Dating can be a major cause of stress, especially around holiday-heavy seasons such as the run from Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day. Many can get sucked into the mindset of needing to find a soulmate or someone to just bring home for the holidays. This is where relationship coach and matchmaker Jackie Dorman comes in. Dorman joined the KOAL newsroom to discuss the struggles of modern dating as well as provide some insight into how to find the one for you.
“There’s not a specific day where I was like, ‘I want to be a matchmaker.’ I just have always loved love. Ever since I was a little kid, I was the wing woman. I was the friend that you gave the note to say, ‘Hey, go give this to my crush, you know, check the box. Do you like me? Yes or no.’ I’ve just always been that person and so in the lives of my friends and in my friend group,” explained Dorman of her origins as a matchmaker.
“I’ve been doing this professionally for five years, 2025 marks five years. We have helped 1600 people get married in the five years that I have been doing this officially through the Last Year Single program,” she added.
A part of the matchmaking process is helping people recognize the difference between a soulmate and a spirit mate,” we always talk about how soulmates, we always hear this in the movies and the rom-coms, how that’s like the highest level of connection and it isn’t because really what a soulmate is, is someone that you have all that physical attraction to, like that soul kind of level attraction, the sense of humor and chemistry and all that. And it’s great and you have to have it. But I believe that there’s an even higher plane of attraction, there’s a spirit mate attraction where, you know, you’re going to, when you get together, you’re going to kick butts and take names.”
This ties into the Last Year Single program Dorman founded. She gave a peak into what this program is all about,” we have thousands of marriage-minded singles that come into this program and they get out of their own way. The first phase is heart work. So like I said, your problem is not your problem. So we’re going to help you to unpack anything that’s in the way of you making a quality connection. And then in phase two, we learn how to connect well. We learn about boundaries. We learn about dating 101, and what it looks like to date in the year 2025. I would do something called masculine and feminine kind of training, like what it looks like to be a boy meeting girls nowadays. We do all different types of fun things in phase two. And then phase three is the community phase. So everyone’s together. It is a coed community. I have male students just as much as female students. And so it’s this beautiful big community-based matchmaking group.”
This led to a discussion on what problems Dorman sees within the modern dating landscape,” first of all, modern dating sucks. You heard it here first … two decades ago, the majority of people, over 70% of people met their significant other through a community of some sort, through family, through friends, through work, through school, through the neighborhood like me, through church, through civic groups. And so now it has changed, it’s flipped to 70% of people meeting strangers online. And you know, people hate that, they hate online dating, they hate technology-based connection. And so I see that as the biggest problem.”
Dorman explained how she is trying to remedy this problem,” Modern dating is isolated. They’re relying on technology to make the connections for them. And we just have to stop that. We have to go back to community-based matchmaking … And at Last Year Single, we’re bringing community-based matchmaking back. We’ve had so many people get married from within our community and marry friends of friends because I believe there are six degrees of separation, right? You’re six people away from knowing everyone in the world. And so if we leverage our connections, I tell my students that someone knows someone who knows someone who knows your spirit mate. And so if you start leveraging those connections, if you don’t, if there’s no shame in your game and you’re willing to say,’ hey, I really want to meet someone,’ if you’re out there meeting new people and enlarging your circle of community and connections, that is how you’re going to meet someone quality because good people know good people.”
The penultimate topic we covered with Dorman was advice for singles, especially with Valentine’s Day coming up,” first of all, don’t focus on the holidays. We get desperate and then we’re willing to lower our standards. Standards are good. But you want to have non-negotiables. You just want to make sure that those non-negotiables are the right ones. And so let’s not get all freaked out … Remember, these are holidays that are made up. And so let’s not worry about the hallmark holidays that sell cards. Let’s not worry about anything, but let’s focus on becoming the person that we want to be in 2025 that would be a good partner to the love story that’s already been written for us.”
In closing Dorman shared,” I just believe that it’s your time. I do. I believe that we are in a time where we’re living in a time where most of the ills of society have been created by the breakdown of family. And so I believe marriage is coming back. I believe good marriages are coming back. I think that people want to be partnered and they want to build together. And so if you want that, I believe that you can have it.”
To learn more about Last Year Single and other programs offered by Dorman, you can visit her website jackiedorman.com.