I guess it depends on what you mean by “matchmaker,” but professional matchmakers certainly do exist. For example, I hear commercials for “It’s Just Lunch” all the time on the radio, and there’s certainly professional matchmaking services out there for the executive class. I mean, I just googled “matchmakers” here in Chicago, and a ton of various services (mostly aimed at the wealthy) pop up.
No, they’re two different relationship types. Friends with benefits is when two people have a relationship where they have sex but no romance, no significant commitment, and no agreement or expectation of exclusivity. “LAT” as it’s been described here (I hadn’t heard it before either) is when two people have a relationship with a romantic component, some level of commitment, and probably exclusivity.
You’re probably confusing the two because the standard monogamous expectation for relationships in the US is that people will ride the relationship escalator, where you progressively move up ‘levels’ from casually dating, to seriously dating, to moving in (some religious groups skip this), to married, then having kids. The fact that sex, romance, touching, emotional intimacy, living together, exclusivity of any of these, and a host of other components are actually separate items that aren’t all always linked is foreign to that expectation, so a lot of people have a hard time realizing that it’s possible to have relationships that don’t fit that model.
Those are just dating services, aren’t they?
“It’s Just Lunch”, is, obviously–just for lunch----ie. a casual first meeting, with no commitment expected.
And the executive services which I see advertised in the business-class magazines of airline lounges are also, I assume, just dating services for busy rich guys who want to get laid with somebody intelligent and classy.
Nava seemed to imply that in Europe there are matchmakers where the very first meeting is for deciding about marriage.That surprises me.
As I understand it, “It’s Just Lunch” is pretty much a high-end dating service. They’ve been around since the early '90s, and their thing is that they assign you, as a client, to a “matchmaker” who gets to know you, and what you’re looking for in a possible relationship, and then arranges first dates (including making the restaurant reservations) for you with people whom they feel would be good matches.
What I’ve heard is that they’re fairly expensive to use, and they definitely target wealthy white-collar professionals. Though they stress the idea that the initial dates are no commitments, given the amount that their clients have to spend with them, I’d suspect that most clients go in expecting (or, at least, hoping) that they’ll find a long-term partner through it.
With the advent of online dating services, services like theirs are stressing the personal nature of their matchmaking, and claim that it gives superior matches.
Aside from specific religious and ethnic groups which use them, aside from the services people have already mentioned similar to “It’s Just Lunch”, there is these people called “well-meaning relatives and friends”. And sometimes, said relatives and friends point out that one of the reasons you must totally, absolutely, meet this person, is that you’re both looking for the same type of relationship (or at least, the relative or friend thinks you are).
Also, note that the bit about matchmakers said “foreigners”, not “Europeans”. Several of my foreign friends who were stumped by American first dates that felt like job interviews were from India, China, Nigeria…
People from Europe using matchmakers (either paid or unpaid) are still not going to have first dates which include the “gentleman” delineating what your duties will be once the two of you are married.
LAT ( the name for the concept of which I had never heard until today) is pretty much the relationship I am looking for. I have my house, my car, my job. Ideally, he has his own house, car, and work. I’d be happy to share this with a lover, but until things progressed much further, I’d want him to go home for at least part of the week.
Tennessee is lovely, but too far of a commute. Sorry. 
Present girlfriend needs to watch out!
I had not heard this term until now and it seems I’m in this type of relationship. We’re both mid 40s, have two pre-teen kids, and we’ve been together for 3+ years now.
I live in Maryland and she lives in DC. I own, and while she rents she likes where her kids go to school and wants to stay in that area. My kids are only with me every other weekend and once during the week I see them. My kids also live further out from DC so I don’t really want to move as I would only see them once every two weeks then.
We usually spend 1-3 nights a week together, and we’ve done a number of week long vacations. We’ve also taken the kids on vacation together. We have not really talked about moving in together or getting married. To the best of my knowledge, meaning she’s not lying to me, we both like our relationship how it is now.
Reading back on the tread seems you might want more info. We usually see each other every Thursday, most every other Friday night, and the occasional time during the week. She usually has her kids on Saturday nights so I don’t see her too often then. I will also spend Sundays with her and her children.
I take a commuter train to work, and when I go see her I take the metro. She will drive out to see me, and I will drive in to see her occasionally. The drive, on a good day, is 40+ minutes. Had someone told me a few years ago I would be dating someone in DC I would have told them they are crazy.
I don’t see things changing any time soon for us. I would have to be the one that moves, which means either selling my place and us buying a place, her house doesn’t have room for my kids to come over. I suppose at some point we might live together, but as of right now that’s not on the table.
Maybe more of GQ, but is there a term when people use some acronym many other (I would guess most) people have never heard of, then it turns out people who’ve even heard of it don’t have a 100% common idea of what it really means?
That kind of assumed familiarity with obscure trendy stuff I mean.
That happens all the time and not only with acronyms, Corry El. I’ve got no idea what would a linguist call it, but one of the first things I need to do when I get to a new project is figure out what do people mean when they say “product”. You know what a “product” is, right? So do I. But my last four clients had four different definitions, and it’s not an obscure term.
Really, the term is “using language” - unless you’re in narrow technical jargon, no terms (whether TLAs, slang words, or formal words) actually have a 100% common meaning. What exactly does “Dating” or “boy/girlfriend” mean, for example - if you go on half a dozen dates with someone, are you now ‘dating’, and does that ‘dating’ condition mean you need to do certain things? Does both of you planning to meet at a party you were both probably going to anyway count as a date? What if you find yourself at the same event, dip out for a coffee, then go back to the event? When does boyfriend/girlfriend label become appropriate? All of this stuff is extremely fuzzy and varies a lot from region to region, social group to social group, and even person to person - a straight woman in a small Mennonite community is probably going to use those words starkly differently than a gay man living in New York.
This seems a step further removed. People can disagree about what very simple terms mean, but it’s compounded when it’s a term they are assuming other people are familiar with in any sense at all. Many or most people are so unfamiliar with ‘LAT’ (if they don’t think that means Los Angeles Times, then they are really confused 
) they just go ‘huh’? But even if they’ve heard of it or once it’s explained, there seems much less common understanding of what it means, or the variations in what it could mean, than ‘dating’. I think most people have some idea the vagaries of a word like ‘dating’. Sort of a known unknown v unknown unknown kind of thing.