A human-led introductions service for adults in the UK who have made a settled, permanent decision not to have children. Every applicant is interviewed by a person before they join, and not everyone is accepted.
Meeting someone who fits is difficult for everybody. The working hours are long, the circles narrow with age, and the people you would actually choose are rarely the people you happen to be introduced to.
Being childfree narrows it further. The pool is smaller, and a good deal of it wants something you do not. Shared values matter more here than in almost any other kind of match, and they are not something you want to leave to chance.
This service exists for people who chose this life and would like to share it with someone who has chosen the same. Nothing to justify and nothing to debate. Just someone who already understands, because they arrived at it themselves.
You've heard all of these. We're not going to be one more person asking you to justify something you settled years ago, and neither is anyone we introduce you to.
Accepted on the strength of the interview
You made a settled decision not to have children and it has held up. We'll ask when you decided, what has happened since, and what you'd do if a partner changed their mind in two years. We never ask about anything medical, and if you mention it, we don't write it down.
Welcome to apply, discussed at interview
Some of our members wanted children once and aren't looking for that life now. You're welcome here, and we won't ask you what happened. What we will ask is where you are today: whether this is settled, or whether it's still something you're working through. Both answers are respectable. Only one of them is a fit for this service, and it's better for everyone that we establish which before you pay rather than after.
Not eligible, including adult children
Membership is limited to people who don't have children of their own. That includes adult children and children who don't live with you. We know this is stricter than some people would choose, and that plenty of childfree people date parents of grown-up children very happily. We hold the line because the whole value of a screened pool is that nobody ever has to ask, and one exception ends that. If this rules you out, we're sorry to say so, and we'd rather say it here than take your money first.
A short written application. Ten minutes. You tell us where you stand, how long you've stood there, and what your life looks like now.
Forty-five minutes on video with your matchmaker. This is where a settled position separates from an open one, and it's the reason membership costs what it does. We ask about decision history, about how it has held up under pressure, and about the choices you've actually made around it. Nothing medical is asked, recorded or kept.
We accept or we decline, and you hear which within five working days. We decline a meaningful proportion of applicants, most often because the position is genuinely still open. That isn't a judgement about anyone. It's the promise we've already made to every member in the pool.
One person at a time, with a written note explaining why this particular person and what you should know before you meet. Afterwards we ask you both what worked and what didn't, and the next introduction is better for it.
An app is paid for the size of its pool. Every undecided person it removes is a person it can no longer show you, so it never removes them, and the box you ticked three years ago has not been looked at since.
A matchmaker is paid for one introduction working. That's the whole of the difference. It means we can afford to spend an hour finding out whether someone means it, and it means we can afford to lose the ones who don't.
| Mainstream app with a filter | Free childfree app | The Decided | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who checks it's settled | Nobody | Nobody | A matchmaker, in a 45-minute interview |
| Applicants declined | None | None | A meaningful proportion, published annually |
| Why this person | An algorithm's guess | Proximity and a photo | A written rationale from whoever interviewed you both |
| The incentive | Keep the pool large | Keep the pool large | Make one introduction work |
Twelve months. The same application, interview and verification, and a place in the matched pool. You'll be considered for introductions and contacted when we see a fit, but no active search is carried out for you. This is the way in if you're open to meeting someone without being in a hurry.
Introduction numbers are an upper limit, not a promise. We won't sell you a search membership if we can't currently see viable people for you, and we'll tell you so before you pay.
I'm Anna Lewandowska, a certified matchmaker registered with the Association of British Introduction Agencies and on the Matchmaking Institute Certified Register.
Long before this was my job, I was the person friends came to when they wanted introducing to someone. I did it informally for years alongside a career in project management and sales, and enough of those introductions worked that I eventually stopped treating it as a hobby. What pushed me to do it properly was watching capable, interesting people lose years to apps that were never built to help them find anyone.
I built The Decided because a particular group of my members had a problem no filter could solve. They didn't need help meeting people. They needed help establishing, before the third date rather than after the second year, that the person across the table meant the same thing they did.
I interview every applicant myself. I also decline applicants myself, which is the part of the job that makes the rest of it worth paying for.
Anna
It can be. The service is built around one thing: everyone in the pool is settled on not having children, and a person has checked. How you arrived there matters less than whether you've arrived. What we'd want to establish at interview is that this is a resolved position rather than a live question, because a member who is still working it out won't be happy here and won't make anyone else happy either.
No. We will never ask about fertility, sterilisation, contraception, treatment or any medical matter, and if you mention something of that kind we won't record it. Under UK data protection law that is special category health data and we have no business holding it. Every question we ask is about where you are now and what you want next, which is a better test in any case.
No. Membership is limited to people who don't have children of their own, and that includes adult and non-resident children. It's a stricter rule than some people would choose, and we know plenty of childfree people date parents of grown-up children very happily. We hold it because the value of a screened pool is that the question never has to be asked, and one exception ends that.
It could, if it were done quietly. So we don't do it quietly. Every member knows both routes in before they join, every introduction states clearly which one applies, and nobody is ever put in front of someone whose situation they've told us doesn't work for them. Your matching preferences are yours and we don't argue with them.
We publish the figure by age band and region on our membership page and update it monthly. If the number in your band is too small to be useful to you, we'll say so before you pay rather than after.
No, and be wary of anyone who does. What we commit to is the process: a set number of introductions within a set period, each with a written rationale, plus the right to pause your membership.
Tell us and we'll pause your membership on the spot, for up to twelve months. If it doesn't work out, you pick up the time you had left.
Yes. No public profiles, no browsable directory, no photographs shared without your say-so, and nothing about your membership visible to anyone outside the introductions we make.
Applications take about ten minutes. If we don't think we can help you yet, we'll say so, and we won't take your money in the meantime.
Apply for membershipApplying is free. There's no obligation and no automatic enrolment. We reply to every application within five working days.