A pro matchmaker's secret to finding love? Start with yourself
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Photo illustration: Axios Visuals. Photo: Courtesy of Kailen Rosenberg
After spending 27 years setting people up, professional matchmaker Kailen Rosenberg knows a bit about love.
The big picture: Step one to finding your soulmate, the self-described "love architect" says, is connecting with yourself.
- "If you don't do that, if you don't really ... know who you are, and fall in love with yourself and love yourself in a … healthy way, there's no way that you can really have a healthy, cool, functioning relationship."
Bio in brief: The Twin Cities-based relationship expert got her start in life coaching. Before long, she realized some of her single clients would make good pairs.
- At her urging, they went out, and started marrying, "truly left and right." The business took off. And so did her career, as everyone from Oprah, who brought her on to host a show about love, to the "Today" show, began turning to her for advice.
How it works: Her business, The Love Architects, attracts clients from across the globe. Services range from a $40 DIY package to a $25,000-plus program that includes 10 custom matches and access to a VIP database. Some clients have paid upwards of $350,000.
- In addition to helping her clients work on themselves, Rosenberg and her team do the legwork on the matches.
- Pricier packages include "in-depth, spiritual, and psychological vetting," criminal background checks, and in-person visits to potential suitors before the date.
What she's seeing: The months before and after Valentine's Day used to be the busiest of the year. But since the pandemic, she's seen a steady flow of requests all year long.
- "[It] woke us up to a different reality of things that are not as stable and secure as we thought," she said. "People are just starving to be with someone, you know, to really connect."
The intrigue: Post-COVID, she's also seeing more clients who think they can find that stability by prioritizing "money, stature, education level — bullsh*t in my opinion that [doesn't have] anything to do with love."
- "There's a lot of breaking people down with love," she said.
Between the lines: Minnesotans are some of the hardest nuts to crack when it comes to finding a match. Issues with codependency and "passive-aggressive crap" get in the way.
- "The Minnesota nice stuff has got to stop," she said. "We have to get it to Minnesota healed, Minnesota genuine, Minnesota tell it like the truth."
Yes, but: She does find success matching local clients with people who hail from elsewhere.
- "Guys from Minnesota should be with women from Chicago. Women from Minnesota should be from guys from Denver," she said. "No joking. Like we're kind of mismatched."
What she's watching: The rise of apps and digital dating has allowed people to filter not just their looks, but who they are as a person.
- Generative AI could make those waters even tougher to navigate, as people can use bots to generate everything from a false look to smooth lines sent via a messaging app.
The bottom line: Stop getting in your own way.
- "Love is supposed to be easy itself, energetically, yet we as humans, with our egos, make it so difficult," she said.