In an unexpected revival of old-fashioned matchmaking traditions, the art of arranging marriages, rebranded today as cosmopolitan “matchmaking”, is back in the spotlight thanks to a Greek-American based in the United States. Nearly 70 years after actress Georgia Vasileiadou immortalised the meddling matchmaker in the 1957 Finos Films comedy “The Aunt from Chicago” (a classic of Greek cinema), Maria Avgitidou has revived the character in her own way. Her business, agapematch.com (named after the Greek word “agape”, meaning love), is a fully modern, organised matchmaking agency based in New York with an exclusive clientele across the United States. “Matchmaker Maria”, as she calls herself, is proud of its track record, and so too are the New York Times, who profiled her in a lengthy feature.

At its core, the idea behind matchmaking (pairing couples suited to spend the rest of their lives together) has not changed, even if the trappings have. There are no clay pots hurled at unsuspecting suitors from a balcony, and no domineering father figure standing guard over his daughters like the character played by Orestis Makris in the original film, a forerunner of Jack Nicholson’s stubborn cynic in “As Good as It Gets”, who famously asked his best friend what exactly he meant by the word “love”.

The cousin from New York

And yet Makris’s caricature, which reflected prevailing attitudes in post-war Greek society, is being vindicated by ventures such as Avgitidou’s: love, in this view, necessarily follows introduction. The more carefully engineered the meeting, even a deliberately staged one, the greater the odds of a lasting bond forming. That is why the retired air force captain in the film does not trust his daughters’ futures to chance encounters, but to his notoriously resourceful sister, Kalliopi Papas, the original “Aunt from Chicago”. Where viewers might once have wondered how that matchmaking tradition would translate today, Avgitidou has the answer: it is called matchmaking, and she argues it beats blindly searching for a partner in the seemingly bottomless but, in her view, actually shallow pool of dating apps and social media, which she says are just as ineffective at delivering love, sex, companionship or marriage.

Avgitidou’s technique, developed over years by the 42-year-old Greek-American (who, despite the film’s title, is from New Jersey rather than Chicago), draws on the long, authentic tradition of arranged introductions. She says with evident pride that she and her younger sister and close collaborator, Chrysoula Mavrianou, represent the fourth generation of matchmakers in their family. She invites those disillusioned with dating apps, online platforms and social media “fishing” to try her alternative instead. Matchmaker Maria has an impressive record to show for it: around 7,000 matches, each with at least one confirmed first date.

Agapematch.com, Avgitidou’s website, has been running for 18 years. Alongside it she has built complementary ventures, including the podcast “Ask a Matchmaker”, summer trips to Greece branded “Agape Escapes”, and retreat-style gatherings. She has also distilled her years of experience as a modern-day “Aunt from Chicago” into a book, a practical guide to finding, as far as possible, an ideal partner in today’s chaotic and unpredictable world, a world in which meeting new people has never been easier thanks to digital technology, yet finding that one connection capable of sustaining lifelong monogamy seems harder than ever.

Avgitidou says agapematch.com’s main competitive advantage lies in prioritising quality over quantity: the agency takes on no more than 15 clients at a time, making it a “boutique” matchmaking service. Where the digital world, and even other agencies, tend to offer impersonal, rushed service, agapematch.com follows a fully personalised, tailored process, with hands-on attention from Avgitidou and her experienced team.

The agapematch philosophy is built around long-term relationships, in contrast to the casual pairing-off pursued on dating apps. As a result, its clientele skews towards the wealthier and more highly educated end of the spectrum. After 18 years in the trade, Avgitidou has built up a database of more than 30,000 profiles of prospective brides and grooms. Every match begins, without exception, with the compilation of a detailed, precise client profile. With careful attention to privacy, the agency records any personality trait that could affect the search for the best possible match.

This profiling process, which differs slightly for men and women, is a critical step. Based on each client’s particular expectations, requirements, qualities and flaws, a shortlist of candidates is drawn up for a first date. Agapematch.com may conduct as many as 30 interviews before settling on the right person. Even once a date is arranged, Avgitidou makes sure her clients are not sent in unprepared: the agency’s services include coaching to help clients avoid awkwardness or missteps that could needlessly spoil that unique, unrepeatable first impression.

The cost of agape

Under agapematch.com’s methodology, if a first date goes well, the agency then works to secure a second meeting, ideally within 48 to 72 hours, since experience shows that momentum is lost if too much time passes. If a match does not work out, alternative candidates (usually the two runners-up from the original shortlist of three) are activated, and the process can be repeated, provided no more than three first dates take place per month and the client’s subscription remains active. While there is no official price list, and Avgitidou says fees vary case by case, the average cost is estimated at around $5,000 for every month the agency works on a client’s behalf, a figure that points to an upmarket clientele of well-paid company presidents, chief executives, senior executives, entrepreneurs and high earners.

At the same time, to keep expanding its pool of candidates, agapematch.com archives thousands of profiles from people who register free of charge. Even so, nothing compares to the instinct of a genuine “Aunt from Chicago”. Asked about her favourite match of her career, Avgitidou recalled a difficult, negative client whom the agency had repeatedly struggled to place. Despite her own frustration with him, she happened to spot the ideal match for him quite by chance: a dermatologist she was visiting for a mole check. Her instinct proved right. The pair were delighted with each other, convinced that only some higher power could have engineered such a perfect match.

Maria, the woman behind the matchmaker persona

Avgitidou’s book, “Ask a Matchmaker: A No-Nonsense Guide to Finding Love”, sets out the core principles behind her approach to matchmaking while also being, as is often the case with such books, largely autobiographical.

The daughter of Greek immigrants who settled in New Jersey when she was two, she grew up between the United States and Greece, sent unaccompanied to Greece with her sister Chrysoula every summer by their parents.

Greek folk culture, mixed with mythology and her own family’s particular traditions, seems to have shaped her path into matchmaking. She recalls being fascinated by stories of her great-grandmother’s matchmaking exploits, while also learning about the insatiable romantic appetite of Zeus, in whom she saw not an uncontrollable philanderer but the archetypal matchmaker, since he paired Aphrodite with Hephaestus. Later, translating episodes of the American soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful” for her grandmother, who could not keep up with the Greek subtitles, Avgitidou was introduced, from a young age, to the secrets, and even the more unsuitable aspects, of romantic relationships.

After finishing school in the United States, she moved to Athens to study, where as a student she began building social circles, an early, not yet conscious, form of matchmaking. She then returned to the United States to study International Relations at a university in New York, though the need to find work quickly led her, gradually but with real dedication, into matchmaking as a career.

Naturally, having spent years finding love for others professionally, she did not neglect to find it for herself. She found her own match in Giorgos-Ioannis Pyrgiotakis, with whom she went on to have two children, building a family she can rightly hold up as proof that a matchmaking success story, made in heaven, is possible for her clients too.