Matchmaking During the Pandemic
Since the first set of lockdown rules started to ease, many of our enquiring clients have asked “What was it like as a matchmaker during the lockdown?” “ what happened?”” What did your clients do? and what does dating look like now?” So here are my answers.
During the strictest part of lockdown, you know the ‘stay at home’ times, clients went one of two ways: Some got their heads down, made banana bread, watched Tiger King and tried to forget about the world outside. When I look at my clients who did this, they were mainly the people who were locked down with other people; maybe they had children to focus on or they moved back to their family home. Others looked to the future and sought new connections regardless. They embraced the new way of socialising and had Zoom dates - often with an inventive twist to differentiate from the work meetings.
The Little Black Book service allows for either option, we either put people on hold until they were ready to be matched again or we continued to match people virtually - we left if entirely up to the client.
It wasn't too long before one-to-one meetings were allowed in person and those people who had got along on their virtual dates, ventured out for a walk in the park or a picnic. Thank goodness for that glorious weather! It was a far cry from the dates we would have expected months earlier but a welcome relief from being at home .
So where are we now? Now that pubs, restaurants and cafes are open again (at time of writing) dating is almost completely back to normal. For prolific and successful app users, I’m not sure how tempting it is to be dating new people several times a week but certainly for the considered way we matchmakers do it - dating is back ON!
We’re far from out of the woods, so I don’t want to call the present time ‘post lockdown’ or certainly ‘post pandemic’ but since lockdown restrictions began to ease, things have changed for the dating industry and certainly from a matchmaker’s point of view. First of all we’ve seen a surge in new enquiries. People are saying “lockdown has forced me to do something about getting into a relationship” or “I don’t want to be single during a lockdown again”. Priorities are changing and where as before many people were leaving it to chance to meet someone, opportunities aren’t going to present themselves quite as often now.
Pre-pandemic single people could certainly have a great time and have a busy social life; you could say ‘yes’ to every gathering, there were parties, festivals, concerts and holidays with the lads/girls - take all that away and it’s suddenly not quite so fun. It’s no wonder more people have started to think about their longer term situation. If you’re ready to be matched to someone looking for a long-term relationship, then now may be the time to try a matchmaking service. Meeting new people can put the fun back into your social life too - so don’t forget to book that early table!