HEADER TEXT TOP LEFT - OFF

CheckMates has been featured in USA Today, On the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, in the San Francisco Chronicle, East Bay Business Times, The Oakland Tribune, Silicon Valley Business Inc, KPIX-Channel 5, KGO-Channel 7, KTVU-Channel 2, BusinessWeek, Good Morning London, CheckMatesInc is published in Gail Sheey's book "Sex and the Seasoned Woman" and many more!

The Right Moves

Old-fashioned matchmaking services win back customers fed up with cyber-dating By Francine Breuetti - BUSINESS WRITER

THE ROMEO'S head shot was appealing. And Gloria liked the profile he'd posted on AmericanSingles.com, an online dating service. After several e-mails back and forth, the Los Gatos technology consultant met the man in the flesh. Flesh maybe the operative word here. She was stunned to see he weighed easily 350 pounds or more avoir dupois the head shot did not reveal.

This and other frustrating experiences looking for a partner through Internet dating have soured Gloria and numbers of other lonely people on electronic dating services to such a degree that more traditional matchmakers, the human kind, are experiencing an influx of clients fed up with online dating, a kind of lovelorn backlash.

Carole Shattil, principal of CheckMates introduction service with offices in San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Mountain View and San Jose, said almost all of her latest clients (she has served 1,800) express frustration with online dating.

Julie Paiva, founder of the introduction service called Table for Six, said her company's membership had dipped last year, "because people were excited about the Internet. About four months ago, we noticed our membership growing." She attributed this increase to growing disaffection with people's lack of honesty online.

Shattil of CheckMates said, "People are afraid to date these days because they have such bad experiences on the Internet." Her client Raphe Hurwitz, a San Franciscan, said. "I just had too many reservations about the Internet", to look for a match online. With good reason. Who can forget the pain created when U.S. Army Col. Kassem Saleh romanced 50 women online until several abused fiancees exposed his deceptions earlier this year?

Looking for a mate online is not like buying a toaster from Amazon.com. With the appliance, there are limited variables and generally what you see is what you get. You don't have to kiss a lot of toasters to find the right one. And generally, the toaster doesn't lie to you.

But with online match making services, the lonely are finding out what employers have known for a long time; There are a huge pile of resumes online, and they don't all tell the truth. Freedom from having to show the goods in the flesh emboldens some to mask their age, weight, height and health and even marital status.

Deb, a company executive in San Mateo County, has become a CheckMates member because she was fed up with men who lied about their age in the online profiles. "I have met so many people 15 to 30 years older than the person I saw online," she said. One prospect she met actually referred to his "Internet age" versus his real age.

Shattil of CheckMates takes photos of new applicants herself. She insists applicants show driver's licenses and list their employers. Before accepting them to the service, she searches the name online to see what material corroborates that on the application.

"I 'Google' them to make sure who they are," she said, turning the tables on the use of the Internet in finding matches. She calls the human resource department of the employer they listed to check if they are employed and in what position. (One woman believed she was dating an executive, only to find out the Lothario worked in the mail room, said Shattil of a client.) She's gone so far as to check court records if she has any doubts about the applicant's marital situation.

A year ago, media and industry observers quoted "research" that claimed 30 percent of people looking for matches online are already married. though the source of that research was not provided. But the startling figure highlights an obvious concern.

Christy Zeri, who has since signed up with CheckMates started dating someone she found on Match.com. One morning Zeri got a phone call from the man's fiancee who had found her beloved's profile online with her image cut out of the picture. The ease of being dishonest is not the only unsatisfactory aspect of Internet matchmaking, people are finding.

Gloria, the technologist who found the man who was more man she'd bargained for, complained that searching online is time-consuming. "You can go through piles of people," she said. Which is why she paid CheckMates to do the screening for her.

And men are not the only abusers of Match.com. Great Expectations or Lavalife, Paiva of Table for Six said men also complain that pictures of Sylvia or Brunhilde don't correlate to reality either.

Men don't have the safety and security issues that women do, she said. But since the dating sites are "65 percent men, they'll send 100 e-mails and get few responses." Conversely, women receive a lot of responses, so they spend much of their time trying to discern who's worth following up rather than investing that time in getting to know the one right guy.

Said Shattil: "The Internet has created a playground, an environment were people can hide, don't have to be real, where they can go from one woman or man to the next and don't have to tell the truth."

