Mary Balfour managing director, Drawing Down the Moon

Playing with matches

“In the past, marriage was for life, but people now are more independent and prepared to move from a relationship if it’s not perfect”.

Mary Balfour claims that successful people increasingly use specialists to help all aspects of their lives run smoothly.

“There are personal trainers to keep them fit, concierge services to find them a plumber, and introduction agencies to widen their social circle” she says. Which is why Drawing Down the Moon, a dating agency that caters for executives, is doing so well.

“People are more mobile, working abroad or travelling long distances and working long hours”. Balfour says. “As a third the population live on their own, there are few opportunities meet new people.”

Twenty-five years ago, Balfour, then head of a local adult education centre, was looking for a career change. “I wanted a job that I could do till I was 90. One day in Bloomsbury I saw a bookshop called Drawing Down the Moon, and above the door a flashing neon sign read ‘dating agency’. I always played matchmaker friends so it seemed like a good business idea.”

A year later Balfour bought the agency and moved it to Kensington — leaving behind the neon sign. Since 1985 the business has grown from 250 to 1,500 members – “the maximum size for a personal service”. Balfour did little to alter the established formula apart from changing one section of the questionnaire, which all clients must complete.

“The original questionnaire was quite bookish and we removed some of the more erudite questions. Nowadays one of the most defining questions is about food: a person’s response tells you a lot about them, including the focus of their home life and how cosmopolitan they are.”

The type of client has remained constant, mainly business and professional people. But while her clients may not vary in type, she’s found that their expectations have changed. “In the past, marriage was for life, but people are now more independent and prepared to move on from a relationship if it’s not perfect.”

Balfour is cagey about revealing her company’s turnover. She once quoted it in the FT. “Someone thought ‘This is a good way to make money’ and set up a copycat agency. It went bust.” The agency attracts 1,000 new clients a year, mainly through word of mouth paying from ?800 to ?7,000 for a range of services.

Last year Balfour bought Only Lunch, a package for executives who want everything about a lunch date arranged them, from the restaurant to the companion. And Balfour has recently launched www.loveandfriends.com as “internet dating for thinking people”. Avoiding the extravagant start-up costs of some dot-corns, the website was designed in-house at minimum cost. “It will never make megabucks, but it compliments our other services.”

The company’s 16 staff have one essential qualification: “Like me, they must all be passionate about happy endings.”

Sam Shaw 27, a French and philosophy graduate, worked in art galleries and at the Royal Academy before joining Drawing Down the Moon as an introduction agency consultant last year.

What’s a nice girl like you doing in a job like this?

Apart from joking with girlfriends, ‘Where are all the decent men?’ and wondering what to do about it, introduction agencies had never entered my life until I spotted a newspaper advertisement for the job.

It sounded great fun – I thought, I could do that.

Who are your lovelorn clients?

Many incredibly attractive and articulate people living in London and the South-East. Most are graduates and are well-travelled or have been living, say, in Paris or New York.

Attractive, articulate …and available. What’s their problem??

There just aren’t the opportunities for like-minded singles who are looking for a long-term relationship. Where do you go? Do you trawl bars? I can’t think of any friends who have developed a meaningful relationship with someone they’ve met in a bar or club. Just as people have personal trainers now, I think that in a couple of years it will be de rigueur to have your won personal introduction consultant.

Describe your day.

I get up at 8.30am and will be at the gym for 9.30am. By the time I rock up at work at midday, I’ve done a bit of shopping and had lunch. I go through the post, mainly photos and profiles which I assess to decide if they do the client justice and match people up. Ten women and one guy work here and he does the testosterone test – if we’re undecided about which photo of a woman is her best, he has the final say. I interview people between 4pm and 7pm and finish at 8pm. I meet friends for supper or go to a club. Clients hang out in the same places I do – I don’t say ‘Hi’ if they avoid eye contact.

Explain the deal.

