The secret life of a matchmaker—love, listening and telling the truth

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Vinco Anthony grew up on the shores of the Adriatic Sea.

And he spent a lot of his childhood with his Nana.

The two of them would spend hours walking together hand in hand in silence,

listening to the birds, the waves, and to the wind.

And when they got home and sat down to eat, Vinco and his Nana would listen to each other.

Vinco took these lessons in listening and love very seriously.

He brought them with him when his family migrated to Australia and into his vocation as a matchmaker.

When Vinco finally got the courage to tell the love of his life,

a secret that he had been hiding for five years,

he just had to trust that all that love and listening would come back to him.

Vinco has written a book about what he's learned from his life as a matchmaker.

It's called All In, How to Make Love Stick.

Hi, Vinco.

Hi, Sarah.

Where in Croatia did you grow up?

In Dubrovnik, in the province of Dubrovnik,

on a peninsula called Peljashats, a small area called Kuna,

and on an island of Shippan, where my grandmother was, my Nana.

So what does that part of the world look like?

Sarah, the childhood was really surrounded by this,

it's the world of simplicity and beauty at the same time.

It's the world where it's carefree and calm,

and particularly in the 70s, there was, you know, it was communism.

And then Yugoslavia, so you really just had your environment,

and your evenings would be spend running around a neighborhood

talking to your neighbors and elderly and listening to their stories

or shared beautiful long lunches and dinners with your family.

Who were some of the locals that you enjoyed speaking to?

I was always an old soul, and I don't know

whether it was that little gay boy in a making in me

that felt more secure within elderly crowd than my own peers,

because maybe I was too scared to be picked on or so forth.

But the elderly architect, I remember him very vividly.

His name was Jossip, who would go into Germany

and come back with all these.

He taught me the form of art and a total discipline very early on,

and then there was a woman who had the most beautiful gardens,

and the little gay in me loved all the flowers,

so I would spend a lot of time with her,

and we had a lot of visitors from all over the world

that would even, that early on, immigrated into other parts of the world,

and during summer times everyone would come back,

and it was where everyone would get that together around the square

and have these long evenings, and my call was to come home

when the street lights come on for dinner,

and it was that free, and wonderful.

I always felt hurt, and I always felt seen,

and I always felt loved.

I was very lucky that I was surround

and in this very safe environment,

particularly growing up in that time as a gay man.

What about things at home, Vinco?

What do you remember that environment being like at your family house?

Home, there were two different homes.

There was home with my mum and my father and my siblings,

and then there was the non-us house.

The mother, father, traditional home wasn't really happy.

Well, I know my parents didn't really have a happy marriage, I don't think.

So when that fell apart, when we came to Australia in a bigger community,

and that weren't surrounded by small environments,

I wasn't surprised, to be honest,

where when I would go to spend time with my grandma,

that part of it was really just this wonderful times together

that I think she was my kind of quiet force and still continues to be.

We had this an unspoken understanding.

What did she look like, Vinco?

That again, that sort of, she had very different characters.

She was this one woman that you would see when she would go into the fields

with a scarf on her head,

and she would carry a whole big sack of food for animals on top of her head

on the way back in her little flower-printed dress that she had for the fields.

I remember vividly, the wardrobe was the outfit for the funerals,

the outfit for the city, the outfit for the weddings, and the fields.

And the fields. The fields were down in the magazine.

And whatever she put on, whatever character she played,

she was this fierce, powerful woman that just owned it.

I think her husband for that stage and age died.

She was in, I think, late 50s, early 60s when he passed.

So she had to hold it all.

And she adapted these personalities for different parts of her life.

I never remember my grandmother doesn't matter what she did for the day.

She would come home from the fields or from the city,

and she would always cook a meal for herself.

She always had napery, set up, and all the crockery and the table was set.

She would go and change for lunch and come sit down and enjoy that part of the life.

Even when she was by herself.

Even when she was on her own. It was incredible.

And when the two of you were there together at her home,

how would you spend your time? Would you remember?

There was a lot of come and help me with chores,

having and as nurturing she was.

She was also this fierce force of nature that things had to be done.

