Girls Pack Your Bags for Sun Valley!

This past weekend my husband and I headed to Central Idaho for a nice long weekend of horseback riding, sunbathing and …..

After a few days of r&r in the incredibly scenic and magnificent weather of Sun Valley, my natural matchmaking instincts surfaced and I couldn’t help but notice the abundance of really good looking older men. (Think Ralph Lauren look alikes- tan skin, active, healthy, avid skiers, and silver hair). If I were a single woman in my 30, 40, or 50’s…I would buy a one way ticket to Sun Valley, Idaho! It is loaded with affluent, good looking, sporty men who are ALL SINGLE and searching. Real cowboys! Men on horses! Men wearing wranglers!

Curious about the local dating scene, I began chatting it up with a few locals at the Pioneer saloon and one eligible gentleman shared that women “should not commit to any man till they are last least 39 1/2 years because men are by nature  still trying to find themselves. Men don’t know their shit till after 40. Men in their 30s are trying to find themselves professionally. Ladies are different.”

A lot of the men I encountered have been married 1-3 times before and choose Sun Valley to be one with nature, enjoy a very down to earth group of locals, and the active lifestyle.

If you visit during the Allen & Co week, you will rub elbows with a lot of movers and shakers if you are lucky enough. A lot of the locals head out for that week to get outta dodge away from the hustle and bustle.

Our featured song for this entry is Tim McGraw and Faith Hill It’s Your Love 

So, grab your best girlfriend and head to Sun Valley for a long weekend. I’d play it real low key as these guys are no dummies. They can spot a woman who is after them for the wrong reasons or simply someone who is too eager. I chatted with my new Sun Valley buddies about this! Stay in town, go horseback riding, eat at the Pioneer, listen to live music, admire the thriving art scene, check out the Ketchum Grill, grab coffee at Java for low-key or Tully’s for more of a scene…..mingle and meet some really great locals who like you are searching for that perfect match.

Sun Valley, Idaho – The best baked potatoes money can buy! Good shopping! Limitless outdoor activities! (skiing, horseback riding, cycling, golfing)  Gorgeous mountains! The downside is a long drive from Boise airport to Sun Valley. The upside is countless new connections to really down-to-earth, good people…and possibly finding love!

Linx on ABC News Nightline!

We have been so completely inundated with matchmaking requests since Nightline aired nearly two weeks ago, that we are just now placing this entry up! It was so exciting getting to see the final product of our nearly 1.5 years in the making of this feature story.

Our featured song for this entry is Peter Gabriel’s Big Time. 

With only about 7 minutes of total airtime, a lot of great footage of other clients having participated never made it to the final cut. We had three other client stories and my actual interview with Bill Weir was 45 minutes! Such exciting stuff for our little business out of quiet Menlo Park, CA!

By KINGA JANIK

July 10, 2012

 On paper, Sundar Iyer seems like quite a catch.

He has a doctorate in computer science from Stanford. His second company sold when he was just 28 years old. His interests include ballroom dancing, standup comedy and recreational math.

So the ladies of Northern California must be lining up around the block to swoon over his intellect, dream about having children with him and splitting up the stock, right? But Iyer says not so much.

“I‘ve tried Match.com, I’ve tried eHarmony,” he said. “It’s hard to find people you can really relate to.”

And there’s others like Iyer. Silicon Valley may be the most recession-proof corner of the country, packed with brainiac billionaires, but the Revenge of the Nerds won’t truly be complete until these guys can find love.

And that is where self-made matchmaker Amy Andersen comes in.

“I think when people initially visualize that Silicon Valley guy, they’re really picturing these mini Bill Gateses running around with coke bottle glasses and maybe pocket protectors, just totally clueless around women, and there is definitely some of those, let’s be honest here,” she said.

About a dozen years ago, Andersen said she realized that the dotcom boom in Silicon Valley created a lot of very successful and very lonely men. Meanwhile, nearby San Francisco was crawling with smart, attractive and single women. So Andersen launched Linx Dating in 2003 to bring the two groups together.

“I find a lot of the guys in Silicon Valley can be so exceptional on paper. These guys have been absolutely rock stars in their academic careers. Professionally, they’ve sold companies. They are just going incredible places. And when they come into my office, I often see this deep insecurity, especially in landing or trying to pick up and attract a beautiful woman. It’s very hard for them,” she said.

Andersen started out beta-testing her idea on her friends and researching dating advice. Almost a decade later, Linx Dating has grown into a prosperous business with more than 1,000 paying clients, according to the company’s website.

But Andersen’s services don’t come cheap. Packages start out around $1,000 and go up to the VIP level with a hefty price tag of $50,000, which includes wardrobe consultations and date coaching, Andersen said.

“For instance, he might show up for a first date in a really shiny sports car. And that’s really great and all, but the wrong woman is going to end up with him for the wrong reasons. My advice for these guys, and it’s happened so many times, is to rent a car. Borrow your buddy’s Prius or Honda. And if you’re with the right woman, she will be with you for the right reasons, and not the wrong ones,” she said.

For his part Iyer says he signed up with Linx not for coaching, but for introductions to women he might not otherwise meet in the male-centric Valley.

When Andersen meets with clients, she has them fill out a vast and deeply personal questionnaire, which includes such questions as “rate your physical appearance on a scale of 1 to 10. She then works to build their confidence and match them up on dates.

“I think a lot of the Silicon Valley-based guys who are so incredibly successful and cerebral tend to be very analytical. They can be very preprogrammed and robotic in the motions that they carry on through life. It’s their mind that has led them to be so successful. Now the issue at stake is that that analytical mentality doesn’t exactly compute over to the dating world where emotion and feeling and that emotional intelligence is really important,” Andersen said.

Andersen said her method works better than Match.com or eHarmony — websites that use computer algorithms to match people’s profiles — because she can help her clients get over their anxieties and teach them how to present themselves on dates.

“A computer can’t whisper into your ear and say here’s a little history into your match, and this is what you should wear. These are points to talk about. Avoid this,” she said. “It’s really that very personalized approach that makes this incredibly unique, and that no algorithm could do, no computer, no geeky piece of technology or iPhone app could figure out.”

Perhaps she is right. Maybe, even in Silicon Valley, love is tech-proof.