Lisa Ronis is sitting in a coffee shop with her French hound, Stella, leaving a sparkling message: "I’ve found the man for you. His name is John. He’s hilarious, sexy, and I’ve given him your number. Let’s chat!"

For most people this would be a social call, but Ronis is hard at work. She is a professional matchmaker, a member of a booming industry that exists nationwide. There are over 1,000 private matchmakers in the United States today, according to Marketdata Enterprises, a research group in Florida.

And there's even a school to train them: … Read More

Our eyes met across the room. Right away, I felt it. That click. That connection. That instant recognition of spirit and humor and taste. In the cab ride home, I wondered how long I should wait before I called.

It may sound like a typical Friday night: chance meeting, instant infatuation, uncertain aftermath. But this encounter was different than most. This time, the object of my affection preferred brunch to baseball, manicures to motorcycles, and gossip to, well, anything else. Call it … a girl crush.

Lately, it seems like everyone has one. Hardly a tabloid goes by without announcing Lindsay Lohan's … Read More

Somewhere back there, I was left behind. It happened at my book club. When the group started, we were seven women who craved cheap wine more than Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake.

The text was just an excuse to air our grievances: My mom and I are fighting; my boss hates me and I hate her; the new dog is too big for the old apartment; I ran into my ex; you'll never believe what happened last night.

We drained our glasses and edited each other's problems. Everything seemed more manageable with corrections. When it came time for Allison* to vent, the … Read More

Who was your celebrity crush when you were growing up? Hmmm. Well, '’d have to say Kelly Bundy from Married with Children. I was 13, it was the most popular show on TV, and she was hot. But it was just based on looks—I'm not into the whole airhead thing.

You know Christina Applegate is back on the market, and so are you. Are you going to look her up? (Laughter.) I've never met her! This was just a distant crush. And I think she's older than me. Isn't she?

Well, yes—she's 35 and you're 27. But age is … Read More

BACK IN THE DAY, when "googol" was just a number too large to comprehend, every first date was a clean slate. The mystery unfolded slowly: Where are you from? Where'd you go to college? When should we register at Pottery Barn? These days, Google cuts in on the getting-to-know-you dance. Show me a person who has never indulged in a little online detective work and I'll show you an octogenarian resident of Pennsylvania Dutch Country. As long as there's Internet access, romance will be researched. But just because you can google—and it's nearly impossible to resist doing it—does that mean … Read More

Two men walk into a bar. One man swaggers. He has a strong jaw, an unsettling gaze, and an urge to order whiskey straight up. The other man … um, who cares?

Despite what they claim, not many guys would actually kill for a woman. Steven Rinella will. He’s a hunter, a fisherman, a Montana-bred man of the wild. He cooks. He writes. He makes hearts beat a little faster. And for his debut book, The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine, he sets out to recreate 45 dishes from Auguste Escoffier's 1903 classic, Le Guide Culinare—with a twist. Traveling from Alaska to Florida, the 31-year old Rinella captured all his own ingredients (stingrays, pigeons, snapping turtles), while somehow managing to hold on to a vegetarian girlfriend. Why do you think people equate … Read More

YourTango: Did you ever question that you were qualified to write a flirting guide?