Its Just Lunch

First IJL date was last night. I don’t think he’s my soul mate, but he was everything they described and I enjoyed the 2 hours we spent chatting over dinner and drinks– that has not been my experience in dating the past few years. I was a bit worried that I would only get the minimum number of dates, but they have already scheduled me to meet 3 different guys in the first 3 weeks of being a member.

Why I chose to sign up for this service.
1. It was suppose to be just lunch, less pressure. They also said I would be going to a bunch of different restaurants. I saw that as a plus, even if the date was bad I got to try a new restaurant.
2. They told me that they would give me critiques after the date. If my date said I was doing something wrong or annoying Just Lunch said they would pass that information on to me. Since I’d only been on two dates at that point in my life, I was interested in improving .
3. Having a person involved with picking my date, a human touch, seemed to me at the time more effective than a computer.
Why did I give two stars?
1. I lived in a small town at the time so I didn’t believe there’d be a lot of dates there. I agreed to meet all my dates in Rochester, a 30 minute drive for me. I had one date in Rochester. The next 4 where in the cities. I had to drive an hour and a half to two hours to meet my dates. It was no longer Just Lunch, I had to commit an entire afternoon to this. When I complained they compromised and had my dates meet me halfway. I was still driving an hour for each date. Once I started meeting them halfway we only went to one restaurant. Over and over and over again.
2. They never gave me any critique of the dates. They’d asked my opinion on how the date went. What I liked and didn’t like about my date. But they never provided feedback to me about what my date liked/​disliked.
3. Again I complained about the drive time and they set me up with a young man in Rochester. We were not a match. Both of us were outside the age range we had requested by several years. We did not have the same interests or anything in common. The entire date felt like they were trying to just appease me with the location of the date, not actually setting me up with someone I had a connection with. Having a real person pick my dates did not prove effective. He was my last date through Just Lunch.
4. I also found out through one of my dates that men pay a lot less money for this service than women. As in a difference of more than $ 500. Once you run out of your allotted time, six months or a year, they charge you monthly. I spent a lot of money, well over $ 3000 for a lservice I got little to no enjoyment out of.
If you live in a big city maybe you will have better luck. The staff was always polite, only growing more distant as I became unhappy with the service.
I will not be utilizing this service for myself ever again.

After reading through the website and not seeing and detailed information about how the service works, or the cost, I decided to call in to get more information. I like to have all of the facts before I make decisions, and I like to have time to think things through. The staff person I talked to was so kind, bubbly, and encouraging. She told me that I was a doll, and had several guys she could already see me with. I directly asked her how much the different plans cost, and she directly avoided the question. It came out later in a quick breath in between two other unrelated sentences. $ 2,400 for 6 months, or $ 3,600 for 12 months (I think). She promised to set me up with 2 – 3 dates a month. I told her that I wasn’t sure I was wanting to invest in this type of service just yet, and she ignored my statement and pushed for a phone interview the next day. I told her I didn’t want to waster her time, but would look through my budget and see if I really wanted to commit to it. She called again the next day, all excited to talk with me. When I told her that I had decided to not move forward just yet, she couldn’t get off of the phone quick enough. She was rude, and very vocal about her disappointment in me as a potential client. I almost felt bad when I got off of the call, which is not how a potential customer should be feeling.
I can’t speak to how the actual dating goes, but I was very disappointed with interactions I had with a senior level staff person. I can’t say I’d be excited to call them again when/​if I have money to burn.

Their one redeeming quality is that the staff is always friendly. That said, when I had this service, I saw no improvement in their ability to match me with someone I had mutual interest in. Much of the «I have someone great for you» or «We have some great new ladies» or «I was thinking about you and think I came up with the perfect match» that they say are clearly just phrases on cue cards. And since ending my use of the service, I’ve gotten solicitation calls every 4 months like clockwork. Even worse, the last three times they’ve contacted me I’ve told them I’m seeing someone (to which they respond «Well, is it serious?»… which is possibly the least classy response) and to remove me from their list/​database. The result was that the last three calls have been more frequent.
To summarize: stay away unless you have money to burn, your favorite past time is to go on average first dates, and you like the idea of a strange woman calling you up every three months to check if you’re single or not. … Actually, I could see that last one being kind of nice if it also wasn’t kind of annoying/​dreadful/​stalking.
UPDATE 5÷2÷2013: After the last call 3 months ago, they called again. This time I called back and spoke with the manager/​owner asking to be expunged from their system. She promised to do so, apologizing for some of the phrasing used by past staff.
UPDATE 9÷16÷2013: Guess who called again.
UPDATE 12÷3÷2014: Per IJL’s comment below, apparently my contact info was STILL in their system. My mind is blown.