Secrets of a Fix-Up Fanatic How to Meet & Marry Your Match

Chapter One The Argument for Postmodern Matchmaking There are many different methods for making love connections and I offer no value judgmentsexcept to say that being fixed up by someone you know is the best way to meet your mate. Having a comrade, coworker, or cousin you love set you up for free is the oldest, cheapest, fastest, safest, and nicest route to landing a different kind of love. You get to bypass the usual complex weeding-out process and sidestep the awkward ways that singles usually intersect. These are often so uncomfortable and agonizing that there's a cottage industry of magazine articles, books, sitcoms, movies, and reality shows chronicling the annals of disastrous dates. By choosing and using a matchmaker you know, you can: Avoid bars, concerts, raves, clubs, and other meat marketsthe most obvious places to connect with drunks and creeps who could be trying to seduce, drug, manipulate, rob, molest, date-rape, or take advantage of you. Never again have to approach a stranger of the opposite sex whom you've never met with a pickup line (like "Come here often?") or silly ploy (like "Can you tell me what time it is?"). Instead, the person you meet for coffee has already agreed in advance to give you a shot. Your date knows all about you; you know all about your date. You have an intrusive matchmaker in common to comfortably gossip about, which will break the ice. Steer clear of the Internet, which can sometimes offer the quickest, most impatient path to unwittingly picking up pedophiles, ex-cons, losers, and liars from different states and countries who post ten-year-old pictures of themselves with all kinds of other deceptive misinformation. Remember how liberating it feels to detach from your laptop, cell phone, video games, TiVo, and all your other high-tech gadgets, take a shower, and get dressed up to socialize with warm people you already like and whomever they choose for your ready-made date. Save yourself the agony of placing personal ads, the easiest approach to becoming a confused and insecure liar yourself. Has anyone in history ever offered a resume or recent photograph that honestly reflects true appearance, age, height, weight, profession, salary, original hair color, or reason for past breakups? Give up trying to brand, market, sell, package, and repackage yourselfas if you were a product like cream cheese, or a movie that could be summed up in cute sound bites (rather than a whole, complicated, interesting, real person worthy of an entire conversation). Stop wasting your time and throwing away your hard-earned cash on expensive matchmaking services, the clearest gateway to lose your savings to businessmen and women (who are usually miserably single) to do the superficial sorting for you. I only recommend amateur setter-uppers like me, where no money changes hands. Skip attending all generic singles events you have to pay for that are given by fly-by-night organizations you've never heard of before. Thus you can cease the painful practice that erodes the confidence, spunk, and great energy you'll need to connect with nice, normal, fun suitors in your own social realm. Many people still harbor old-fashioned and negative notions of matchmaking. But nobody is suggesting that you allow family members to force you down the aisle with somebody of your faith, ethnic background, or social strata, for purposes of parent pleasing, political diplomacy, or procreation. I'm a huge advocate of staying single for as long as that makes you happy, and dating around until you feel good and ready to settle down. I'm also a champion of feminism, gay rights, and every kind of mixed marriage there isas long as your mate mixes in love and kindness. BShapiro, Susan is the author of 'Secrets of a Fix-Up Fanatic How to Meet & Marry Your Match', published 2006 under ISBN 9780385340595 and ISBN 0385340591.