Nora DeKeyser: Millennial Matchmaker
By Shannon Barbour
From faking identities to taking up strange hobbies and catfishing unsuspecting partners, some will do almost anything to find their perfect match. It’s been the subject of many articles, TV shows and even strangely cute how-we-met stories. And Nora DeKeyser will do almost anything to find the perfect catch, even attending services and mingling events at The Kabbalah Centre New York in Midtown Manhattan.
She went to find a man, which isn’t the strangest thing a girl has done to land a date. Except this man wasn’t for her to keep. He was a prospect for one of her clients, a spiritual woman, who DeKeyser sat through worship and fellowship at The Centre for. DeKeyser sets up her clients on dates with many leading to long-term relationships and even marriage. She is one of New York’s many matchmakers in a city constantly contemplating their next move and their next counterpart. “We’re pretty shameless,” she said. “If someone has a specific type we will run after that person on the subway or on the street.”
DeKeyser isn’t what one typically pictures when thinking of a matchmaker. She’s not an older family woman or the brutally bold Patti Stanger of Bravo’s “The Millionaire Matchmaker.” She’s a bubbly millennial from Alaska and isn’t the typical 25-year-old New York transplant who’s too cool to care or dress in anything other than black, navy or gray. She’s bright-eyed and speaks in a way that makes it seem like you’ve been friends for a while. Her wavy blonde hair cascades down her preppy striped shirt as she sits behind her MacBook in the lobby of the W in Union Square, one of her many work stations throughout the city. And as one of the 28 women in Three Day Rule, a group of matchmakers sprinkled across the country in its major cities, she’s tasked with helping nearly 15 clients, ranging in age, find love in the city.
Three Day Rule. It’s the golden rule of dating. Don’t call or text someone back for three days or risk seeming too desperate or thirsty as many swipe-crazy millennials would say. It’s also the Los Angeles-based company started by Talia Goldstein that pairs singles with their perfect match through an online database that is free to join, but doesn’t guarantee a match. Or if someone has $5,000 to spend on the prospect of love, they can purchase a six month contract to be paired with a matchmaker who will do anything to find the paying client a match either through the online database or going anywhere from Kabbalah centers to networking events. But for DeKeyser and the other matchmakers at Three Day Rule, the rule is nothing but a joke and should never be followed. “Our company is kind of poking fun at that,” she said. “If you like her, give her a call. Let her know. There’s no rules. There’s no games. We’re all focused on being exactly who you are and doing exactly what you feel.”
But why would a generation that is so inundated with dating apps pay a matchmaker when they could just swipe right or left with a flick of the wrist? Kevin Gil and Catherine Coats are millennials who frequently use apps like Bumble and Tinder and are skeptical of using a young matchmaker to find love. Coats is an avid dating app user and met her current boyfriend of one year on Tinder. “I believe that online dating has changed the way people date forever,” she said. “Even if you’re not on the apps. The people that you would meet are. So you’re missing out if you hold out on the apps.” Coats wouldn’t use a matchmaker because she trusts herself more than she would someone she just met. “I don’t know if I’m honest enough in an interview where I can say what I want, but not really what I need,” she said. “And so I don’t know if a matchmaker would catch on.”
Gil also uses dating apps and wouldn’t use a matchmaker because he prefers meeting people the old fashioned way and on apps. Although he admits waiting for someone to swipe right and like him back is a little “iffy” coupled with the issue of getting his point across through text messages. Gil said he could see the benefit of using a matchmaker even though he wouldn’t pay for one. “It’s kind of like blind dates, honestly,” he said. “And at this point in time I don’t know if I would want to do that right now. I think this is a cool concept, but I personally like the old fashion way. It’s cool if you’re looking for the fast route.”
DeKeyser encourages everyone, including her best friend and roommate Ali Carruthers, to sign up for the free dating pool, especially if they’re not ready or able to pay for her services. “Before I was dating my current boyfriend I would have loved for her to set me up, through TDR or otherwise,” Carruthers said. “I trust her judgment of people. I even signed up to be in the free pool of candidates. She never met the right person for me, but it all worked out.” And singles of all ages are handing over thousands of dollars for a shot at finding love courtesy of DeKeyser’s methods, proving matchmakers are indeed useful in an age of dating apps and hookup culture.
