Matchmaking moms: Cute or pathetic?

By Julia Allison | Special to amNewYork

October 9, 2006

My mom is not the 'matchmaker type.'

The first and last time I asked her to set me up, she looked at me like I had just suggested she foot the bill for a Trump Tower apartment. Preferably a penthouse.

Snapping out of her shock, she swiftly concluded that I should date the only man she could think of other than my dad--the general contractor working on my parents' house in Chicago, who she happened to be on the phone with at that very moment.

"Want to go out with my daughter?" she yelled enthusiastically into the cordless. "She's a sexy sex columnist!!"

It was readily apparent that this was a horrible idea.

Luckily for Dawn Miller, not all mothers are as sweetly inept at finding their children mates.

Miller, 32, is founder of MatchmakingMoms.com a new online dating site in which moms create the profiles and search for matches on their sons' or daughters' behalves.

"I'm very close to my mom and we often talked about how difficult it was to meet somebody," says Miller. When she initially felt awkward about online dating, her mother sat down with her and together, they went through the men's profiles until they found the man who would later become Miller's boyfriend.

"I felt more comfortable with my mom validating who I was looking at and whether they were compatible," she explains. "Nobody knows you better than your mom."

My first thought was 'aww, that¹s so adorable,' but others had a different view. Was it cute or creepy?

"Creepy," says Lizzie, 25, an editor who only wanted to be identified by her first name. "I do not want my mom involved. I barely even tell her who I'm dating, let alone let her pick them."

But wouldn't dating online be better if moms filled out the profiles? They might think he's smarter or better looking than he really is, but not many mothers would lie about their sons being married, for example.

"Maybe," admitted Lizzie, "but doesn't it make them sort of pathetic that Mom's doing all the work?"

Well, maybe it makes them LESS pathetic because they're not sitting in front of their computer uploading glamour shots and laundry-listing their accomplishments. Mom is! And moms are allowed to do stuff like that.

"It saves face," says Miller, "if somebody sees your picture, you can just say 'yeah, my mom put me up there.'"

Lizzie wasn¹t having it. "God forbid you meet a 35-year-old guy who actually needed his mom to fill out his dating profile," she says.

"It's like 'Oh. So THAT'S why you're not married. Now I see.'"

E-mail Julia@JuliaAllison.com