After the first telephone call, you come in for a free, no obligation chat. We discuss you expectations and lifestyle. If I take you on, I show you details of those I think we can match you with. If you like the look of someone, you may send them your details speculatively or we can match you with those we think you might be interested in, as not everyone is a good picker. If they respond, you can arrange to meet; the rest is up to you. Sadly, we don’t take everybody.

Balfour in her French country-style kitchen; ‘It has put us in a new frame of mind and we have friends round a great deal’

Singles agency supremo Mary Balfour talks to Alice Hart-Davis

Mary Balfour runs the Drawing Down the Moon and loveandfriends.com introduction agencies. She lives with her husband Sebastian in an Edwardian house in west London.

I have lived in North Kensington since 1980, when I was the head of the local adult education centre.

I’m a very parochial, villagey person and I feel this is my manor. I was brought up a mile from here, so it’s a home from home. It’s very peaceful. You can still park outside your front door, yet you can be in the West End in 15 minutes. It’s near Wormwood Scrubs, where I go running, which is big and wild with wide horizons — you can even see the London Eye from there. It’s wonderfully multicultural and not all metropolitan. Ponies come along the street from the local riding school – really fat, round TheIwell ponies, and only this morning a flock of geese wandered by.

“Our house is Edwardian redbrick with the odd Art Nouveau flourish. The house originally had two storeys and though we’ve added a floor, you can still see the sky from every room, which is very important to me. The top floor, the attic, is my husband’s castle”.

I bought the house when I was single, and when we married, my husband felt a bit like a lodger, so he wanted his own part of he house at the top. He’s a professor at the LSE, and he has an office up there, with the walls lined with books, and his cello which he plays for pleasure.

“There are three bedrooms on the first floor, so there’s plenty of space for my two stepdaughters, who visit now and again. My home office is up there, too. On the ground floor, the living room is off the hallway. It is two rooms knocked into one, with two art nouveau fireplaces and has the original plaster ceiling”.

For the past 20 years it has been the same rich dark bluey green colour, which provides very nice backdrop to the pools of light that come from the lamps-we don’t like bright lights. We have wooden floors throughout the house, it’s very friendly and relaxing, very womb-like.

There are two big armchairs, a double sofa, a piano and huge television which is too complicated for us to work We’ve had lessons from the man who sold it to us and we still can’t do it, so we tend to watch the old one in the kitchen.

“Beyond the living room, what used to be the old French doors to the garden open onto the new kitchen, which is our pride and joy. We had a small extension before, and for planning reasons, the upper storey of that had to be retained, so building a bigger kitchen underneath it was quite a challenge”.

We had a brilliant local architect, Gennaro Picardi, who lives just down the road and he did an amazing job with sprayed silver RSJs, so it looks a like a 1920s aircraft. It is a very modern structure, but we chose a colour scheme that evokes the French country kitchen that my husband knew from his childhood (he’s half French, with lot of French country blue, and antique hexagonal terra-cotta tiles which we went to Normandy to buy. We used a very clever kitchen designer, Mats Lindroth, who gave it a wonderful look with clean lines, exactly as we wanted, with masses of cupboards for all the kitchen gadgets.

“We used to eat out a lot with friends, but the new kitchen has transformed the house. It has made the kitchen into a place where I really like to be, and put us in a new frame of mind where we have friends round a great deal. I love entertaining in small numbers. I love cooking; I feel that preparing and sharing food is a very important bonding process, whether you are a couple who are getting to know each other or whether you are entertaining others.”

I’m a very gregarious sort of person, though l don’t like parties – l prefer people one to one. Running a personal introductions agency suits me down to the ground. Drawing Down the Moon was the original agency, and was meant for thinking people, though that doesn’t mean serious or older people. It started in 1984 and I took it over in 1986. I wanted to take on a job which meant I never had to retire, and I thought ‘I can carry on doing this until I’m 102.’

