Don’t Abandon Your Intuition for the Advice of Popular Dating “Gurus”

How such advice caused me to turn my back on a woman who needed me

Photo by Flávia Gava on Unsplash

The mid-to-late ’00s were the prime years of dating “gurus,” although many of them are around to this day.

Linguistics expert Paul Ross, known by his stage name Ross Jeffries at the time, was selling Speed Seduction products, telling guys what to say to get women in bed — fast, as the products’ names implied.

David DeAngelo was selling products teaching men how to convey high status in order to be attractive to women.

A man named Mystery hosted a reality TV show, teaching 8 men his secrets of scoring with women. The men competed to be named the Ultimate PUA (pick-up artist).

An author named Neil Strauss wrote a book about the world of pick-up artists — The Game.

I had a mutual connection to David DeAngelo, who sent me one of his products for free in return for reviewing it on my personal blog.

Unfortunately, the advice of these “gurus” caused me to think robotically in relationships, instead of listening to my very best advisor, my intuition.

Below is the story of how I failed to connect with a woman who I cared about, and who cared about me, thanks to “guru” advice. I’ll wrap up with a couple of takeaways from the whole experience.

“Hey, Paul!” I heard a woman’s voice yell from a car stopped at a traffic light. “It’s Amy! I’m back in town. Take down my number!” She called it out to me.

Amy had been a student in the Calculus for Business class I taught at a large university. An A student who sat in the front row, Amy had always had a mysterious, classy, sexy vibe about her.

A year after I left the university, I was at a downtown disco when I ran into Amy and her cousin Jane. Amy took my hand and led me out onto the dance floor, where we proceeded to kiss for the next two hours.

About 1 in the morning, Amy told me she had to leave. “I would go home with you,” she said, “but I live with Jane and she needs me to take her home. I’m going to write down my number. Call me this week and we’ll get together.”