14 Aug Speed Dating vs. Matchmaking in Los Angeles: Which Problem Do You Have?
You want a way to meet someone that does not involve a phone. In Los Angeles that usually narrows to two things: buy a ticket to a speed dating event, or hire a matchmaker.
They get discussed as though they sit on one spectrum, cheap at one end and expensive at the other. They do not. They fail for opposite reasons.
Speed dating gives you volume with almost no filtering. You will meet a dozen people in an evening, and all you know about them beforehand is that they bought a ticket. Matchmaking gives you filtering with almost no volume. Someone screens for you, and you meet a few people slowly.
Neither is a flaw. Both are the design. The mistake is choosing without working out which of those two problems you have.
One disclosure: a matchmaking firm wrote this. We have tried to be accurate about where speed dating beats what we sell, because a comparison that flatters its author is worthless.
What speed dating actually is
The format was invented here. In the late 1990s, Rabbi Yaacov Deyo created speed dating to help Jewish singles in Los Angeles meet each other, and NPR reported the same origin years later, when the format invented by a Los Angeles rabbi was still spreading beyond the community it was built for.
The mechanics have barely changed. Participants go on roughly 10 to 25 very brief dates of about four minutes each, mark yes or no for every person afterward, and the host connects any pair who said yes to each other. Nobody is turned down to their face.
Locally, events are banded by age and posted on general event platforms rather than dating sites. Meetup keeps a speed dating topic page for Los Angeles, and the large ticketing platforms carry similar listings. They do that job better than a matchmaker’s blog can.
On cost, only the order of magnitude matters. An evening of speed dating is a night out. Matchmaking is quoted per client, and we wrote separately about what actually drives matchmaker cost.
What speed dating is genuinely good at
Everyone in the room is there for the same declared reason. Researchers who use the format to study attraction note real advantages over a party or a bar, including the assurance that the people you meet also came to meet romantic partners, the ability to give clear acceptance or rejection without doing it face to face, and the knowledge that a bad date will be brief.
It puts you in front of actual people, which is the only place attraction shows up. When researchers ran more than 100 trait and preference measures through a machine learning model to predict who would want whom at a speed dating event, they could predict who was broadly desirable and how freely someone would like others, but not which two specific people would click.
What you say you want is not reliably what you respond to. In a study that measured ideal partner preferences before an event and then tracked what actually drew people in, stated preferences failed to predict what inspired real desire at the event. One unfiltered evening tests a mental list faster than another year of screening against it.
It works as an introduction mechanism. The same review reports preliminary evidence that speed dating may be an especially effective way of introducing people who then pursue follow-up dates. And if you are out of practice, twelve short conversations will recalibrate you faster than six months of thinking about it.
Where speed dating stops working
The failure is always the same. There is no filter.
The screen at the door is an age band and a ticket. Nobody has confirmed that the person across from you is divorced rather than separated, wants a relationship rather than company on a Thursday, or has room in their life for anyone. You are doing the vetting yourself, twelve times in a night.
Volume also degrades your own judgment. Two researchers analyzed 84 commercial speed dating events and found that at bigger events, with 24 or more dates, people chose more on attributes judged instantly, such as height and weight, while at smaller events they weighed things that take longer to identify, such as education, occupation and whether someone smokes.
The largest real-world sample shows the same pattern. Among 10,526 speed daters with an average age of 33, attraction was driven more by observable characteristics such as physical attractiveness, height and age than by less observable ones such as education, religion, or the desire to have children. Note the age of that sample, and note which characteristics lost.
Three limits are local. An event is a public room, and you will be seen by people nobody screened. It happens at one address on one night, and Santa Monica is invisible to Pasadena on a weeknight. And bands for the forties, fifties and sixties run less often here, with one band sometimes spanning two decades.
What matchmaking does, and what it costs you
Matchmaking inverts every one of those properties, including the good ones.
What you gain is a filter operated by a person. Someone runs a long intake, sources candidates, confirms they are who they claim to be and genuinely available, arranges the meeting, then takes your feedback and adjusts. The slow-to-observe characteristics a four-minute rotation cannot reach are exactly what that process handles, and nothing about you sits in a public room.
What you give up is volume, and the trade is severe. You will meet far fewer people than a season of events would produce, deliberately, and slowly, because intake, sourcing, verification and coordinating two schedules is not fast. You give up control of the shortlist, and it costs a great deal more than a ticket.