I have three agencies now. One of the others is Only Lunch, which l acquired five or six years ago. It’s a very clever idea, where people meet up for lunch dates. We match you up with a person, you turn up at the restaurant, and if you like them, you can exchange numbers. It is much less of a commitment than dinner though people are so busy that actually very few of them can do lunch except on Sundays, so most of them do meet up for dinner.

“The third agency is loveandfriends.com, and on this one, people can flirt by e-mail for a month or more before meeting up. It’s interesting, because then they get to know each other from the inside out. It’s like fashioned love letters”.

“I’ve been working a lot from home this year – I’m writing a book about how to catch your man. And I didn’t meet my husband through an agency. He was a next door neighbour, and I met him up ladder, long before I took over dating agencies.”

Mary Balfour Director, Drawing Down The Moon

When did you become a manager?

Officially, in 1986 when I bought Drawing Down the Moon, the original dating agency.

What does management mean to you?

It’s about realising the mission of my business, which is to create as many happy endings as possible. Our purpose in life is to bring people together. To do that, I manage my team of 16 matchmakers.

I take on people who are right for the job, people who are curious, who are interested in what makes relationships tick (like me), optimists who have an infectious enthusiasm that can get two people on a date together. I also have to manage the ‘cornflakes’ – serial daters. I catch them at the initial interview.

I can’t help someone who isn’t willing to explore relationships.

A big problem for us is the myth of love at first sight: that if you’re not instantly captivated, it’s not worth it. That’s so wrong. Of course a certain chemistry needs to happen, but of friendship, of being fellow travellers. People get addicted to falling in love; it’s a physical high, but there is a big letdown if you can’t keep it up.

What do you love/hate about your job?

I love getting holiday photos of the couples we have got together. It makes me feel all gooey.

I hate not being able to see all my happy couples, through, after they leave the office. I’m always wondering what has happened to them.

August 2005, With thanks to Management Today, +Haymarket publishing

10amArrive at the office in Adam and Eve Mews and start sifting through applicants. Everybody is looking for the same thing – they think they look five years younger than they do and so think they can meet somebody in a younger age group who’s slightly more attractive than themselves. What I do is tell people to be realistic.Noon Interview with client. I want to know about their relationships and why they broke up. If they pass with flying colours, I introduce them to members.

2pm Send out phone numbers to clients. I advocate a domino effect: date as many people as you can, keep your boundaries clear for three or four dates and then decide if you want to take it further.

4pm Date debrief. A lot of people come across as too needy. On a first date they’ll find they really fancy someone, so they’ll talk until 2am. All the dangerous territory gets embarked upon: why they split with their ex, custody problems, the biological clock. And that’ll kill it Always keep them wanting more. Finish the date after an hour, have your own transport and leave it open-ended.

5pm One-to-one date coaching. We look at why they haven’t met somebody: are they writing off people too soon? Are they looking for a clone of a past love? Your eventual partner will defy many of, if not all, your preconceptions.

7pm ‘Date Smart’ seminar. I give a talk to 100 men and women. People are wary of exploring potentials who don’t fulfil all their criteria, so most of the time you’re just trying to get them to relax and enlarge their circle of single friends. Your eventual love may have been a friend for several months before you spot the chemistry.

11pm We answer the phone until 11 at night, seven days a week. We get lots of happy endings for people. I get invited to an awful lot of weddings.
Interview: Georgina Terry www.drawingdownthemoon.co.uk

Samantha Shaw, 33, matchmaker at Drawing Down the Moon, an introduction agency for professionals, is married to Neil, and has a baby boy

‘I spotted an ad for a matchmaker while working for a gallery seven years ago, I thought I’d be good at it. My job involves interviewing new applicants and matching them with suitable dates. It’s wonderful knowing I’ve found the perfect partner for someone. I love it when our couples marry or have a baby. Shared values are important. You need to agree on morals, politics and what you really want out of life, including children.’

