As the founder of Upper Echelon Matchmaking, a luxury concierge matchmaking service, Shae Primus believes that every hard-working woman is deserving of love, and more so, deserving of pleasure.
Before landing a spot on Bravo’s Love Match Atlanta and becoming one of the most in-demand matchmakers in the country, Primus was simply a social butterfly.
“I’m the type of person who knows a lot of different people — I’m a networker,” she says. That instinct, paired with two decades in corporate Human Resources and training at Fortune 500 companies, let her see a pattern: many of the accomplished people around her were struggling to find mates.
This discovery led to an even deeper problem — that women, particularly high-performing women, are not prioritizing their pleasure and joy, thus hindering their opportunities to truly find their perfect match.
For the women who are working countless hours trying to make an impact and would love to come home to someone they love, here’s Primus’ advice on how you can find love through prioritizing your pleasure.
The Art and Science of Matchmaking
At first, introducing friends to one another and pairing people up was something she did for fun. But the longer those matches stayed together, the more she saw the business opportunity in helping people connect.
So she decided to become a certified matchmaker, and she learned that it’s not about matching people based on interests, but compatibility. “What makes people compatible is the art of matchmaking,” she explains. Her certification process taught her to understand the mechanics of attraction and compatibility — how two people, even those who seem completely opposite, can build something lasting.
The other part of matchmaking is finding the person you’re compatible with. Primus mentions that people simply aren’t putting themselves in situations to meet others. “What if your partner is 30 minutes down the road? How are you going to find them?” Primus questions.
That’s where her matchmaking service comes in. Primus doesn’t just help successful individuals find mates; she also helps them see potential in places they might have overlooked.
One of the biggest traps she sees among successful women is confusing titles with true compatibility — chasing a partner with an impressive resume rather than one with strong character. “At the end of the day, I’ll always choose high character and high integrity over a long resume,” she says. A polished exterior doesn’t guarantee trustworthiness or kindness, and Primus insists that character is worth more than any paycheck.
Many people choose the wrong person because they feel they need to reach a certain stage at a certain time. To that point, Primus says, “Who cares if you’re not married at 35? If it’s the wrong person, don’t choose them.”
“I want my sisters to have their own and be in a position to choose,” she says — meaning she doesn’t want women choosing a mate based on what other people will think. Status is not a determinant of a loyal and caring partner.
Pleasure First, Love Second
Primus’ business focuses on matchmaking, but her overall mission is something more personal. In her upcoming memoir, Touched, she decided to address an issue that is underdiscussed among driven women. Her book was written for “the woman who is hard-working, who is putting herself last and not prioritizing her pleasure.”
Filled with stories of how Primus put everyone else before herself, she says that was the mistake she doesn’t want more women to make. “Take the wisdom without the wounds,” she says.
This, she argues, is the real key to healthier relationships: taking responsibility for your own happiness instead of outsourcing it to a partner. “We outsource our love and pleasure — this person is supposed to make me happy. No — you’re responsible for your happiness, even in a relationship,” she claims. When people expect a partner to be their sole source of joy, she says, the relationship’s failure can leave them with nothing to stand on.
How to Prioritize Your Needs
“Prioritizing your pleasure will allow everything else to fall into place,” she says. And for the women she works with, that shift in mindset often proves just as transformative as any match she makes.
For Primus, pleasure isn’t only about romance or sex; it’s about anything that brings genuine joy. “It can be travel, laughing with friends, or even sexual pleasure,” she explains. “Whatever it is, you need to feel happy.” She encourages women to build small daily rituals around this — a bubble bath, quiet time, a few minutes of intentional stillness. These moments are acts of self-investment rather than indulgence.
“You’re never too busy for you. You’re your most valuable asset,” she states.
Ultimately, Primus wants her clients — and women everywhere — to stop viewing love as something that has to compete with success. “Focusing on yourself is attractive to a partner,” she says. In her view, the two aren’t opposing forces at all. They’re the same pursuit: building a life, and a relationship worth having.
