How I became a dating coach (with thanks to Beauty and the Geek) February 7, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Beauty and the Geek, How to, Other, Personal , 40 comments
I made it all the way through high school without even holding a girl’s hand. I went on my first date when I was twenty years old. I was studying abroad in Australia at the time so I had everything going for me. I was exotic, I had an accent, I was there for a limited time only! And if it hadn’t been for all my friends beating me over the head with the fact that this poor girl really really liked me, I still wouldn’t have done anything about it. Thankfully, she took pity on me and gave me my first kiss.
And it’s a good thing she did, because I didn’t go on my second date until my senior year of college, at age twenty-two. Then I graduated and headed off to grad school for electrical engineering. “Maybe this will be the year that the program is flooded with attractive, friendly, out-going girls,” I thought to myself. It wasn’t. There were about 5 girls out of 100 incoming students my year, and the two who spoke English made it very clear that they came in long distance relationships. And so began two years of datelessness.
My first few years of grad school were quite depressing, in large part due to the absence of the social support structure I had grown accustomed to in college. Once I arrived at grad school and began working 80 hour weeks, my social circle shrunk to just the few electrical engineers in my class. I had no female friends, a fact that struck home when I heard about a dance at the California Academy of Sciences Museum. I thought it sounded like fun and wanted to go, but realized I didn’t even have a platonic female friend to take with me.
Somehow I survived two years of this. I saw old friends during semester breaks and every time I could tell that my social abilities had regressed a little more. Then one day a friend happened to ask me what the two most important factors were in my future happiness. “A good job and a good marriage,” I said. Then he asked me what percentage of my time I was putting into each. 99% and 1%? Truthfully, it was more like 100% and 0%.
I resolved then to rearrange my priorities. I had to learn to meet people and broaden my social circle. For my whole life, I had been successful in academics, sports, music, and so on, but the social aspect was the one part of my life I never had under control. That had to change.
I found some resources on the internet a long time ago, but didn’t pay much attention. Then I read The Game
Soon after, I went to a friend’s Halloween party and got a stranger’s phone number while I was there. We went on a few dates, and it didn’t end up going anywhere, but it was far more than had ever happened to me before, and just the motivation I needed to keep pushing myself.
In mid-November, I found a friend similarly interested in social improvement. One day, we went to a street fair with the goal of saying hi to EVERYONE we saw. That’s it. Just “hi”. It was a great idea. It’s a nice, low pressure way to get used to talking to strangers. That’s not to say it was easy, though. We were out all day and I was only able to make myself say hi to five people.
A few days later, we decided to step it up for real. We went to a bar in San Francisco and chatted up some of the people standing in a huge line outside. It turned out they were there for a birthday party, so we joined them and dodged the cover charge. Our conversation starter for the rest of the evening was asking people if they knew who the birthday girl was and then telling our story.
I started going out to bars at night with friends. It was a nerve-wracking experience - I never hung out in bars before. Approach anxiety was still bad, but I could sometimes push past it and have a good conversation. I made it a personal rule to accept every social invitation I was offered. Making time was difficult, but putting forth the effort made a huge difference in my life.
Two months after I started, I found myself in DC with New Year’s plans that had fallen through. I knew the right thing to do was to go out by myself, but I was too scared. Finally I told myself that I was just going to drive to the bar and see how I felt then. If my anxiety was too bad, I could always come back home. Once I got there, I told myself I’d just look inside. I could always leave if it was too stressful. Then I told myself I’d warm up by talking to people outside, talk to one person inside, and then go home. I went inside, talked to one person, then another, and another, and ended up having a blast. I didn’t pick anyone up, or even try to get a number, but that was the night I knew my life was changing for the better.
I came back to Berkeley that spring inspired to keep pushing forward on the social front. The company I began working for, Mason Communications, is based in San Francisco and has a big presence in the bay area. A friend pointed me towards them and I attended one of their introductory seminars.
I loved it. This was the organization I was looking for. It wasn’t about tricks, or manipulation, or even attracting women. They were about bringing out your own unique attractive qualities, becoming the best version of yourself.
Unfortunately, as a graduate student, I had more time than money, and paying for a workshop was simply not an option. I wish it had been. Taking a quality workshop is the fastest way out there to improve your social abilities. I think of workshops as an accelerant. I probably could have saved myself six months of hard work if I had taken a workshop. For other people, a workshop might save them two years. And some people simply cannot make these changes in themselves without outside assistance. For them, a workshop will save them a lifetime. But I got lucky. At the time, Mason Communications was looking for interns, who, in exchange for setting up equipment, ordering pizza, and taking out the trash, were allowed to listen in on workshops. But the job required availability all day on Fridays, and I was in school.
It didn’t matter. I’d already made up my mind that this had to be a priority in my life. So in February 2006, I dropped my math class and joined Mason as an unpaid intern.
