Back to Home > News > Tuesday, Sep 05, 2006 Today in the Times Posted on Tue, Sep. 05, 2006 email... Dating support: So many ch

SICK OF HEARING me whine about my "newly single" situation, a female friend browbeat me into action Saturday. This old friend -- the same ex-girlfriend whose verbal beatings have provided me so much agony, and good column fodder -- is, well ... a woman. As such, she's legally required to make Dr. Phil as much money as possible.

Now I normally never indulge in "action" when I can safely discuss an idea from home for about seven years (which may be one reason I'm in this "newly-single" situation to begin with). But these Dr. Phil fans are like Amway salespeople on crack. They never give up until you've tattooed their mentor's giant bald head on your back while handing over your Visa card. I swear this East Bay friend now speaks with Dr. Phil's Texas accent: "When ewe gunna git yerself right, boy?"

So my choice (ultimatum) was this: Purchase male comfort food (pizza) while registering on something called Match.com, or buy this Dr. Phil book -- one of the tomes Dr. Phil writes every 27 minutes while inventing a new life philosophy. It changed my friend's life, giving her more ammo with which to bludgeon men with advice about something women call "feelings."

Then -- because I've been the TV to this woman's remote since I was 15 -- I visited this stupid Web site and did something I usually make fun of other people for doing. I agreed to show my picture to strange women so they can reply with e-mails saying "You've got to be KIDDING me!"

This column was initially going to be about that: trying online dating. But by nightfall I had 4,000 words (so far) worth of frightening observations about this Match.com. The upside of all this work is that now I have the makings of a great book, for which you'll have to pay $29.99 instead of getting it free in a newspaper. But I'll need the money to recoup what I'm spending on Match.com.

Fortunately, the next day I found a much better answer to meeting and dealing with new women: a newly-revised version of rock star Gene Simmons' book "Sex Money KISS (Gene Simmons Family Jewels)."

Understand that Gene Simmons is kind of like Dr. Phil, except he wears makeup, spits fire and sings songs called "Calling Dr. Love." Which, believe me, is not the same as singing "Calling Dr. Phil."

In "Family Jewels," the KISS bassist and legendary (by his accounts) seducer of women reveals hundreds of relationship secrets in the time it took Dr. Phil to dedicate his 77th book to Oprah. I open "Family Jewels" to a random page and -- viola! -- the nuggets spill forth.

"A man and a woman are in bed together. There's a noise downstairs. She will nudge him and expect him to go down there and risk his life to protect hers. And even if she's got a .357 Magnum and can take care of business herself, when she goes to see the movie 'Love Story,' (she has somehow gotten him to go with her -- although let's be honest here, he would have just as soon borrowed her .357, put it in his oral cavity and squeezed the trigger rather than go to see this movie) -- she expects him to cry at the sensitive parts with her. She wants a man to be in touch with his feminine side, we note! Nonetheless, she wants her man to be able to cry. But not before she cries! If he cries too early, he's a wimp, a mama's boy, or gay."

Anyways, all that wisdom came from pretty much just ONE page, which, I swear, I picked randomly. There's another 271 pages of that stuff. Can you imagine, with all that knowledge, how much Gene Simmons can teach men about our universe?

I can pretty much guess what my female friend would say about "Family Jewels." But I guarantee you, Gene Simmons will never, ever give money to Match.com. Then again, guess who Match.com pays truckloads of money to offer advice on their site? Here's a hint. He has A LOT less hair than Gene Simmons.

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