UA Choice Matchmaking

16/08/2026

THE MAN WHO COULDN’T TRUST HIS OWN DECISIONS

A few years ago, I witnessed a love story that, sadly, never had the ending it could have had.

One of my acquaintances met a woman on a dating app, and they started dating long-distance. She lived in Spain, while he lived in Germany. He often came to Spain to visit his mother, so he started combining those trips with seeing the woman he was dating. Before long, they were seeing each other quite regularly.

They had been together for about a year, and what I noticed was that he couldn’t make a decision about anything without checking it with someone else first.

He would talk to me first, then to his friends, then to his mother. There was always somebody whose opinion he needed before he could feel comfortable with his own decision.

At some point, his mother passed away. But instead of becoming more independent in his decisions, he simply moved the role of adviser from his mother to his sister.

At some point, I got the feeling that he enjoyed the process of discussing and analyzing decisions more than actually making them and moving forward.

And later, this became a huge problem in his relationship.

His girlfriend was waiting for him to move forward and make some of the plans they had built for their future family actually happen. But he was still thinking, asking, discussing and doubting every move he made.

And eventually, she left him.

This is something I think we don’t talk about enough.

It is wonderful when you have a good relationship with your mother, sister, brother or close friends. And asking for another opinion can be very healthy.

But sometimes, it can become a dependency…

It becomes a situation where we are not just building a relationship with someone — but we are building a relationship with the entire advisory board.
You are waiting for the family committee to finish its meeting before your relationship can move forward.

As a matchmaker, I can tell you one thing I’ve learned from watching many relationships unfold:

A woman doesn’t need a man who never listens to anyone. She needs a man who can listen to everyone and still make his own decision.
Even if sometimes he gets it wrong.

Because you can build a life with someone who makes imperfect decisions. But it’s very difficult to build a life with someone who never makes any decisions at all…

Would you consider a man who constantly seeks his family’s approval “husband material”?

19/07/2026

Sunday Dating Confession 💭

What’s your little fe**sh? 🙂

05/07/2026

HAVE YOU SEEN THE MOST EXTREME PROPOSAL OF 2026?

Today I came across a viral video of a man proposing to his girlfriend on the very top of the Empire State Building in New York.

Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus are Russian rooftop climbers, living in NY. Watching them made my knees weak 🤪 Curious about their story, I looked them up and ended up watching the Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story. And it made me think about something we don’t discuss enough when we talk about compatibility.

Every couple is connected by something unique. Some people are bonded by shared values, some by raising children, some by building a business together, and others by traveling the world.

And then there are couples like this one, whose relationship seems to be built around adrenaline. that can be incredibly addictive. The more you experience it, the more your brain craves a stronger dose. Perhaps that’s why these two understand each other so deeply: they love the same way of experiencing life.

And I think this is an interesting perspective on compatibility.

We often talk about finding someone who shares our values, wants the same future, and has similar goals. Of course, all of that matters.
But there is another question we rarely ask:

Does this person make my world bigger?

Relationship psychology has a concept called self-expansion.

The idea is that through close relationships, we can expand our sense of who we are. We discover new experiences, develop new abilities, explore parts of ourselves we might never have discovered alone, and sometimes even begin to see life differently.

Research has found that couples who engage in novel and challenging experiences together often report greater relationship satisfaction and stronger feelings of connection.

And perhaps this is part of what we are seeing in Angela and Ivan’s relationship.
Their shared passion gives them a world that belongs to both of them.

I think this is something worth considering when choosing a partner. Many people focus entirely on compatibility on paper.
Education. Lifestyle. Income. Religion. Family plans. Political views. Where to live.

Maybe one of the most interesting questions to ask when dating:

“Who do I become when I’m with this person?”

Do I become more curious? More confident? More alive? Do I discover new parts of myself?
Does this relationship expand my world, or slowly make it smaller?

I’m genuinely glad Angela and Ivan have found a way to channel their shared passion into something creative and successful instead of letting it consume them. Even if they have a very dangerous hobby - that is their shared passion. And their story reminded me that there’s no single formula for a happy relationship.

Perhaps compatibility is also about finding someone with whom you can continue expanding your world.

Because the person you choose doesn’t only influence how you love. They influence who you become.

Have you already seen how Ivan proposed to Angela? What do you think about their shared passion?

04/07/2026

ATTENTION, BACHELORS! ❤️

Meet Irina, a beautiful 45-year-old Ukrainian woman who is open to meeting a serious, relationship-minded man.