I took copious notes. Pages and pages. Every suggestion I heard, I attempted to incorporate into my life, but there was still something missing.
In April I ran into some members of the Beauty and the Geek casting team. I told them about my efforts to improve my social skills and they set me up with an interview. Which I aced, apparently. And so it went that I spent June of 2006 locked inside a mansion in Los Angeles.
I learned so much on the show. I was surprised how many people entered with the attitude, “I’m good enough as I am, I don’t need to change at all.” I haven’t yet met anyone so perfect that they couldn’t improve themselves. I told the girls on the first day, “Anything you tell me to change, I’ll change it.”
The girls were great! They told me very enthusiastically what was wrong with me. Over and over. Endlessly. And the process of change continued.
More than anything else, though, the experience taught me how to deal with high-drama, high-maintenance, manipulative women. It took beauty off its pedestal and made it painfully obvious that people are just people, with their own shortcomings, insecurities, and flaws. And I learned that things like emotional stability, compassion, and self-confidence are far more important to me than looks when it comes to the people I choose to include in my life. With that realization, everything began to fall into place.
Immediately after the show wrapped, I headed to New York for an internship. During the week, I was committed to my job at Philips Research. But every weekend, I was out and about, socializing nonstop with friends and strangers. I had a limited amount of time in New York and I was determined to use it to the fullest.
I went out to bars less and struck up more conversations during the day. The smart, confident, successful person you want to be with for the rest of your life is probably not out at bars every night, but he/she has got to go grocery shopping sometime! I learned the difference between the skills I needed to make a good first impression and the skills I needed to maintain a healthy relationship.
The relationship skills didn’t come easily for me, but the effort I’ve put in has been repaid a thousandfold. Learning to get back in touch with my emotions has been the single biggest catalyst for change in my life.
I’ve always been a very logical person. I argued that decisions should be made rationally, leaving emotion out of it, or at least weighing the emotional effects and factoring them in logically. I spent most of my life emotionally walled off and my relationships suffered as a result. No one could hurt me, but no one could really connect with me either. When you lack the confidence to communicate your feelings, there’s only so close you can come to another person.
It was a slow process, but the other instructors helped me get comfortable with my own emotions. And suddenly, all my relationships began to improve. Not only my relationships with women, but with my friends and family as well. I found myself with the ability to not only meet strangers but connect with them. It didn’t happen overnight, but it certainly didn’t take years. My friends at Mason Communications supported me during the entire process until finally, while cooking spaghetti at home one night, I received a call asking me if I wanted to be a instructor.
Your thoughts?The magic of television February 6, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Beauty and the Geek, Other , 18 comments
Just because some people seem to be a little confused about this - the tiny little people you see in that television set in your living room aren’t real. Not only that, but the stuff you’re watching is not always happening right as you’re watching it. In the case of Beauty and the Geek, the show was filmed eight months ago. At that time, I was an intern at Art of Attraction, ordering pizza and taking out the garbage. Since then, I’ve worked extremely hard to improve my social skills, which eventually resulted in my promotion to full instructor status.
Just thought I’d throw that out there. Some people seem to find this concept somewhat difficult to grasp.
Your thoughts?I’m appearing on tomorrow’s Keith Ablow show February 6, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Beauty and the Geek, Links , 3 comments
I’m appearing on tomorrow’s Dr. Keith Ablow show with a bunch of the other Beauty and the Geek contestants. As far as I can tell, Dr. Keith is the CW’s generic Dr. Phil, with an edge. Hopefully all of you caught last week’s episode on “Parents who think one of their children is molesting the other but actually it’s the other way around”.
Tomorrow’s episode should be a bit of a train wreck. We thought it was going to be about how our lives have changed as a result of the experience, but Dr. Keith marches to the beat of his own drum. Watch Nate’s face when Dr. Keith asks him if he tried to touch his partner in her sleep.
Your thoughts?The trials and tribulations of fame February 5, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Beauty and the Geek, Other , 5 comments
While being mobbed by hordes of screaming girls is certainly a fun and novel experience, it does make it really hard to film a decent hidden camera video. My students thought it was hilarious, though.
About that Beauty and the Geek phone number challenge… February 4, 2007
Posted by Niels in : Beauty and the Geek , 30 comments
I got an email yesterday that meant a lot to me.
I just wanted to say how great it was to see you talk about how disgusting the phone number challenge was this week. You didn’t go into the details of why it upset you (or they didn’t show it, anyway), but I’m assuming it’s because you realize that using random girls to win a challenge is sleazy and that asking girls for their phone number when you have no intention of calling them is incredibly mean. (I realize that it’s possible one or more of the others on the show felt it was wrong as well and it just wasn’t shown.)
-T
Thanks, T. You get it.
Your thoughts?