Unmitigated gall ain’t bad when it leads to love
The more you talk with Patti Novak, who prides herself on being a matchmaker, the term “unmitigated gall” immediately comes to mind.
She proves yet again in America you can make big bucks by convincing people you have the answer to their problems, even though your expertise is nothing more than unwarranted confidence about something you really haven’t a clue about.
Make no mistake: Sometimes people find happiness because of this woman who runs Vegas Valley Introductions, who once had a nationwide TV show filmed in Buffalo, New York, on A&E called “Confessions of a Matchmaker,” and who’ll be featured on OWN’s “Oprah: Where Are They Now” this Saturday at 10 p.m.
Because she’s been able to persuade people to fork over thousands of dollars in their quests to find Mr. or Ms. Right — her basic qualification for becoming a matchmaker was a dissolving marriage and her intuition — she’s been able to throw names in a pool and do some mixing and matching that’s worked out for the lovelorn.
Just ask Jay Troilo, a divorced 54-year-old technician for a Las Vegas heating and cooling company, and Jennifer Kailiuli, a divorced 45-year-old nurse at a Las Vegas hospital. They’re engaged and madly in love. Each is happy they paid more than a $1,000 to get set up. Troilo said it took 15 to 20 dates. Kailiuli struck paydirt on her third.
“If I hadn’t gone to a matchmaker, how would our paths have crossed?” Kailiuli noted prior to leaving on a recent minivan trip to California with her three children and Troilo. “We live on opposite sides of town.”
Only in America can a busted marriage and a newspaper ad serve as a catalyst for a career in finding love for others.
When Novak saw an ad calling for someone to join a matchmaker company in Buffalo around the turn of the millennium, she says she told her dad she could do it. After all, some kids in grade school said she was good at giving advice.
Even though the job didn’t work out, Novak said her dad told her to work up a business plan and start her own business.
“A month after I started out in a little office, I was in the black,” she said recently.
While she’s not at all clear on why people came to her office, she does say that her dating advice then didn’t change much from what she shared in her book, “Get Over Yourself!”
Her advice for a first date makes you wonder if those who need to take it have just escaped from a nuthouse:
Do not chew with your mouth open when at a restaurant.
Do not hold your utensils like a tooth brush.
As incredible as it may seem, that kind of forceful advice made her so popular in Buffalo she had to get a bigger office. And it wasn’t long before the Buffalo newspaper was doing a feature on her, noting how she handed out tough love.
Then A&E wanted to do a TV show on her giving tough love pointers. In one show, she told Charlie, a former Mr. Nude Universe who porked up to 346 pounds: “You’ve made a choice between doughnuts and sex.”
When she took Charlie out for pasta, she chewed him out: “For God’s sake, chew with your mouth closed.”
Is it any wonder that Oprah came calling after Novak dispensed such wisdom? This was TV at its forceful finest.
And after Novak forcefully dispensed such wisdom on Oprah’s show, how could anybody be surprised that Random House asked her to write, “Get Over Yourself!” in 2008.
It was the kind of self-help book that could be read and understood even while watching TV at full volume.
No doubt because there weren’t enough fat former Mr. Nude Universes round, A&E canceled Novak’s show after a year.
Novak says the TV show, Oprah’s attention and the book made her big money, but she won’t say how much. She also agrees such past attention keeps clients coming to the Las Vegas office she opened three years ago.
While she admits her work has been criticized— a 2016 Yelp review by a Las Vegas man said she only set him up with heavy women that he told her he would not like — she claims most people respect her intuition.
Novak says only her daughter, Jessica, who she hopes will take over the family business, possesses a similar intuition.
Jessica says the 90-minute interview she and her mother have with clients seeking a significant other is extremely important. And no question is more important than this one:
“If you’re stranded on an island and have to choose a companion, would it be a horse, tiger, sheep or peacock?”
Paul Harasim’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday in the Nevada section and Monday in the Life section. Contact him at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273. Follow @paulharasim on Twitter.