So from very, very early young age, I knew how to iron,

I knew how to chop wood, I knew how to go into the fields.

It was work.

But our private times, the comfortable silences were really wonderful.

And that's what I remember.

And there were little sort of secret lessons along the way that I...

She sort of took me under her wing, I think,

from all the other grandchildren.

Because I was kind of an old soul and a nurture always.

She loved that I would massage her hands,

or that I would prepare the table for her to sit down.

And I think that I don't think she ever had,

because she went through World War II,

and then had her children and it was survival.

What about school for you?

What are your memories of what school was like in Croatia?

School was amazing for me,

but the only problem was that my mom was one of my teachers.

Oh, really?

Yes, so she was part of the school,

and she was a teacher of languages.

But one thing that I regret in life is that I didn't speak

different languages every three or four months to my mom's suggestion.

And now, if I could change one thing or perfect,

one thing it would be to speak so many languages differently.

So the school was...

I was very disciplined at school, because she was...

Was she strict?

She was strict, especially with me,

and I would never get taught parks with her.

I was always a really good student.

But it was also a boys club,

even in Croatia, Yugoslavia,

then you still had the soccer club,

and you had your teammates and you would play that.

But I was that kid that was never that great at soccer

and would take his nittings to the practice.

Because they never let me play.

How did the other kids receive that?

You see the stands knitting?

Well, he was better than my mother's red boots

and grandmother's bras working around the city, I think.

But...

Tell me more.

When did that happen?

Well, I had this wonderful relationship

with my mother's red boots.

She had these pair of red boots

that she got from Germany or somewhere,

and she would go to school.

At some stage, I would be in the afternoon school,

and she would end up in the morning.

The minute she would leave,

the music, Bonnie M, or Abba would come on the record player,

and I would put on the boots and parade up and down.

And my godmother caught me of walking up and down the stairs

with these like, shoals and scarves and mum's boots.

Oh, my god.

That there's this interesting tradition of carnivals

in your part of Croatia.

And I guess that was a time that you got to be extravagant

and flamboyant, and it'd be celebrated.

Tell me about carnival time.

Carnival time was a really special time for me.

It was a sense of freedom.

I would put on a mask,

or whether it was makeup, or a wig, or a dress,

or high heels, and I was able to be this person

that, who...

underneath, you don't understand what it is.

Then you just thought you wanted to go to a carnival as a girl.

That's what I wanted to be presented as.

But, you know, it's like Venice carnival in Croatia.

Sort of the whole of February is everyone parades around the streets

and everyone dresses up and you go door knocking

and you show off your outfits.

And of course, everybody knew it was vinko underneath

that bad makeup and things.

But I didn't think that nobody knew.

I just spent...

And I was so proud of myself.

And what's the celebration?

What's it in honor of?

The carnivals that they're just...

It's an old tradition where...

where you celebrate the freedom of new beginnings

and the ending of winters and beginnings of summers.

And it still continues.

What about noticing other boys when you were young vinko?

When you look back, how were you seeing, you know,

classmates at school maybe differently?

How do you remember that?

I have talked about this with friends

and I've talked about it with family and with myself.

I've tracked back down to, I think, four years old,

that I knew that I was looking at, you know, my sisters

or my mother's friends.

You know, it was the 70s in Croatia.

There was, you know, speedo, heaven.

And, you know, I would look at men's legs, hairy legs.

And I think I was, like, looking at them as,

I want legs like that.

But I think it was more like, no, they're good legs.

Whether that happened at four or six or very early on,

I always, always had a very, very affectionate relationship

with men.

But I always had friendships with women and all the women.

Because I think that's felt safe.

For a lot of men of your generation,

there was a sense of shame that came along with that awareness.

Was that part of the mix for you?

Not so much for me.

I don't think there was shame at that age.

I think the shame came in my teenage years

where you actually realized what it was.

But during childhood, I really celebrated my effeminate side

and it didn't.

I was very lucky.

I was surrounded with a lot of love.

Before you left Croatia,

you did have a conversation with a cousin

who was visiting for summer.

Tell me about that.