Irina is 162 cm tall, weighs 56 kg, and currently lives in Königsfeld, in the south of Germany, where she has legal residency status and is building her long-term future.

She is a mother of eight-year-old twin daughters, who are an important part of her life.

Irina is a widow. She was happily married for many years and knows from her own experience the value of a loving, committed partnership and a strong family. Family has always been at the heart of her life, and she hopes to meet a man with whom she can once again build a deep, lasting relationship based on love, trust, mutual respect, and genuine companionship.

She is educated as both a lawyer and an economist, but her true passion is nutrition and healthy living. Irina chose to pursue a career as a nutritionist and dreams of opening her own private practice in Germany, helping people improve their health and quality of life.

She leads a healthy and active lifestyle, practices yoga, enjoys morning runs and traveling, and especially loves spending time by the sea.

Irina values honesty, kindness, emotional maturity, and open communication. Having experienced a happy marriage, she believes that a strong partnership is built on trust, mutual support, affection, and the willingness to stand by each other through both the joyful moments and life’s challenges.

Irina is looking for a serious, reliable, and emotionally mature man who is genuinely ready to build a loving and stable relationship and create a future together based on shared values, understanding, and mutual care.

English level: Intermediate
German: A2

💌 Introduction to Irina is FREE OF CHARGE.

If you are genuinely interested in getting to know Irina and are ready for a serious relationship, send us a private message to learn more and request an introduction.

03/05/2026

𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗧𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝟵𝟬𝘀 𝗘𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗠𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗬𝗼𝘂

«If my parents parented today the way they did in the 90s, someone would probably call Child Protection Services»…me & my sister

And these were fully present, deeply invested, sacrifice-everything-for-their-child kind of parents. And still, by today’s standards, much of their parenting would be seen as disastrous.

(I love you, mom and dad.)

Concepts like gentle parenting, emotional validation, or raising a “fulfilled” child weren’t part of the conversation. Sure, some parents intuitively applied them, but they were rare.

You see, parents loved their children back then too, but they parented them for survival, using the very finite resources at their disposal, relying on grandparents who also didn’t know better or public kindergartens and schools where discipline had to be “enforced”, and not taught.

As such…

Below is a list of parenting “tactics” that could horrify many millennial parents (and still keep some of us who were raised this way awake at night).

1. You had to grow up very fast

…and if you were naturally obedient, even better. Childhood was treated like something tricky, and it was mandatory to outgrow it as quickly as possible. Parents tried to w**d out disobedience (and often dreams), aiming to raise capable adults. Fast.

Even better, if the children became fully-fledged, ready-to-face-the-hardships-of-the-world adults as soon as their ID indicated they were 18.

It came as a shock to me when I moved abroad at 24 to see how relaxed my peers were about their education and opportunities. While we had to be fully equipped for life and hardships by 22–23 (the age when you finished your studies), they were considering second degrees, taking sabbaticals (unheard of, blasphemous), dragging their studies into their mid-twenties, getting their first serious jobs in their late twenties, and still living with their parents at that age.

Meanwhile, we were expected to be fully functional, self-sufficient adults who supported themselves financially much sooner.

Therefore, by the time our Western peers finished their studies, we had already established families and were moving up the career ladder.

(I’m now closer to understanding why people have a mid-life crisis. If you weren’t allowed to be young and foolish in your twenties, you’ll do it in your forties.)

2. We were constantly compared to (and pitted against) our peers

“Did you see so-and-so’s child? They got a 10 on their paper while you got a 7! Why aren’t you like them?”

That was the background noise of our childhoods.

Even success was often dismissed:
“Oh, the exam must have been easy.”
“Why are you so proud? Anyone could do that.”
Or worse: “So what if the other kids scored less? What do I care about them?”

Oh, now you don’t care???

It went beyond school results, and it made it quite difficult at times to trust other people.

If you wonder why our parents had such a dark view on friendships, it’s because their own generation (raised in Communist times) could not fully trust their peers. There was always a fear of repercussions if you said or did the wrong things, and those repercussions could include prison or being shunned from society.

3. Failure was not an option

“If you don’t study, you’ll end up cleaning streets” was a whole worldview back then. We always had to strive to be the best, to get things right from the first time, as if a huge chasm was bound to open and widen right beneath our feet, ready to swallow us whole at the first signs of less-than-perfect school results.

