As a Christmas gift for myself, I had signed up for the “It’s Just Lunch” dating service for busy professionals. I describe the person I am looking for and the company tries to match me up with someone looking for me. They make reservations at a night restaurant for lunch or after work drinks and I go on a blind date.
This process enabled me to articulate the sort of woman I enjoy spending time with. I told them I liked quirky, creative types who had a spiritual dimension to them, who were honest and expressive. I stressed that it be made known that I was a big movie geek and enjoyed lots of geeky activities. Potential dates should know what they are in for!
For the most part, the service set me up with really nice women who were pretty. But there was never really a spark and oftentimes they were fairly mainstream. They wanted to talk about what we did for a living, not about life goals and plans or being self-expressive.
Originally, I signed up with the intention of finding someone to date. After moving to Austin, I revised that intention as I now just wanted to meet some new people and get acquainted with the city. I gradually came to terms with the fact that I really wanted to find someone to have a serious relationship. I didn’t want to casually date anyone. I wanted to create the possibility of a lasting, loving partnership. While I tried to stay open to the possibility of meeting such a person through a dating service, I felt like I wasn’t going to meet that person in such a way. I thought, “Maybe the person I’m attracted to would never use a dating service or they wouldn’t spend this much money on it.”
So I became cautiously optimistic, but extremely picky. I can see the value of such a service, but I’m not sure if it is the right thing for me.
Reading your back posts. I don’t know if this was one or if I just missed it the first time.
My brother considered It’s Just Lunch and eventually didn’t go with it because of the expense. Thus I’m very curious about your evaluation of the service.
The trick is that he’s more mainstream in his geekitude. It might have actually worked for him. He’s a (serious) Linux-head and a video game player, but in that, “these are my guy things” sort of way, a way that segregates those parts of his life from others. I don’t think he’d need or seek a mate with those kinds of quirky hobbies, and indeed his fiancee of 5 years and now his current girlfriend are entirely mainstream.
Myself, I seek in a mate a lot of what I seek in a friend. (Yes, I’m not planning on looking anytime soon, but it still applies.) And that means both being creative sharing or at least appreciating quirky subculture hobbies. I don’t think It’s Just Lunch is marketed toward people like that in general.
IJL is marketed towards “busy professionals” which, so far, has meant mainstream upper middle class/lower high class business owners, VPs, etc.
I didn’t have that great of an experience with the ABQ office, but the Austin office is very professional. One thing I learned is that they do not match at all based on physical preferences. This was odd because the ABQ office had me go into detail on what I was looking for physically.
So far, I’ve had the most success just meeting people organically: at normal life functions, parties, through a friends, etc.