It's Just Lunch

You want someone special in your life but, you don't want to use online dating and your circle of friends have limited social networks, what do you do? You could try a Professional Matchmaker. They bring singles together by offering a personal touch with face to face interactions. A professional matchmaker is ideal for you if you have a very busy schedule and you don't want to spend inordinate amounts of time searching and viewing online dating profiles of potential partners. The 3 most popular matchmaking services available in most major cities in the United States are The Right One, It's Just Lunch and Great Expectations. Both The Right One and It's Just Lunch state that:

... the majority of their clients are in their 30s, 40s and 50s, and come from all walks of life. And while there are fluctuations in the number of males to females who use the service, both sexes, for the most part, are evenly represented.

Members of these services tend to be the busy professional who wants to have a partner in their life but don't have the time to find one. For this premium type of service don't expect to pay online dating site prices. Prices start at around $1000 for a year of service with a professional matchmaker (this depends on the level of service you want), about 3 times as much as the average major dating site for the same time period. For this price all you need to do is give details on yourself, your personality and what type of person you are looking for. From here, most of these services will take this information and your schedule for the month, figure out who suits you best and setup some dates for you.

The Right One matching service is the oldest and has been around for 34 years (1975) and promotes the fact that nationally, they are responsible for, on average, 1 match every 17 minutes and 1 marriage per day. They also belong to an independent organization called the Matchmaking Institute which we discovered recently (see Story). The Matchmaking Institute was established in 2003 to set strict quality standards and a code of ethics in the matchmaking industry.

It's Just Lunch International has been matching singles for the last 18 years (1991). They offer their service not only in the US, but in Australia, Canada, and parts of Europe and Asia from 100 different locations. It's Just Lunch has about 30,000 members in total. who on average go on 50,000 dates a month. About 70 percent of dates lead to a second date.

Great Expectations has about 30 years of experience in matching (1980?) and over 50 locations nationwide. According to their website they have 100,000 members across the US. Currently, we do not recommend this service, do to the Arizona Attorney General filing a lawsuit against them in 2008 (see Story).

Professional matchmakers usually always are in major cities and have a smaller pool of daters than the major dating sites. What professional matchmakers may lack in number of clients (when compared to online sites) they make up in servicing the customer. You also are paying for the human intuition of the ability to size people up to determine what type of person would make a good match for them.

For more information on matchmaking professionals, check out our Matchmaking Services category.

Matchmaking service It's Just Lunch released the results of a poll which looks at dating, the economy and the holidays. Over 7,500 people participated in the poll which had 9 questions. Among other things the poll asked singles at what point in the relationship is it appropriate to give a gift and how much should you spend on a gift. 42 percent of voters thought a gift is warranted this holiday season if you have been dating for at least a month and 43 percent of the voters thought this gift should be worth between $25 and $100.

For more information on this matchmaking service, read our It's Just Lunch Review.

Just got back from a mini vacation and I have loads of emails, articles and websites to check up on.

The first bit of news I want to relate is I have 2 new reviews in the works. Based on our 2008 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll and the number of votes SinglesNet.com has received, I have decided to do a review of the service. I initially look at doing a review of the site a few years ago and didn't like what Singles Net was up to or the style of online advertising they were using. Their ads tended to be much more sexually suggestive than it needed to be, especially when this theme doesn't appear to be the focus of the dating site itself. Maybe some things have changed with SinglesNet.com, I guess I will find out (I know their ads have not).

The other site we plan a review on is It's Just Lunch. This dating service is different than your average dating site. The service has been designed with the busy professional in mind. At It's Just Lunch, they find you a match, coordinate your schedules and setup a lunch date for you at a convenient location. We will get into more details when the review is released.