Matchmakers, Matchmakers, Making a Mint
Dating Services Give Way to Coaches, Wingmen and Profile Writers

By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 24, 2008; A01

Really, you can't hurry love? Oh, and money can't buy it?

Don't tell that to the army of consultants working tirelessly to bring bliss to Washington's long-suffering lonely hearts.

For a fee, of course.

This is the fifth-best city for singles, according to a recent report by Forbes magazine. It's also a first-rate city for very-busy-and-important types who have high standards, healthy bank accounts, and limited patience for the wearying efforts that dating can entail. Little wonder then that so many romance entrepreneurs have rushed to the rescue.

Now available locally: a scribe to dash off a personal essay for your online profile ($150); a wingman to cruise the aisles of Macy's with you while you practice pickup lines on strangers ($50 an hour, two-hour minimum); a personal dating coach to refine your approach to finding that special someone (three-month one-on-one immersion program, $5,000).

Forget how Grandpa met Grandma. This is Romance 2008: outsourcing available. And even as the economy teeters, finding love is still, to many, worth the investment.

Here and across the nation, in myriad strange and sympathetic ways, a full-service dating industry has bloomed in recent years promising to assist lovelorn souls in that age-old quest for companionship.

The roots of the industry's rise? Frayed social ties in a time marked by hyperconnectivity and increased isolation.

People work more, know their neighbors less. They leave home towns full of family and friends in exchange for cities rife with interesting opportunities but few connections. They are tied to, and reliant on, technology -- which has indelibly altered the way humans interact. It was only a few years ago that online dating was considered a realm of the nebbish and needy. Today an estimated 120,000 marriages a year result from Internet matches, according to Online Dating Magazine.

"By your late 20s, many people are not willing to stand around in a bar all night . . . and they've met everybody they would've met through their office mates," says Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University anthropologist. "So they're turning to new ways to do this same old thing, which is: find love."

"We address a problem, which is the dating and relationship culture that exists today," explains Jae Ellis, co-founder of AskRomeo, a Reston-based coaching company that runs dating workshops that can lead to those Macy's flirting sessions.

And in a nation that relies on personal trainers and wardrobe consultants, outsourcing the search for love isn't all that surprising.

The population of U.S. singles 15 and older (the Census Bureau's age cutoff) grew to 119.9 million in 2007 from 100.9 million in 2000 and 86.8 million in 1990, according to census data. The U.S. online dating market totaled $649 million in revenue in 2006, according to Jupiter Research, and is expected to reach $932 million by 2011.

Economists say it's not that people are spending more on dating, they're just willing to spend it differently. "Before they were spending money in bars or time at some boring community events," says Emir Kamenica of the University of Chicago. Now, he says, at least some of that money goes to dating services.

Take Nathan Ainspan, an industrial psychologist who sought the services of Bethesda dating coach Amy Schoen four years ago. His stats at the time: professional, established, outgoing, ready to settle down and pushing 40. And he did e verything-- the singles events, the social groups, Jewish networks, online dating sites.

"Frustration," he says, motivated him to hire the dating coach. "I was doing all the right things . . . under my logic, I should have met somebody."

He worked with Schoen on and off for two years and, in the end, she helped convince him that the woman of his dreams was one he was already dating. Was she right?

Ainspan displays the wedding ring on his left hand as evidence.

Sam, an Arlington County resident who asked that his last name not be used, isn't looking to get married right away. But he sauntered through Tysons Corner Center with his dating coach on a recent Sunday, just to get some practice talking to women. The 33-year-old accessibility consultant is new to the area and not all that happy with his dating life.

So, for $4,000, he'll spend three months under the tutelage of several AskRomeo coaches, who, through consultations and what they call "fieldwork," will attempt to increase Sam's ability to attract women. The dating school covers the practical -- teaching older clients how to send text messages, and why that's a skill that matters in contemporary relationships -- and the very personal -- grooming, hygiene and that all-important sense of self-worth.

So, over the course of three hours at the mall, Sam and coach Matt Garcell struck up conversations with about 20 women. Sam's line: "I'm wondering if you have any great suggestions" for a gift for Mom. If Sam can approach women here, in a setting where they're not used to being approached, Garcell says, he'll have an easier time at bars, parties and other social settings.

Sam's haul for the day: six e-mail addresses and a phone number.

Vienna-based True Life Partners, meanwhile, offers a more full-service approach.

The company introduces high-paying customers only to candidates who've been "pre-qualified for a relationship." Read: a person who has undergone a credit check, background screening, personal interview, in-house photo shoot, and height and weight verification, and completed a 388-question survey on everything from exercise habits to culinary preferences to other, uh, appetites.

"I'm not a therapist. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a fairy godmother. I am, very simply, a personal recruitment coach," says Stephanie Rockey, a public relations and marketing executive who founded the company last year. And the price tag at her firm? Men pay $12,000 to $14,000, but ladies can date free.

Not everyone can afford the thousands of dollars most matchmakers charge, but bargain hunters might consider enlisting the services of Nancianne Sterling, an Arlingtonian who will polish your online dating profile for $59 or put together a new one for $150.

In no time, she changed "Looking4Smart1," a "a nice guy who works hard," to "IrishGent007," an intellectual explorer -- "Think Indiana Jones, but without the fighting!"

So far, at least, it's not possible to pay a hired gun to go on first dates for you. But the area is full of firms that will help you get ready. Take it from Steve Zaloga, who founded one such company.

"My hypothesis is that there are many great men and women in the D.C. area who can't market themselves," Zaloga says. "You have about seven seconds to make a good impression, then you're done."