Laura Lee Guhrke: Matchmaking in the modern world

The heroine of my next book is a matchmaker. My wedding is at the end of June. How are these connected? I’m getting to that.

I was a confirmed bachelorette. Having had my heart broken (or having unintentionally broken somebody else’s) too many times, I’d given up finding love. I went solo to every party or wedding. I stopped agreeing to blind dates (the last straw was the guy who wanted to roll a joint using my shoulder; I declined to oblige). I refused to do internet dating (too risky) or speed dating (too silly). I debated about matchmaking services: NYT bestselling romance novelist paired with hot multi-billionaire by high powered female exec matchmaker, but I decided there’s a reason I write fiction, and gave up that idea. No, I was Single Forever.

Then one night I met a guy through friends, and six years later, we’re getting married. None of us started out the evening thinking he and I would get together, but by the end of the night, everyone but me was in on the plot.

The stuff of my own love life has always been part of my writing. In my next book, WHEN THE MARQUESS MET HIS MATCH (out October 29), the matchmaking female exec of my imagination is now Belinda Featherstone, Victorian matchmaker to rich American girls seeking titled British husbands. Her matches always work out, until she falls in love with her own client. That’s a disaster that in real life probably would have happened to me. Thankfully, I found love by accident (sort of), and that’s the best thing that could ever have happened to me.

How about you? Have you ever been successfully matched up by friends? Have you matched up anyone else? If so, how did it go? Can matchmaking work, or is it just disaster waiting to happen?