Well, it was, it was, that's such a lovely part of my

acknowledgement of being gay.

I was on the, on the pier by the water,

fishing or just throwing rocks in the sea.

And, you know, I, I, I mean, I came to Australia

and I was 12, 13.

So it would have been before, before that time.

And there was a cousin who lived in Germany

that asked me about whether I had a girlfriend.

And, and I just, even as a kid that young,

I was comfortable enough to say,

no, I don't think I like girls or something like that.

And I think it was, again, unspoken, comfortable,

silences between us.

And he accepted and acknowledged that it's okay

that not everybody needs, everybody has to like girls.

It was a lovely moment.

In 1980, the president of the former Yugoslavia Joseph Tito

died, what did that mean for your family?

Well, it was a, in Ment Australia.

My, my father grew up in Australia.

And it was, and he was Australian.

And so it was, the, as far as I recall,

the decision was made very quickly,

that the life for us was going to be better in Australia

because they felt that what happened later with the war

was going to happen.

So it was an automatic, crazy change.

How did you feel about making that move

as a young teenager to the other side of the world?

I was so excited, Sarah.

I loved Dubrovnik.

I loved Shippan.

I loved Kunain.

I loved my childhood.

I was always acknowledged as somebody who was quite patriotic

around his kind of world, even as a kid.

But you had these promises of you coming to a country of opportunity

and Australia was so wrapped up for us that I,

you know, it was the first time, of course, on a big plane

and leaving and having this whole new life.

But I had no idea what was waiting here for me.

What kind of contrast were the Western suburbs of Melbourne

to what you were used to?

I wouldn't, I, it's big part of who I am today

and I wouldn't change it.

It gave me this resilience, I think, in life.

But I wouldn't want that on anyone.

It was such a, such a, the expectations of what Australia offered

and the difference is like, we would never leave home in Croatia

unless we were dressed and, you know, you wouldn't even eat on the street.

It was rude.

There was some strict rules from none to my parents

to everyone in kind of how you, how you live, how you were seen from others.

And you were always well, well presented and so forth.

And my first impression of Australia was, first of all, the space

and the surroundings.

We landed over Sydney and I saw the beautiful opera house

and the bridge and so forth and we stopped over.

And then I went, oh, this is amazing.

And then we flew into Melbourne and it was just, I mean, then early 80s

was deserted red earth that I had no any connection to.

And then we drove back into the Western suburbs

where my father had this tiny little flat

compared to a beautiful old house that we grew up in in the medieval town

and surrounded by beautiful nature in Croatia.

And I remember putting on a little, it was the 80s.

So I had a little, to go to Australia, I had a little leather tie

and painted shoes and have a outfit.

So I put on that outfit to go for a walk through.

With delightful driving, go.

Very poignant.

It was really quiet.

And what happened when you said out in your little leather tie and things?

So if I went into the Western suburbs of San Olbans in Melbourne

and the first image that I remember,

and this is not being derogative towards anybody in any way,

but this stuck in my mind so much,

there was a woman in a pink track through it with moccasins.

You know, there's an agbooty kind of moccasins eating hot chips

walking out of a Kentucky fried chicken.

And I could smell the smell of food on the street.

And then I looked at her and I looked at me and I went,

then I think I made a decision then and there

that I had to do something to get out.

And what did that look like?

What did you do?

Well, it was a slow process of kind of settling and going into school first.

But I really literally not long.

And first of all, of course, I locked myself into learning English

and there was six months of ESL classes at school.

And my education was much higher than the general kids my age in Australia.

So I went from instead of year eight, I went into year 10.

So I was with much older kids.

So that six months of studying English kind of paid off

and then I could go into normal classes.

And that's, I remember taking myself into town

and going, there must be more to this country.

You know, the survival wasn't about fitting in.

The survival was about figuring out the people and the tone and the voice

that I was going to have and what I was going to achieve

of my life of my life here.

I remember having those thoughts very early on.

And so I went into the city and I went into Satyara

and I walked around and I kind of went,

okay, well, I know where I need to be.

And then I got myself four jobs, five jobs while I was still at school.

Doing what sort of work?

