Matchmaking

Teen Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) marry Tyrion "the Imp" Lannister (Peter Dinklage), a man twice her age and half her size? Incestuous Queen Cersei (Lena Headey) marry Sir Loras Tyrell (Finn Jones)? A handsome young man, surely, but one who finds knights more attractive than ladies. Who's behind this seemingly bizarre matchmaking? As we learn in Episode 25 of HBO's "Game of Thrones," it's Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance), a pragmatic tyrant motivated by power and wealth, not romantic niceties.

For more than a decade, the online dating site eHarmony has pitched itself as a company that matches singles with romantic partners who are looking for lifelong relationships. Now a study funded by the Santa Monica-based firm offers scientific evidence that husbands and wives who met online are more satisfied with their marriages than couples that met the old-fashioned way. In a nationally representative survey of 19,131 people, researchers found slightly less marital contentment and slightly higher separation rates among people who met their spouse at work, on a blind date, in a bar or at a club.

Yom Kippur, the holiest and most somber day of the Jewish calendar, is a time for repentance, traditionally reserved for fasting and intense prayer. But scores of Iranian American Jews in Los Angeles, many of whom congregate in just a handful of synagogues across the city, aren't just looking for forgiveness on the Day of Atonement. They're looking for love. Facing enormous pressure from their families to marry within the community, many of these young people -- and their matchmaking relatives -- say they use the day to scope out potential romantic interests and tap into vast social networks to get the scoop on prospective candidates.

Mike Low, a mixed martial arts matchmaker, remembers when he had trouble finding enough talent for his local fight cards. Not anymore. "Four years ago, I'd have to look for fighters, gym to gym. Now I get 50 emails a day from people pitching their fighters from here. And they're usually pretty good fighters," he said. The Ultimate Fighting Championship has taken hold across the country and the sport's boom has spawned about a dozen second-tier MMA pro circuits in Southern California.

Love for sale. Svetlana Novikova knew it could be a lucrative business. In St. Petersburg, the foreign men who rented apartments through her real estate business in St. Petersburg relentlessly hounded her to introduce them to her girlfriends. So four years ago, the entrepreneurial Novikova established Svetlana Agency, a Russian mail order bride service. She was so successful that she recently expanded her business into one of the more financially fertile U.S. neighborhoods--Newport Beach.

Mention, just in passing, that it's been a while since you've had a date, and their eyes light up. They know someone who's just perfect . Someone who will treat you better than those bums (or prima donnas) you used to see. Someone who will understand your slobbery Great Dane, need to work late occasionally, child with dirt-caked fingernails, (fill in the blank). They arrange a meeting, suggest an exchange of telephone numbers or invite you both over for a simple, absolutely no-pressure dinner.

All Joe Steidl wanted was a good plate of kung pao chicken that summer day in 1993 when he walked into Cindy's Corner restaurant. Instead, he became a pet project of the Chinese Cupid.

A good man is especially hard to find in this deeply religious country, where bars are nonexistent, unchaperoned conversation between single men and women is frowned upon, and immigration has frayed the neighborhood and family ties that have nurtured arranged marriages for centuries. So when Amber Khan's parents told her it was time to get married, the 23-year-old fashion student turned to a new matchmaking resource: the Internet. Khan posted an ad for a husband on Mehndi.

Helena Amram, a former gunboat crewman in the Israeli army who calls herself a "matchmaker extraordinaire," can't believe the question. "Did you hear what he said?" she asks a lunch companion, her dark eyes widening. "He said I have competitors. Nobody competes with Helena. There's only one. I am the best. I have no competition because (other matchmakers) are not making weddings. They're making introductions and one-night stands. They don't have my method.

The plaque on the wall says be persistent if you want to find true love. The dog on the floor says be patient. The yenta behind the desk says be realistic. "Some people think that if you can buy an automobile and order anything you want with it that you can do the same with humans too," said Gloria Karns. "You can't." Karns knows. For 16 years the Jewish matchmaker has tried to steer hundreds of lonely men and women down the right path--that twisting and bumpy one that leads to matrimony.

Teen Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) marry Tyrion "the Imp" Lannister (Peter Dinklage), a man twice her age and half her size? Incestuous Queen Cersei (Lena Headey) marry Sir Loras Tyrell (Finn Jones)? A handsome young man, surely, but one who finds knights more attractive than ladies. Who's behind this seemingly bizarre matchmaking? As we learn in Episode 25 of HBO's "Game of Thrones," it's Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance), a pragmatic tyrant motivated by power and wealth, not romantic niceties.

