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Dating agencies |
| Too
busy to organise your social life? Enlist the help of the experts. Raul
Peschiera explains how |
| FEBRUARY:
THE MONTH when rose plants treble and Valentine’s day offers
many single people little more than another chance to dine out
with a friend's ubiquitously available second cousin.
With hardly enough time for work, finding time to cultivate a social
life is providing increasingly tough. Last month, a DTI survey found
that nearly four in ten employees aged between 35 and 55 feel they
spend too much time at work and across, the age spectrum, 87 per
cent want to spend more time away from work.
This would explain the proliferation of new-style dating agencies
and social events organisers. The doyenne of dating agencies, Mary
Balfour, says: ‘People are much more fussy. All they’re
lacking are opportunities, to find enough people that they can sift
through to find the right one.’
Balfour runs three agencies. One, Only Lunch, organises one-to-one
meetings between members, whether it's early dinners or weekend lunches; another, Drawing Down the Moon, introduces, people; while
the third, Loveandfriends.com lets people create their one matches
online.
‘We’re niche, niche and niche all the way down the line,’
say Balfour, adding that all members are ‘better educated
and in more responsible jobs - and that applies for the women
as well as the men.’
For Drawing Dawn the Moon and Only lunch, all member are interviewed
and every match made
hand-picked by Balfour's team. But this service comes at a price—
the basic yearly membership tops £800. Yet the dedicated personal
services and the neat guarantee that anyone who can afford to pay
membership is doing well for themselves has won
Time flies: busy work lives means social events organisers
who can match like minded people are increasingly popular
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hundreds
of clients. Balfour also offers sound dating advice: "I'm
a great believer in short first dates," she says. One
needs to let things develop gradually and keep some small
talk for the second date as well."
Speed Dater has taken
this advice to heart. It organises evening where up to 30
people meet each other in three-minutes intervals . Ben Tisdall,
Speed Dater's co-founder, claims
interest has been so great that since it started in September
2002, the company has already achieved a turnover of over
£1m.
‘On a blind date, you walk into a restaurant and within three
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you've made your mind up that you don't fancy them
and you have to sit through the next two hours making small talk." says Tidall. "With SpeedDater you get 20 or 30 chances to work
out if there's any chemistry"
Rather than vet each applicant SpeedDater relies on the diversity
of its events - such as sport and fitness, Asian Jewish, gay
or non-smoking - to ensure a degree of selectivity. The crowd
are mostly in their 20s and early 30s, a problem Tisdall has
tried to remedy by launching Elite SpeedDater in January 2004,
aimed at older singles >>>> |
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SECRETS
OF SUCCESSFUL DATING
Mary Balfour
discuss how to organise your search ,meet more and
more suitable people , what works and what doesn't. 6.30 pm
for 7.00 pm Wednesday February 11 2004 .Simpson Room, Waterstone's
Book Shop,203 206 Piccadilly, London . |
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