Sick of Swiping? How a Modern Matchmaker Can Help

The Short Version: Worn out by online dating? Plenty of people feel the same way. Dating sites remain a popular route to love, but a growing number of singles are trying other paths to their soulmate, such as working with a professional matchmaker like Allie Leilani.

A few people know exactly where their careers should head and chase those goals with total focus. Most of us, though, grab chances as they show up and trust that enough drive and on-the-job experience will eventually add up to a career path.

Allie Leilani, Lead Executive Matchmaker at WeClicked, never planned on being a matchmaker or a relationship expert, which I found intriguing. As she tells it, she more or less stumbled into the role after someone recommended her.

“I had a friend who was working at a national firm as a recruiter, and she came to me and said, ‘I think you’d be really great at this,’” she told us. 

Allie is rethinking how modern dating and matchmaking work.

She applied, got the job, and quickly started to shine. “In my first two years at the firm, I became top matchmaker as far as quality matches executed,” Allie told us.

She wasn’t just making lots of matches; she also had a gift for reading compatibility at a deeper level. As soon as she began pairing people off, she saw how fulfilling the job could be. “I fell in love with the fact that this could be a way that I could be in support of people,” she said.

These days, Allie is one of many professionals working to bring like-minded singles together. She has a history in life coaching and mental health work, so the matchmaker and relationship coach went independent and now serves as CEO of a matchmaking firm of her own.

WeClicked serves people who want love that lasts. Allie understands that self-awareness and personal growth are part of the journey, and most of her clients are singles who feel ready to settle down, many of them in their 20s and 30s.

She walked us through how it all works and which qualities help singles succeed.

Why Work With a Matchmaker?

Matchmaking has real appeal because a professional is willing to vouch for the pairing. It’s less of a gamble than online dating and more focused than blind dates. Think of it as having a close friend check someone out before the first date.

Even without sparks, there’s a decent chance you’ll click in some way, maybe enough to start a new friendship.

A matchmaker handles the hard parts of finding romance, leaving you free to enjoy your dates and meet new people.

Allie relies on pure intuition to decide whether two people belong together. “A lot of my coaching comes from being aware of what’s happening in the body,” she explained. “What is the body doing? How does that inform how we’re feeling, how we’re thinking, how we’re moving through our ability to connect?”

That genuine instinct has produced lots of happy pairings. Allie told us she wants to dig deeper into conscious coupling so she can give clients everything possible as they look for love and discover themselves.

How Does Matchmaking Usually Begin?

At WeClicked, Allie makes time to really know every client. For many of them, that means working out what has kept them from finding love by themselves.

It can get deep, and the work may uncover what’s holding someone back, whether that’s a trauma or low self-esteem that leads them to sabotage a relationship right when it starts turning serious.

Allie helps clients understand themselves a bit better and figure out what’s really behind their setbacks.

Facing up to the distractions or mental blocks that wrecked earlier chances at dating can sometimes open the door to better connections with more understanding.

You can’t find happiness while you’re unhappy with yourself, but Allie wants to break through that and support people both in looking for love and in living happier lives.

WeClicked isn’t just about going on dates. The goal is a partnership that lasts.

Once a client begins this empowering process, Allie draws up a blueprint for dating success. She doesn’t simply pair singles who look good together on paper. Her focus is a connection that lasts a lifetime.

“[I have] a few certifications and experiences that I think kind of converge to make my approach unique,” Allie told us. “So I am a certified life coach with CLCI. I am a certified positive intelligence coach. Positive intelligence is a model of coaching that I find to be very useful with clients.”

Feelings and intuition sit at the center of how she matches people. Her method can broaden someone’s dating pool when they’ve shrunk it to an impossible size.

Still, she knows many people want love but won’t take the big steps of examining themselves and confronting their inner conflicts.

“I don’t think that I would take on a client who doesn’t have the capacity to be coachable,” she admits. “Or sometimes the word ‘coaching’ doesn’t quite land well with people. They say, well, I don’t need a coach or I don’t need coaching. Right. But I think the ability to learn, grow, perhaps become aware of what’s impeding us. To me, that has to happen for somebody to succeed in matchmaking.” 

For Allie, part of the fun is watching a client have a moment of discovery that clears away something blocking their love life or personal life.

Who Can Use a Matchmaker?

Matchmaking goes back centuries, from arranged marriages to the village priest pairing people off in medieval times. The idea isn’t new, but in the United States it has lost ground over the past few decades to online dating sites.

Still, it deserves a second look, particularly for young professionals without time to spend on the search, or for anyone tired of dealing with the catfish, bots, and scams that can turn up online.

Because she’s a younger matchmaker, Allie has a strong feel for what everyday dating looks like now, and she gets that people want more than a partner; they want a whole dating experience. Going forward, she plans to keep making connections all over New York in creative and engaging ways.

“It is going to be a big part of my efforts to have boots on the ground, to partner with other super connectors and host events and things that will really help bring people together in real life,” she said of her plans for the future.

Dating can wear you out, particularly online. A good matchmaker can put the fun back in it.

Her target clients are singles between their late 20s and mid-40s, but above all she wants to help people move forward.

“When I launch, I’m really going to work with whoever I feel that I can serve,” she said. “But my ideal client is someone who maybe has strayed from the beaten path, someone who maybe is a bit eclectic or has a bit of an edgy side, somebody who can hold complexity.” 

Lots of people are searching for love, but Allie especially enjoys clients who think outside the box. She’s particularly drawn to people who may feel like outsiders, above all when it comes to love.

Plenty of professional singles in the city probably fit that description. A New York Post article reports that a striking 38.61% of New Yorkers are single. For context, that’s more than 17% above the national average, and the city has been called one of the worst places to find love.

Why Do New Yorkers Struggle to Find Love?

New York isn’t short on social events and opportunities, yet that New York Post piece also says many people struggle to afford the cost of a date. Others fret about seeming “creepy.”

As the writer put it, “In a city of 1.5 million singles aged 20 to 34, why settle for your Bumble date who’s perfect on paper but has an annoying laugh?”

That’s the gap matchmakers like Allie fill. They usually want clients to give them a clear picture of who they are, what they want, and what would put them off a potential match.

Dating in NYC is famously hard, but WeClicked makes it easier.

Learning the nuts and bolts of a person goes far deeper than any profile can, so dating becomes both easier and more personal.

Matchmaking will be part of what Allie offers going forward, and she’ll also be offering packages that lean more toward life coaching.

“I’ll be offering bespoke matchmaking packages. I will also be offering solely coaching packages to those that maybe aren’t ready to invest in a matchmaker, but want to work with a trauma-informed of queer affirming, you know, relationship and dating coach,” she said. “That’s definitely me.” 

She’ll also provide something called a “digital takeover.” For clients who’d rather hold on to their dating profiles and paid subscriptions, she’ll rework what’s there to make it more appealing so they gain more traction. The search itself is something she can take on too, along with messaging potential suitors.

What Should You Look for in a Matchmaker?

Even if you never work with Allie yourself, she has great advice for anyone planning to hire a matchmaker down the road.

“Do your research on a lot of different factors, maybe their success rate or what others are saying about them or what their methodology is. It can even come down to the more superficial but still important stuff, like what is their vibe? What kind of language are they using? Are they speaking to you? Do you feel personally, emotionally, like, drawn to, or connected to them? And that’s the first piece,” she said. 

If your dating profiles need a break, a matchmaker might be exactly what you’re shopping for.