New York Times profiles woman who actually found love via a "dating guru"

Love guru... love mentor... dating coach... we scoff at these titles and the people who claim to be matchmakers, believing love to be above that kind of thing. We frown on arranged marriages and relationships tested by astrological readings, but once in a while, we have to admit that these setups do work on occasion -- even if the dating expert almost sabotages the happy couple, which is what happened in this story.

A New York Times weddings story this summer mentioned Midge Woolsey and Jerry Stolt, a couple who got married at the age of 54 and 66, respectively, but was otherwise forgotten as soon as most people read it. But over the weekend, on Twitter, the love guru who helped hook it up began bragging about how she made it all happen -- until some people began pointing a little caveat in the Woolsey-Stolt fairytale.

The couple were introduced in December 2008 through an online dating site and, as Ms. Woolsey put it, with the help of a “love mentor.”

A month earlier, Ms. Woolsey had agreed to test a three-month dating program prescribed by Diana Kirschner, an author and dating coach, who wrote “Love in 90 Days,” and whom she met at a taping of a PBS program called “Finding Your Own True Love With Dr. Diana Kirschner.” “What she had to show me was that I was dating and interested in the wrong kind of man,” Ms. Woolsey said of their conversation.

Dr. Kirschner’s requirements were to try out at least two different dating sites and keep at least three men on a revolving list of active dates. [New York Times]

Ms. Woolsey, it seems, met Mr. Stolt and soon decided that dating him exclusively was the way to go. But her coach reportedly admonished her for this, saying, "Don’t do it, don’t do it." They were married August 6th.