Monday, July 6, 2009

Das Boot (camp)

I probably should have blogged about this weeks ago, but I wanted to tell my readers about a strange phenomenon I got caught up in called "Dating Boot Camp."

It all started when a friend of mine who works on the web site Thrillist asked me if I wanted to go to some crash course on dating (for women). The crash course was essentially the brainchild of two extremely sweet dating experts, Matt Titus and Tamsen Fadal. My friend from Thrillist suggested we go and eavesdrop on the four or five male experts Matt and Tamsen had corralled who offer their insights into the male mind. (Called aptly enough, the "man panel.")

"You can go and do the schlub take on it," she said.

"Why not?" I said. Hey, any promotion is good promotion.

However, when I showed up boot camp, I was told that nobody had been informed that I was supposed to be on the man panel. When my friend showed up she said, "Oh, I thought you should write about it. Not be on the panel." (I.e., I should do an article for the Post about it.)

"Oh," I said. "Well, no big deal."

But by that point I had already been introduced to Matt and Tamsen and they were excited to have me on.

"You did From Schlub to Stud, right?" Matt asked.

"Yeah..."

"I read that book," he said, "we did a little segment on it on the radio. You should definitely be on the panel."

So for the past few weeks I have been the resident expert on men and the male mind. And for my fellow schlubs out there, I can report truthfully: There are a lot of women out there who want to meet you. (I'm sure Matt and Tamsen would be extremely disappointed, however, if any of the 200 or so women -- by my rough estimate -- who were there went out with a schlub. M&T's advice was to be selective.) And there were a few women there who just seemed like they were there to be entertained, like "Singlegirl" Simone Grant of the blog, Sex Lies & Dating in the City, or her adorable friend, The Lost Plum (another blogger, who was kind enough to link to FSTS).

And I have to admit, it was sort of fun.

I got questions that extended from the extremely raunchy ("What do you say when your boyfriend wants to know how many men you've slept with?") to the fairly innocent ("I'm interested in politics -- should I talk about politics on a date?")

My answers were, I think, pretty sensible. ("Lowball" and "No.")