Dating secrets

Lots of successful women are single because they prioritise their career above finding a relationship: I’ve always felt it should be the other way round. Also, long wish lists and closed minds make a woman hard to match. Many men tend not to go for high-maintenance types. Most prefer pretty, friendly-looking women. The best daters are positive and approach it with a spirit of healthy ambivalence. They tend to think “Why the hell not try this and never seem desperate.”

Knock ‘em dead tips

‘Fabulous underwear and gorgeous shoes for confidence’

‘If you feel overwhelmed, practice makes perfect’

With thanks to Eve magazine – where this article was published

With hardly enough time for work, finding time to cultivate a social life is becoming 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.”

“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 to the women as well as the men.”

For Drawing Down the Moon all member are interviewed and every match hand-picked by Balfour’s team. But this service comes at a price. Yet the dedicated personal services and the neat guarantee that anyone who can afford to pay membership is doing well for themselves has worked for 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.

First of all you should recruit an expert, such as a dating agency or a friend with contacts, much in the way that you’d go to an estate agent for a new home.

Then be prepared to be very business-like about the dating process – give yourself a makeover:

Try some telemarketing, calling everyone you know to tell them you want to meet someone new.

…and be prepared to meet up with men who are “roughly right” rather than perfect – in the same way you have to compromise on a new home.’

Date professional coach Mary Balfour

Rachel Lipman, thirties, graduate, attractive, good sense of humour, seeks interviews with owners of upmarket introduction agency. London/anywhere

MARY BALFOUR met her husband up a ladder. Or rather, she was at the top of the ladder and her next-door neighbour and husband-to-be was at the bottom. Despite the chance nature of that meeting and its subsequent romantic outcome, Ms Balfour believes that not everyone can rely on luck to find the right partner.

You may be a successful career person, perhaps in your thirties, with a degree or professional qualification – a typical Independent reader, in fact – but there is something missing in your life: someone to share it with. What do you do?

An increasing number of people in that situation are reluctant to put their faith in a chance meeting at work, in the pub, at a dinner party or in the supermarket. Whether you are looking for a playmate, soulmate or just a mate, placing an advertisement in Independent Hearts or joining an in Introduction agency may not guarantee a life of wedded bliss – but you are, at the very least, increasing the odds of meeting a potential partner.

Mary Balfour: ‘They are not loners or losers, but positive people who want to take control of their lives’

Which is where Ms Balfour, and people like her, come in. In 1986 she bought Drawing Down The Moon, “the thinking person’s introduction agency”, and has built up a thriving business with a turnover of more than ?200,000 a year. With a suitably fashionable address in Kensington High Street, West London, it’s one of a number of upmarket agencies catering for professional people.”

“There used to be more of a stigma about going to an agency,” she says. “Now, for those in the know, there is no stigma at all. They are not loners or losers, but positive people who want to take control of their lives and want to be in the driving seat about whom they meet.”

But why should so many members of the chattering classes find it difficult to find someone? After all, don’t people with fulfilling professional careers, who are interesting and intelligent meet lots of likeminded souls? The answer, according to Ms Balfour, lies in the changing pattern of modern life. Many people have spent years concentrating on their careers at the expense of their social lives, they work long hours in a competitive environment, they are geographically mobile, sometimes working abroad, and have probably lost touch with their roots – and lost track of people. Office romances can cause problems and, in the case of people like doctors and lawyers, there are ethical reasons why they cannot form relationships with the people they meet professionally – “they can’t chat up their clients”, Ms Balfour points out.

“Such people may not be lonely – in fact they probably have a wide circle of friends, but no intimate partner. They may have postponed settling down while studying, training, or building up a career, and perhaps have put their personal lives on the back burner until they are 30 or 35.”

Another category are the divorced and separated who, perhaps after long relationship, are faced with starting all over again. Too old for discos, out of practice at making new friends of the opposite sex, where do they go? If they go to Drawing Down The Moon – the name derives from the Greek legend of Glaukias and Chrysis – they will pay £550 plus VAT for a year’s membership; a second year costs £150 plus VAT.

