Matchmaking is cool again. But did it ever go out of style? Courtesy Three Day Rule

The INSIDER Summary:

Dating apps are popular, but some people find them irksome and unfulfilling.

As an alternative, "modern matchmaking" companies like Tawkify, OkSasha, and Three Day Rule are reinventing an old tradition.

They use technology like algorithms, but also emphasize the importance of in-person connections.

They're reminiscent of the age-old shidduch matchmaking system still in use in religious Jewish communities today.

James Charneco is done with dating apps.

“I would get a lot of matches and I would talk, and I went on a couple dates, then it usually leads nowhere,” he says. “It gets kind of annoying, really, how in today's time we need to get an app just to talk to people.”

Charneco says he’d rather speak to someone face-to-face than swipe left or right, and that his friends in committed relationships mostly met naturally through work or friends without the aid of an app. The 27-year-old events manager deleted every single one off his phone almost a year ago and hasn’t regretted it one bit.

When he penned a piece for Elite Daily called “Why Deleting Dating Apps Gave Me A Better Chance At Finding Love” he began hearing from other people who, like him, were fed up.

“A couple friends of friends and other random people came out to me and said 'Your story is so true. This is how I feel all the time with these stupid apps. I don't know why I'm still on there,'” he says.

So far, he’s enjoying post-app life, making conversation with people who pique his interest instead of failing to look up from his phone and notice them, and humoring his friends’ attempts to set him up.

“My friends always try to play matchmaker because they know I'm not about that app life anymore,” he says.

James Charneco, 27, deleted his dating apps. Courtesy James Charneco

I ask him if he’s ever thought about utilizing the services of a professional matchmaker.

“I didn't even know those still existed, to be honest,” he says.

In fact, they do — and these "modern matchmakers" hope to reinvent the old-fashioned practice by providing an alternative to dating apps.

Overall, dating app usage is on the rise — about one in five 18 to 24 year olds (22%) report using mobile dating apps, according to Pew Research. That's up from 5% in 2013.

Yet there's also a growing number of people who find dating apps unsatisfactory, or even harmful to their social lives, and delete them. That’s where matchmakers fill the void.

Dating apps are easy to download and use without ever leaving your house and cost little to no money, contributing to their mass appeal. On the other end of the dating spectrum, matchmakers who operate within circles of the rich elite (think Patti Stanger of Bravo's "Millionaire Matchmaker") charge tens of thousands of dollars for their services. In between, a growing group of "modern matchmakers" are combining the ease technology provides with the kind of personal attention often accompanied by a hefty price tag.

One such "modern matchmaker" is E. Jean Carroll. In addition to co-founding a "dating concierge" service, 73-year-old Carroll is the legendary advice columnist behind Elle magazine's "Ask E. Jean," the longest-running column in American publishing.

When I catch her on her landline at her home in upstate New York, Carroll asks if I've heard of "the jam experiment."

For the uninitiated: In 1995, researchers Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University and Mark Lepper of Stanford set up large grocery store displays of 24 or 30 jam jars, and a smaller one of six jars. The larger display attracted more customers, but people who chose from a smaller selection were more likely to buy a jar and report greater satisfaction with their purchase. The researchers concluded that having more choices isn't always a good thing.

Carroll cites the jam dilemma as a reason why some people delete their dating apps and seek the services of matchmaking companies: to limit choice in dating.

E. Jean Carroll (left) and Kenneth Shaw, co-founders of Tawkify. Courtesy E. Jean Carroll

As the jam experiment demonstrated, having too many options can spur indecision, self-inflicted pressure, and twinges of regret that one may not have made the "best" decision, whatever that means. It's known as a "paradox of choice." And it's as present in the world of dating as it is in grocery shopping.

In 2012, Carroll and Stanford alumnus Kenneth Shaw co-founded Tawkify, a network of "dating concierges" that runs extensive data analyses on every date they arrange whose services range from $99 to $6,000 per year. By examining what works and what doesn't, they aim to maximize the probability of setting up a successful encounter (meaning both parties agree to go out again). For example, they found that Thursday nights have the lowest success rate of any time of the week, because people anticipate meeting someone better over the weekend — the classic jam problem. Tawkify's matchmakers opt for Tuesday nights and Saturday afternoons, which have proven more favorable.

"Tawkify limits your choices," Carroll says. "That's it. We cut out the thousands of available people and bring it down to jam size. That's why we're so successful. You have twice the odds of meeting someone with a matchmaker than other online dating. Twice. That's what's happening now."