San Mateo County Times - Monday Nov 10, 2003 Francine Brevetti can be reached at (510) 208-6416 and fbrevet-ti@angnewspapers.com.

back to top

Psychologist and Veteran Matchmaker Ensures Dates are "For Real"

With all the security at airports and in our cities, computer systems, and even our gated communities, a large security gap remains in what may be most important to many women - choosing a mate they can trust.

It's estimated that 90 percent of 34 million online daters misrepresent some aspect of themselves - their age, financial situation, appearance, where they live, or even their marital status. Three-quarters of singles express disappointment that their date is not who they said they were.

Even matchmakers who screen applicants often don't help, because they only informally ask questions of prospective members, and don't provide individualized attention.

CheckMates, a personalized dating service, goes one step further: it provides thorough and professional background checks. CheckMates is the brainchild of Carole Shattil, a 12-year Bay Area matchmaking veteran who has arranged hundreds of successful matches for Bay Area women, and has run several successful companies.

"Life has become so much more hectic for professional men and women, and they just don't want to waste time or opportunity with the wrong person," said Shattil. "That's why we make sure that what they see is really what they get. We do a thorough check."

CheckMates verifies drivers' licenses, employment, residence, and height and weight. It even requires current, un retouched photos.

"This is reality dating for real results," said Shattil, who has a background in psychology and has worked as an executive search professional. But CheckMates checks more than just background.

"As an upscale service, we ensure we're doing all we can for a successful romantic outcome, so we conduct in-depth, in-person interviews with all prospective members."

Shattil stresses that members are evaluated on a personality scale, as well. "We listen to you and your romantic goals, so we can help you achieve your romantic dreams." Shattil says that attention to detail has won CheckMates avid fans among professional men and women.

"Dating should be fun," Shattil maintains, "We want our members to enjoy themselves and meet someone special, not worry about the credibility of who they're dating. We do the legwork so our members can concentrate on what dating should be about: Chemistry, connections, fun, and finding the right mate!" Shattil says she increases singles' odds of finding the right person by helping take the anxiety out of dating. "We make it safer and more secure, so you can play and win!"

CheckMates has four offices in the East Bay, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and San Jose. For more information, call (415) 281- 5845 or (925) 988-3555 or visit www.checkmatesinc.com

Bay Area Business Woman, Feb 2004

back to top

Reality Dating Service Changes its Game Plan

Betting single people would rather be treated like kings and queens than pawns, Carole Shattil, a former psychologist and executive recruiter, last month changed the name and focus of her Bay Area dating service by adding background checks and more extensive interviews.

"The key emphasis is on making sure someone is who they say they are," says Shattil, CEO of Check Mates of San Jose and San Francisco. Shattil started her dating service as How About Lunch in 1992.

"The lunch concept no longer works in this area," Shattil says, adding that 2003 is "the year of reality dating."

The service boasts roughly 2,000 members. Shattil does the work of Cupid based on interviews and verification checks based partly on Internet searches.

Shattil says she works with a lot of CEOs and other executives who don't have time for traditional dating methods but have money to spend on the pursuit. Check Mates client Petra Simon, 30, of Santa Clara, learned about the service after meeting Shattil at a singles event. Having just started a new job analyzing patents for Palo Alto Research Center, a subsidiary of Xerox Corp., Simon says finding quality, single men in the Bay Area is difficult and takes time. "You start off with friends, but that doesn't always work," Simon says. "With online dating, there's a lot more happening, but there's a lot more weeding out to do."

Sally Pera, president of PRconnect, ran a dating service called Premier Matches from 1995 until 1998. She agrees that singles are indeed getting fed up with the randomness of online dating services, but says background checks are nothing new. "Lots of matching services have used background checks." Pera says.

Julie Paiva, founder and president of Table For Six, which has offices in San Francisco. Mountain View and Walnut Creek, says that while her service does not do extensive background checks, she believes it provides the same level of security and quality matches. Table For Six matches people by putting three men together with three women, usually in a dinner setting. "I believe it's really important that people do feel very safe and secure and comfortable when they go out," Paiva says.

Steve Tanner is a Biz Ink reporter. You can reach him at stanner@svbizink.com.

back to top

Need a Match?

