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By Karin Zeitvogel, Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON: Americans invented the personal
trainer to get physically fit and the career coach to give them a
leg-up on the professional ladder.
But once they had hauled their size zero bodies
and rippling abs to the very top of the career tree and paused to
allow their fancy to turn to thoughts of love, they realized they
were out on a limb.
Enter the dating coach.
Unlike a traditional matchmaker, a dating coach
will not arrange a tryst for you, but is “a personal trainer for
people who want to fall in love,” one of the pioneers of the
genre, Evan Katz, said.
“You have to do the work, you have to lift the
weights, but I will guide you to make sure you don’t hurt
yourself,” said Katz, who has been coaching people to successful
love lives for five years.
His client pool is unlikely to dry up any time
soon because, according to Katz, there are tens of millions of
single people out there.
The people who employ the services of a dating
coach tend to be educated, hard-working and relatively high up on
the socioeconomic ladder, not least because fees for the service are
relatively high and not reimbursed by health insurance, coach
Jennifer Viemont told Agence France-Presse.
But when it comes to meeting a soulmate, they
haven’t got a clue.
Viemont, whose prices start at 200 dollars for
two phone calls and unlimited e-mail support for one month,
currently counsels a doctor from Illinois, a business owner from
North Carolina and an engineer from Ohio, among others.
Katz, whose fees are significantly higher,
speculated that Americans who end up turning to dating coaches have
focused so much and for so long on scaling the career ladder that
they have ignored their emotional needs.
“This is a country where people work minimum
40 hours a week, at least five days a week at least 50 weeks a year.
We don’t take a siesta every day, nor do we have a month off each
summer, like in France,” he said.
Mate-searching work
And that doesn’t leave a lot of time or energy
for mate-searching.
“It’s work to find the right person . . .
It’s like a job search, only much more important,” one of
Katz’s clients said in a testimonial, seen by Agence France-Presse.
So how does it work?
Usually, a dating coach will start out with some
questions and advice, designed to steer you clear of pitfalls such
as “being interested in anyone who’s interested back,” Viemont
said.
“I might ask questions about grooming skills.
Are they tucking their shirt in, are they dressed appropriately for
where they’re going, did they wash their hair?” Viemont said.
“It might seem obvious to you, but some people
just don’t think of those things”—which could explain why they
aren’t getting many dates.
Katz also begins the client-coach relationship
with a chat, conducted either by phone or e-mail.
After that, while Viemont suggests places where
a would-be dater might meet a kindred spirit, such as wine-tasting
events or dance classes, Katz puts his clients online.
Viemont explained her aversion to the Internet
as a meeting place, saying: “The only thing you’ll have in
common with someone you meet online is that you’re both single.
Hopefully.”
But Katz defended the worldwide web, saying it
was “the quickest way to build a social life from scratch.”
“I do it in a very thoughtful, methodical way
with photos, a funny user name, witty e-mails, a self-aware
confident essay,” the former Hollywood writer said.
Dating coaches have their own, self-appointed
professional association, datingcoach.org, founded some six years
ago.
Among its lofty ambitions is “to be the global
forum for the art and science of dating coaching.”
There’s science involved?
Maybe they mean chemistry?
Whichever branch of the sciences it is, few of
the singles who were willing to speak about their private lives with
Agence France-Presse bought the idea of hiring a dating coach.
“I don’t believe in all that. I believe in
spontaneity. How are you supposed to see if there’s any chemistry
between you if it’s all been set up?” said Annie from
California, a 51-year-old who looks 10 years younger than she is.
“Ugh,” said Deborah, 49, from San Francisco
bluntly, while 35-year-old Luis from New York said manicured, online
profiles and witty e-mails seemed “a bit disingenuous.”
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