Tawkify wouldn't share specific numbers, but the company claims to successfully match "almost 80%" of new clients within six to 12 months. It defines success as both parties agreeing to go out again. And while Tinder doesn't release information on its match rate, the dating app reportedly makes 22 million matches a day. A group of engineers recently determined that heterosexual women had a 52% success rate (meaning that men chose to swipe right and like their profile), while heterosexual men had a 16% success rate.

Today's modern matchmaking companies draw on a traditional, personalized method of setting people up to alleviate the "paradox of choice," but add contemporary twists.

Sasha Silberberg, founder of OkSasha. Courtesy Sasha Silberberg

Sasha Silberberg, founder of Bay Area matchmaking company OkSasha, began filling up her "match book" catalogue of singles while working as a Lyft driver.

"I decorated my car with hearts and glitter and then people would come in my car and be like 'What the hell? Is it Valentine's Day in, like, April?'" she says.

The 25-year-old's approach to matchmaking is radically personal. When she first founded OkSasha two years ago, she would spend days in local parks handing out chocolate to strangers and asking, "Anybody looking for chocolate and love?" At night, she would go to bars and clubs in search of eligible singles to add to her network.

In-person meetings are the key to Silberberg's matchmaking strategy — and something she says no dating app can compete with.

Silberberg, who declined to share her rate but reportedly charges $1,000 or more for a range of services, believes that meeting in person is crucial both for her as a matchmaker to get a feel for her clients, and for the clients themselves to assess someone's compatibility based on more than a short profile.

"One of the things that I do when I'm matchmaking, when I'm making an introduction, is I try to talk about what the experience of being around this person is like," says Silberberg. "What is their presence? That's something that a lot of online dating sites can't [do]."

Her involvement also instills a sense of accountability, which dating apps notoriously lack. Meeting her clients in person and setting them up herself prevents the kind of "ghosting" and "breadcrumbing" that's become commonplace on dating apps, where avoiding someone is as simple and discreet as ignoring their messages. With Silberberg, they have someone to answer to.

"On these sites you'll have a username, or your first name on Tinder or something like that, but other than that there's no accountability," she says. "With matchmaking, you're more accountable because there's a third party involved. People know that I know who they are."

Silberberg finds in-person interactions so critical to successful dating that she also holds singles events to facilitate face time. In addition to traditional speed-dating, she runs a series called "Dating in the Dark" where participants wear blindfolds, forcing them to practice active listening and heighten their other senses in conversation with potential mates.

"With online dating, you're going through all of these profiles and you have no idea what each person is going to be like," she says. "But when you go to a party, you can instantly sense which people you're attracted to because you can feel that person's presence. I think there's so much opportunity in dating events, and I think that that's one of the next frontiers."

Rebecca Getachew met her partner at one of OkSasha’s singles events.

Rebecca Getachew met her partner, Chris, through OkSasha. Courtesy Rebecca Getachew

Name a dating app — Tinder, OkCupid, Coffee Meets Bagel — and Getachew tried it. For five years, she swiped, matched, and went on date after date without success. So when Silberberg started her matchmaking business, Getachew decided to give it a chance, even though it seemed a bit old-school.

“At that point, I was really willing to give anything a try,” she says.

Getachew, who works at a Bay Area biotech company, paid $25 to attend OkSasha’s first speed-dating event, where she met an entrepreneur named Chris who shared her passion for practicing mindfulness.

“At the beginning I was like, 'Nope, I'm sorry, you're 27 or something, this is not going to happen,’” said Getachew, who is 37. “But he was pretty persistent [...] So I went on a date on him and was completely blown away.”

They’ve been together for nine months, and Getachew credits Silberberg with pushing her to rethink the “type” of person she thought she wanted.

“People get very pigeonholed in their criteria,”Getachew says. “It could be age, it could be career status, or whatever, and then you miss out on your potential partner. That's why I feel like online dating really limits you. [Matchmaking] breaks down all that limitation that you put upon yourself and pushes you forward into something unexpected and exploring something in a different way... I wonder how many people I've swiped left and they would have been a great partner.”

Even for matchmakers, technology still plays an important role.

Talia Goldstein, founder of matchmaking company Three Day Rule. Courtesy Three Day Rule

Talia Goldstein also got her start as a matchmaker by planning singles events. When they began to draw crowds of over 600 people in Los Angeles, she left her job as producer at E! Entertainment in 2013 to found Three Day Rule and pursue matchmaking full-time.