Love-broker agencies part of matchmaking tradition By John Boudreau

Love-broker agencies part of matchmaking tradition His head shot on the Internet dating site didn't tell the whole picture. Anne Koechel agreed to meet him for a drink. From his photo he appeared to be a pretty good-looking guy. But when he rose from the table to greet her, Koechel, a 110 pound program manager, knew this was a mismatch. "He was extremely, extremely heavy," she recalled. That 21st-Century dating experience led Koechel to seek out a practitioner of an ages-old custom: matchmaking. She picked one of several services that offer Bay Area singles (ones willing to part with serious money - up to $10,000) customized "introductions".

"You know the people you are meeting are legitimate;" says Koechel, who used CheckMates, which has offices from San Jose to Walnut Creek. These love brokers reflect modern life: busy professionals experience dislocated lives, often apart from relatives families and close communities such as church, says San Jose "relationships coach" Soraya Khalili.

"They are a societal adjustment she says. "They haven't become totally mainstream yet". Those who sign up usually get an hour or so assessment interview: What are you looking for? What type of bodies and personalities are they attracted to?

In the case of 12-year old CheckMates, individual stats, age, profession etc. are verified according to Carole Shattil, founder of the "introduction" service. On the Internet, women tend to lie about age and weight; men lie about how much money they earn and height, she says. Because CheckMates reviews profiles and photos, she guarantees that what her clients see is what they get.

Shattil who has a background in counseling and executive search, shows clients profiles and photos of people she thinks could be possible matches. She then acts as an intermediary.

Table for Six, which provides social settings for small groups of singles, recently added Table for Two, a more personalized matchmaking service. However, people are not given pictures ahead of time, to avoid "shallow" initial attitudes about attraction, says Julie Paiva, founder and president of Table for Six.

"We have a good gut about who is going to get along," she says. Mountain View resident Susan Pasquinelli, 43, tired of meeting guys online, experiencing good phone karma but then in-person letdowns. But she found a keeper after just one date through CheckMates. "We've been together for seven months," says Pasquinelli, a busy executive assistant at a high-tech company. "We had our. anniversary on Monday. We played tennis." "People lie about their height, their weight, their occupation - even what they are looking for," she says. "If you want to be with quality people, you have to go with these types of more exclusive services."

Her guy, Dave Cunha, a 46-year old mortgage lender who lives in Los Altos Hills, says "pre-qualified" dating saved him a lot of hassles by eliminating the random and time consuming aspect of meeting people cold. And, he adds, the debriefings Shattil provides helped him focus on what he was looking for and to be open to new possibilities.

Cunha figures hiring a matchmaker might actually have saved him money he would have spent on bad dates. He met Pasquinelli after just a few dates with other people through the service. "My time is money," he says. "It's more than worth it to have a professional qualify potential matches."

Khalili advises those thinking about hiring a matchmaking service to ask for references: Were there timely follow-ups? Was the data accurate? She also suggests people review their past relationships, what went wrong and think specifically about the kind of partner they are looking for. Distinguish between needs and wants, she says.

"If you don't do that, you'll end up spending a lot of money, "Khalili warns. And you'll still be sleeping alone.

By John Boudreau at jboudreau@mercurynews.com or (408) 278 3496

back to top

Truth in Advertising hits Internet dating

Services help potential mates spot scammers
By Marco R. della Cava.

USA TODAY - SAN FRANCISCO

In dating's dark ages, a daring long-distance romance meant hooking up with a hottie from the next village. Today, thanks to the wonderful and unwieldy Web, singles have access to a good chunk of the planet's 6 billion-plus people. Which means that with the mere click of a mouse, you can stumble across a serial killer just as easily as your soul mate. Concerned about the growing threat that unverifiable information from hair color to criminal status - poses to the future of dating services, companies in this booming business are beginning to offer background checks and other client certification options. Their aim? To stop lovelorn defectors like Christy Zeri.

"I'd had enough," says Zeri, 32, whose online Bay Area princes all turned into frogs. "One man lied about his age by a decade. Another used a fake last name. But the worst was when I got a call from one guy's fiancee." Zeri now sifts through this city's bustling singles scene with a local off-line dating service called CheckMates, which screens its members - some of whom are refugees from the online world, using everything from Google searches to drivers’ license verifications. "My clients care about physical and financial safety, but more simply, they worry about people's ability to misrepresent themselves online," says CheckMates founder Carole Shattil, who for $1,500 and up will personally scour the city's singles scene in search of a potential match.

