Interview with Naina, a matchmaker & psychologist (Part 1) 

Here is my interview for Ukrainian Dating Blog by Krystyna Trushyna. Krystyna is a Russian and Ukrainian dating blogger and Youtube video coach. Original source link on interview is here. 

Dear friends,  

here is my new interview with a Ukrainian matchmaker. Naina was so kind to answer all my questions, so we could learn more about the marriage and matchmaking industry in Ukraine. Naina Yusupova is a leading matchmaker and dating coach of Realdate Studio, psychologist-counselor of interpersonal communication and virtual interaction, as well as a member of the Ukrainian Union of Psychotherapists. 

In our interview, we will discuss a range of topics related to her services, stories to share and a look into the future of Ukrainian dating and marriage industry.

Naina, a matchmaker

Krystyna: Hi Naina. Thank you so much to finding time to reply my difficult questions. Could you introduce yourself and tell us how you started your business as a matchmaker? 

Naina: Hello Krystyna! First of all, I want to thank you for the invitation and great job you do for the Ukrainian dating business and western men. My name is Naina Yusupova and I am an owner and leading matchmaker of realdatestudio.com. 

My main profession is a psychologist and I provide private counseling in interpersonal relationship, virtual communication and interaction. I am a current member of the Ukrainian Union of Psychotherapists, right now I am studying problem-oriented consulting in psychodrama and transactional analysis (both are psychotherapy directions). 

You can ask me, Krystyna, why I am talking about psychology? The answer is because my way as a matchmaker I started from my interest to online dating and psychology. In 2002-2003 I worked in Internet-café for international students and at the same time I was getting my first degree in linguistics. 

I found a lot of Ukrainian women who tried to find foreign men online, same time a lot of foreign students married our ladies and took them away. That was curious to me! I was curious why our women want to find men abroad?! I started to research this subject and help our ladies to register on international dating sites (mostly European).

Most of ladies didn’t know foreign languages and had no computers at home, so they often used Internet-cafés and spent hours on translating their letters, writing their profiles, and communicating with men, etc. And most of foreign students who discovered beauty of Ukrainian women asked me some tips and advices on how to date Ukrainian ladies. 

I started from searching secure dating sites and read a lot of reviews, registered ladies online and helped with translation. After all several men came on meetings to ladies and some of them matched well. One of these ladies was my best friend; she is currently living with her daughter abroad.  

I liked to help people find each other and decided to make it to my profession! Later, when I decided get psychology degree, it became a part of my research on the problem of interpersonal aspects of adult people’s virtual interaction (which I am going to continue in future with my foreign clients :). 

For a long time I have been studying the psychological compatibility of couples and virtual interaction, examined the effectiveness of the registration on the leading international dating sites, worked in the private matchmaking and dating coaching field, as well as worked at local marriage agencies in Poltava. And finally, I decided that it is the right time to open an own matchmaking agency in Poltava. 

I must admit that before opening our studio in Poltava, I have gained my personal experience with international dating but I found my soul mate not overseas, but here in Poltava. So sometimes there is no need to look your happiness too far from your homeland. 

Krystyna: Thank you, Naina, for this very detailed reply. My next question. How many men and women are currently looking for a match through your agency, and how many couples were formed through your matchmaking services? 

Naina: Oh, we are a young agency, Krystyna. Honestly, we are running our business only 1,5 years and we have not yet managed to attract a large number of clients, especially men as there are a lot of stereotypes and fears about Ukrainian dating. 

But we don’t need “eternal” clients and we are not a “matchmaking factory”; we are working result-only, namely: creating couples and involving emotionally each time, so our aim is to attract only those men and women who definitely know what they want and are ready to cooperate with us. 

All at once, we value the quality of service so we need to spend a lot of time on every single client in order to provide a really personal approach. For us, our studio is not a business yet, but a small family.  I know each of our customers personally and most of our women come by recommendation. 

I am hoping that in the nearest future we will get the trust by more marriage-minded clients. Currently, we do not have more than 30 ladies. However, our main rules are meeting our customers’ requirements and expectations and trying find a match for each of our ladies. 

Talking about RealdateStudio results… Last year we formed two couples, one of the couples is making K1 visa right now. They are planning to marry this summer. 

Krystyna: Why should Western men who want to find a Ukrainian wife use your specific marriage agency? Do you believe that men have a real chance to find a foreign wife by using an online dating site, not a matchmaking service? 

Naina: The specificity of my matchmaking studio service is an individual approach, psychological selection based on compatibility of partners, as well as on a meeting-oriented approach. 

We can offer some old-fashioned services as two-way correspondence and Skype-sessions to prove the genuineness of our ladies and give two people an opportunity to exchange more information about each other, but we advise our clients meet as soon as possible. 

I have often heard from western men that they would rather spend once on a ticket and come to Ukraine to meet a Ukrainian woman in person than spend on long-term correspondence and chats. So here we are! Our ladies would gladly meet men they like and men would finally understand if they found a real soul mate or not. 

Yes, it is hard to understand if a person will fit your criteria and if you will like her when meeting offline. But you can use a matchmaking service, too. As for me, matchmaking is a much more deep process than just mating people; I don’t stop on forming a couple but go far more. 

During my work with couples as a unit I analyze a level of its mental health, define troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions in the couple, and if necessary try to improve relationships and social skills. 

Let’s think, people don’t deal with matchmaking in real life, most of them don’t  they deal basically with dating! Dating means an interaction with different aims, so online dating sites are not different from the reality. People do the same mistakes in online dating as in real one: 

1) communicate just to get some attention, have some communication, and do not feel lonely; that means they don’t understand sometimes their inner needs and have no real “dating aims”; 

2) lose a focus in the dialogue and start to replace their goals on less demanding; that means their expectations are too high and when people lose them, they experience disappointment and frustration (for example, if love becomes friendship during correspondence); 

3) “date” with many people at the same time in a hope to select the best of the best or just enlarge chances to fall in love, etc. (that is only one part of my psychological research). 

So, yes, I believe that real dating, online dating and matchmaking have equal chances to bring a person to a happy and strong relationship. The question is not which approach will win, but how to use each one in a clever way! 

At least, we know that western men reading your blog and using your pieces of advice carefully, Krystyna, have more chances to succeed in Ukrainian online dating too! 

To be continued…

Read second part of interview in the next article.

Naina, leading matchmaker and dating coach, psychologist of Realdatestudio