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.")

A fine bromance

All in all, I Love You, Man is a pretty bad movie.

This is said wearing my objective-critical-thinking-I-don't-want-to-assume-any-liabilities-for-anyone-actually-paying-to-go-see-it hat. I don't think I Love You, Man can be defended on serious aesthetic grounds.

But I admit -- I sort of liked it.

You know the story if you've seen even one of the trailers: Paul Rudd (whom I admit to having a bit of a man-crush on) is a metero guy without other guy friends. So he goes about trying to make them. Enter Jason Segel, good natured schlub. Let the bromance bloom.

The biggest problem with the movie, as my friend Noah said was that it was more cringe-inducing than laugh-inducing. (I refrained from taking the schlubette to see the movie -- this is one to be seen with another dude.)

Jon Faverau has a small role, and the thing that came to both Noah's and my mind was the scene in Swingers when he leaves the unending stream of messages on a girl's voicemail -- demolishing any chance he might have had with her in one painful, 5 minute stretch. That was a cringe-inducing scene, to be sure (heartbreaking, in its way) but it was one of only two or three cringe-worthy bits in Swingers.

I Love You, Man made you cringe for almost the entire movie. Rudd has an almost autistic quality towards other guys -- he can't figure them out and when he tries to fit in, he only stands out in his cluelessness.

In one sense, the movie does talk about something that you don't see very often -- the odd friendships between guys.

There's one scene in which Rudd goes out to dinner with a prospective friend, has a good time, and then stands there helplessly his erstwhile friend make a pass at him.

Of course, you could see this coming a mile away (you knew that there was going to be some homosexual pass made at Rudd during the course of this movie), but there was something sort of recognizable about this. It's a very weird thing making a friend. You never know quite what the other dude wants from you -- and it sometimes crosses your mind that he will make a pass at you (which, I'm happy to report, has never happened to me).

Certainly, Judd Apatow has portrayed this (more, I think, in The 40-Year Old Virgin than in Knocked Up). But there is often a strange veil that exists between friends, that does sort of have the tension of dating. The rules of friendship are often murky and unknowable. I've confided things in my guy friends that I would never tell a girlfriend -- and vice versa. In this sense, ILYM should have something relevant to say.

That never quite happened. I'm not going to say I didn't have a good time with I Love You, Man -- I'm just not sure I'd ever call again.