From babysitting to cooking,

cleaning windows in shops, vacuuming stores, paper rounds,

all sorts of little bits and pieces of jobs

and which all led to other jobs.

Because I was so joyful, I think, in my work

that some merchandising work would come,

so there was all this work coming in.

Were you saving money or what?

It was all going aside for my exit plan to get out of western suburbs.

And so how old were you when you moved out of home?

I think 16.

And you had finished high school?

I finished high school and I went to,

then you could go to Adelaide on the bus

and open a bank account in Adelaide.

In Adelaide?

Yes, because there gave you a license at the age of 16.

So I heard that from someone.

So I went on the bus to Adelaide to open a bank account

so that when I was 16, I could go and get my license.

And that's, I was the only kid at school with a car

and the license had enough to buy the car, saved to buy a car.

I had a little dozen to hundred B.

I remember green.

And I had this exit plan from there

that everything was saved, everything was planned

and I moved out with a friend.

A few years later, Vinco, you moved further afield to London.

What kind of place was London for a young gay man coming out?

I think a big reason of moving to London was

to have the whole coming out easily,

easy in an easier way.

I think I didn't have the pressures of family.

I've always heard wonderful things of being such a,

anyone that I knew that visited said I would love it.

And I was like a kid in chocolate factory in London

and that I'd been so many doors.

Are there any memories that you can share on a family-friendly radio station?

Yes, there's a lot of memories.

I embraced London and the work ethic that my grandmother, my non-a, taught me

I think carried me through my whole life.

So in London, I was the game having two or three different jobs

and I knew the environments where I was going to start working

and I started working in the theaters as a royal room host.

What does that mean?

That means you look after celebrities and royalty

when they come in to see a show.

And I worked on a play called Madaya with Diana Rigg

and I was totally obsessed with her

and the story and the story of Madaya.

I think I saw it 37 times.

I knew the whole play of my heart

and we became friends.

She was a very big influence in my life.

Your beloved Nana was not too distant geographically

from you while you were living in London.

Did you get to go and visit her again as a young man?

The war in then Yugoslavia broke out

and I couldn't get into the country.

I had a restaurant in Greece at that time as well

and sort of going back and forwards from London into summers

and I lived my kind of best life.

And I didn't really know the extent

of what was happening in Yugoslavia to how bad it was.

I just thought I wasn't able to go in and see her.

So years and years went on

and I was never able to kind of have that connection with her.

I saw her once, only once, after we left.

So you had this opportunity of living away from your family

to really express who you were, find who you were,

connect with your community.

What about letting your family know about who you were?

How did that play out?

That was a really wonderful story.

I felt like it was time to share it.

I was seeing gentlemen in London

who was also quite a big influence on my life

and lived the life of that sort of hidden class

that happens in London.

And the influences and the lessons

and etiquette that I was taught

from this little kid from Croatia

and thrown into Western suburbs and all of a sudden

I was playing polo in a totally wrong outfit.

But anyway, that's a whole other story.

What did you wear at Play Polo?

What should have you wore?

Well, I knew he was jobpers and boots.

You see, and I knew that I could get that.

But I didn't, I'm really incriminating myself here.

But so I went and spent a lot of my pennies

into Jean-Paul Gaultier

and bought jobpers from Jean-Paul Gaultier

and the boots, but not the traditional riding ones.

And when I arrived, oh my goodness.

It didn't, it didn't receive well.

And then I got, as a gift, I got a book on etiquette,

which I hated.

But it was probably the best thing that happened

because I learned so much from that book.

It's interesting to go because I think some people,

particularly some Australians,

I don't know, we might think of etiquette as, you know,

old-fashioned or repressive,

or it sounds though the way you're describing it,

like it gave you a kind of power

knowing the codes that were expected.

Absolutely.

It was literally life-changing.

And I will always have, I think, that heart

that my grandmother taught me to have.

But the change that happened through London

and the influences that I've had through this world

that opened up for me from theatre to different way of life,

it totally, the opposite to that kid

from Croatia and the one that had,

almost had a nervous breakdown growing up

in Australia from the age of 13.

So yes, it was definitely power.

