Grey is Good

A question we often get asked when people are thinking of joining Classical Partners is “What is your success rate?” This is of course a perfectly reasonable question but one we find difficult to answer as success means different things to different people.

It is obviously a success if we introduce two people and they get married.
On the other hand should we not introduce you to anyone then that would obviously be a failure.
In between these two extremes are a whole host of possibilities and it is quite difficult to know where to draw the line.

To start off with not everyone wants to get married. A large number of people are quite happy living together and do not want a formal marriage. Also, increasingly common, is what has become known as living apart together. I would consider both of these outcomes to be success.

To add to the difficulty, we have the long term relationship. When does a relationship become long term? A month, a year, five years? In reality most people would think a relationship was long term after the first six months or so.

Indeed when is a relationship a relationship? This gives us another problem. Do we keep sending more introductions once we know that two people are seeing each other? Sometimes one person thinks something is developing and the other is not so sure and only one of the couple tells us? This is certainly a success but we are getting into more difficult territory.

I don’t think that many people would argue with any of the above, but the next one is a little trickier.

When we introduce two people who meet up a few times but then decide there is no romance between them, yet they are happy to meet as friends as they enjoy each others company and shared interests. Does this count as a success? In my view yes it does. Of course this is not what they were looking for when they joined Classical Partners (although it has to be said that it is exactly what some people are looking for) but a new friend has friends one of which may turn out to be “the one” and you would not have met them if you had not met the first person through Classical Partners.

In all honesty success means different things to different people. Once real people get involved in practically anything very few things are simply black and white. The great joy of Classical Partners is that we are dealing with real people and as a result grey is a very interesting colour indeed!

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