After a consultation with Ms Balfour or one of her staff of eight, they fill out a personal profile, giving details of their educational background (95 per cent are graduates or similar), career (media people are the biggest group, followed by the medical and legal professions and business), what newspapers and magazines they read (the Independent heads the list, followed by the Guardian and Times), what books, films or plays they have recently read or seen, other interests, plus more unusual questions such as whom they would choose to be in a different life. From the profiles, and accompanying photographs members choose 10 people they wish to meet and their details are then sent to those 10, who may or may not decide to get in touch.

The agency keeps in close contact and every six weeks there is the option of a review session at which members may choose to seek more introductions. People who find their first dates are not being followed up can discuss why – for example, men might be advised to talk less and listen more. For those who prefer a more traditional setting in which to meet people, there are monthly social gatherings in a wine bar.

Ms Balfour admits that there is no guarantee of meeting the right person. “It’s a risk, like life itself. It doesn’t work for everybody. People make choices, and must take responsibility.” Only one in five of those who inquire actually end up on the agency’s books, and she will not take money from people who have little chance of being matched up. Heavy smokers and the overweight are also difficult to match; if that sounds harsh, it is the agency’s clients who decide what kind of people they wish to meet, most of us have fixed ideas about that.

There are hundreds of agencies, good, bad, indifferent, and sometimes disreputable – anyone can start one, though most fail. Ms Balfour’s advice to people looking for an agency is choose one of the 30 or so that belong the industry’s professional body, the Association of British Introduction Agencies – “a guarantee that agency is reputable”.

She sees herself as a businesswoman, but one who genuinely cares about her clients. Success comes when a couple decide to “go on hold” together: membership is suspended and they are sent no more introductions until they ask for them. About half the 800 members are “On hold” any one time. Some forge long-term partnerships -many get married, some of whom invite Ms Balfour to wedding. Others, oddly, “want to forget that they met through an agency”, which suggests that the stigma not completely died.

“It’s difficult to see why. What could be more exciting and romantic?” Certainly as romantic as meeting by the photocopier, in the checkout queue …or up a ladder.

Drawing Down The Moon

Modern convenience meets French country chic in Mary Balfour’s kitchen – the heart of her West London home.

Picture by Caroline Arber

Words by Alice Hart-Davis

I love my kitchen. From a purely practical point of view, it is the room I spend the most time in, whether I’m cooking, eating or watching TV, but also, it’s the heart of the home. We had all the work done on the kitchen about three years ago. There used to be a small extension at the back of the house and for planning reasons, the upper storey of that had to be retained, so building a bigger kitchen underneath it was quite a challenge.

We had a brilliant local architect, Gennaro Picardi, who did an amazing job with sprayed silver joists, so it looks a bit like a Twenties aircraft and makes me laugh because the fulcrum for each beam is one tiny pin called a Jesus bolt. Each is no bigger than a darning needle but they hold up whole of the first floor.

It is a very modern structure, but we chose a colour scheme that evokes the French country kitchen that my husband Sebastian knew from his childhood — he’s half French — with lots of French country blue paintwork and antique terracotta tiles, which we bought in Normandy. They look wonderful. We have long since stopped trying to shine them and they look all the better for it. A very clever designer, Mats Lindroth, gave the kitchen a wonderful look, with clean lines and masses of cupboards for all the kitchen gadgets.

One thing I had built specially was a draining rack over the sink with doors in front of it. Spanish kitchens always have them and it’s a brilliant idea because you can stick saucepans up there to drain then just shut the doors. My favourite item here is a ceramic sculpture made by my mother, Kathleen Cox, who was fairly well known as a ceramic artist in the Thirties.

It’s of three “Shawlies”, Dublin women who wrapped themselves in oversized shawls, one of whom is carrying a basket of flowers. It’s one of my most treasured possessions.