It was everything, everything that I wanted

and I made some really smart decisions

and made some really great money.

But I loved London on, you know,

80 pounds a week more than I loved London on 700 pounds a week.

It was while you were living in Europe

in the 1990s that you learned about your HIV status.

How did you discover that?

That was actually slightly later.

Sarah, when I came back to Australia,

I was in a relationship with someone.

And so I carried being this nurturer and carer

into my new relationships.

And I always found that person who I could take care of.

And one of my partners was,

I guess you could call an addict

from one and I know the stories,

not to share too much about someone's life

from one addiction to another to another and so forth.

And I helped him escape all of that

by nurturing and giving love.

But the addiction is a strange thing.

You continuously have to be addicted to something.

And then the sexual addiction started for him.

And he was the one that brought HIV into our relationship.

And there is that there's something

that you always know something is wrong, right?

That the intuitive feeling.

And so when I got the phone call that he needed to talk to me,

I knew what the phone call was going to be about.

Then again, taken from my and in a very positive light.

Instead of going down the poor me syndrome,

of I have HIV, I literally took myself

off the disco floor and became very healthy

and introduced yoga and meditation and lifestyle into my world

and stopped being as social as I was, let's say.

Well thankfully, medication has made that

a completely different diagnosis for people living in places

where they can access it.

What about the stigma of that diagnosis?

Was that still an issue at the time?

At the time, absolutely.

I think there is still stigma.

And it's the most complex part of gay dating.

And I talk about this a lot in my work and my relationships

and in my friendships.

We need to open those conversations to remove the stigma

and being vulnerable is the only way to do it.

So to share my story and be open with that,

if it helps one person in the choices that they make,

well then my job is done with that world.

But it's stigma was certainly much higher to what it is now.

I want to ask you about meeting Andreja,

who's now your husband.

Where did you first see him?

What kind of image did he strike?

Sarah.

I was in Dubrovnik.

We both ended up being in Dubrovnik.

And I would practice yoga every morning on the beach.

And it was part of the beach where we sort of

would turn into a nudist beach after a while.

But in Croatia, lots of...

It's differently common in Europe than Australia.

Correct.

And anyway, when I first landed my eyes on Andreja,

he was dancing naked on the rock with no music.

So the dancing beats maybe less common than dancing naked beat

or is that a Croatian thing?

Well, I think it's more exciting.

Or an Andreja thing.

But there was no music.

He was just having a great time and I was in the water

having a swim and I looked at him and I went,

oh, that's so handsome.

And anyway, we were both there.

We were both in relationships when we met.

There was no boundaries cost.

It was just the image of that.

And did you speak to one another at the beach that day?

We did.

We spoke.

We spoke.

And we spoke, I think, the next day.

And then there was a big festival in Dubrovnik,

where we'd over 10,000 people that show up

in a tiny medieval town.

There was no way we didn't exchange numbers.

We didn't do anything.

There was no way.

Of course, I went home and I went,

the reason why I went into town subconsciously

was to bump into him again.

But I knew that you couldn't even walk through the city.

And the first bar that I went into,

as I was ordering the drink, I turned my head to the left

and who was there looking so handsome in his pale blue shirt.

I remember it so vividly.

And I went, please go away.

And he was there with his partner.

And I had a partner in Australia.

There was no boundaries crossed between us.

But that was probably worse than if there were.

Why?

Because we then continued this wonderful communication

between the two of us.

And in three months of me being back in Australia,

we had 2,743 emails between us.

And I know the number because our photocopy

they're more to take to immigration

when the woman asked,

do you have proof of your relationship?

If it is.

He invited you to visit him in Italy at the start

or at this transition from friendship

to a different kind of relationship.

What was that trip like?

Well, I was going back to Croatia

to do some paperwork for my mom

with property and so forth.

And I was traveling by Italy

and he said he was going to be in Italy for a wedding.

And we planned this.

I would say we made a decision to have an affair.

And as awful as that might sound,

it was very clear to me

that my relationship I was in

was not working for a long time.

And it was probably the best relationship

including the current one that I've ever had.

It was calm and it was easy

and it was nurturing.