"I meet every one of my clients," who number around 1,100, she says. "Online services can't do that." So some are doing the next best thing: using the aggregative power of the Internet to try to ensure that when Joe or Jane Q, Public say they're 35, attractive, single and successful, the truth isn't closer to 55, homely, married and on an IRS hit list.

As far as service industries go, this one is both new (some firms are only 16 weeks old) and rudimentary companies largely use public service records that anyone can access if they're armed with patience and time). And some of the dating industry's largest online players cite a combination of privacy issues and the lack of a national criminal database for staying on the background check sidelines. But if the online dating market indeed is to mushroom - from $313 million (and 6.7 million paying users) in 2003 to a projected $642 million in 2008, according to Jupiter Research - somebody is likely to be in the business of making consumers feel safe. This is particularly true given the myriad new ways in which 21st-century singles meet. Slow paced church socials face competition from a new breed of encounter - so-called "speed".

If an online dating add sounds too good to be true then it probably is.

Speed Dating, organized by a company JDate and HurryDate that decidedly puts the emphasis on quantity. Hoping to ensure the quality angle are upstart businesses such LookBetterOnline.com, an 8 month-old Los Angeles company that links daters with local professional photographers. The resulting head shots, which cost $129 and aim to walk the tightrope between oddball self portrait and soft-focus silliness, can be posted on any online dating site and are accompanied by a logo that notes the month and year the photo was shot. Gold certification (an additional $20) adds age, height and weight, while Platinum ($50)-includes a criminal record, marital status and bankruptcy filing review. Bin Logue, 36, recently went for the gold, motivated by a woman who "didn't believe my online photo was me, and just disappeared." The Hollywood film editor says he hopes this certified photo "will make women feel more at ease. It can be awkward getting to know someone and then all of a sudden asking when their photo was taken.

Such new safeguards "are a step in the right direction, because the liars are ruining (online dating) for a lot of people," says Joe Tracy editor of Web-based Online Dating Magazine. He says the cost of looking for love on the Internet can some times far exceed site membership fees or a bruised ego. Of growing concern are "organized efforts to bilk American men," often in the form of foreign women who ask for plane fare to the USA and then vanish. "We're trying to clean up this industry," says Herb Vest, founder of Dallas-based TrueBeginnings, a 6-month-old site that boasts a partnership with a criminal-record database firm called Rapsheets.com, which stockpiles 150 million records compiled from more than 110 state and county agencies. "I don't want to introduce some one to a felon," Vest says. So his company insists that members agree to a code of ethics and fill out a detailed personality profile. Then names are checked for felony offenses from the past decade, which include everything from driving under the influence to murder. So far, 38,000 have been approved and 3,000 turned away because of Rapsheets' findings.

Taking that approach a few clicks further is a new online company called Verified Person, the brainchild of Tal Moise and former Apple CEO JohnSculley. The service is aimed at any firm from a Fortune 500 company to a dating site - that wants to make sure a prospective employee or date is legit. By tapping into a range of local and state records and calling references when necessary, Verified Person tracks age, residence, criminal record and marital status. "Online dating is now as common a way to meet someone as partying at a bar. And, in fact it's even safer given the initial distance you can put between people," says Moise. But modern dating techniques also "have a stigma due to the potential for inaccuracies."

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a San Diego-based non-profit, has been fielding more complaints from online daters. One woman who had hoped to search online discreetly was stunned when a popular online service forwarded her data to an array of users without her authorization, which led to much embarrassment when coworkers discovered she was hunting for love on the Web. "The bottom line is: Proceed with extreme caution," Clearing house spokeswoman Jordana Beebe says. "It's a different world of dating out there." But that doesn't mean rev up your cynicism at the keyboard. Executives at a few online dating giants say all you really need for a successful experience are common sense and a bit of faith in current safeguards.

Match.com, the Web's reigning service with nearly 1 million subscribers, employs more than 100 people to "read every bit of data that a subscriber inputs, which is then checked for consistency and oddities," says president Tim Sullivan, who adds that 2,000 people are booted off the site every month because data doesn't square. "We're always looking at new ways to ensure our members' safety," Sullivan says. "Right now, we don't think any one (criminal check) solution is adequate."

