It’s not what you ask it’s the way that you ask it?

The most important thing at the beginning for men especially is chemistry, so keep that eye contact and smile to create that connection.

It is all about connection and avoiding rejection. At the end of the day we just want someone to like us and feel very comfortable and relaxed in their presence.

Everyone asks the same things and by coming to me the matchmaker first it means you have that information already so you are about five steps ahead in the process. You also know that that person you meeting likes your profile and there intentions are the same as yours when it comes to finding that special one.

Manners or vital and keep off your phone. This is a massive turn off.

Step outside your comfort zone and ask questions that really are important to yourself.

Don’t be afraid to say I’ve not usual question for you. “Who is your favourite uncle and why?” For example. This tells you an awful lot about them if you’re a female you ask about the uncle because it tells you what you’re looking for in your significant other. In my case I would say, my Uncle Tom and that’s because he had always a funny interesting story to tell and a giggle and a laugh and made us all giggle and laugh. He was also very copped on and didn’t take any rubbish. So there’s an example what I would go for in a man.

You can cover areas such as:

Lifestyle: travel, exercise, sleep patterns, socialising and how much someone uses their phone.

Personality: how someone handles stress, disagreement, change and social situations.

Relationships: how they like to receive and express affection, texting versus comfortable silence, and what they consider important in a partner.

Values: kindness, humour, honesty, personal development and work/life priorities.

Children: whether they see themselves having children.

Practical compatibility: smoking, food requirements, religion and other “hard nos.”

Age preferences: the youngest and oldest age they would consider dating.

Chemistry/attraction: what their ideal first date looks like and what they want in a partner.

Open-ended questions: they can actually describe themselves and write a note to their future match.

One particularly interesting question is essentially “What are your non-negotiable green flags?”, where participants choose their three most important qualities.

And here’s the lovely bit about matchmaking.

We don’t give you 50 matches. That would be like going into a party of 50 people and only three matching you yet you have to see the 47.

You get one match the time, which makes you focus on them and them on you. Then you can come back to me and discuss the date and the pros and cons. You will be surprised how much you actually learn about yourself and what you don’t want.

That’s a very different philosophy from Tinder/Bumble-style dating.

Does having more potential matches necessarily make it easier to find a suitable match? In my opinion it is the complete opposite. You get more fed up the more it doesn’t work. You get more complacent and treat people with less respect because you’re fed up on that feeling of groundhog Day.

Over in China they brought out a dating app to encourage people to get married younger in 1984

GovTech wanted to test whether fewer, more carefully selected introductions would encourage people to give each one more consideration. I can see why as they were worried about a growing older population and last year nearly 1% less marriages.

From a matchmaking perspective, I think the questionnaire is the really interesting part

It’s effectively separating compatibility into several layers:

1. Lifestyle compatibility

Do these two people actually live in ways that could work together?

2. Values compatibility

Do they want similar things from life and relationships?

3. Relationship behaviour

How do they communicate, deal with conflict and show affection?

4. Deal-breakers

Are there things that would make the relationship fundamentally unsuitable?

5. Family intentions

Do their views about children align?

6. Age/partner preferences

Is there actually a realistic overlap between what each person is looking for?

And then the algorithm tries to find stable pairings, rather than simply saying “you both liked hiking, so you’re a match.” In saying that you don’t have to have that same hobbies and interests once you have each other’s backs that is what creates the Bond. A little bit of chemistry respect and understanding goes a long way.

I hear it every day. Where do you meet people? I used to go to the pub but it is not somewhere that you can easily go and chat to people anymore as people go out in big groups and stick with them.