Confessions of a Matchmaker
With the writers’ strike showing no signs of concluding any time soon, I’ve been forced to rely more on reality and documentary programming. And with educational networks like TLC and A&E steadily moving toward increasingly trashier docudramas to fill up their time slots, there’s no shortage of guilty pleasure TV on the air.
While caught between TLC documentaries on the morbidly obese, I started watching the first season of Confessions of a Matchmaker this year on A&E. In fairness, I would rank Confessions of a Matchmaker a rung or two above The World’s Heaviest Man, but I think I watch it for more-or-less the same voyeuristic reasons.
Confessions of a Matchmaker stars Patti Novak, a professional matchmaker working in Buffalo, New York. Every episode has Novak counseling one or two clients, trying to prep them for a moderately successful date. Although Novak seems to have a large clientele of relatively normal people looking for love, the people profiled on the show have any number of bizarre eccentricities, hang-ups, or issues (which naturally is what makes the show worth watching at all). Usually, simple things like poor manners or low self-esteem are at the root of the problem, but have manifested into inappropriate or downright strange behavior (like bursting into poetry in a restaurant, doing shots of tequila at the dinner table, or talking about marriage and children on a first date).
To her credit, Novak is definitely a pro when it comes to dating advice and never sugar-coats anything, though I still wonder how some of these people have ever found a date on their own. And if anyone seems beyond help or unwilling to change, Novak will refuse to match them – this doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, she’s always justified in her decision.
Season two of Confessions of a Matchmaker is scheduled to premiere in January on A&E, check listings for date and time.
Elizabeth “Liz” Gartley, of Houlton, has a BA in media studies from Emerson College in Boston. She has studied abroad in the Netherlands and Australia, and most recently interned at a production company in Hollywood. She can be reached online at egartley@gmail.com or leave a message for her at your local newspaper office.
By Liz Gartley