Another concern about offering consumers screened dating partners is the "false sense of security you can give people," says Greg Forgatch, CEO of eHarmony, which instead matches people based on analyses of its 436-item relationship questionnaire. That test worked for Chris and Katie Castle, who connected through eHarmony last fall. Before their face-to-face meeting, Chris, 26 of San Antonio, says he "performed some checks on my own" namely doing a Google search on Katie, 25, who lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In fact, she did the same; both found that essential data checked out: They were married New Year's Day and now live in San Antonio. But the couple don't believe criminal searches are the way to go. "It might be risky, but I believe in the inherent good in people." says Katie, who says she and Chris bonded over a mutual love for the outdoors and music. "Sure, you don't know if you're dating someone who is psycho," she says, noting that a number of her online forays turned sour. "But these people are going to be psycho whether they're online or not. If anything, what's creepy to me is the notion of people having background checks done. It seems like an invasion of privacy, even if I'm authorizing it."

Which brings up a salient point: Does this push for security cripple Cupid's arrow? "You need to keep things light in the beginning," dating expert and author Liz Kelly says. "I tell people that they really need to leave some of the nitty-gritty details for once you get serious. Maybe, at first, use your gut before a background check. Otherwise, you could kill the romance." But a trusting nature could well be a casualty in this growing singles stampede to the Internet. One man is banking on it. Skipp Porteous is a New York private investigator who recently launched CertifiedDates.com. Pay an extra $20 for the gold membership and the sleuth will vouch for your marital status. Fork over $80 for the platinum treatment, and he'll also clear you of any heinous crimes against society. "We like to say our site is for people with nothing to hide," says Porteous, who recently bounced a client for the slight infraction of saying she was 49 when she really was 53. Hey, I don't blame her but its not going to fly here".

Regina Wolfe relies on just that sort of scrutiny to keep the creeps at bay. Wolfe 47, of New Rochelle, NY, once email-flirted with a man who presented himself as dashing, romantic and seriously single. She agreed to meet him for dinner. But it wasn't long before he revealed he was married, though unhappily. He proceeded to ask her bust size, when she declined to answer he grabbed at her bra. "At that point, it was 'Check Please!' says Wolfe, an insurance fraud investigator who recently joined Porteous dating site. "Unfortunately, online dating has led me to a lot of people who turn out to be all smoke and mirrors", she says, "Maybe this new site will save me some heartache the next time around".

back to top

Sex and the Seasoned Woman

Sex among boomers - especially women - is becoming mainstream
By Candace Murphy.

Sex, as a wise man once said, sells.

But not just any sex.

Today, sex over the age of 50 as experienced by women, is what's selling.

Take that wise man.

Books, like Gail Sheehy's just published and highly anticipated, "Sex and the Seasoned Woman" are flying of printing presses and being tossed into the open, waiting arms of feverish women intent on continuing their pursuit of the passionate life. Also on the syllabus are Alice Mc Dermott's short stories, "Enough". In which the adult children of an older woman are astonished she still enjoys a roll in the hay and Joan Price's "Better than Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty".

Hollywood, too is on board. "Something's Gotta Give" (2003) and "Meet the Folkers" (2004) revealed that older men aren't the only ones who are still randy, but that their female counterparts, played respectively by Diane Keaton and Barbra Straisand, are as well.

"Swimming Pool" from 2003 is another and featured a nude scene with Charlotte Rampling. who was 58 at the time. Also from 2004 is "The Door in the Floor" which had both Kim Basinger then 50, and Mimi Rogers, who turns 50 this month, in sexy scenes.

Formerly a subject matter and visual image that had people shielding their eyes and saying, "Ewwww", the idea that older women do in fact have libidos has finally gone mainstream.

Blame it on the baby boomers: A generation spawned between 1946 and 1964 is tilting the average American age past the half century mark.

The net effect isn't just that these boomers are older, though. It's that their lifestyles, their interests and their sexual peccadilloes, have migrated into mainstream entertainment.

"We shouldn't have seen this coming from 60 years away". says pop culture professor Robert Thompson of Syracuse University. "In the last several years, just as there was no ignoring the baby boomers from the day they were born, there will be no ignoring them till the day they die. There's just so many of them. And we're beginning to see the cultural reflections that these people are still relevant".

Though it may seem as if Hollywood, at least has been through this before - Hello, Mrs Robinson? - the truth is that Anne Bancroft was only 36 when she was playing a sexually starved wife and mother of a teenage daughter in "The Graduate". Recently, in fact, the unclothed older woman was included in movies merely as a gag, such as Kathy Bates' hot tub scene in 2002's "About Schmidt".