Even after getting into university, the pressure didn’t ease. Changing your mind about your degree or not getting a job straight after graduating was seen as failure, and as a financial burden on already stretched families.

So it was do or die.

It reflected the fears of a generation of parents whose own ancestors had to survive against harsh odds. The only way out they envisioned was through education; in their minds, good school results equaled a guarantee for great life.

Any deviation from that was harshly frowned upon.

4. Physical punishment was common

I was fortunate to have parents who rarely used it, and grandparents who had abolished it. But many of my peers weren’t as lucky.

It was rough to live in those times, and it hardened and dehumanized many families. Post-communist poverty, the transition from authoritarianism to democracy, and the chaos that followed had far-reaching effects on family life, and children were not always treated with kindness.

There were no gentle parenting methods back then, people were becoming parents very young and, quite frankly, unprepared for what parenthood asked of them.

Physical punishment was also seen as proof of love (as in, you cared enough to discipline your child), and showing affection was seen as a vulnerability. “Good parents only kiss their children while they sleep” was a common aphorism.

And a lot of us heard the terrible: “I made you, I will end you.”

5. We grew up believing we owed our parents everything

Due to the said tough times, our parents had to make great sacrifices to offer us a decent life. They renounced their own dreams and small luxuries, tolerated jobs that diminished them, and navigated families who constantly expected things from them.

These sacrifices were not hidden; we were raised with the understanding that when they would be old and frail, it would be our responsibility to repay them by taking care of them until the very end.

Love, we were taught, was a debt. And family would always come to collect.

And yet, this also kept families close. In my own family, my mother and her sisters take turns caring for my grandmother in her nineties. It’s deeply admirable and also overwhelming to imagine replicating, especially as an only child living abroad.

6. We were partly raised by grandparents

We were all shipped off to our grandparents during school holidays. While we loved them, and many lived in the countryside, which meant outdoor play, sun, and time with cousins, it was still a form of estrangement.

It was also common, in some families, for grandparents to completely raise children from weaning until school age (around seven years old). As such, there was often a sense of abandonment, especially for younger children who longed for their parents and later spent years trying to process that absence.

Spending holidays with grandparents also reflected social status. Children who went to the seaside or mountains, or who had city-dwelling grandparents, were at least middle class and generally fared better.

____

Some of the parenting approaches highlighted above would be called “traumatizing” today. Back then, they were just the norm.

And yet, many of us also wear this upbringing like a badge of honor. Because, well into adulthood, we’ve come to realize that our families did achieve what they set out to do: they raised survivors, people who can make their best out of their circumstances and who have the drive to do better.

Having said that, many of us are trying to parent very differently now; more consciously, more gently, and with more room for our children to simply be children.

Times have changed and so have we, but we do carry the remains of this somewhat brutal childhood with us and it has shaped us the way we see the world.

Having said this, I’m curious if any of the above resemble your own childhood, or if you’d like to share some of the things you’ve lived back then that still impact you today.

Article is written by Diana, TheBurnout Millenial

14/04/2026

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐕𝐒. 𝐒𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐍

Mariya, 31, from Kyiv, almost cancelled her second date with Walter.
The first one had been very nice. He’d picked a good restaurant, asked thoughtful questions, laughed at the right moments. But when she got home and felt nothing. No racing pulse. No urge to text her girlfriends with a breathless debrief.
She nearly sent the “I had a lovely time but I don’t think we’re a match” message. Then she didn’t. Something – she still can’t explain what – made her say yes to a second date. And a third. By the fourth, she realised she was thinking about him constantly 😊
They’ve been together eighteen months now. She describes it as the healthiest relationship she’s ever had.
Walter was a slow burn. And slow burns might be the most underrated thing in modern dating.

We’ve been conditioned to chase the instant spark. Films taught us that love arrives like a thunderclap – you lock eyes across a bar and just know. Dating apps amplified it. When you’ve got a hundred potential matches in your pocket, why waste time on someone who doesn’t make your stomach flip within the first twenty minutes?

Wisp data tells an interesting story here. Of users who reported being in a relationship twelve months after their first date, 64% described their initial meeting as “pleasant but not electric.” Only 19% said they felt an immediate, powerful connection.

The spark is real. Nobody’s denying that. But treating it as a prerequisite – rather than something that can develop – means walking away from people who might have been extraordinary for you.

What slow burns actually feel like

The trouble with slow burns is they don’t feel like anything at first. That’s the whole point, and that’s why people give up.