Thanks to all the glass in the ceiling, it’s very light but it’s east-facing. We get the sun for much of the day, but it doesn’t get too hot. From here, we look out on to our lovely little garden; in the summer, when the leaves are out, you can see just the garden, rather than neighbouring houses.

We used to eat out a lot with friends, but the new kitchen has transformed the house. It is the place where I really like to be — both on our own, and with friends. I love those moments when we come back from work — Sebastian is a professor of Contemporary Spanish Studies at the LSE — and sit down with a glass of wine to ask how each other’s day has gone. Sebastian and I prepare the evening meal together and we eat at the oak, fold-out drawer-leaf table I bought for ?150 on eBay. It can easily seat eight.

I don’t like big parties but I’m gregarious with close friends and love cooking and entertaining. I enjoy making my own pasta, pesto and bread. I feel that preparing and sharing food is a very important bonding process, whether you are a couple getting to know each other or whether you are entertaining others. I run personal introductions agencies, which suits me down to the ground.

Drawing Down the Moon was the original agency, and was meant for thinking people. It started in 1984 “and I took it over in 1986. I wanted a job which meant I never had to retire and I thought, “I can can carry on doing this until I’m 102. I have three agencies now. And no, I didn’t meet my husband through an agency. He was a neighbour, and I met him up a ladder, long before I took over the agencies.

With thanks to Saga Magazine, February 2006

Can buy me love!

Jane Turney talks to Mary Balfour, agony aunt and owner of three Kensington dating agencies, about the business of love and romance

“If you are looking for a new job you do not expect to find it by chance, you go to a recruitment agency or look in newspaper adverts. It is the same with finding a partner …We are a new social service”

You might think that Mary Balfour, owner of three Kensington based personal introduction agencies, might have met her own husband through an agency or a newspaper ad. But no, she fell in with her next door neighbour… meeting him up a ladder!

If only life could be that simple for us. But it’s not, which is why in increasingly busy and fractured times introduction agencies are such good business. According to the Association of British Introduction Agencies, between 200,000 and 250,000 people in the UK are signed agencies at any one time — and this excludes internet sites!

Certainly business seems to be booming for Mary, and her clutch of upmarket agencies for ‘thinking people.’ First there’s Drawing Down Moon, which was set up in 1984 and currently has 1500 members on their books. Here clients choose potential partners by perusing handwritten profiles and photographs in files marked “Men” and “Women”. Then there’s Only Lunch, where staff match you up with compatible, like-minded partners and set you up on a date, even choosing and booking the restaurant.

All you have to do is turn up and remember the Christian name of the person you are meeting (not good if you are a control freak!) And the baby in the business loveandfriends. com, an internet site (like the others, for well-educated people), already boasts more than 15,000 members even though it’s only been set up and running for 18 months.

Clearly the image of the introduction as a last resort for ‘sad losers’ is off the mark these days (the vast majority of Mary’s clients are creative professionals with degrees), but I wondered why they have become so popular of late. A recurrent problem is a lack of opportunity to meet people …“People think it’s their fault but it’s not, it is the society we are in,” says Mary.

“This is the first time in history that women have been allowed to buy and own their own property and have been able to on their own. It has changed the whole nature of relationships – instead of the economic nexus there is the emotional nexus. Because the emotional connection is so important, you have to meet many more people to find the right one.”

Mary, a former head of the Wornington branch of the (then) Hammersmith and North Kensington Adult Education Institute, points out. “If you are looking for a new job you do not expect to find it by chance, you go to a recruitment agency and look in newspaper adverts. It is the same with finding a partner We are a new social service.” But what chance do you have of meeting ‘the one’ if you try an agency? “Everybody we match up is going to be compatible, because they will have the right educational and social background, interests in common, attractiveness and energy levels roughly on a par …we will have got all that right, it is just the fine tuning and chemistry — which can take months to develop.”

