This week marks the one year anniversary of the conception of Queen of Hearts IOM, a match-making service in the island.

Lisa Petrie, the founder of the service, is a hairdresser based in Peel who came up with the idea after an encounter with one of her hairdressing clients.

She said: ‘One of my clients phoned up one day and said she couldn’t come in because of Covid.

‘She then started crying saying that she had been on her own for eight years and had no one to look after her, and that is when I had the light bulb moment.’

Lisa completed a two month course and then started meeting people for coffees to start the match-making process.

In these meetings which she holds with all her clients, Lisa finds out about the individual, and what they are looking for before arranging their dates.

She also has been providing speed-dating events.

In the past year the service has accumulated 150 clients between the ages of 25 to 85.

Lisa said: ‘ Lots of people are now feeling jaded about online dating. Scrolling through all the people to get a match, the time it takes to get to the point of having an actual date through hours of messaging back-and-forth, sometimes over weeks. To often only find instantly that they’re nothing like their photo anyway and there’s no spark at all, leading to a very awkward first date.’

She added: ‘It can be a huge waste of time, especially when people are working and have limited free time.

‘People are not meeting organically the same anymore and I wanted to bridge that gap and facilitate real connections and community, getting straight out for a coffee is the way forward.’

You can find out more on Facebook page Queen of Hearts IOM.