Ambiance Matchmaking Meet Attractive Singles
APPLY
SEARCH
MENU
Ambiance Matchmaking Meet Attractive Singles

The End of Swipe Culture: Matchmaking's Modern Revival

9 minute read

In an era where dating apps have all but taken over the modern dating scene and emotionally and mentally exhausted the single population, many may find the idea of letting someone else take the wheel increasingly appealing. The digital age has revolutionized the way we connect, offering convenience and a vast pool of potential partners at our fingertips. However, this ease of access comes at a cost. The endless swiping, superficial interactions, and often disappointing outcomes can leave individuals feeling disillusioned and burnt out. The pressure to present a curated version of oneself online, coupled with the impersonal nature of app-based interactions, has led to a growing sense of frustration, loneliness, and desensitization. As a result, there is a rising interest in more traditional, personalized methods of finding love. Matchmaking, once considered old-fashioned, is experiencing a renaissance as people seek deeper, more meaningful connections facilitated by human touch and expertise. This shift reflects a broader desire to move away from the transactional nature of dating apps and return to a more intentional and supportive approach to finding a partner.

Matchmaking On The Rise

Matchmaking saw a wave of new clients in 2020. COVID-19 and forced isolation significantly contributed to this surge, especially as people were hesitant to go on in-person dates or meet strangers in public spaces. Additionally, the pandemic spurred a realization that our time is quite valuable and too precious to waste alone or fruitlessly swiping on our phones for hours at a time.

“I don’t believe matchmaking is going anywhere,” says Ambiance Founder and Matchmaking expert Leslie Wardman. “Western culture has been slow to embrace it, but now it is here to stay in a big way. I believe the generations to come may consider it to be a natural part of life.”

As Leslie stated, matchmaking has experienced major momentum and is here to stay. More and more matchmaking services have popped up in the past few years and some apps and dating sites have capitalized on this trend as well. In 2021, Match Group, the massive corporation that owns Match.com, Tinder, Hinge, and several other apps, launched a new match feature with human coaches suggesting profiles for their customers weekly for an additional fee. We’ve also seen a handful of new matchmaking TV shows, including "Love is Blind," "Jewish Matchmaker," "Perfect Match," “Indian Matchmaker,” "Love Island," and countless variations of "The Bachelor." With modern agencies, TV shows, and upgraded online dating features, matchmaking, a historically traditional approach to love and partnership, is finding unique popularity within contemporary society.

History of Matchmaking

Across multiple cultures, matchmakers have served as trusted intermediaries, blending social, familial, and sometimes economic considerations to forge lasting unions. In Japan, traditional matchmakers, known as nakōdo, have been instrumental in arranging marriages, ensuring compatibility and social harmony. In Jewish culture, ‘shadchanim’ have long been respected figures, facilitating matches within the community. Korean families have relied on matchmakers, or ‘jung-me’, to arrange marriages that align with social status. And in Catholic communities, particularly in historical European contexts, priests within the church often arranged marriages that adhered to religious doctrines, merging families for land acquisition and socio-economic benefit. 

With the onset of the Industrial Revolution, social norms adjusted. Marriages based on land and family alliances became less common, while marriages for love and personal connection gained in popularity. Although matchmaking remains prevalent in many cultures, in the western world the search for romance has become more of an individual sport with the modern age introducing a distinctly solitary approach to dating.

Swiping Dystopia

The current solo approach to dating can feel both lonely and time-consuming as swiping endlessly becomes monotonous and ineffective. Hinge surveyed 300 users, finding that 81% had not found a long-term relationship on any of the dating apps and reported that only one in 500 swipes on their app led to an exchange of phone numbers. A recent Forbes article found that users spend an average of 51 minutes a day swiping, that’s over 25 hours a month! While this time and effort can provide you with more of a sense of control and autonomy over your love life than in earlier eras, it can also be discouraging. Although you no longer have to rely on chance encounters or even leave the comfort of your couch to potentially find love, too many options, juggling conversations with multiple people, and social anxiety, may hinder the success of your dating app endeavor. The removed humanity of online dating desensitizes users, turning the pursuit of connection into a juggling act and a numbers game. We often don't offer enough attention to form genuine connections or determine qualified chemistry when the next best thing is just a swipe away.

The consensus on the current state of dating is clear: it’s rough. Factors such as lack of commitment, mixed messages, economic struggles, shrinking social circles, and the prevalence and evolution of dating apps all contribute to this sentiment. Recently, dating apps have introduced paywalls and algorithmic limitations, adding further challenges to modern dating. There is speculation that apps like Bumble and Hinge hide “higher-quality” users behind paywalls and only show those you may have a real connection with, meeting your dating criteria and preferences, to those willing to pay a monthly or annual fee. The growing skepticism, coupled with widespread negativity about the overall dating scene, prompted Bumble to launch a rebrand that unfortunately backfired. In an effort to encourage people not to give up on dating and re-engage the single population, Bumble wiped their social media history, partnered with multiple influencers, and announced big changes coming. They launched this rebrand with a billboard campaign criticizing celibacy as an alternative to dating. Singles are unhappy with the state of dating and dating apps, but rather than addressing the valid concerns commonly discussed, the rebrand brushed them aside, gaslighting and shaming users for their dissatisfaction. The campaign was poorly received, leading to a public apology and likely some internal fallout.

