Great question! So this really does depend. I tend to pair both coaching and matchmaking for my clients.

1. First, I give lessons on how they can improve the way they connect with others and communicate on a date. I want them to be successful! This can take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months. If needed, I also refer them to a therapist. Sometimes folks have some very real challenges they need to work through for a bit that I’m not trained to help them with.

2. Once I feel they’re ready for a direct match, then I might pair them with another client. Both clients have to opt into this. I provide them both with a general summary of the other person so they’re not going in blind. If they’re interested, I then provide them with each other’s contact info and create a group text to introduce them. They take it from there, but I’m available to help field any questions. What one client shares with me about any dates is kept confidential and not shared with the other client.

This process varies some depending on circumstances and the client. I also know some other matchmakers in my city and we occasionally match our clients together if one of us doesn’t have a great match at that time.

Absolutely! Hoped it helped.

How do I signal disinterest to guys who I think are attracted to me? How do I turn down men? Both with an eye toward safety. I feel like I’m groping in the dark.

Alright, this is a tough one. For rejecting guys you really have to be direct and kinda blunt about it. This doesn’t mean that you have to be cruel for no reason, but men have been taught by our society that if someone rejects them and levels even a little ambiguity that means that they need to peruse you harder. It’s fucked, misogynistic, and men need to do better, but it’s what we’re working with right now.

The only way to short circuit that is to be direct about your feelings. Having that ambiguity to try and make them more comfortable can often end up making you more uncomfortable because they don’t respect the boundary you’ve laid down. Even if you’re being direct the uncomfortable fact is that some men will continue to hit on you and make advances. For those men, I unironically recommend mace.

I put “polyam” on tinder. And people in the kink scene know our deal. But how do I go about doing that in real life, to potential hook ups?

For how polyam stuff relates to hookups, I personal find that being direct about it from the earliest appropriate point is best. That’s not saying you need to say “I have people I’m dating” as an opener, but that should be something you address early on.

Some people are not a fan of it for a variety of reasons, but in my experience if you make it clear you’re not cheating on your partners and that this is a dynamic everyone on your end is comfortable with, most people won’t care. If you’re looking to find people to have group dates / sex with things definitely get a bit clunkier, but again that open communication is the best way to play it.

Outright saying “hi my partners would all like to fuck you with me here’s what we’re looking for” will probably intimidate people outside of kink communities, but if you approach it by establishing a connection and then mentioning that goal people are more comfortable.

What I usually do with anything “atypical” with romance and sex is stating needs/boundaries broadly up front. From there, you can answer questions that someone has to give them a more specific understanding.

Too much information all at once is uncomfortable. Allow someone time to process a dynamic they might not have been expecting at a pace they’re more comfortable. This isn’t to say that you can’t do this at a bar with someone you just met either, but it is the difference between a giant information dump and a 10-15 minute conversation over drinks.

say one is going down the dating app route, how should profiles, initial interactions be structured?

What I’m about to tell you is a cheat code that works really well for dating apps:

If you’re really stressing over your profile, create a fake account of the type of person you’re into. From there, you can then pay attention to the types of profiles you match with and what works.

That shows you:

1. the social norms for that app
2. how to construct your profile
3. who else is on there and how you can stand out (in a good way)

When you’re done, delete the account. Don’t lead people on or anything, you’re not there to catfish, just understand the vibes better so you don’t waste time.

You can also do this after seeing a couple profiles of people you’re into on your main account if you really want it to seem more legit.

Initial interactions kind of depend on the app. Low stakes / shitposty messages work well. If you’re interested in women, they do get a lot of weird spam, so anything normal and not pressuring will stand out.

The messaging is a numbers game, don’t be afraid to suck at it first. Even when you get good at it, you’ll be randomly ghosted. Once you’ve built up rapport, suggest a short coffee date and see what they say.

i don’t want to feel like a piece of meat attempting to sell myself?

I hear you on this, dating app profiles can feel weird at first. Unfortunately, you kind of do need to market yourself a little. I generally tell my clients to view it as putting their best foot forward.

Dating apps definitely surface the reality that capitalist society has commodified all of us. My take is that it is better to role with that dynamic in a non-sleazy way since that’s the game we’re all playing.

Would you recommend one dating app over the others for people looking for LTRs?

At this point, no one app is really far and away the best for LTRs. I’ve had clients who have had success with Coffee Meets Bagel, but being on there is not a guarantee that the person is looking for an LTR. A lot of folks start with casual hook ups and then build from there over time as they get a feel for the person. This is the path my partner and I took and I tend to recommend it.

The quality between apps can very much differ between cities, so I generally recommend starting off by downloading 3 or so of them that you like and then getting a feel for them in your city. Examples include Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, Bumble, Match, and CMB.

Have you seen Indian Matchmaking on Netflix what are your thoughts about their practices and methods?

I haven’t seen that show on Netflix, but will need to check it out this weekend. I have a lot of respect for cultures that have a more formal tradition of matchmaking. Not particularly well read on those cultures, but I always appreciate when I see intention and structure built around the ways humans help one another.

What are your thoughts on the depictions of matchmakers in media?

I think in general depictions of matchmakers tend to be a reflection of the misogyny and classism in our culture, so not great. There are some relationship advice columnists I do recommend such as Dan Savage. He’s politically a liberal, so doesn’t always have great takes there, but is very sex positive and straight to the point.

Frank, get the fuck out of here. I already told you I wasn’t interested in working with you as a client.

How’s the pay?

It took a while to build up, but the pay is now great. I charge on a sliding scale, so the clients I have who have a higher income pay more. At this point have built things up to where I’m making ~80k / year before taxes, health insurance, etc. I live in an area with a fairly high cost of living. I’m self-employed so own the full value of my labor and I do not employee anyone.

Do you think there’d be room in the space for an open source worker-owned online dating platform where the matchmaking is done by humans?

Interesting! I love worker-owned tech. Haven’t looked into the numbers of what that would be like, but the biggest thing with dating apps is just making sure you have a ton of people on them. They really depend on marketing / the network effect.

FetLife.

:wut:

Well the good news here is that this very much sounds like it has more to do with things they’re going through right now than with you. This might just be a temporary thing where they’re focusing on self-improvement for a while.

Part of romance is learning when you might have had a window with a person and becoming more confident about trying things out when they show up in the future.

Everyone has at least a couple of those “what could have been” people in their life. That’s a good sign; it means people were interested in you!

Feeling afraid of taking a risk like that is completely healthy and normal. A big part of dating is about learning to go for it even though you’re a little scared. You get to that point with practice, but that practice is worth it!