Tom, 34, from Antwerpen, put it well.
“With my ex, I was obsessed from night one. Couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop checking my phone. It felt incredible. It was also, looking back, a massive red flag about my own attachment patterns.”

His current partner?
“I remember thinking after our first date, ‘Yeah, she’s nice.’ That was it. No fireworks. But every time I saw her, I liked her a bit more. It crept up on me.”

Psychologists have a term for what Tom experienced the first time around: limerence. That intoxicating, obsessive early attraction that feels like love but is closer to anxiety wearing a nice outfit. Limerence burns hot and fades fast. Slow burns do the opposite – they build.

As a matchmaker, I see this pattern constantly.

Sometimes the spark you feel on a first date isn’t chemistry.
If you grew up around emotional unavailability, hot-and-cold behavior can feel exciting and familiar. If chaos was your normal, a stable person might feel boring by comparison. Your nervous system can mistake unpredictability for attraction and calmness for lack of interest.

That doesn’t mean every spark is a warning sign. But it does mean that “I just didn’t feel it” deserves a second look, especially if you keep feeling it for people who ultimately let you down.

The case for giving it three dates

Wisp’s approach – cutting the endless messaging and getting people on actual dates – works particularly well here. When you’re not investing weeks in a text conversation before meeting, there’s less pressure on that first date to deliver fireworks.

Three dates. That’s the number relationship therapists keep coming back to. One to get the nerves out of the way. Two to actually start seeing the person. Three to know whether something real is building.

Tom nearly walked away after one. If he had, he’d never have known what he was about to find. The spark came eventually. It just arrived on its own schedule.

And honestly? He says the slow-burn version was better.

The real question isn’t what you feel in 20 minutes. It’s what grows in 3 meetings.

What about you - do you prefer the spark or a slow burn?

12/04/2026

The Secret Ingredient to a Perfect Easter 🐣

If you’ve been following the news over the last couple of years, you’ve noticed one thing: Ukrainian women are everywhere. From London to Lisbon, Warsaw to Washington, they’ve brought their resilience, their style, and most importantly, their incredible cooking with them.

Suddenly, the world isn't just hearing about Ukraine - they are tasting it. And let’s be honest, gentlemen: once you’ve had a homemade Ukrainian P***a (Easter bread) made by a woman who puts her soul into the dough, there is simply no going back to store-bought🤭

For a long time, maybe you were a little intimidated by Ukrainian ladies. Maybe you thought they were "too much" or too far away. But now that our culture has moved closer to you, the secret is out:
Our women are hardworking, sophisticated, family oriented! To a Ukrainian woman, "family" isn't just a word, it’s the sun her whole world revolves around 😊

They are the ultimate multitaskers: strong minded enough to handle anything life throws at them, yet soft enough to ensure their partner feels like a king at the end of a long day 👑

A Little Easter Warning ⚠️

This weekend, as Ukrainians celebrate Easter with tables full of Holubtsi, Kovbasa, and hand painted eggs, I have one piece of advice for the men of the West: Proceed with caution.
Getting to know a Ukrainian woman is a lot like trying her traditional cooking. If you have never tried it, you might think you are doing just fine. But once you experience that level of sincerity, attentiveness, and devotion? You’re ruined for life. You will never settle for "average" again 😈

Happy Easter to Ukraine! 🕊️

And to the men of my lovely IQ Women: If you haven't sat across the table from a Ukrainian woman yet, what are you waiting for? Life is too short for bland food and boring company.

Find your "secret ingredient" today. 🥂
➡️

11/04/2026

Dear Followers,

This week Ukraine celebrates Easter - a special and meaningful time for our wonderful people and the amazing women we work with.

To show our support, we are offering special discounts of up to 10%, including exclusive offers for our Dating Club.

Join us now and take advantage of this limited opportunity.
The offer is valid for two days only — until Tuesday.

Happy Easter, Ukraine ! 🇺🇦
Stay strong 💪

25/03/2026

𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗟𝗘?
𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 (𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆’𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗱).

We tend to blame others for why we’re single. There’s no one good on the apps. No one can handle us at our worst. We’re perfect so it’s the rest of the world that has the problem. Maybe we angered the gods. Or maybe we received the call to adventure when our phone was on silent.

But it’s not our fault. We’re going on sh*tty dates and we’re going to therapy as a result of sh*tty dates. So, what else can we do?…

Everyone is talking about you behind your back (because they’re worried)