The Cycle of Innovation

Bumble's failed rebrand and the subsequent rejection of current dating norms mark a cultural shift away from online dating. The first online dating site, Match.com, launched in 1995, meaning online dating as a whole is not even 30 years old. Apps are still in their infancy, with Grindr hitting the scene in 2009, followed by Tinder and Hinge in 2012, and Bumble in 2014. Despite their relatively recent inception, these apps have dramatically reshaped the dating landscape but are just as quickly burning out.

Human beings are incredibly imaginative and experimental as a species. We create something new, push its boundaries, and expand on it until we realize its limitations. We kicked off this new approach to dating with classified ads, which coupled with the internet evolved into online dating and dating apps. Each innovation aimed to make finding love easier. However, love is inherently nebulous and genuine chemistry too ethereal to quantify. As a community, we are now recognizing that no number of algorithms can pinpoint the exact formula for romantic connection. In optimizing and commercializing the search for love, we lose all sense of connection and humanity. The current disillusionment with online dating reflects the cyclical nature of our innovations: we experiment, expand, and ultimately realize when something isn't working.

This growing collective feeling of emptiness and loneliness stems from how technology and the commercialization of love have stripped away intimacy and connection. This lack of intimacy has caused discomfort, prompting us to seek new ways forward. We are beginning to realize that moving away from these apps and revisiting traditional methods of finding love might be the solution. This shift signifies a renaissance of previous traditions, such as matchmaking, as we acknowledge the limitations and failures of our technological experiment in online dating. In essence, we are cycling back to more personal, human-driven connections in the search for love.

Matchmakers Know Best

Amid this dystopian shift in the dating world, it’s no wonder that matchmaking is on the rise. Allowing someone else to handle the search and outsource the effort of dating can be appealing when the options for finding love on your own are riddled with hurdles. A matchmaker can also provide guidance throughout the process of dating. Trading an algorithm or simple chance for a human facilitator, who is warm and intuitive, has its benefits. Unlike dating apps, many matchmakers offer advice on what to look for in a partner, how to present oneself, when to give someone another chance, how to navigate tricky situations, resolve conflicts, and possibly insights into the sources of issues in past relationships.

Ambiance has had thousands of success stories over the years, especially in unique combinations that wouldn’t normally have matched. Part of the appeal of matchmaking, over going it alone, is having access to a professional matchmaker and the matchmaking process. A matchmaker may recommend you consider dating someone you might never cross paths with otherwise. For example, we had a woman come to us after having little luck in love, having been disappointed in the past with men not treating her as the gem that she is. Ambiance was able to find her a fantastic connection with a man, despite having different religions and centuries of conflict between their respective countries. She was able to see past their differences and find love, when she otherwise would likely have passed on even meeting him and we were just invited to their engagement party!

For those struggling in the dating world, the idea that a love and connection professional could pick up on qualities hidden deep within you, know little nuances about your personality that would align well with another, and use that information to lead you to someone you might have missed or dismissed in the wild or on the apps — could be quite enticing. However, for our matchmakers to go deep and gain that insight, we often have to read between the lines of what our clients tell us they want. In fact, studies have shown that when looking for a partner, you aren’t the best at predicting the type of people you’ll connect best with. You may be getting in your own way.

One client, despite having an international business, was adamant about finding his match within just a few zip codes. We suggested he consider matches in the next town over, as we had the perfect person in mind for him. Initially, he refused and spent nearly a year as a member of Ambiance, meeting wonderful dates in his area but never fully connecting. After renewing his membership for a second year, he reluctantly agreed to widen his location limit. Not only did he hit it off with our recommended match, but they got married! Had he not been open to branching outside of his location and comfort zone, he might have never met his now-wife.

In these cases, to find love, you must truly relinquish control, trust the process, and let the professionals lead the charge. Leslie explains that her method of matchmaking is much more hands-on. She gets to know Ambiance's clients well enough to find them someone they might not discover on their own—someone who could elevate them further or be everything they didn’t know they needed. "I envisioned a more personal, hands-on matchmaking experience,” she explains. Coming from a large corporate matchmaking agency background, she sought to disrupt the standard matchmaking approach. She created Ambiance to help people find love with a more personalized and customizable service.

Given the current challenges of modern dating, matchmaking offers a promising alternative. By blending personal guidance with an understanding of deeper compatibilities, matchmakers provide a more fulfilling path to finding love. As dating apps continue to evolve and sometimes falter, the human touch in matchmaking proves to be a valuable asset in the search for meaningful connections. For those feeling disillusioned with the digital dating scene, turning to a matchmaker might be the key to finding true love and companionship.

Heather Butler

Heather is a multimedia writer with a keen cultural curiosity, passionate about cultivating insightful discussions at the forefront of love and relationship exploration.

More Blog Articles

Worst Date in 2024 & How Matchmaking Can Help You Find True Love

Why elite singles are choosing professional matchmaking services over dating apps and endless swiping.
Read more

Why It's Never Too Late to Find Love at Any Age

Why elite singles are choosing professional matchmaking services over dating apps and endless swiping.
Read more

Why Elite Singles Are Choosing Matchmaking Over Dating Apps

Why elite singles are choosing professional matchmaking services over dating apps and endless swiping.
Read more

Finding Love in Sin City

There are unique realities of dating in a city, like Las Vegas, known more for its fleeting pleasures far more than lasting connections.
Read more

Become A Walking Green Flag

Here’s how you can cultivate emotional maturity in yourself and truly embody green flags
Read more

The Dating Scene in Atlanta

Find out why Atlanta was named 4th best city for singles
Read more
1 2 3 27
magnifiercrossmenu linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram