Use Custom Sign Up Fields to Filter Repeater

I know that there are a million ways to do things in Wix, but I went down a rabbit hole and now can’t get out.

I tried this two ways:

Option 1 -

I have added two dropdown fields in the custom sign up form.
The dropdown selections get saved into “Contacts”

Problem - how do I transfer Contacts data to a Content Manager so I can use it as a filter?

Option 2 -

I have the user submitting the two dropdowns after they’ve signed up. The data goes inside a Content Manager, but I can’t seem to figure out how to link the private member data and the Content Manager containing the two dropdown selections using the reference field. If a user uses the dropdowns to submit the editable Content Manager it just keeps creating new rows, but it needs to update instead.

My goal is for the user to select their region and role (upon sign up or later), and then based on those selections, filter a bunch of repeaters on various pages of the site… a site with custom content based on region and role, basically.