One limit deserves stating plainly, because our industry tends not to. A matchmaker cannot predict chemistry either. The machine learning result above applies to human judgment too. What a good matchmaker changes is the composition of the room.
Volume or filtering: which problem do you actually have
Read both lists and be honest about which describes your last twelve months.
You have a volume problem if you cannot remember the last time you met a new unattached person in an ordinary social setting. Your circle closed. You are not turning candidates down, because you are not being offered any. Something structural changed, a divorce, a move, a business that ate a decade, children who grew and left, and your access never recovered.
You have a filtering problem if you meet plenty of people and they are wrong in the same way every time. Your evenings are scarce and you resent spending them on conversations that were dead by the second one. Your requirements around faith, family intentions or life stage are specific enough that chance rarely produces someone who meets them. Or being seen looking costs you more than it costs most people.
Speed dating answers the first list and does nothing for the second. Matchmaking is the reverse. Most people who have been unhappy for a while assume theirs is the filtering problem, because it is the more flattering diagnosis, and many of them have a volume problem instead.
A third condition sits outside both. If you meet people easily, reach a third or fourth date regularly, and something reliably comes apart there, coaching will serve you better and cost less.
How to choose, and how to run either one well
If the first list described you, go to events, and go to several. Pick the band closest to your actual age rather than the flattering one, because any single room is a small random sample. Given what the research says about larger events pushing people toward instant cues, smaller is better. Decide what you are screening for before you walk in. Then say yes generously, because a yes costs you one coffee.
If the second list described you, the honest options are broader than the two in this article’s title. A well-briefed personal network still works and is free. Some people do better with a dating coach. Matchmaking is the paid version of the filter, and it makes sense when access is genuinely constrained, your time is worth more than the sorting, or privacy rules out public rooms.
It is worth saying who should not hire a matchmaker. If you are still early in a separation, wait. The process depends on honest feedback about what you responded to, which is hard while you are processing the end of something. If what you want is volume, an event calendar serves you better. A matchmaker narrows the field. You still have to form a view.
Los Angeles Singles has been making introductions here for more than 25 years, from offices in West Los Angeles and Encino. Every introduction is considered by a matchmaker who has met both people, and no public profile is attached to your name. We are one credible option among several, and the right call only if the second list described you. The FAQ covers the mechanics.
Frequently asked questions
Is speed dating still a thing in Los Angeles?
Yes. Events run regularly across greater Los Angeles, organized by age band, and most are advertised on general event platforms rather than dating sites. Meetup keeps a speed dating topic page for the area, and the large ticketing platforms carry similar listings. Availability varies most by age: twenties and thirties bands run frequently, while forties, fifties and sixties bands run less often and span a wider range.
Does speed dating actually work?
Better than its reputation. Everyone present is there for the same declared reason, rejection is handled privately, and researchers who study the format report preliminary evidence that it introduces people who then pursue follow-up dates. Its weakness is not the four minutes. Its weakness is that nobody has screened anyone. Whether it works for you depends on whether you are short of new people or short of suitable ones.
What is the difference between speed dating and matchmaking?
Speed dating is a volume format with no filter: you meet ten or more people in an evening, and the only screening is the age band and the ticket. Matchmaking is a filtering service with very little volume. A person runs an in-depth intake, verifies candidates, arranges each introduction and adjusts on your feedback, so you meet few people slowly. Choose by asking whether you lack access or a way to sort.
Is speed dating a good option after 50?
It can be, with two caveats. Supply is the first: bands covering the fifties and sixties run less often here and span a wider age range. What the format rewards is the second. Research on real-world speed daters found attraction driven more by immediately observable characteristics such as attractiveness, height and age than by less observable ones such as education, religion or the desire to have children. If your priorities sit in the slower column, the format works against them.
Should I try speed dating before hiring a matchmaker?
Often, yes, and we say that against our own interest. An evening or two answers questions no amount of deliberation will: whether you enjoy meeting strangers at this stage, whether your stated preferences survive contact with real people, and whether your difficulty is access or selection. If you meet nobody suitable across two or three events, your constraint is the pool. If you meet several worth a second conversation, you may not need to hire anyone.
Ready to talk?
If the filtering problem is the one you recognized, and you want to know what a search in your situation would involve, you can start with an application.
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