Give a little help to your friends

The sliding scale of randomness

There are different ways to meet someone for a date but if we were to create a sliding scale of randomness, they’d all fit on there somewhere. If your best friend comes to you and says, “I just met a really nice guy who I think you might enjoy meeting – would you like me to set it up?” is it at all possible you’d say no? This is the least random set-up. If you meet someone on a dating website (or on the bus), that would probably classify as most random.

I believe that the less random the set-up is, the better. And yet, it’s strange. We all know people who know people (well, obviously) and yet so many of us find ourselves looking to dating websites as a solution to meet someone. Should friends be making more of an effort to help their friends find their besherts?

People could use a little help from their friends!

Why not be a “matchmaker”?

It’s important to realize how difficult it is to take on the role of matchmaker. Most of us don’t really want to get involved in this. It can feel nosey, peaking into other people’s lives, “helping” them with something so personal… And then, of course, it can get messy. You never know if you might make enemies on the way. You often hear about situations where a single person holds a grudge against someone who set them up, saying, “I can’t imagine what that person must think of me if they set me up with that guy/girl.”

So yes, you do have to be careful who you set someone up with, just as singles need to be forgiving (I know how hard it can be) and understanding of what a difficult job it is to do matchmaking. But wouldn’t it be great if we could figure out a way to make this happen more?

If you hesitate getting involved, you’re perfect for the job.

Here is the most important part of this post: Those of you who really don’t feel comfortable getting involved with this, you are worried you won’t do a good job, you might hurt people on the way, etc… You are probably the best people to get involved! I think it’s great, people who are gung-ho about helping singles, but sometimes that could be accompanied by a lack of sensitivity. You could be so focused on wanting to help that you lose focus of the people you’re trying to help.

But if you are very hesitant because you’re sensitive, you should try helping and keeping that sensitivity. And you think, “What do I know?” when it comes to figuring out who might go with whom? Good! Keep that too! You can’t really know. Probably the best thing to ask yourself is, “Can I imagine these two people enjoying talking to each other for a couple of hours?” If the answer is yes and the basic things match (each person needs to tell you what their “basic things” are), you’re good to go!

How do you do it?

I’d really love if people gave ideas here of how it works to set friends up… But I’d imagine that a good place to start is by having a notebook of the single people you know who you’d be willing to set up (aka, the ones you actually like). It’s important to be honest in the book (and not let anyone else see it) so that you are sure to remember the things you think and know about the person.

Then what? Ideas?

Photo by markhillary on flickr.