YOUR SPACE: When she picks pairs, it's usually match point

Looking for love?

Try looking in the ladies' and men's rooms at a bar.

That's where you'll find matchmaker Donna Shugrue - or at least her ads, which she places above toilets and on stall doors to reach what she calls a "captive audience."

After years of fixing friends up as a novice, Shugrue went pro after her divorce two decades ago and started Perfectly Matched.

From a two-room downtown office, with photos on the wall of couples as well as her grandkids, she plays Cupid with plastic file boxes of note cards and an 18-year-old Polaroid camera - no computers involved.

She uses female intuition that's been around for 61 years and a compatibility profile test devised 80 years ago.

The test has clients respond to 46 statements, including "One of the major parties should nominate a woman" and "I rarely have headaches" to stances on kissing in public and clipping coupons.

Goofy as it sounds, she swears by the results.

"It defines the six areas of compatibility: temperament, sociality, finance, conformity, affection and religion."

Also factored in are height, weight, hair, children, goals and income.

She takes it from there. "I get to know them," she says of her clients. "I have an eye for picking levels of attraction."

The Polaroid pics, however, are for her benefit, not theirs. Clients don't see their match until it's in person - and without Shugrue.

"I don't always get it right on the first try," she admits.

But she gets it right often enough: "I have 650 married clients and as many are in relationships."

With a record like that, Ritz Grill named a drink after her: the "Matchmaker Martini."

Shugrue won't tell the price of her service, only that it's equal to "investing in eight nice dinners out."

Nice as in The Broadmoor nice.

It's not for swingers or "quickies." "Most are looking for one special person," she says.

Nobody is hopeless, but there are more special someones for nonfat, nonsmoking women under 40, she says, and for men over 45 with what she calls "realistic expectations" in the younger and prettier mates many tend to desire.

Referrals account for half of her clients. The others are lured by the ads on the bathroom walls.

Though there's nothing "computer dating" about it, she uses her www.perfectlymatcheddating.com Web site to promote business.

Last year, through the site, she got an e-mail that said: "I don't want to hurt your feeling, but someone drew a mustache on your picture over the urinal."

A week later, she says, the sender, Charlie, came forward. "He said, ‘So, Donna, what's your story?'"

It didn't take a matchmaker to know he was hitting on her.

"I said, ‘Charlie, I have a daughter who's four years younger than you.' He said, ‘I don't care. You're hot.'"

She was flattered, but not quivering - until he took her profile test; turns out they're compatible.

"He had my scores. I have a lot of ups and downs with my scores; I hardly ever see that," she says. "And he wasn't too budget-minded."

Even so, she didn't charge him ... but he has paid for at least eight nice dinners in the year they've been dating.

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Tell me your stories: 636-0253 or andrea.brown@gazette.com