Anchorage Daily News

In these days of outsourcing, from customer service to national security, one wonders what's next.

That would be your love life.

If you're willing to hand it over, take advice and write a fat check, professional matchmakers Patti Lafond Miller and Kat Killeen will get your dating act together and do the trolling for you. In other words, as headhunters of love, it's their business to find you a mate.

Lafond Miller, 49, is owner of the Anchorage matchmaking business Meet Me For Lunch, and the extrovert behind this love boutique.

"I believe in love, and I want others to find it too," she said. "And I get a little pushy."

She and Killeen are certified matchmakers, meaning they've been to the Matchmaker Institute in New York City, had 22 hours of training, passed a test and have the certificates to prove it.

What's that means in practical terms?

It means when a client who's pushing 40 and living with his parents asks why he can't get a date, it's their job to tell him.

It means when the phone rings in the middle of dinner because a client has a "dating SOS," they put down their forks and go to work.

Like the woman who freaked mid-date, ducked into the bathroom and dialed.

"I really like him," she said in a panic. "I don't know how to end the date. Should I hug him? Should I kiss him? I don't know what to do."

These two are serious about finding your life mate. Catch-and-release types would do better sticking to online dating or perusing the personals. Meet Me For Lunch isn't that kind of deal.

It's part of a growing industry catering to singles who'd rather hand their hearts to a matchmaker with a pulse than one with chips and circuitry. According to industry estimates there are some 1,500 independent matchmakers in this country.

"There's a science to it," Killeen said, "And there's a technique. But there's also gut, intuition."

And it doesn't hurt to know how to flirt.

"I'm a terrible flirt," Lafond Miller said. "I mean, I'm a good flirt, a terrible, bad, good flirt. I can't resist flirting."

More importantly, she can teach how it's done, give the clueless a clue, help dater duds ditch bad pickup lines forever, ones like "Say, that outfit sure would look nice on my bedroom floor."

MYTHS AND NICHES

Lafond Miller, who's been around the dating and marriage block a few times herself, has launched several enterprises since her arrival here in the early '80s. Among them a vintage clothing shop, Via Lafond, and Midnite Fun, a bar-hopping party van with a designated driver and "comedian on board" that took visitors on a wildlife tour of the Fly By Night, Chilkoot Charlie's and other classic watering holes.

That morphed into Meet Me In Alaska, which brought single women up from the Lower 48 to take in the sights and meet hunky men along the way.

"That was when that whole Alaska man thing was going crazy," Lafond Miller said -- the myth that, not only did men radically outnumber women in Alaska, but every single one was a mighty fine catch.

These quirky niche tours got Lafond Miller a bunch of press, including an appearance on "Good Morning America." When Cosmopolitan magazine sent four single female staffers up to check out the goods, she got the job of delivering. By the time they landed, she had screened more than 70 men and whittled it down to around 30 tasty specimens.

All the while in her spare time, she hooked up her friends and they hooked up her. Her new husband as of April was a match made by a friend.

"When Chuck and I got married, I thought, what am I going to do with all this odd experience? It doesn't amount to much, it's just odd, you know?"

Someone suggested matchmaking; she started researching the industry and opened her office in the spring of 2006.

"Everything just came together," she said. "This is it. I'll do this forever."

DOING LUNCH

Meet Me For Lunch clients range from 19 to 78, Lafond Miller said. "And you know what? They come from all walks of life."

Some were married 20 or 30 years, then divorced or widowed and now find themselves back in a dating world where the rules have changed dramatically.

"They come to us, 'Should I pick up the bill?' " Killeen said. " 'Should I ask her for her phone number? What do I wear? I have no idea.' "

Some have been through the wringer.

One guy had been in a long-term relationship with a woman who traveled a lot for business. They'd been together something like 25 years before he discovered she had a husband in the Lower 48.

In this business, every client gets a background check to make sure people are who they say they are.

And no pictures.

"Sure, we want chemistry to happen," Lafond Miller said. "But as soon as we start talking about what they want physically, and they want to see pictures, then they're off track on this whole long-term thing."

So clients go on blind dates, knowing only that the people they're meeting have been hand-picked by her or Killeen, not a computer. And after each date, they're debriefed.

Meet Me For Lunch subcontracts some difficult cases -- dating dinosaurs who can use the coaching of Mary Marshall, local author of the self-published, "Charm School for Guys: How to Lose the Fugly and Get Some Snugly."

Or that of image goddess Diana Hansen.

"We had one guy, I interviewed him, and I said, 'Before I accept you as a client, you have to see Diana,' " Killeen said. " 'Because if you don't see Diana, I can't help you.' I mean he looked like the dude from 'Dumb and Dumber.' It was bad.

"This guy, he's like, 'I don't know what's wrong with me.' Well, let me tell ya."

Killeen called in Hansen, who got him a haircut, took him clothes shopping, gave him a talking to. The next time Killeen saw him she didn't recognize the man.

"I mean, he looked hot."

NOW THE BILL

Hands-on matchmaking doesn't come cheap.

"If we decide that what they're looking for is practical and reasonable, if we feel we can help them and their heart's in the right place, then we charge them a fee," Killeen said. "And the fee ranges from $1,300 to $10,000."

Now, hold on to your shorts. In major cities sums like those would get you matched with a plastic blowup doll. Fees in New York City, for instance, can begin around $2,500 and run as much as $100,000 a year.

And the fussier, the pricier.

Let's say a widowed surgeon is looking for a Ph.D. who tap dances, plays the autoharp and won't mind his slobbering St. Bernard lap dog or his five kids, especially when he leaves the country for months to work abroad. That would be a huge, costly search, particularly in a small arena like Alaska.

Lafond Miller is not limited to her company database. She's on perpetual duty, radar on, and has no problem stopping potential mate-bait on the street.

"I'm always recruiting," she said. "Always."

For lower maintenance clients, the basic matchmaking fee gets them 10 introductions. That's what they're officially called, introductions, not dates. They get 10, plus an hour each of date and appearance coaching, and invitations to the company's Singles After Hours events, which include nights on the town, ski outings, wine tastings, cooking classes, a snowman-building party and anything else Lafond Miller dreams up.

A new gig for clients, as well as singles at large, is meeting at the monthly First Friday jazz sessions at the Anchorage museum. The event's January debut more than quadrupled the museum's usual First Friday turnout.

Not everyone was single and not every single was looking. But those who were slapped on a heart sticker, signalling they were "approachable and open to flirting," as Killeen put it.

Some turned down the stickers; a few put them on their cheeks. Darryl Almandinger, who said he's been single his whole life, wore two.

He's a Meet Me For Lunch client, and that night he met Elizabeth Kleweno, who is not a client and was attending her first singles event ever.

"I have a lot of married friends," she said, "so most of my Friday and Saturday nights are spent at home watching movies."

"Yeah, I know the feeling," Almandinger said.

"This is something completely new to me," he said. "I've never tried this whole matchmaking thing before. But it's fun and it's worth a try."

At the Meet Me For Lunch table in the museum lobby, Killeen and Hansen saw the two of them stroll by all smiley and chatty.

They looked at each other, grinned and did a big high five.

Find reporter Debra McKinney at adn.com/contact/dmckinney.

FIRST FRIDAY: To learn more about the Anchorage Museum's First Friday jazz nights and new singles event, go to

www.anchoragemuseum.org/afterhours

MEET ME FOR LUNCH: Learn more at

www.meetmeforlunch.net

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