Romance blossoms
from first lunch
rendezvous
What are the chances of meeting someone who brings magic to your mundane life, whose yin meshes perfectly with your yang ... and isn't already taken?
"Pretty slim," says an eligible bachelor using the pseudonym of "Jim."
"People take a more systematic approach to buying a car than they do in starting a relationship. ... You've got to do some homework," said Jim, a 45-year-old, good-looking guy who manages a Honolulu corporation.
That's why it took him a hefty 10 minutes in January to wrestle with the idea of signing up with It's Just Lunch!, a recently formed dating service in downtown Honolulu which a friend told him about.
Now he shares cloud nine with a girlfriend of three months, "Lisa" (who also wants to be anonymous), and they both say they never would have found each other without the agency's help.
Jim had re-entered the social scene after ending a 15-year relationship, and found "a whole different world" of dating than when he was 22, he said.
"I'm not the type of person to hang out at bars, and I'm not interested in finding a 20-year-old," he said. His field of work and daily routines also didn't do much to boost his love life because he didn't have many opportunities to "cross paths with a lot of ladies."
"I like intelligent women who have a certain sophistication and class that come with age," he said.
He doesn't think of It's Just Lunch! as a dating service because the staff was so personable and made him feel so comfortable -- "it's not like a meat market" -- that he felt as if he found a friend in owner Linda Markt. So when people ask how he met Lisa, he tells them, "A friend set me up."
Lisa, who works in "an academic setting," went into her first interview with Markt "kicking and screaming" because she got cold feet. "I'm pretty shy," she said. Lisa said she wanted to cancel her appointment, but "Linda persuaded me" to give it a chance.
Markt told her that "stirring the same pot of soup" or dating the same kind of guys would result in more dead-end encounters.
"It made absolute sense," Lisa said. At 37 she had been hanging around a long time with the same circle of friends who were interested in art, music and books. She was dating the same kind of men who "didn't have it together," and wanted to meet new types of men.
When she went out to lunch in February, Jim was her first date. (Some people have all the luck!)
"Never in a million years would we have crossed paths if I kept doing the same old things," she said.
Joining It's Just Lunch! "was the best investment I ever made; it was the best money I ever spent in my life!" she said. "Yes, it is a lot of money, a thousand dollars, but I see it as more like self-improvement. I don't go to the gym or the Honolulu Club, where women spend a ton of money" in hope of meeting men, she said.
ON THEIR first date, Jim and Lisa hit it off instantly. They both say it wasn't love at first sight, but "it was an immediate click," Lisa said.
"The time went by so fast," he said, that the lunch crowd disappeared and the waiters "were anxious to leave." They exchanged business cards in the parking lot, but just as Lisa was about to drive away, Jim knocked on her window and asked if she wanted to "go somewhere else to talk some more," which they did for two more hours.
"We're crazy about each other -- that's what's so wonderful!" he said in disbelief. "It's an effortless thing. It's not work -- it's so easy!
"I feel like a teenager," he said. "She exposed me to simple, fun things. It's there on all levels: respect, attraction, companionship, chemistry."
What they do have in common are their values: honesty, openness, loyalty, humor, the ability to communicate. "We're both very down to earth," she said. They both enjoy working out, walks on the beach and sharing good wine and food.
Both said Markt did a great job of matching them after each spent an hour being interviewed.
"It's almost uncanny. She (Lisa) is the person I wanted, and I am the person she wanted," Jim said.
"I had a great life to begin with," Lisa said of her pre-Jim days. "He's the icing on the cake and makes it more delicious. I never thought it would ever happen to me."
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