Part 4 of my Lunch Actually Journey: The Date Process! (End of the LA Series)

by Celes on Sep 22, 2012 |  Email This Post

This is part 4 of my review series with Lunch Actually, Asia’s premier lunch dating company.

• Part 1: Joining Lunch Actually (Why I Decided to Join a Lunch Dating Agency and My Upcoming Series on Lunch Dating)
• Part 2: Initial Consultation and Official Membership Enrollment
• Part 3: Going Through Image Coaching!
• Part 4: The Date Process!
• Part 5: Experience Date Coaching Through My Eyes!
1. New Date Coaching Series, Part 1!
2. How Do You Fare on the Wheel of Dating?
3. The Day I Became a Pickup Artist

Having gone through image coaching with Antonia, it’s now time to write about the date process!

Update Sept 22: Rather than write about my date experiences, I’ve decided to focus on sharing the date process, as it will be more insightful for those of you reading this who are thinking of trying out Lunch Actually.

Another reason is because I want to preserve a certain degree of privacy over my date and date experience. I’m open to sharing many things on my site, but this is one area which I want to have some privacy over at this point in my life. Hope all of you can understand. Thank you!

Proposed Match by Lunch Actually

So after you enroll to LA, LA will do some fairly detailed screening and evaluation before they propose a match to you. Firstly, they will run the candidates in the database, after which the database will match the candidates based on certain algorithm in the system. Secondly, the date consultants will then select the shortlisted matches from the database, and evaluate them one by one, before finally picking the best match from the list.

After which, they will then call you to tell you that they have found you a match!

The date consultant that called me for my first match was Adrina, a very lovely lady. Adrina gave me an overview about this person, his occupation, age range, hobbies, and overall physical appearance. She asked me if I would be interested to meet him.

With the Lunch Actually dates, the agency allows its members to reject its proposed matches, for up to three matches or half the total number of dates in your membership package (which ranges from three, five, to ten dates). So if you have signed up for five dates, you are entitled to reject up to three proposed matches. If you signed up for ten dates, you are entitled to reject up to five proposed matches.

So after you say “yes” to meeting the match, the consultants will then proceed to arrange your first date with him/her!

Pre-Date: Arrangement for the Date

Since you (as the client) will only know the other party during the date itself, LA consultants makes all the arrangements for the first date, from the venue, to the date, to the time. Rose was the consultant who helped me to coordinate my first date. I thought she was very sweet and meticulous!

LA takes into account of your dietary restrictions in arranging the dates too. For example, as I’m a vegan, Rose had to research on restaurants with vegan options. My first date was at Nosh Restaurant & Bar (a restaurant that is about 10 minutes away from Buona Vista MRT Station by foot). My second date was at Original Sin, a vegetarian restaurant at Holland Village. Each time, the date details were finalized and e-mailed to me.

Oh, even though LA is called Lunch Actually (based on the notion of lunch dating), the dates are not necessarily arranged over lunch. For example, this particular date was arranged over dinner. In fact I think they try to arrange the dates over dinner, since it provides their clients more time to connect with each other. I’m also not too sure that lunch is such a good time for dates as it can be quite unromantic?! (Imagine being in “work mode” before the lunch date, packing the get-to-know-each-other questions within that one hour lunch slot, perhaps answering work calls during that hour, then rushing off for work right after the date!)

The Date Itself

One day before the date itself, the consultant will send you and the other party a text reminder, just so that we would not forget about it. You are expected to notify LA at least 48 hours in advance if you can’t make it for the date; otherwise it will be considered as a forfeit and this forfeit will be deducted from your date package.

You are then expected to show up at the specified location on the day and time itself, and meet your date at the very place. If you think you will be late or if you can’t make it for any urgent reason, you can call the LA date consultants—they will be on standby in the case of any emergencies.