Things didn't have to turn out this way, though. This latest crop of film and novels might be different had the boomer generation sported a different personality. Had the generation been reserved, had it been reverential of its elders, its quite likely that Barbra Streisand wouldn't have played Roz Focker, a sex therapist specializing in senior sexuality and teaching sexual yoga positions.

Instead, the baby boomers generation was defined by its need for rebellion. and its women - 1.5 million female boomers who will turn 60 this year - were brought up thinking sexual pleasure was their right. Bras were burned, birth control pills were popped, and free love was the going mantra.

This was a generation that grew up with a raging case of entitlement - its a generation says Thompson, 46, a late boomer herself. "And its not only the first generation that refuses to grow old. It may be the first that refuses to die. They gave up red meat for healthy red wine, they turned health and fitness into a huge industry. Even when boomers got to the point where they'd have a potential slowdown in libido, by gosh, you have Viagra waiting in the wings so you can party like it's 1969".

It's likely that a few years from now - when society is inured in the shock of realizing there i sex after middle age - Sheehy's new book will be considered emblematic of the era. That's the opinion of Carole Shattil, a professional matchmaker and founder of CheckMates Inc. In the Bay Area, who was used as a source for Sheehy's book. After reading the finished product, Shattil likens the book's impact on popular thinking to that of Susan Faludi's "Backlash" in the 80's.

"Gail's book is so important because it shows how values are shifting in how men think and how women think when it comes to sexuality and aging", says Shattil, who will only describe her own age as being in the very late 40's.

"Men and especially women aren't aging like their parents or mothers did. That's where the fight comes in. Like modern burning of bras. They've maintained their identities to continue to be those strong willed, independent, vibrant people. They're taking advantage of it and really going for it".

Shattil has first-hand experience in seeing women, and men, of a certain age continuing to go for i. Her online dating service (checkmatesinc.com) is most popular in the 30 - 60 year old demographic, and has noticeably skewed to an older age in recent years. She equates the aging of the dating scene to the aging of pop culture; the two are reflections of each other.

"There are more people in their 50s that are dating than I've ever seen, " says Shattil. "But that's not all. I got a phone call last week from a woman who wanted to fix up her mother who was in here 70s. She was healthy, vibrant, athletic. Normally in years past, I'd never take a call like that. I'd think , Oh my goodness, you just don't go there, but it's changing what these people do and who they are and how vibrant they are at an older age."

Not everyone is wild about baby boomers having sex and having to hear about it, too. An amateur reviewer in her late 20's on the Web site GreenCine.com a West coast DVD rental community for the "alternative scene" warned potential viewers of "Something's Gotta Give," While the movie is heart warming and lent a few giggles and gross outs (prepare for old people nudity), I really couldn't relate to the movie".

Teenagers have always been disgusted, and always will be disgusted, that their parents are sexually active,\" says Thompson, the professor. "That's OK. They should be disgusted. But at the same time, there's the idea that Hollywood and the novel are beginning to acknowledge that in an era when the life span is above 70, the peaking at 30 is not necessarily how we should be looking at things."

An ancillary effect of these changing social mores portends big changes in social discussion; it may gently nudge a society that tends toward the rigidly conservative into being a little less prudish. Think of it as Roz Focker trying to get her son Greg Focker to loosen up a little and not be afraid to talk about (said in loud, hoarse whisper) S-E-X.

"Diaries used to have locks on them and now people brag about the number of hits their blog gets. The Oprah-fication of America is this let it all out attitude that really hit big in the '60s when the boomers were growing up." says Thompson." "For the most part, that's a good thing, being more open in our communication, being able to talk about relationships, and that dating and sexuality do continue to be an important part of life past age 25. It helps take away that stigma.

And really, when it comes down to it, this was all inevitable.

"Hey, baby boomers were not going to go gently into the night of middle age," says Thompson. "They'd simply redefine it. Fifty may be the new 30 today, but I have every confidence that 90 will someday be the new 30."

back to top

The 3-Minute Interview

Carole Shattil talks about her work - in time for Valentine's Day.
By Leslie Katz.

How and why did you start CheckMatesInc?

This is my 16th year. I saw there was a need for busy business professionals to connect. No one had time. For me, it was a good transition from working in execute search, and it went well with my background in psychology. Its more gratifying to help people in their personal lives than to help them find jobs.

How's your success rate?