It was loving, but it wasn't the right one for me.

So I made a decision that I was going to go

and see him.

And as an Italian Latino man,

Andrea put on the show

you could not imagine.

What do you mean?

Oh, but it was incredible.

We stayed in like medieval castles

full of Medici artwork collections

and villas and maserias and places.

And it was a dream.

Like you believed these 10 days.

Yeah, absolutely a dream.

So it was very hard to go back from that.

So how did you or did you know

that this was going to be more than a holiday?

Romance and affair and something more serious?

I knew straight away when I met Andrea

that we both gave each other energy

to be able to do anything we possibly want

together in life.

Whether that was going to be possible

to execute or not was another story.

But I'm never been the person that takes no for an answer.

So I've just, I'm all in.

I just kind of go and I do things hold heartedly.

It was very difficult time because in men

I had to leave a relationship

and close a whole life, a whole wonderful life

that I had in Sydney.

And basically start again from nothing.

How long did it take for Andrea

to move to join you in Australia?

Not long.

No, we didn't take long at all.

So there was a big risk of doing everything

but it always felt right.

What was communication like between the two of you

at the beginning?

I mean, you come from different cultures, different languages.

What did that mean?

That's a very good question.

And that meant a recipe for a divorce every single day.

And you really have to learn.

And we still continuously learning about communication

and how to navigate it.

Because what conversation in certain culture means

is very different what it does in our world.

Not everybody communicates to listen.

What did Andrea bring to the table

when it comes to communication?

Lots of reactiveness.

Lots of reactiveness and lots of colour.

And you talk in a different style.

You talk really fast and you get overexcited.

And by those are all things that I loved about Andrea

when I met him.

And I loved that he represented this big childlike energy

which is what I asked for.

So you've got to be very careful.

The universe presents itself when you ask.

And then you have to navigating how to nurture that

and how to understand it and communicate around it.

So that's why listening skills are so important to me.

And for you, what do you think he found challenging

about the way you naturally communicate

the race to communicate?

Should we leave that to Andrea?

No, but I can answer that.

He would often say, oh, just be a little bit more flexible.

It's okay, you know how I talk.

Just be, adapt to it.

And that's very much about the Italian, the Latino culture.

They're just very vibrant and theatrical.

Maybe in my groups I was always seen like that.

It's all relative.

It's all relative, right?

The Croatian to the Australian and to the Italian, I see.

So you were clearly really serious about one another.

You know, he'd moved to join you in Australia.

You were building a life together.

How do you told him about your HIV status?

You know, Sarah, Andrea was the first person

that I didn't tell about my HIV status.

Everybody in my life knew.

And I was so open from the minute that I got it.

And of it in my own world, there was no secret whatsoever.

So what happened here?

I think you have to sometimes where people come from

and the environments that they come from

have to be considered in how much you share.

I think Andrea had a lack of education

on what it means to living with HIV.

And it was not an easy decision to make.

I spoke to two of my dearest friends

in what was the right thing to do.

And so many times I had those conversations

and so many letters I wrote about exchanging it to him.

But I knew deep down that if I exchanged it at the time

when we got together, that there would be no us.

So I made a call of not sharing it.

Because I wanted to protect us.

And eventually it was going to, of course, come out.

It can't not.

But then the day become a week, a week become a month,

a month become a year, a year become two years,

and then a year become five years.

And we basically joined, and we are so intertwined.

From the moment we got together, we joined our lives together

and created everything.

So for those five years, I lived in fear

that I could so easily, because of my dishonesty,

lose everything and be back on square one.

But I always believed in the power of love.

And I eventually, I shared it.

How did you raise it when you found it?

I didn't raise it.

I just left my medication and my pouch

where I was kept in on a bench in the bathroom.

And I knew it was going to be seen.

What was that day like while you were waiting

to find out how Andrea was going to take that news?

The initial thing was very much like you've been lied to, of course.

I can't believe this is happening to me.

Was he worried about his own health?

He benched right away.

Was he held that risk?

No, never.

Well, I don't think he would have known that, right?

Because he...

I mean, by this stage, we've learned so much about HIV

and we worked with gay men and their education was there.

