Ep 2 - What Kind of Women Hire Matchmakers?

What Women Need To Know Before Hiring A Matchmaker 

Episode 2: What are female matchmaking clients like? What is it like to match them?  

• The personality types of women who hire matchmakers
• What do they have in common? 
• What kind of men are women who hire matchmakers looking for? 
• What is it like to matchmake for women? 
• How do eligible men react to being asked to meet women who are matchmaking clients? 

You've done your research, you've kissed goodbye to the funds, and now you're ready to invest in a matchmaker.

Before you start booking discovery calls, listen to this series from Los Angeles matchmaker Helen Asuncion to see if hiring a matchmaker is really the best move for you!  

Transcript

Episode 2: What Kind of Women Hire Matchmakers?
What Women Need to Know Before Hiring a Matchmaker

Speaker: Helen Asuncion | Matchmaker & Dating Coach | goodheartsmeet.com

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INTRODUCTION

Hi ladies, welcome and thank you for joining me. This is episode two of What Women Need to Know Before Hiring a Matchmaker. My name is Helen Asuncion, and I've been matching couples for over 20 years. Professionally, I've worked as a recruiter, a dating coach, and a matchmaker for some of the biggest names in the business. Currently, my research and focus is on education and skill development. You can learn more about me and Good Hearts Meet by visiting our website at goodheartsmeet.com.

If you caught episode one, you know about the different kinds of men who typically hire matchmakers. I call them the Lost Prince, the Often Overlooked, and the Acceptable Condition. I shared how they're not that difficult — all things considered — for us to match. It takes work, it takes time, it takes a lot of investment, but it is definitely not an impossible task.

Today, we're going to talk about how everything changes when the client is a woman looking for a husband.

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THE ONE TYPE OF FEMALE MATCHMAKING CLIENT

Let's start by talking about client types, like we did with the men. For female matchmaking clients, it is my professional opinion that there is only one type — and the name I give her is: the Perfect at Everything But Love.

Because she really is.

The female matchmaking client across the board is exceptional. She's high-income, high-powered, and demonstrates high levels of dedication, communication, and performance. She's loved and respected by her co-workers and employees. She can be relied upon by her partners and superiors, and she maintains friendships despite her busy work and travel schedule.

She's the type of woman you love to hate, but you can't bear to hate. Because as a friend, she makes time — not just to see you one-on-one, but shows up present and focused. She puts her phone away. She's attuned to you and shows you that you're important in her life.

These women are beautiful, classy, and have great taste.

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WHY DO THESE WOMEN STRUGGLE TO FIND A PARTNER?

Which begs the question: why do these women have trouble finding a man? Why do they even need matchmakers?

First, the whole point of this series is that they don't need matchmakers. They come to matchmakers because they need help and don't yet understand what's missing. The same can be said for all of us — you don't know what you don't know.

But why are they having trouble? That is the root of the problem. And hiring a matchmaker doesn't necessarily solve that issue.

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FEMALE MATCHMAKING CLIENTS VS. DATABASE WOMEN

To contrast female matchmaking clients with the database women — the ones matchmakers go out and recruit for their male clients — you'll typically see two profiles in the database:

The sexy women usually look like they know how to handle a man. They're in the database because they want a man who is already vetted as marriage-minded.

The cute women tend to be more on the innocent side. They want a home, a family, and a man who is marriage-minded and prepared to step into a provider role.

Female matchmaking clients, by contrast, are used to carrying the burden of everything — not just their own lives, but other people's lives on their shoulders. That responsibility usually shows up in how they present themselves. All that accountability leads to more responsibility, and it's not just in how they dress and look — it's in their demeanor. There's a reserve. They're locked into a professional mode they can't step out of.

You know what I'm talking about. It doesn't take an $850,000-a-year income to be trapped in professional mode — where even at singles events, you're still having conversations and interacting the way you would at a work networking event. Your work mode is always on, which means cute mode and sexy mode are turned off.

The things that wouldn't be appropriate in the workplace are precisely what work in the romantic arena. If you are constantly suppressing those things — or have completely disconnected from them — it makes sense that you have trouble.

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THE RELATIONSHIP HISTORY PATTERN

Another issue female matchmaking clients tend to have: when women come to us, it's rarely that they've never had a boyfriend or relationship. In fact, the resume of most of these women's exes is jaw-dropping. Executive at Amazon, executive at Meta, founders, CEOs, COOs. It's impressive.

The issue is never that they haven't had a chance. It's usually that they had one or more chances but stayed too long in a relationship that wasn't leading to marriage. Typically it's by mutual agreement, because the other problem is that they didn't value marriage or take the timeline seriously when they had the chance. It's an easy blind spot to have, especially nowadays, but it is a significant one.

That's why I coined the term Perfect at Everything But Love. It is meant to be a gentle reminder of that blind spot — not so that women can strive to be perfect at everything including love, but as a reminder that we need to pull back on that universal perfection and give less to other areas of our lives so we preserve the emotional resources to pour into our love lives.

Because that has value. Whatever extent, degree, or configuration it takes — if you want it, you need to leave resources for it.

It's like environmental science: if you want beautiful places in nature, you have to preserve them.

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THE FEMALE WISH LIST

Now let's talk about what female clients are looking for.

