By Diana Gee-Silverman
If you’re in need of a life partner this Valentine’s Day, an Ottawa area matchmaker might be able to help you out.
Linda Miller was busy arranging matches even before she got paid for it.
“I tortured all of my friends with matching them up,” she says.
She set up many of her college friends, her sister and even her mother’s friends with matches.
Twelve years ago, she actually dreamed she had turned her hobby into a living. Miller woke up and left her job in the hotel industry to start her first matchmaking business in Manitoba. Several successful years later, she sold her business to a client she had matched up.
The growth of Internet matchmaking services curbed business briefly three years ago.
But, she says, matchmaking on the Internet is more about “the fun factor.” Her business and the net-based ones “don’t address the same market,” Miller says. “Almost everyone who has come to me has been on the Internet.”
She says she loves her work and considers it more of a calling.
“I’ve learned it doesn’t matter what I like or don’t like,” Miller says. “There really is somebody for everybody.”
In search of those perfect somebodies, she travels all over Ontario, as well as Montreal once a month. In a weekend on the road, she meets with 60 to 100 people in half-hour sessions. Her work led to over 200 marriages last year.
Miller’s customers are mostly professionals looking for a serious partner. Some have been married before, many choose partners based on compatibility in terms of kids and custody agreements.
Misty River, as Miller dubbed her business, charges $900 for up to 12 in-person meetings. She says most people are matched up in just three meetings.
Miller provides male clients with names and profiles of potential matches.
If both the man and woman are interested in meeting, the woman calls the man and the couple arranges a date. Phone calls and e-mails don’t count as official dates.
“We don’t guarantee you’ll meet the love of your life,” Miller says.
“But you’ll meet 12 people who meet your credentials, who you wouldn’t otherwise meet in your social circle.”