Neil Clark Warren thinks he's the best match for EHarmony Inc. In a move that caused his friends to call him crazy, the 78-year-old EHarmony founder came out of retirement in July to become chief executive, looking to resuscitate one of the most recognized online dating services that was struggling amid increased competition. "We'd gotten a bit lost," Warren said recently at the company's Santa Monica headquarters, decorated with hundreds of photos of couples who met on the website.

Alvin Roth earned his 2012 Nobel Prize in economics for market design and matching theory - creating ways to pair "buyers" and "sellers" happily and fairly when price isn't a primary consideration. For instance? Kidney exchanges, in which cost can't legally play a role but donors and recipients with just the right assets and needs still must find each other. Roth's algorithms can be used to make good matches in even the thorniest situations: bringing the lovelorn together with potential mates, and bringing together the right charter and public schools with the right students.

Even objectivists yearn for romance. Adherents of Ayn Rand's philosophy may strive to live with an emphasis on the power of reason and objective reality, but that didn't stop Stephanie Betit and Jamie Hancock from falling so crazy in love that they'd constantly email during work, talk on the phone until 4 a.m. and drive for nine hours to see each other. Frustrated with her love life, Vermonter Betit, a 32-year-old special-education coordinator, wondered aloud to a girlfriend, "How the heck do you meet people nowadays who are intelligent, don't do drugs, don't drink and are serious about life?"

TEHRAN - Iranian ministers have fretted for years about a "marriage crisis" in the country. The average age when people wed has climbed since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, causing concern among officials, as well as family elders, that Iranians may stray from a traditional pious path by staying single too long. Now a government minister says the country needs to legalize matchmaking websites to nudge Iranians to get hitched at younger ages. Mohammad Abbasi, the country's sports and youth minister, recently said he hoped to come up with rules for what may amount to a sort of Match.com or eHarmony suited for the Islamic Republic.

"The Matchmaker" is a surprise. It sounds like a throwback to an earlier, more traditional style of Israeli filmmaking but it instead provides a view of that country that's as satisfyingly eccentric and unexpected as anything we've seen. Written and directed by the veteran Avi Nesher, nominated for seven Israeli academy awards and winner of the lead actor and actress prize, "The Matchmaker" is set largely in 1968 and presents itself as the familiar coming-of-age story of a 16-year-old boy. But, as it turns out, the boy's story is only a part of a larger, more compelling dramatic mosaic and what he learns about the vagaries and perplexities of the human heart is only interesting because of the complex, unusual adults he learns it from.

Single people everywhere dream of a match made in heaven. Anne Majerik dreame only of a match made in Beverly Hills. But when her high-priced matchmaker disappointed her, she sued. And on Tuesday, a jury awarded her $2.1 million. Majerik, who paid $125,000 to Beverly Hills matchmaker Orly Hadida, said she was promised time with "a cultured gentleman" and his "estate of up to $20 million." She said all she got were a few introductions to some inappropriate men.

In the modern age of recyclables, try this one on: a matchmaking Internet site where the men come with a stamp of approval from -- get this -- an ex-wife or an ex-girlfriend, or on occasion from a sister, dear friend or even Mom. In fact, no man gets posted on GreatBoyfriends.com by the strength of his own charms: A woman in his life must refer him. And, boy, is the sisterhood stepping up! Since Elle magazine columnist E.

KANO, Nigeria - He should be tall. Kind, of course. And generous, especially when it comes to buying all those little trinkets that a woman desires. "A little handsome," but not too much, says Altine Abdullahi. "It's a danger. " In northern Nigeria, it is a truth almost universally acknowledged that a woman of a certain age, and in a certain situation in life, must be in want of a husband. But if the woman in that certain situation is a divorcee or a widow, finding a husband isn't easy, even without the shopping list of desirable qualities ticked off by Abdullahi (a divorcee)

The one-line email that greeted Mohammad Mertaban came straight to the point. "Mertaban, find me a husband, k? I await your list of potential suitors," wrote a woman who lives on the East Coast. Mertaban was not surprised, although he knew the woman only slightly. "If it comes from a brother or sister whom I don't know very well, I know that she would do it out of frustration, desperation or a strong desire to get married," he explained later. An information technology project manager who lives in Fullerton, Mertaban, 30, has grown accustomed to urgent requests — by phone, email and in person — since he began dabbling in matchmaking for friends and acquaintances about eight years ago. Those he helps are observant young Muslims searching for a modern path to marriage that stays true to Islam.