Mary says one of her jobs is to make people take a broader look at potential partners: “You’ve got to be open, adventurous and flexible. I always say if you get 60% of your shopping list, that is brilliant — people who want 100% from day one are going to be disappointed. Our job is to stretch people’s horizons.”

Mary won’t give figures as to how many people form successful relationships through her agencies (how do you define this — marriage, or short term but happy relationships, or even long term friendship?) but says:

“Joining a dating agency is the best thing you can do for yourself because you might not meet the person at the agency, but it does put you in dating mode. There is nothing nicer than dressing up and going out on another date with a human being, even if he isn’t the man of your dreams and you decide not to see each other again, you can still have a good conversation, food, a good bottle of wine and enjoy yourself. …It is about networking, you are increasing the number of possibilities to meet single people.”

So, if you haven’t got a partner lined up for Valentine’s Day what are you waiting for? Mel Gibson found his spouse through an agency — so it’s got to be alright for the rest of us!

Courtesy of The Hill Magazine

Anna Botting: job on Sky News is bad for her love life

Single professional men looking for love believe that a female television news presenter would be their perfect partner, according to research released today.

An analysis of 23,000 “matches” by two dating agencies says men believe that female journalists have the perfect potential because they are “quick thinking and intelligent” and care about the human condition.

However, it’s not just a meeting of minds they are after. The lovelorn male is attracted to that rare breed of glamorous women who hold down high-profile news anchor jobs in television – in short, women whose IQ is at least as high as their heels.

“Women have carved out new territory as anchors in prime-time news programmes, projecting charisma, brains and femininity,” says the research.

“Although earning power may be important when choosing a mate, job satisfaction, authority, intelligence and concern with the human condition all rate highly with men and women when it comes to sex appeal among successful professionals.”

The fact that female news presenters such as Natasha Kaplinsky say they get up at 3.15am for work at 6am, and go to sleep at 9pm, does not appear to have struck men as a major drawback.

Single women serious about forming a relationship are looking for surgeons whose life-saving skills and authority are matched by their earning power. The dating and careers survey has been conducted by Mary Balfour, the managing director of Drawing Down the Moon, one of the country’s oldest personal-introduction agencies with 1,500 vetted members, and Only Lunch, which has about 750 members.

Neither London-based agency is for the financially faint-hearted. Only Lunch costs ?1,350 while Drawing Down the Moon’s charges range from ?950 to ?7,000 for a personal one-to-one matchmaker who does an international search.

Agencies are used by 500,000 Britons to seek their perfect partner.

Men regard female television directors – their second favourite choice after female journalists – as adventurous and creative. In third place are women working in human resources, who are seen as good at dealing with people and relationships.

Female architects and designers “combine creativity with a practical approach to life”, property developers are “risk takers with a high earning capacity” while academics “exhibit intellectual acumen in a caring context”.

Bankers are “high powered”, those in advertising have the “perfect combination of creativity and sex”, while female doctors have a “caring, instant bedside appeal” and script writers offer an “independent charm”.

Teachers, accountants, social workers and the police are noticeably absent from both lists.

Women say male surgeons are not only caring but also exude a calm and logical approach which makes ideal husband material. Barristers are “charming, intelligent and cool in a crisis” while company directors are successful, responsible high-flyers.

Male journalists are quick thinkers, while IT professionals sometimes have “amazing lifestyles”. Consultants tend to be bright, high-achieving and personable, while architects are artistic pragmatists who pay attention to detail.

Mrs Balfour, who has also written a book, Smart Dating: How to Find your Man, said: “In the old days, you went into relationships for economic survival. Nowadays, middle-class professional people are looking for an intellectual connection as well as an emotional one. If the intellectual balance is skewed, so is the emotional balance”.

“But women TV directors aged 39-and-three-quarters darken my doorways on many occasions because they have ‘forgotten’ to have children. They have got set in their ways. People should strive for more of a work-leisure balance.”

