Yo Ace, Whatever happened to Yente the Matchmaker? I’m tired of the bar scene, personal ads don’t work, and now I’m the president of the Lonely Hearts Club. Where’s a matchmaker when you need one? Doesn’t anyone understand?—Anna Tevka
Anna: Ace had always assumed that all of you out there in reader land understood Ace’s status as Charlottesville’s Gangster of Love, but actually your hero is humbled to be addressing this issue. For despite Ace’s A-List status, the truth is that even those of us who are better than you, Anna, join in the eternal human search for happiness.
In fact, Ace is desperately lonely, and his C-VILLE colleagues have started to get vocal about the toll it’s taking on his physical appearance and personal hygiene. It might be time to call on It Takes 2, a professional matchmaking service in Central Virginia run by that latter-day Yente herself, Carrie Daichman. Sometimes referred to as a “head hunter for love,” Daichman prides herself on the personal approach
to matchmaking that she’s applied since she started her Richmond-based company in 1998.
Daichman meets with every single who buys her service for a solid 90 minutes to discuss goals, past relationships and problems, and dating methods that have gone flat (on that note, Ace wants to inform all of you out there that, based on personal experience, bringing a date to a hot dog-eating contest qualifies as a dating method that has failed).
“An individual that comes to me is obviously already emotionally ready to have a relationship,” Daichman says. “I try to create a personalized matching process for each client.”
One might doubt the personalized nature of It Takes 2, with membership exceeding 1,000. But the testimonials—an average of two to three marriages per month—speak for themselves. Some couples even continue their friendship with the matchmaker years after tying the knot. Daichman insists, “Lots of people view love lightly, which you shouldn’t do. My clients don’t want to take something this personal and put it on the Internet for all to see.”
Ace admits that he laughs a little every time he sees an eHarmony.com commercial, but nobody can deny that those actors look extremely happy to have found their soul mate. Anna, you and Ace deserve that chance, too. Because like the song says, Ace promises you’ll be happy, and even if you’re not, there’s more to life than that—don’t ask Ace what.