How to Get the Guy Episode 1: The Rules of Engagement

Hi! Welcome to ABC Television’s latest attempt to snag a piece of the reality dating pie. This show features four women in their attempts to find the right man. Let me warn you at the outset that any show that is about women trying to score in San Francisco – the city that has become synonymous with gay culture – has a certain built in camp factor and I fully intend to exploit it to the hilt. For the record, I am a single male in my 40s with gusts up to 50-55. I am also, at least as far as I know, a practicing heterosexual with an almost fatal tendency toward monogamy. What qualifies me to write about a show like this? As you will see, I’m every bit as qualified as the “Love Coaches” that will be helping the ladies find dates. But enough of that, let’s take a look at what happens in the first episode.

The show opens with a montage of the sites of ‘Frisco. As the pop classic, “Sooner or Later” plays over shots of the Golden Gate Bridge and the famous waterfront little doubt is left as to the Grass Roots revival about to unfold. It’s time for us to meet the girls as the screen splits into four pieces and a young lady appears in each one. Any reality show veteran knows that a show is only as good as its contestants and that production teams waste no time in pigeon-holing people into easy-to-recognize personality categories. In this case, the four women are quickly reduced to sound byte stereotypes. They are:

Anne, the girl next door. No, I’m not attaching that label to her. This show seizes every slight opportunity to remind us of these “labels” by using them as nicknames, giving us visual cues, and even placing the labels as graphics beside and under their names. Lisa is one of those ladies that everyone knows. She’s been a bridesmaid seven times but never a bride, (I’ll have a double order of clichés to go please) she is athletic, friendly, and spends a lot of time with her family, but has somehow just never clicked with the right guy.

Kris, the party girl. Kris is a practicing attorney and the life of every party. According to her website bio she is just starting to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of life and is working on the whole love thing.

Michelle, the career girl. Michelle is also an attorney and I have no idea why this makes her more of a career girl than Kris unless it’s because Kris had already applied as the party gal. She tells us she may be too particular when it comes to men.

Alissa, the dreamer. I guess it sounds better than the “New Ager.” Alissa is a massage therapist who is into yoga, and has a completely vegan diet. She tends to date only within a limited circle of men with interests similar to her own.

The ladies gather at the kickoff circle of the soccer field at Monster Park where they are soon joined by the two Love Coaches. J.D. describes himself as a “serial monogamist” who has been happily married for seven years. His single greatest qualification as a Love Coach is arguably his stint on the Animal Planet show You Lie Like a Dog, but his brief career on Are You Hot comes in a close second. Teresa is a behind-the-scenes veteran of shows like Win Ben Stein’s Money and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. In the experience department, she writes a nationally syndicated column for singles. She also has played a reporter on television and done red carpet interviews at the Emmy Awards for E! Network. The Coaches start by asking the ladies why it’s so hard to date in San Francisco. The top responses:

1. Men with commitment issues.
2. Too many men devoted to their careers.
3. Too much competition from a city full of women.
4. The cute ones are either married or gay.

In short, it’s the same reasons it’s hard to date in any city located on our planet. J.D. informs the women that in fact, more than half the population is male. Teresa says that even doubling the assumed 8% population of gay men leaves a whopping number of available males. The stadium scoreboard comes to life behind her and backs her up, showing that it leaves over 151 thousand potential male suitors. The coaches tell the women that the secret to finding the right guy is to date as many men as possible. It’s at this point I find my first moment of disagreement with the “experts.” (Gee, that didn’t take very long, did it?) Dating numerous partners is fine if all you’re looking to do is date. But if you are seeking a long-term relationship you’re better served dating only one or possibly two people to give things a chance to develop or diminish before shopping elsewhere. How can you find a partner ready for commitment when you yourself are playing the field with a half-dozen or more others? Maybe I’m just too much of a codger for the modern “hate the game, not the playa” society. But when I see my daughter struggling into the dating world and her biggest complaint is that guys today don’t stand still long enough to find out who she really is before they’re chasing others, to me, that says something.

J.D. then holds up a ‘Frisco phone directory and tells them the man of their dreams is within its pages. The women swear before the phone book that they are ready to find the right guy right now. I only wish I were joking.

After the commercial break, the Coaches begin working with Anne. They teach her Lesson 164 about dating. Wait! There are over 160 lessons to be learned in order to meet someone special? Good Lord, I barely passed Geometry and there were a lot less rules to learn! I should give up right now and buy myself a dozen cats to keep me company in my declining years. Anyway, I recover from my panic enough to discover that Lesson 164 is “Drop the Hankie.” The Coaches tell Anne that her big problem is that she doesn’t give guys any signals that let them know she’s interested and available. As they chat with her she reveals that she has a tendency to focus on the others in her vicinity instead of the guy she’s interested in. She’s apparently a bit shy and easily embarrassed around “new” men she meets. The Coaches swing into action and tell her that in olden times a lady would drop her hankie as a signal that she was interested in a particular man. I guess it replaced standing around waiting to get conked on the noggin with a club and dragged into the forest. The Coaches suggest three modern ways for Anne to drop the hankie:

1. Make four seconds of direct eye contact.
2. Smile
3. Get in the man’s personal space – within four feet.