| Years old: | 27 | |
| What is my ethnicity: | Welsh | |
| What is my sex: | Lady | |
| I can speak: | English, Greek | |
| What is my Sign of the zodiac: | Aquarius | |
| Figure features: | My body type is thin |
Buy images from this gallery. You can probably name half a dozen ride-sharing and food-delivery services off the top of your head.
And while the sky-high cost — ranging up to hundreds of thousands of dollars — is prohibitive, clients have to do more than just pay. You have to be accepted into the club.
Aside from boasting an offshore or two, that means having good looks, an elite education and usually a sparkling job — plus the right attitude, said matchmaker Amy Andersen, who runs Menlo Park-based Linx Dating. Upon moving to Palo Alto, she married a Stanford economics professor and built up a reputation with a wide roster of wealthy clients — many of them older women who feel the ticking of a biological clock or stereotypical Silicon Valley geeks. The process itself is simple enough.
Andersen is approached by someone, usually a friend of an existing client, and screens them for the essentials. That could lead to an in-person meeting — sometimes lasting for hours on end — before she decides whether to take them on.
Others have specific demands about religion, geography, politics or race, all of which can rack up pricing. The Bevy and Three Day Rule, another matchmaking service with Bay Area clients, have similar processes, though the business models vary slightly; only male clients pay The Bevy, for example.
But some Very Important People — billionaires, CEOs — are less than thrilled with explanations for why their dating success has fallen behind everything else. When asked how she maneuvers egos that big, the matchmaker jokingly threw her head back in despair.
Real constructive criticism from another person — as much as some clients try to reject it — is what ultimately brings success in dating, matchmakers say. Many clients arrive after having cycled through apps without any luck, or desperate to learn the rules of dating after many years out of the game. Perhaps for that reason, or the price tag, none of the matchmakers interviewed for this story could find clients willing to speak publicly about their experiences.
Their ilk remains exceedingly rare: According to a representative survey from Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld, fewer than 1 percent of U. Show Caption. By Fiona Kelliher fkelliher bayareanewsgroup.
Most Silicon Valley outsourcing is done out in the open. Report an error Policies and Standards .
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