Everyone gets to select who they want. I give people previews; they have at least a half a dozen people to choose from. I've had people get married on the basis of one meeting. The service offer an 18 month membership.

Who are your clients?

They're people who are serious minded. Some are people who don't want to expose themselves or participate in online dating. They're executives, politicians and celebrities.

What's the problem with online dating?

Most people, 95 percent, misrepresent themselves, statistics from three years ago said that 35 percent of men who went online to find dates were married. There are lots of things to be aware of.

So one of the main benefits of CheckMates Inc is that it involves a screening process?

Yes we do background checks. We make sure people are who they say they are; the skeletons come out of the closet. People feel safe going out on dates we set up.

How's business around Valentine's Day?

It increases. On holidays and birthdays, people are feeling the emptiness of not having someone special in their lives.

back to top

In Search of a Soul Mate

Never mind the web, these women hunt dates the old way: With intuition and lots of cash.
By Alice C. Chen.

Carole Shattil owes a lot to matchmaking.

Her grandfather, Julius, a Lithuanian native, had moved to the United States but found it difficult to meet a wife. So his sister arranged for her friend in Lithuania to be his bride. The two never saw each other before she arrived, but they married and stayed together for life. They bore three sons, one of whom is Shattil's father.

Sixteen years ago Shattil founded Check-Mates Inc., a firm that combines matchmaking with headhunting. Prices start at $2500 for a trial membership, $5000 for 18 months of local introductions and $10,000 for two years of local and Los Angeles pairings. The latter package allows clients to specify certain attributes in matches, such as high income, high profile or particular physical traits.

On this dreary winter day, Shattil is meeting with Mr Retro Glasses (not his real name), who took an eight month hiatus after seriously dating a match. The duo recently broke up, and Mr. Retro Glasses is back in Shattil's tiny office in the One Embacadero Center to dissect the situation and hear about his next match. Its like a therapy session.

"How'd you end things?" Shattil asks.

"There were compatibility issues" says Mr. Retro Glasses, a clean-cut financial executive. "There was tension at a family wedding".

"You were going to counseling (as a couple)," Shattil recalls. "you probably learned a lot."

"I learned to start slower," Mr. Retro Glasses says. "At 45, I'm happy to be alone. It takes a special person."

Soon, Shattil moves on to new prospects.

"Belinda's been married. She's warm." Shattil says, showing a photo. "She has a master's in English Literature."

Shattil continues, "A new person wanted to meet you. She's 42, married three years and divorced five years. She's a runner, volunteers for the Coast Guard and does marathons."

Mr. Retro Glasses whistles.

Later he tells me, "Carol's easy to get along with. She has a sense of what I like."

Another client concurs. "She's very intelligent, outgoing and social," says Scott, a 56 year old CEO of a biotechnology company. "She has many, many, many friends."

Shattil is a tall, thin woman in her late 40's who smiles constantly and wears a large section of her wildly curly hair haphazardly clipped back. She is a zealous reader, ballet dancer and music enthusiast. She's the type of woman who socializes with clients and visits their homes. Shattil's also driven to succeed. She emailed me at 12.40am to arrange our interview.

Shattil grew up in Chicago. Her father was an entrepreneur and her mother a teacher and homemaker. She studied psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and was just starting her masters of movement therapy at UCLA when her father died at age 55. His death jolted Shattil, and she left school and worked as a corporate recruiter in Chicago. She married a furniture maker, but divorced seven years later.

Shattil burned out in the corporate world and wanted more fulfilling work. She had already made a practice of fixing up her bosses and co-workers, so she decided to move to the Bay Area to create Check-MatesInc, with her Sister.

Initially, Shattil's business provided blind dates, but was unsuccessful. Now she brings in clients for a psychological profile and chooses an initial pool of at least 12 matches. Clients browse through photos, discuss prospects and then select their own matches from the pool.

"They don't walk away saying, 'You picked the wrong person for me,' "

Shattil says, "It's a team effort. You can't control chemistry. No one can. You can only present and give people what they want."

Business is picking up for Shattil who recently reopened her Los Angeles office. "I enjoy what I'm doing," Shattil says. "It's not work." It's her life.

Menu Options

• Membership
• Testimonials
• In The News
• About Us
• Contact Us
• Home

Resources:

• Dating FAQ
• Applying for membership to CheckMates?

This site was designed and built by Sidra Technologies