a supersonic speed that he attributed to our electrifying connection and once-in-a-lifetime compatibility. A couple of hours prior, we had taken a romantic stroll through Central Park, where he had casually whispered things like “When it’s right, it’s right” and “I haven’t felt like this with anybody in so long.” A couple of hours later. we were in his bedroom. A couple of days later, he was history, filed away in the Land of Ghosts Past.

“But he said all these things! Why would he ask me about CONVERTING?!” I lamented to my friends in the aftermath. While I wasn’t particularly upset about the guy in question (4 dates does not love make), I was desperate to understand his rationale. After all, I was a grown adult who didn’t require a precoital engagement ring; why had he deemed it necessary to lay it on so thick? I didn’t know what was more humiliating – that, or the fact that I had fallen for it. Read More

Lola Rykiel, photo by Beth Garrabrant

It was early 2014 and I had just started documenting my journey through the murky waters of the Parisian dating scene via Dbag Dating, when not one but two people sent me an article entitled “New York Guys vs. Paris Guys.” It was written by a Parisienne named Lola Rykiel, who happened to be going through the flip side of my Parisian culture shock while living in New York City and channeling her experiences in her column on HarpersBazaar.com, Lola on Love. A few years later, Lola and I were introduced by a mutual friend, and since then she has become my go-to source for all things Parisienne, as recently documented on Vogue.com. The coolest thing about Lola (besides her keen knowledge of the best cocktail selection in downtown NYC) is her ability to delve deep into any subject matter and shed an alternate light on a topic in a way that only a truly insightful person can. In honor of today’s Bastille Day, we sat down to chat about trans-Atlantic dating discrepancies, the intricate art of self-love, and the ever-green enigma that is the Parisienne.

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I recently had the pleasure of attending a friend’s wedding and hearing the father of the bride make a fantastic speech about meeting the groom for the first time. He first recounted the story of meeting his own wife, the bride’s mother, and immediately being thrown off-kilter by her penchant for warm hugs, a concept that had previously been lost on him. A couple of decades – and five daughters – later, he had become a seasoned pro at the fine art of hugging, when one of the girls announced that she was bringing home a boy. Her dad decided to greet the new boyfriend by enveloping him into a big bear hug, almost terrifying the poor kid into fleeing back to New York. (FYI, her dad is about 6’3.) And yet, not only did said boyfriend stick around, but he also went on to marry the daughter, ensuring himself a lifetime of trademark family embraces!

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