Sunday Special: Close encounters

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/03/2009 (6323 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ROLAND — “Stood up!” she fumed, nursing her coffee alone in the corner seat of a Tim Hortons after driving an hour to get there.

"Stood up!" he sighed, and ditto all of the above, except in a Tim Hortons on the other end of town.

Professional matchmaker Diane Mowbray talked them through their disappointment. There had been a mixup. They hadn’t realized there were two Tim Hortons in the area. Try again.

"If it does work, you wouldn’t want to miss that," Mowbray likes to tell clients.

It worked. They dated. They just bought a house together.

Bagged another one!

It’s now 65 marriages and as many common-law relationships and counting, for matchmaker Mowbray and her old-fashioned service. You can almost picture Mowbray blowing imaginary smoke off the tip of her index finger, gunslinger style, every time two more clients tie the knot.

Mowbray has been matching couples ever since she married a local teacher/farmer and moved to Roland, 90 kilometres southwest of the city.

She had this image when she first moved there of a rural social life filled with barn dances and other get-togethers. But she soon learned much of that has disappeared, largely due to rural depopulation. That left more and more single people unable to find partners.

Mowbray decided to set aside her profession as a nutritionist for nursing homes and start her own company, Candlelight International Matchmakers. The hardest part starting out was winning over peoples’ confidence when she had a track record of zero matches. But after 12 years, Mowbray seems to have the hang of it.

Her clients are about two-thirds rural — as far-flung as North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Ontario — and one-third from Winnipeg. They range from their 20s to their 80s. They are widowed, divorced, never married.

Geography is a big obstacle to finding a mate for many of Mowbray’s clients. Many rural singles feel physically isolated. People in the city can feel socially isolated.

Rural people are accustomed to travelling long distances, so they don’t fuss about driving an hour or more for an arranged date. People in the city can be more reluctant about travel.

"I have some clients in the city, and they will not even drive to the other side of the city to meet someone. Now that’s Perimeter-itis," Mowbray said.

Her process includes a questionnaire and a personal interview. It’s a screening process that online dating generally does not provide. Mowbray has had men arrive for the initial interview smelling of alcohol. She turns them down fast.

Otherwise, she believes there is a match for everyone.

Applicants can’t riffle through everyone’s profiles. When Mowbray thinks two people seem compatible, she sends them each other’s profile, mailed to the applicant in a business envelope to protect confidentiality. That can be an issue at small rural post offices.

Applicants first meet for coffee or lunch at a restaurant, then they discuss how it went with Mowbray. If both parties agree, they follow up with a date. Mowbray will usually talk with them one more time. After that, they’re on their own.

People get cold feet. Mowbray often gets calls from people wanting to back out of a first meeting. She talks them through it.

"It’s never a waste of time to meet someone. It gives you more experience for when maybe the right person does come along," she said.

One client was divorced and dating and not getting anywhere. He said using Mowbray’s service "is the best choice I ever made."

He met Miss Right on his second attempt. They married in 2007.

"You would date people that really weren’t on your horizon, you might say," he says. That is, people who weren’t of similar family backgrounds and job and education levels.

"With the dating service, they do all that for you," he said. "It gives you a head start."

People talk about looking for the right chemistry, but that’s a tricky matter, said Mowbray. One couple in their 60s met for coffee. He definitely wanted to meet again. She declined, saying she didn’t feel any magic.

A couple of months later, he called again. She agreed to meet, and then they went on a date. "By the third time, she thought he was the best guy she’d ever met," said Mowbray.

Glen McDowell was in his 60s, a bachelor cattle rancher all his life, when he signed on with Mowbray. His first two encounters over coffee weren’t promising. One woman couldn’t stop talking.

The third meeting was with Joan. Joan is from Brandon, while Glen farms west of Carman. They met at noon in Carman and didn’t leave until nearly 7 p.m. Joan’s friend, who lived in Carman, was waiting for her and kept driving around the restaurant to make sure her friend was still there and hadn’t been kidnapped.

In a way, she had. The couple has been married nine years now.

There didn’t seem to be any chemistry at all when Andrea and Marcel first met for coffee.

Their conversation lurched along with lengthy, uncomfortable silences.

"I didn’t want to bore her. If I started talking about farming, she might run away," said Marcel, who was starting a cattle ranch at the time.

Fortunately, Andrea had decided that if the meeting bombed, she would suggest they go bowling.

That’s what they did. It seemed to let their true personalities out. They are now Marcel and Andrea Beaudry, married three years in June, with one child and another on the way.

"If you hadn’t suggested bowling, I don’t know what would have happened," Marcel said to Andrea.

The Candlelight International Matchmakers’ fee is $550. That guarantees you meet at least five people. Candlelight is in the Yellow Pages under Dating.

"Life is meant to be shared," it says at the bottom of Mowbray’s business card.

One of her successful clients put it another way.

"The bad is only half bad, and the good is doubled," when you find the right person.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca