Is dating really so bad in Alaska? These Anchorage dating coaches say no — but you have to be open-minded.

Marsha Schirack-Olson and Solveig Pedersen know from personal experience that dating in Alaska can be tough.

For Pedersen, she felt like she was living in an episode of “The Bachelor” when she found out she and her two neighbors had all said yes to a date with the same person within the same week.

“I thought this was a Fairbanks thing. Like, I thought this must just be in Fairbanks,” Pedersen said. “And now I’ve lived in Anchorage for 13 years and I’m like, ‘Oh no, no, it’s also Anchorage.’ ”

Through their own experiences and jobs as communication educators, the pair remained keenly in tune with online dating trends. Something as simple as what people chose to write in their bio or what they selected as their profile photos could make all the difference between a date and a hard swipe left.

“Nobody gives you a training on how to do that,” Schirack-Olson said of creating online dating profiles. “You’re just sort of thrown to the wolves.”

Their business, P.S. Consulting, fully launched as Alaska’s only matchmaking service in January 2020 — just before the pandemic hit. “The day we signed our very first, full-on matchmaking client was March 13, 2020, and that evening is when everything shut down,” Schirack-Olson said.

Schirack-Olson and Pedersen adapted and turned to developing online options. They work with people of all genders, sexualities and ages, though their primary clients are in their 30s.

Services include dating profile curation, relationship and dating coaching and online courses (including the aptly named course, “How the Eff Do I Find Someone?!”).

“We’ve been colleagues and we realized over the years that we liked talking about dating, and then at some point we started teaching dating workshops,” Pedersen said. “Marsha and I have a really fun time together … potentially cheesy as this sounds, we both love love.”

Together, the two have more than 20 years of experience teaching communication techniques at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“In our hearts, we’re educators and want to help support people and find a way to help them use this knowledge that we have learned through our careers,” Schirack-Olson said.

They also explored other online platforms. Most recently, Schirack-Olson took to TikTok, where she responds to viewers’ dating questions.

In a video that racked up nearly 182,000 views and 18,000 likes, she discussed her own relationship and proudly responded, “Yes, marry the nerd!”

In addition, they started a new podcast about dating and relationships, P.S. Let’s Talk Love. In the first episode, which will drop on Valentine’s Day, they’ll discuss ways to navigate the polarizing holiday. A trailer for their podcast is live and can be found on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Episodes will feature special guests and listener Q&As, and cover topics such as setting boundaries and expectations in a relationship and how to move from online dating to meeting in person.

As an example of the lengths to which some Alaska singles will go to find a potential match, Pedersen and Schirack-Olson said some people expand their dating app range 100-plus miles, and hopping on a plane to go on a date isn’t unheard of.

Having fewer people in Alaska makes things more difficult, but the Anchorage dating scene isn’t bleak, they said.

Tinder, Bumble and Hinge are among the most popular dating apps in rotation for their clients, Schirack-Olson said.

“If you’re on the apps and you’re scrolling and you’re like, ‘Where are those people you’re talking about?’ — they’re around town, they’re around the state, we promise,” she said.

[Relationship advice: Anchorage’s dating pool is so small, and the pandemic isn’t helping. How can I meet new people?]

There are unique challenges for singles looking to date in Alaska.

Schirack-Olson notes that people come to Alaska for adventure and fun but are fiercely independent, which makes dating harder.

“We’ve spoken to clients, people we’ve worked with, and they’ll be like, ‘Well, but I want to spend every weekend out in the mountains,’ ” she said. “To start, you have to be here.”

For other singles, seasonal work creates difficult schedules and often leaves people out of service for extended periods of time, Pedersen said.

All of that begs the question: How the eff do you find your person?

This is the part where they said they wish they had an easy answer: Do this, don’t do that. Think about this, be open to that. Then, BOOM! You’ve met the love of your life (cue the fireworks).

Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. But Pedersen said to start, people need to be open and have self-compassion.

Life during a global pandemic is hard, and they encourage people to be patient with themselves.

“This is a major world event and that causes us to sit back,” Schirack-Olson said. Our clients “were feeling a lot of uncertainty, and that impacted their ability to put themselves out there in any way.”

Schirack-Olson thinks that what people prioritize in partners will change the most as dating continues beyond that pandemic.

“What we learned ... even though, despite everyone saying there’s nobody here, that is not true,” Pedersen said. “There are really kind, wonderful, interesting, single people … and they’re out there, and they’re probably feeling as frustrated as everybody else is feeling.”