But of course, the first thing you do is you go and have a test.

And so Andrea did go and have tests straight away.

And at this stage, I think you could get results automatically.

But that evening when we sat together and talked,

I instantly...

I mean, he was so genuine and so sweet and so supportive

and so kind and just when we are much bigger than this

and told me that if I did tell him in the beginning

that there wouldn't be us and all of this he'd confirmed what I knew

and why I made those decisions in the beginning,

would I do it again?

Absolutely not.

I don't think it's worth living with that.

But if you have to make that decision to sustain the relationship

and the love that you have because of lack of education or culture,

differences, then I think I made the right decision.

Once you had the burden of that secrecy of your shoulders

and Andrea had the whole truth of the situation,

how did your relationship change?

Did it?

Instantly that evening it changed.

It was like somebody just taken this 300 kilos of my back

but not just in weight but in energy, I felt safe.

I automatically just went, well now it's all there.

There is nothing, there is nothing no one can ever do

and we can now live this love.

So I think we kind of started living our relationship five years

in and now it's 16.

You and Andrea now run an international matchmaking business

for gay men together.

A matchmaking service sounds almost old-fashioned Vincola.

Why is that needed in this modern world of online dating

and so many ways for people to be able to connect with one another?

I think you are absolutely right Sarah.

We live in the world we've never been more connected.

But it takes me back to that childhood time

where there was no internet of course.

There was no applications, there was no phones.

But I really felt seen, I felt loved, I felt heard.

And in today's world I think that's what's lacking.

We are so connected by so missing all of those things.

And that's what I learn every day more and more

about the importance of my job in our community particularly

because it's communication and listening skills have just disappeared.

Instant results are expected from relationships.

No one wants to do the hard work.

And we are the only business that look after that kind of monogamy long term

that provides this safe haven for people to create love.

It's a lovely job to have in people's lives.

I've always loved relationships with monogamy and long term and commitment.

Also I spend a lot of time with each person

so you need to feel connected to people's lives and stories.

So that's the umbrella we've covered.

So yes it is very old fashioned but it's been around for centuries it works.

You know I have gay friends Vinco who say they don't really want to have a relationship

say like my marriage that this monogamous committed relationship is maybe

a kind of a heterosexual construction they don't want to be forced into.

Would you make of that idea?

Oh my, I supported 100%.

I think we all live our lives in how we want to live them.

And if that's a safe haven for someone well amazing so live it in that sense.

I mean there are so many people that look at my business and my model

and go oh those silly boys monogamy long term who wants that.

And it's okay but I love to be able to offer that for somebody who does wanted

because I think it's so much harder to find.

And monogamy I think means a very different thing.

In the gay community it might have a different definition.

I think it might but I think heterosexual dating is becoming very similar

to what gay dating used to be like.

And I hear stories all the time on that.

So I just think that the guys talk about it and they open

and the heterosexual swipe it under the carpet and don't think that it's really happening in their world.

So but for me if you have a relationship where you have good communication with your partner

and you find yourself in a myoka together and you have this wonderful monogamous relationship

and there's somebody this handsome European man that wants to nibble on both of you

he might make even your relationship even stronger.

But as long as you have communication around it and you feel safe and secure

I still think that's monogamy.

But living open relationships personally for me that's a slippery slope towards disaster.

What do you introduce a couple?

Do you get to hear how those introductions play out?

I love it when that happens.

Not always it's not always it's taken in that way.

But the more I know the more I'm engaged the more I hear from people's stories the more I learn

if that introduction hasn't worked out how the next one what I need to do towards the next one

that will be okay.

What's the key for you I mean you trying to match people with similar interests or life

or do you sometimes try to think this is what this person thinks they want

but really I can see beneath that to something else.

There's a little bit of both in play but I spend a lot of time with each client

and the key thing for me if I can see people on a Saturday morning in comfortable silences

with their slippers and a pair of track suit pants on and not the pink one.

It's gonna say you've got you've got to look at how you've fallen.

No, the cashmere ones these days, very different track suits

we're talking about here but they've stuck haven't they?

