Selective Search Reports 58% Growth in Male Interest in Matchmaking

Male interest in human-led matchmaking has grown 58% year over year, says Selective Search, the matchmaking firm for high net worth singles. As the firm’s CEO Brad Blettner told DatingNews, high-net-worth men are starting to see matchmaking firms as valuable alternatives to dating apps. 

For some reason, it’s hard to imagine a wealthy bachelor seeking the expertise of a matchmaker (Pedro Pascal in The Materialists must have been an aberration, right?). We tend to picture lonely old widows or middle-aged women with dollar signs in their eyes. But these stereotypes are far from reality. 

People of all genders, ages, and sexualities are more likely to reach out to human matchmakers than they once were. And at Selective Search, there’s been an influx of men with money to spend — and a refreshingly clear idea of what they want. 

“We are seeing a measurable increase in inquiries from men who first discovered us while researching relationship strategies using AI-based tools,” Blettner told us. “They tend to reach out with clearly defined goals and a stronger sense of what they are looking for in a long-term partner.”

An industry long overshadowed by tech is finally starting to see the light: Human experts, it turns out, are worth the investment. 

“Dating apps trained a generation to equate volume with progress,” said Blettner. “What we are seeing now is a shift toward quality and discretion over quantity, and a preference for a real person accountable for the outcome.”

Leading with discretion and human-led expertise doesn’t only give matchmaking companies an edge; it highlights how these qualities are, as Blettner said, “mainstream at the top of the market” in a way they weren’t before. 

Why Human Expertise Still Beats Dating Apps

Some singles see dating apps as a necessary evil, but others are officially fed-up with the ghosting and inauthenticity. This explains why some of the men surveyed by Selective Search (34%, to be precise) described dating apps as “transactional, superficial, and insufficiently private.”

Needless to say, the rich and powerful among us are not going to settle for second best. This is why, when searching for The One, they’d prefer the help of a human being than an algorithm. 

This survey confirms what we already knew: that people are not willing to outsource matters of the heart to tech if consulting a human is an option. If we’ve learned anything from the last decade of dating app innovation, it’s that tech can only provide value for so long. 

It’s obvious why daters are starting to value the human touch: It just can’t be replicated, no matter how much we try. 

And yet, Selective Search found that 61% of surveyed affluent men have used a dating app in the past two years, despite their growing frustration with apps. What gives? I liken this paradox to a light form of Stockholm syndrome: We don’t always enjoy the apps, but hey — where else are we going to go? 

Selective Search found that 61% of surveyed affluent men have used a dating app in the past two years, despite their growing frustration with apps.

This actually points to a major, but underdiscussed, problem in the dating industry: People see apps as the only option. What are they going to do, haunt their local sports bar? They could, but for men in a certain tax bracket, this isn’t always the most fruitful option. 

“They stay with apps because apps are what they've always tried, even when the results fall short of what they're looking for,” Blettner said. “The habit persists simply because nothing has replaced it.”

Discretion Isn’t a Want — It’s a Non-Negotiable 

Discretion is always important, regardless of a user’s financial status. But high-net-worth individuals tend to put discretion at the top of their list of non-negotiables. According to Selective Search, 36% of the firm’s survey respondents said that privacy is a huge challenge in modern dating. 

It’s not that high-net-worth men always have something to hide. “Visibility scales with success, and so does the cost of exposure,” Blettner told us. And so, privacy becomes a hot commodity. Companies that provide reliable discretion quickly become more valuable to high-net-worth men. 

Remember how I said discretion has become a non-negotiable? “Privacy stops being a preference and becomes a condition of participation,” Blettner put it. In his experience, a lack of confidentiality “is a higher walk-away trigger than price.”

“It tells you privacy is no longer a feature these men shop for ... It is the entry requirement, the thing that has to be true before any other conversation can happen.” -Brad Blettner, CEO of Selective Search

“It tells you privacy is no longer a feature these men shop for,” he continued. “It is the entry requirement, the thing that has to be true before any other conversation can happen.” 

Dating platforms have already figured this out; users have responded positively to Tinder’s Face Check, and ID verification has quickly become a must-have feature during the onboarding process of most dating apps. 

But as Blettner explained, nothing guarantees confidentiality quite like pulling the plug on dating apps in general. “No public profile, no searchable footprint, no exposure of who they are or who they are meeting,” he said. “A human-led, offline process protects that by design.”

Driven Men Require A More Intentional Approach

You’ve heard it from your best friend, your Great Aunt, and Carrie Bradshaw: Men just aren’t equipped for commitment. Blettner begs to differ, and so do the growing number of high-net-worth men turning to matchmakers for definitive, intentional help finding The One. 

“What's new is that the most accomplished single men in the country are now making relationship decisions the same way they make every other consequential decision in their lives: with expert judgment, a defined process, and proven results,” Blettner explained. 

“That is the gap we close: a confidential, curated search run on their behalf, so the decision gets the same rigor they apply to everything else.” -Brad Blettner

This is an altogether more intentional approach to finding love, a behavior we haven’t always seen from men in the past. And yet, “The survey data confirms this is a structural and durable shift,” Blettner added. 

Apps don’t typically provide expert judgment, a defined process, or consistent results, giving dating professionals a clear checklist of qualities they can provide that apps can’t. “That is the gap we close: a confidential, curated search run on their behalf, so the decision gets the same rigor they apply to everything else,” Blettner told us. 

Matchmakers with years of experience have always had something valuable to give. “When you bring expert judgment and real accountability to finding a relationship, the outcome changes,” Blettner told us. “The market is now catching up to that.”