Post-Date: Feedback to Lunch Actually

After the date, the next day, LA will call you to collect your feedback about the date. The questions asked include (but are not limited to):

1. What is your overall feedback of the date?
2. On a scale of 1-10, how confident was your date?
3. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the physical appearance of your date?
4. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the restaurant (in terms of food, ambiance, location, etc.)?
5. How was the dining etiquette of your date? (Haha, cute question!)
6. How long did the date last?
7. How did the date end?
8. Did you feel there were sufficient discussion topics between you and your date?
9. Are there any qualities you liked about your date? What are they?
10. Is there anything you didn’t like about your date? What is it?
11. On a scale of 1-10, how was the chemistry between you and your date?
12. Would you exchange e-mail contacts with your date?
13. Would you go on a second date with your date?
14. Would you like to make any changes to your dating preferences?
15. Would you like Lunch Actually to continue sending you new dates? (Some people may want to put their accounts on hold as they might feel that they want to explore the current date further or they want to take a break from dating.)

In the event that the feedback is really dire, LA will provide feedback to the other client, not to tattletale, but to help him/her improve and maximize his/her chances for his/her next date.

Next Match

If you tell LA that you would like to put your account on hold, the consultants will stop matching you with new dates. This will be the case until you call LA again to reactivate your account.

If you say “yes” to getting new matches, LA will continue to match you with new dates, based on the criteria you provided during your enrollment and the feedback you provided of past dates.

As Violet (CEO of Lunch Actually) puts it to me, the date matching is pretty much a refinement process, and shouldn’t be seen as a one-hit wonder (i.e. you get a date with instant chemistry for the first match). Sometimes, you may have criteria which you did not articulate in the enrollment, but you later realize are crucially important to you through the dates. Sometimes, you may think that you want A and B, but what really fit you are X and Y. Sometimes, your criteria may alter as you have different wants.

You have to be patient and have faith in the agency as they continue to match you with new people. Trust that the consultants are doing their best to match you with the best people in their database, based on your criteria, profile, and their clients’ criteria and profiles. Only through mutual trust and understanding will you eventually get the date you desire.

End of the Review of Lunch Actually Dating Process

This marks the end of my review of the Lunch Actually dating process.

Originally my plan was to blog about my matched dates along with the membership process. However, I have found that there are too many constraints for me to do so (for example, having to maintain privacy of the dates (not that any of my dates had issues with my writing about my dates—I had asked them about it), my desire to safeguard my date experience, issue of date prospects outside of LA reading about my LA dates, and so on).

I hope all of you have found my LA review helpful. Thanks for sticking with me all this while. At this moment I’ve already gone through two dates out of my five date package, and I am putting my account on hold for now, as I have been experiencing an overkill in the area of dating (I’ve been meeting new people outside of LA as well) and want to just take things slow for the moment.

Oh, and believe it or not, my LA articles are coming up in the first page of Google results now when you search “Lunch Actually Reviews” (even appearing higher than Lunch Actually’s very site!). Haha. Hope those of you who found PE through Google have found this series helpful in deciding whether to give LA a shot or not. If you’re on the fence, I think you should just give it a shot to be honest, since there is always no harm in creating an additional avenue in meeting new people. Give it a try, see how it is like for you, then decide if you want to continue. You can always exercise the trial date option—you can cancel your account and pay only the administration fee (a few hundred dollars) if you don’t feel their service is for you after going on one date!

I might write a follow-up article in the future on tips to maximize your LA experience, but this is definitely all I have to write about the LA dating process for now.

Continue on to: Date Coaching Series

Continue reading about my experience and revelations with dating through the blog entries on PE and my new date coaching series, where I experience date coaching with Lunch Actually’s date coach (Kydon Tay) and share my lessons along the way.

This is part 4 of my review series with Lunch Actually, Asia’s premier lunch dating company.

• Part 1: Joining Lunch Actually (Why I Decided to Join a Lunch Dating Agency and My Upcoming Series on Lunch Dating)
• Part 2: Initial Consultation and Official Membership Enrollment
• Part 3: Going Through Image Coaching!
• Part 4: The Date Process!
• Part 5: Experience Date Coaching Through My Eyes!
1. New Date Coaching Series, Part 1!
2. How Do You Fare on the Wheel of Dating?
3. The Day I Became a Pickup Artist

Image: Irene

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