Remember that men's wish lists are pretty short: cute, nice, wants to marry me. If the woman is very attractive, many men don't even require the "nice" part. That's simply how many men are wired.

Women want the whole package. If you know that song — Finance, 6'5", Blue Eyes — we're not that far off. There's a lot of truth in it, and that's why it's so popular.

Female matchmaking clients want a man who is tall, handsome, funny, a good communicator, not politically conservative, yet wants marriage. Wrap your head around that if you enjoy cognitive dissonance.

And 99.99% of women say they want a man who earns at least as much as they do, preferably more. Actually, 100% of women say that — but I'll reserve that 0.001% for the rare client who has already tried the house-boy or gigolo situation and is ready to give up on that.

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NEW REQUIREMENTS MATCHMAKERS ARE SEEING IN 2024–2025

In the last year, I'm also seeing these requirements frequently — shared by other matchmakers describing what their female clients are asking for:

Requirement #1: Has eggs frozen. Partner must be willing to support through IVF or surrogacy.

Ladies, this is huge. It's essentially one sentence that carries enormous weight, because "support" means:

- Financially — we're talking tens of thousands of dollars.
- Logistically — missing quite a lot of work.
- Emotionally — through chemically induced hormonal mood swings and an intense, high-stakes process.

Men are very aware of this. I work with men who are 21 and 24 who know accurate numbers on what it costs to freeze eggs or do IVF. They know the success rates — which are still only around 30%, even today — and they understand the legal and emotional complexity of surrogacy.

If you don't already know this: the IVF and surrogacy industries are billion-dollar, privately owned industries that are largely self-regulated. It's not ideal — but it's becoming the only option for many women.

Men, even as they get older, do have other options. So if there is a man in your suitor pool who is willing to do IVF or surrogacy with you, and he would make a good partner and father, please give him a pass on some of your other checklist items.

Requirement #2: Must live near your city or be willing to relocate to your city.

By this age and stage, many women are homeowners, deeply tied to their local professional network, or close to their family. They don't want to move — which is unusual in our remote and hybrid work era.

For a woman to say, "I'm going to stay in my house, and you're going to come to me" — unless you're looking for an arrangement where a man has nothing going for himself, this is not realistic from a cold-start, stranger basis.

The only men a matchmaker will find who agree to that upfront are men who don't have much of their own to offer. That is basic common sense, and it's pushback any matchmaker should be giving you in a consultation.

It is mind-boggling how often I see that requirement on women's profiles.

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THE STATISTICAL REALITY

Let's go back to the men's wish list: cute, wants marriage, is willing to give the guy a chance. On a purely statistical level, the pool of women who fit men's qualifications is large — even when you filter by religion, politics, or ethnicity. And every year that passes, more single women age into a man's dating pool.

The opposite is true for women. Every year that goes by, the number of men who are honest, who value you for who you are, and who are willing to offer committed marriage gets smaller. The number of men who look up with interest when you walk into a room gets smaller.

So enjoy every second of it while you have it — and know that we cannot operate by the man's playbook, just like we've had to rewrite our playbooks everywhere else.

Most women ask for an alpha male — a leader, a captain of industry, smooth, authoritative both in the boardroom and in the bedroom. Impeccably groomed, perfectly behaved, witty, funny, and financially successful. Essentially: your luckiest friend's husband, plus even more financial success.

Now let's count. How many men fit that description who also:

- Live in your city or are willing to relocate there?
- Are willing to financially and emotionally support you through IVF or surrogacy?

Seriously, ladies — how many such men do you think exist in the world right now, who are also single?

We're not talking about a small pool. We're talking about a near-impossible combination. It's like asking the best vegan chefs in the world to produce a burger that is 100% vegan and 100% beef.

Men like that might exist — but they're not single. And if they were emotionally and romantically available, they are pursuing younger women without the same constraints. That is the reality — not because of cruelty, but because of how the market actually works.

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WHY MATCHMAKERS STRUGGLE WITH FEMALE CLIENTS

This is the core reason why, when I first started out in this industry, so many veteran matchmakers told me: don't take female clients.

No matter how glamorous a matchmaker is, no matter what they promise during a sales call — matchmakers often cannot deliver on the expectations of female clients. There isn't enough honest pushback happening, and there isn't enough turning away of business.

And yes, that sounds insane. Who turns away a paying client? But when you close a client knowing from the start that the contract is impossible to fulfill to their expectations, you are doing both of you a disservice.

Matchmakers are wired to make love happen. But the industry has been going through so many changes that many practitioners don't see how those changes are affecting the broader market — and where the industry is heading.

If a matchmaker has spent years successfully serving mostly male clients and then decides they can do the same for women, you may be along for a painful learning curve. And the lesson at the end of that curve is always the same: it doesn't work the same way when the client is a woman.

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WHAT'S COMING NEXT

I know I'm leaving you with a lot to think about today. Next week, we're going to dig deeper into why it doesn't work for female clients — why men say no, what their reaction is, and what the male psychology behind it looks like.

That is very useful information that will help you in attracting and assessing your romantic suitors.

Tune in wherever you get your podcasts next week for Part 3 in our series: What Women Need to Know Before Hiring a Matchmaker.

I'm Matchmaker Helen. Thank you so much for joining me today. Don't forget to visit my website at goodheartsmeet.com to learn more about private programs and join the free singles pool. See you next week.