DeKeyser, who said she’s never been on a bad date, is familiar with dating apps herself, but has had little success with them. “I’ve used every single dating app,” she said. “To be honest it felt like a game, almost. You don’t know anything about the person besides their six photos and their said age. And I’ve gone on a couple dates through dating apps and they sucked. It wasn’t bad like it wasn’t a bad date but it was like ‘wow, we have nothing in common.’ I think they’re fine places to meet, but to find your partner you need other avenues on top of dating apps.”
DeKeyser’s strength isn’t just her outgoing personality, it’s also her unwavering positivity and unusual, sometimes cutesy, attitude towards dates. While many would be quick to categorize a less than fun or fruitful encounter as a bad date, she sees them as an opportunity to learn more about herself and empathize with her clients. “I kind of always say ‘hey just take it with a grain of salt,’” she said. “It’s not a marriage proposal, it’s just a first date. If it doesn’t work for you, hey he could be a good fit for someone else.”
Fellow matchmaker Kristen Stewart, whose dog’s name is Bella, but has no relation to the “Twilight” star, says she and DeKeyser share the similar outlook and quality of being able to make the best out of a bad date. “The type of people that Three Day Rule likes to have as matchmakers are shameless,” she said. “They can talk to a wall.”
When DeKeyser isn’t dating, she and Elizabeth Ray, another matchmaker, will do anything for their clients, like attending multiple networking events every week. Ray said she pursued the job because it’s like being a best friend. “I remember looking at my roommate saying ‘I just want to be paid to be somebody’s best friend and look out for everybody.’” Ray said. DeKeyser also became a matchmaker after her friends suggested she should pursue a career as a friend, like Ray. “My friends used to tell me, ‘you should be a professional best friend. That should be your profession,’” DeKeyser said. “I love people, and I love to make a positive difference in people’s lives. I think that is why I love being a matchmaker.”
And that’s exactly what Ray and DeKesyer do. If you need help crafting the perfect text back, DeKeyser is your ghostwriter. If you need help picking out the perfect outfit, send her some pictures of your options and she becomes Stacy London of “What Not to Wear,” but always recommends a black wrap dress. If you’ve never been much of a dater, she becomes your guinea pig and coaches you through them. Essentially, the ultimate wing woman. “A really awesome part about this and the client that’s working with us is that we get to be their partner in all of this,” DeKeyser said. “So we can kind of be their mirrors. It’s kind of a friendship between us and the client to help them understand maybe what’s hindering them from finding their best match.”
A daughter of a therapist and doctor, DeKeyser comes from a family that openly discussed their feelings and relationships, which has carried into her new career. “When Nora was in high school, her friends would come to her with their relationship problems,” her father John DeKeyser said. “When she told us she was making a career out of this, it seemed like a logical extension of her natural, intuitive abilities.”
Before DeKeyser moved to New York she spent semesters sailing from Singapore to Africa, cleaning up New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and going on medical missions to Guatemala. She’s a former recruiter for major banks, but she now calls herself a recruiter for love and does everything, but get the guy. Which doesn’t bother her, except the time she broke up with her boyfriend of a year and a half and became a single matchmaker. “We broke up and that was really hard,” she said. “I called my boss the next day and I said, ‘Robyn, I cannot sell love today. I can’t.’” It took her a few weeks to be able to compartmentalize her personal and professional life and direct all her energy to her job. “It took me a while just because I talk about love every single day. So when someone would be describing what they’re looking for in a partner, in my head right around that break up I was like ‘oh same here. That’s what I want too.’ You have to be very positive about love in this job if you want people to find it.”
Even during the times DeKeyser has been single in her two years as a matchmaker, she never tried to match herself with potential clients. “ It could literally hit you straight in the head,” she said. “But if he says he’s a certain religion, I’m like ‘oh my client isn’t that religion. Shit. Out the door.’ You’re not even thinking about him for you.” DeKeyser recently started dating again, to someone she met through a mutual friend, who loves her job and hasn’t made any ‘if you’re a matchmaker why are you single?’ comments. “The guy I’m seeing now, he loves it,” she said. “He thinks it’s so interesting.
DeKeyser’s new boyfriend, who she met through mutual friends, loves her job, but it may turn into a long distance relationship when it takes her to Los Angeles next year. DeKeyser will also have to leave behind her best friends and the city that she’s grown to love, but she’s excited to move to a new city to help more singles find love and be closer to her family in Alaska. “Her move to California is going to be awesome for her,” Carruthers said. “I have never met anyone who values her family so much and she has lived away from them for far too long. Being closer to all of her family is going to be a game changer in Nora’s life.” And no one seems better suited for sunny southern California.
