This lawyer-turned-matchmaker can help 'cut through the noise' in dating app world
“I’ve found that matchmaking is a helpful antidote to the problems in current dating culture,” says Danny Goldstein, owner of Crux Compatible, a matchmaking service in Austin, Texas. (Image from Shutterstock)
Have you been looking for love in all the wrong places? If you want lawyer-turned-matchmaker Danny Goldstein to help turn around your love life, he’ll try.
First, you have to answer a slew of questions, some of them uncomfortable—but important—in helping him to decide the best potential partners for you. Here are some of his questions: Do you fear that once someone knows the real you, they won’t like who you are? Do you tend to prioritize your need for independence over your partner’s needs? Do you like scary movies?
The questionnaire, says Goldstein, helps him match clients up in their core values and attachment styles. Crux Compatible, his matchmaking service in Austin, Texas, is designed to prioritize intentional, meaningful relationships over the surface-level “swipe right, swipe left” attraction, he says.
“The idea started when I went through a bad breakup,” says Goldstein, 41. “A friend of mine said, ‘You have a bad picker, dude. You are attracted to the wrong people.’ And that got me thinking that it would be great if someone picked for me, and it would probably be great for other people, too, to have someone else pick for them.”
He would never have predicted that he would be a matchmaker, but Danny Goldstein’s life hasn’t always followed a clear path.
Goldstein started his matchmaking service in June 2024 to help single people who are looking for long-term relationships but are unable to “cut through the noise” of the app-based dating world. According to Goldstein, Crux Compatible is more personal than online matching services, and he notes that traditional matchmaking services are very expensive.
The “vast majority” of the dates that he’s arranged have led to further dates. Goldstein says two couples he connected have resulted in “full-blown relationships” that are still “going strong.”
At this point, his service is free and isn’t available to people who live outside the Austin, Texas, area. He says it’s been harder to get men interested the matchmaking service. The business model, Goldstein says, will likely eventually include products related to dates on social media. He’s just started selling a “preorder” of cards that detail places and ideas for unusual dates in the Austin, Texas, area.
After matching up a potential couple, Goldstein arranges the first date. Women get to choose—generally either between a cocktail or mocktail date or a coffee date. Goldstein also takes postdate feedback to use as part of his understanding of each client.
Goldstein says he arranges about one date per week.
“I’ve found that matchmaking is a helpful antidote to the problems in current dating culture,” says Goldstein, who is in a relationship with a woman in another state, whom he met while traveling in Peru, South America.
He would never have predicted that he would be a matchmaker, but Goldstein’s life hasn’t always followed a clear path.
Born in Houston, Goldstein majored in math at the University of Texas at Austin. After he graduated in 2005, he “had no idea what to do with a math degree,” so he gave law school “a shot.” He graduated from the University of Houston Law Center in 2009, and then he moved around—from a boutique law firm to clerking for a judge to his own probate and estate planning practice, where he was “bored to tears.”
He then worked as an in-house counsel for a software company before burning out and deciding in June 2023 to take a break from law.
Goldstein says he has no current plans to go back to practicing law, but he does have some advice to offer the lovelorn. First off, he says, expand your net and realize that nobody is going to be perfect.
“You can’t order someone on Amazon,” Goldstein says. “We are all much more attracted and interested in people than we might otherwise think—people who don’t fall exactly into our narrow range of what we want. If we get out and meet with people, we can be surprised by who we actually connect with in real life.”
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