So if I can see two people with similar and in all seriousness

when I when people have had similar constitutional formative years

15, doesn't matter who we are today, I think when that's similar, we are going to work

as a couple, doesn't matter what we do for work. But I think money and finance as an

emotions and everything else plays also a big part. When you can plan similar holidays

or go out for similar dinners, when you're combining lives together, 30 or 40 or 50 years

of age, you want somebody who have, someone who's always going to earn more money than the other

person. But when you can bring all of those things and then once I get that right and I feel that

that's there, the first box that I go to is physical and sexual attractions.

And that's going on what they've told you. Yes, I have a whole visual presentation of life

of my clients through their friends and their family and their homes and their holidays and

it's a wonderful, wonderful part of the journey with my clients of that and people will let you

into their world and then into their attractions and their previous partners and it's a very

vulnerable position people are putting themselves in with you. It's the most important job that

anyone gives me in their lives. And I am not the person what I've learned through my journey is

if you can hear it, that mediocrity is not very good with me. I don't like it in any sense of the

way but I particularly don't like it when it comes to relationships because I've lived a bad one

and it still stays in my world and has residue of that negativity. So I don't want anybody else to

have to live that. What are some of the stories that have really stayed with you of love stories

that you've helped be a part of? Are there particular clients or stories that stay with you?

Oh of course. I mean I love families so when families happen and in today's world I mean

look how far we've come. We talk about this still having stigmas on our community and our lives

but we can have kids. We can create a relationship. We are equally treated. We are living a pretty

fragile world at the moment and hopefully that all sustains and continues to be kept to where it is

but that's the stories that I love. I love the ones of family. I love them and I like the

I like the story of somebody that I meet and I love them and I know that I can help them

and I know that out there it would be really difficult for them to find someone and it happens

on the first introduction with us and you almost didn't take them on board because you thought

there would be more difficult than somebody else and then you have the one that you thought it

was going to go on the first introduction and they're still there 18 months later. It's not all

roses. What about your own relationship? Vinco, what's daily life like for you and Andrea now?

You're still dancing naked on rocks? Yes we are. Good. Yes we are. We keep the joy. We really

keep the joy but Sarah, our relationship is super complex as well because we are very different

people but very but almost the same person so we continuously have to work of being the best to

each other but we really have figured out what that communication looks like for us and we have

hard times like every relationship does but I think people leave their relationships way too early

these days and the grass is always green out on the other side and what we've learned and what

we've given each other is the promise that we will always work through it and it can only happen

through communication. What about that beautiful home of your grandmother's in Croatia where you

spent so much time as a child? How is it part of your life now? Well it's ours. It was one of the

first and one of the things that Andrea and I have done together and still till today the best

decision we did. The house went in inheritance to my auntie and she was selling and it was going to go

to I was going to say to a Russian because the Russians were buying a lot of Croatia at the time

and I just couldn't have that home changed the dynamic that it had through my childhood

and I know even before my existence my grandparents entertained there it just the home got exactly

what it always had with Andrea and I taking it over and it's now in renovation and it's provided

such a wonderful, wonderful joy for so many of our friends and our family because Andrea is

from Bari across the road from the Brovnik. We have this joke we used to wave to each other

as kids across the Adriatic and now and you know so the Italians come into the house and you know

do you sense your grandmother? How do you think she is? She's there and I mean she's there.

She's I know this might some strange but not just to us but she's shown herself in her presence

if anyone believes that that's possible I'm still questioning it but there was there's been signs of

well everyone better dress properly for dinner and behave themselves I would think we still have

her naparee she'll be happy with that. Bingo it's been such a delight to meet you thank you so much

for being my guest on conversations Sarah thank you so much it's so so very kind of you to have me

and I'm so happy really happy to be here with you today thank you so much.

Bingo Anthony's book is called All In How to Make Love Stick. This conversation was produced by

Maggie Morris and recorded on the lands of the terrible and yagura peoples. Our executive producer

is Nicola Harrison. I'm Sarah Kanozki thanks for listening.

You've been listening to a podcast of conversations with Sarah Kanozki.

For more conversations episodes head to ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.