You Can Pay Someone To Help You Date

Have you ever seen that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie hosts a dating seminar at the Learning Annex and comes to the conclusion that “you’ll never meet men in here, so get your purses, we’re going out!” and she takes them to a bar and is like, their wing woman? Okay, well anyway, that happened and now people are paying for their own Carrie Bradshaws to guide them along.

Tracey Steinberg of NYC is essentially a dating coach with a specialty in flirting. She’ll work with clients either one-on-one or in a group and charges anywhere from $95 to $2,995 for the course (which can be a month long). And by “work”, she’ll go out with her client/s at a bar, help boost their confidence, give them some pickup lines and find someone they’ll click with right then and there. And women are paying.

Record scratch. Women?

Yup. This piece in The Wall Street Journal details what Steinberg teaches her female clients.

She calls herself a “dateologist.” On her Twitter page, she defines that as “your best friend who happens to be a dating coach & flirting expert” which makes me wonder, then why not just go out with your best friend who is really good at flirting? But then I remembered the one time where my friend, who is really good at flirting, and I were out and I saw a guy I liked and so did she but it was the same guy and oh man that was awkward. I don’t blame her though. He was Australian. All bets are off when a sexy accent is involved. (“Oh my God you just set feminism back by 1,000,000,000 years” — there, I said it for you, now you don’t have to.)

Her testimonials from clients on her website are strong and positive. I did further investigating online and found a negative review from Yelp. Yes, Yelp. You can truly review anything on Yelp.

Oops. When charging a group of single women to go with you to a bar to meet single men, you probably want to make sure that single men go to that bar. However, I understand that there are certain things beyond a dateologist’s control.

Her overall message is positive. She’s not about trying to “land” a husband or wife for anybody. She helps by helping you change your outlook and attitude. From her site:

And then she charges $95 to take you to a bar. But hey, whatever works, right? As long as people are happy. Tell you what, if you live in Los Angeles, and drinks are on you, hit me up and I’ll take you to a bar where single people hang out and I’ll be your wing woman. I offer you no guarantees of anything except that I’ll probably get drunk.

Photos: John Phillips, Peter Stackpole, Alfred Eisenstaedt, John Phillips.