Anna Botting, 37, who went to Oxford University and is now one of Sky TV’s most respected and popular presenters, was sent an engagement ring through the post by an admirer “plus the bill for ?550, to show me how much he had paid for it”.

She is now dating a fellow Sky journalist.
We have dozens more articles about Drawing Down the Moon to show you when you come in to see us

‘Better a plain, happy person than a gorgeous sourpuss’

People will never get into a happy relationship unless they’re happy themselves. Mr/Ms Right won’t change your life.

After 17 years in the dating business I have a few rules about general compatibility and match people’s energy levels – slow talkers go together, as do fast talkers. Only occasionally do opposites attract. Long term, most people want to be with someone with similar background, and similar values. Politics seem to be much less important nowadays and income isn’t as much of issue as people seem to think it is.

On a first date, keep it light. Just an hour is what we advise. You need only be relaxed and flirtatious. Don’t even think getting into deep issues. Save the “Do you want children?” for 20 dates in. Neediness and broodiness are very off-putting. Try and be slightly less available.

I mistrust love at first sight intensely. Someone comes back from a first date fired with passion, then alarm bells ring. The couples that end up together are usually those who were lukewarm at first.

Returning from a first date, most men think it’s gone really well, but most women don’t. This is because women have done their typical reflex of listening like they’re fascinated, leaning forward with their pupils dilated etc. Men love this, but it isn’t much fun for women, and after few dates the women start talking and that’s a shock for the men. I’d say this happens 60 per cent of the time.

I know this sounds old-fashioned but if you really like the person you should hold off from having sex for as long as possible. Sex short-circuits the getting-to-know-you process and can really ruin things.

The attractive people aren’t the most popular. The happy ones are. People would always rather be with a plain happy person than a really attractive sourpuss.

It occurred to her that those elements, combined with the fact that she’d already acted as a matchmaker (sometimes successful, sometimes not) to numerous friends, would make a dating agency a venture she could succeed at.

So, in 1986, newly married herself, she resigned as head of an adult education centre and started an introduction agency, Drawing Down the Moon, which concentrated on the professional end of market. It is still thriving, and she has since added more strings to Cupid’s bow (and her own) with Only Lunch loveandfriends.com (an internet introduction agency), and a gay dating agency called Significant Others (which she later sold). Her book, Smart Dating: How to find your name, will be published in May (Thorsons ?10).

I think I’m good at my job because although I’m a fantastic dreamer, I’m also realistic about what will work and what won’t. I try to get people to visualise the outcome they want and to think about what obstacles they put in the way. Why are they not in a relationship? Can the problem be resolved?

A lot of people have unrealistically high expectations, expecting perfection from the first date. In my experience, the best way of finding the right person is to meet lots of people who are roughly right – the more people you meet, the greater your chances of success.

I think, in an average life, each of us probably comes across around 20 people we could spend the rest of our lives with but don’t recognise, either because we’re not ready, or we’re too blinkered about the type of person we’re looking for. If you can find about 60 or 70 percent of what you’re looking for in a person, that’s good. The person with 100 percent of the characteristics you’re looking for probably doesn’t exist – and if they did, you might not like them.

Some people argue that going to a dating agency takes the spontaneity and romance out of the relationship. I say that if they’re serious about finding a partner and it hasn’t happened yet, why not try it? In a few months, people can compress a whole lifetime of introductions. Also making a positive move to meet someone means that you’re open to the chances of romance, and that makes you happier and the happier you are, the more attractive you are. It’s no coincidence that people join the agency and then meet someone on the bus on the way home. Really, It happens.

Of course, we get it wrong sometimes, and people ring up to say that a meeting didn’t go well, but I don’t regard that as a failure, more like useful feedback. Now I can mostly tell if people aren’t ready for a relationship, or if they keep repeating the same mistake.

“How many successful relationship have we been responsible for? Thousands, definitely. And many, many children”.