Like OkSasha, Three Day Rule matchmakers meet all of their clients in person, and like Tawkify, they utilize data and algorithms to optimize dates. But they also take it a step further.

Three Day Rule uses facial recognition software to determine someone's type.

They ask clients to submit photos of their exes and run the images through their database in search of matches with similar facial structures. This doesn't necessarily mean that people get matched with lookalikes — people can have the same facial structure but have different eye, hair, or skin colors. Still, Goldstein finds that people's dating histories often reveal subtle patterns that can prove helpful in their search for love.

"Everybody comes to us and says 'I want somebody attractive' — well, that means something totally different to everyone, and I wanted to see who they've actually been dating," she says.

Three Day Rule matchmakers meet clients in person, ask them about their dating history and life goals, and assign them personality types to input into their algorithm. These aren't your average Myers Briggs classifications — Goldstein's categories carry names like "discerning executive," "alpha female," "cool girl," and "free spirit."

"We believe certain personality types go well with each other, and we also use a lot of data to figure that out," she says. "After we meet with a client, we assign them a personality type, and then the system can help us [find a] match."

Goldstein acknowledges that matchmaking isn't a science, but echoes Getachew in saying that people often don't really know what they want or who they're compatible with.

Often, Goldstein says, people will list attributes that they think they want in a partner but find someone who actually possesses them unappealing. They might not have any clue what kind of person they’re looking for to begin with.

"A lot of our couples say they would have swiped left on [rejected] the person we matched them with, and they went on to marry them," she says.

"Modern matchmaking" companies are still rooted in traditional practices.

Matchmaking has a long, rich history in Jewish communities. Courtesy Cheni Persin

Many countries and cultures boast their own unique methods of fixing people up. Perhaps one of the most well-known of these, thanks to the meddling Yenta in "Fiddler on the Roof" (and full disclosure, the one I'm most familiar with), is the shidduch system still used today within many Orthodox Jewish communities.

In the shidduch (Yiddish for "match") system, matchmakers called shadchanim maintain databases of single men and women and facilitate dates between them for the purpose of marriage. In Modern Orthodox circles, newly-married couples gleefully conspire to match up their respective sets of friends. In more right-wing Orthodox communities, singles write dating resumes, and shadchanim work with their mothers or other mentors to select suitable candidates.

The shidduch system encompasses the networking, planning, and personal touch that modern matchmaking services have repackaged in their own ways.

Chana Rose of Brooklyn has been a matchmaker in the religious Jewish community for 30 years. She stopped counting how many weddings she's responsible for a long time ago — she says it numbers somewhere in the hundreds — but takes no credit for any of it.

"It's about being a shaliach, a messenger [of God]," she says. "When it's the right time and the right shaliach, it happens."

Rose spends her days on the phone discussing dating resumes with anxious parents and juggling feedback from couples after dates.

"I've become a psychologist, social worker — it's not just making the match," she says. "It's hours and hours of holding hands, leading them through the process."

Technology has even crept into this age-old matchmaking tradition.

Matchmakers called "shadchanim" continue to facilitate many weddings in religious Jewish communities. Courtesy Lottie Dasher Borowsky

Members of Rose's religious community carefully limit their exposure to media and the internet to preserve their way of life. Yet the paradox of choice has also impacted her insular matchmaking world, albeit to a lesser degree than Tinder swipes.

"Today, with the push of a button, these boys' mothers get 15, 20 resumes a week, and that becomes extremely confusing," she says. "They're all great girls, all nice — where do you go from here? It's become, this new technology has made it — hang on, just a second."

Her phone rings. She reassures the caller that she'll be with them soon.

"Technology has complicated it immensely," she continues, unfazed. "I can tell you, I probably made more matches on paper plates and napkins than I have with the computer."

New companies like Tawkify, OkSasha, and Three Day Rule proudly draw inspiration from traditional matchmaking methods like Rose's.

"Modern matchmaking" may not be as modern as it seems. Courtesy Three Day Rule

Carroll, Silberberg, and Goldstein aim to strike a balance between traditional methods like Rose's — adding a human element to matchmaking — and dating apps that some users find impersonal and unfulfilling. By incorporating elements of each, they’ve crafted methods that work for modern people seeking an old-fashioned happy ending.

An occupational hazard of interviewing matchmakers is that they will inevitably ask you about your own dating life. When I tell Carroll about the traditional system I come from, she's ecstatic.

"Your history is the fascinating part of this story, Talia," she says. "Your history. We're trying to follow in your footsteps, in the culture that you come from, from that sort of amazing and miraculous place in human history."