Online Dating Doesn’t Do The Job For Everyone, Some People Using Matchmakers

By YourTango Admin posted Oct 1st 2007 7:44PM

From The New York Times
By Marcelle S. Fischler

FOR more than three years, Jennifer Silver, 33, a freelance marketing consultant in Manhattan, trolled online dating sites looking for love. She tried Match.com and JDate.

“I had the worst experiences,” Ms. Silver said. When one potential date didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to his photo, she walked right past him, thinking he had stood her up. “People were very dishonest,” Ms. Silver said. She hired a traditional matchmaker instead.

One might think that in an age of unparalleled access to potential dates through the Internet, matchmakers would be scraping for business. Instead, their business is on an upswing, according to John LaRosa, the author of a report by the Marketdata Enterprises, a research firm. Matchmakers now number more than 1,600 in the United States, up from 1,300 in 2004. He also notes that “matchmaking overall has lost its social stigma for many people.”

Tango’s Take
We had an article in the magazine recently about matchmaking (check it out here). We wonder if eHarmony’s algorithm could be ever be modified enough that it would be as good as a live person? The personal interview (phoner, whatever) is probably much better than the computer at keeping the answers honest. Maybe they could incorporate some sort of lie detector. Long story short, if you’ve got the money and time, this is a good alternative to the online dating scene and the blind date scene and the bar scene. But still probably not as good as arranged marriages.