As matchmakers, we set up dates weeks in advance after much searching and screening. Significant consideration and orchestration is required to do the job right. We control the match, the day and time, and the venue. What we cannot control, however, (aside from whether chemistry occurs between two strangers), is the weather.
Torrential rain, ferocious winds, mountains of snow, thick fog that curtails driving speed to 2 miles per hour, and sweltering summer temperatures (that test our trusted deodorant), are the sort of elements we have ZERO control over.
Knowing this, I’m prepared when a client frantically calls pre-date panicking over uncooperative frizzy hair or lamenting over the new suede boots they suddenly cannot wear on a rainy night.
“Because while I can’t control the weather, I must certainly can help my clients weather the weather.”
So when a storm strikes, I share this story…
Dear Client:
Don’t fret over the rain/snow/fog/earthquake/tsunami, ok?
I’d like to share a true story. A year and a half ago I went on a date with a man who asked me to meet him uptown. I live in downtown Manhattan so it was a little bit of a chore, but he was cute and he chose a nice restaurant so I made the trip.
En route, I got off at the wrong subway stop, then preceded to get lost. Out of the blue, the skies darkened and it began to rain – hard. It was that kind of unpredicted hideous sideways downpour that falls so heavily the drops hurt on contact. You would think as an experienced Matchmaker, I would have every pre-first date potential catastrophe covered but, no…
I had no umbrella and was completely ill-prepared right down to my open-toe sling back heels. I was so unacceptably drenched near arrival that I had no choice but to run into a store and buy a new dress with only minutes to spare, unceremoniously abandoning the well-considered outfit I had carefully planned.
The new dress did not fit well. I’m short (5’0’’) so it really should have been hemmed half a foot! Regardless, to this day, my (now) boyfriend still talks about the beautiful dress I wore on that very rainy night. And when we wake up to grey skies and heavy rain, we both know we are going to have another especially great day together.
And now, when I have multiple clients going out on an evening plagued by inclement weather, I think to myself, someone is going to have a lucky night.
“The point is, rain does not a great date break.”
If the elements are fair for mutual attraction to strike, a bit of rain will not prevent it. Also consider that while it might feel safer (to our egos) to believe that wet hair is why there wasn’t a second date, instead consider that it simply wasn’t a match.
That is, without a doubt, a more summery (and pragmatic) view.
Brigitte Weil, Tawkify Matchmaker, Chef + Founder, I Hate Celery Sticks
For more information on Brigitte, click here.
