Single white male would like to meet...

FIRST THINGS first ladies, I can explain. Honestly.

If you’ve recently been approached by a guy who looks like he’s trying to recall a script then yes that gentleman was me. Me or some of the other men who have come under the influence of Kama Lifestyles, a Dublin and London-based dating agency that teaches guys how to get good with women.

The agency offers three different courses: ‘confidence’, ‘one on one’ and ‘in-field’ based over a number of weeks, but for the purposes of this feature I got a crash course over a single day in Dublin.

The day began with a meeting with Kama Lifestyles owner Stephen Nolan in a city centre hotel where over the course of three hours he explained what his agency was about and showed this socially clumsy singleton the (many) errors of his ways.

“We bring people into social situations and show them exactly how it’s done,” Nolan explains. “The first and most important thing we teach when clients come to us is the ability to improve their confidence.”

Nolan asks me how many complete strangers I’ve approached completely sober since Christmas. I curse him for including the completely sober proviso before admitting none.

Asked to explain why, I give a handful of what he later labels limiting beliefs. By way of example I say I wouldn’t approach a woman in a gym as she’s there to work out rather than be hit on. I think it’s an argument without holes. Wrong.

“You’re assuming that everyone who goes to the gym that is female doesn’t want to be hit on,” he counters. “You assume that. If you approach them in the right way, it is flattering. If they’re taken it’s a nice compliment and if they’re not, you’ve an opportunity. What have you got to lose by approaching?

“People walk down the street and they say, ‘Oh, she has her earphones in, she wants to listen to her music and she doesn’t want to talk to me’, so they cut that out and then they make up another reason for another one and even a girl in a bar, ‘Oh, she’s in a bar and she’s chatting with her friends. She looks busy; I better not go up there’. People miss those opportunities. People are single because they have limiting beliefs in their head that aren’t true. There’s countless couples who have met in the gym.

“If I see an attractive girl in the street and I can see she’s in a hurry, I’ll just walk up and say, ‘How’s it going? You look absolutely stunning; I’d be kicking myself for the rest of the day if I didn’t say it’. You always get a good reaction. Then you say, ‘Look I know you’re in a hurry, I’m in a hurry too, we should meet up for a drink some time’. And she either says yes or no but you’ve made yourself very clear, put all your cards on the table and said, ‘Look, hi, I’m a confident guy, we should meet up’. That’s basically what you’re saying.”

Nolan goes on to explain what he calls the ‘what if’ technique, an approach designed to thwart negative thoughts.

“Basically for 30 seconds you just imagine, ‘I could make a balls of it but what if it went amazing? What would that look like? What would that feel like?’ You’re training yourself to do the opposite of what you’re actually doing. That changes everything.”

First impressions are “generally irreversible in a bar situation” so Nolan offers six pearls of wisdom. Smiling and eye contact are two obvious ones, the other four less so. You need to get a touch in within three seconds; start the conversation with a time constraint — “I have to leave in a second, but…”; approach at an angle, never from behind; and have a verbal opener, of which there are two kinds. The direct opener is a compliment, or an opinion opener where you ask her view on a relationship-based topic such as how soon is it to go on holiday with your new partner?

The beauty of a time constraint, I learn, is it reassures your potential mate that you won’t be in her face all night while the best subject for an opinion opener is relationships given that it’s something that, unlike Arsenal’s current form, interests everyone.

And why the need to cop a feel so quickly?

“All your emotions are created by a chemical release in your body,” Nolan explains. “The chemical release that’s responsible for feelings of love and attraction is called oxytocin and it’s released by touch. If you’re chatting to someone and you’re not touching them, you’re having a conversation; you’re not flirting with them. You have to be touching the person.”

Another device taught is called a cold read. This involves approaching a stranger and making a guess about them. An example, would be, “I’d say you’re from England” or “I’d say you’re a teacher.”

Several hours later I find myself in a pub in Temple Bar to put Nolan’s words of wisdom to the test. There I’m joined by Nolan and his business partner, Emre Ilkme, my wingman for the night. Also present is Celina Codorear, a friend of Nolan, who had kindly agreed to pose with yours truly for photos to accompany this feature.

While the photographer is doing her thing, my new best friend Emre, having given me my pre-match talk, is working his magic on two stunning ladies. Pictures with Celina taken, I’m introduced to Natalia and Abbey. I find myself thinking: Carlsberg don’t do starts to nights out, but if they did…

It seemed too good to be true and sadly it was. The more eagled-eyed among you may have noticed the engagement ring on Natalia’s finger but the sizeable rock initially escaped the attention of Emre and I. Rookie mistake. It also quickly became apparent that Abbey is unavailable, a development that brings the exchange to an unsuccessful but friendly end.

Undeterred by this hitch, Emre and I moved on. The next pub saw Emre at his smooth-taking best while his new friend was far more tentative. Lacking the courage to go with the, “You look absolutely stunning” opener my weapon of choice tended to be the cold read of, “You look French/Italian/Swedish”.

Initially I struggled to maintain a conversation beyond 30 seconds but Emre was quickly to my aid when things started to unravel. On the plus side, I found that given the noise of a packed pub, getting the initial touch in within the opening three seconds wasn’t as tough an ask as I’d feared.

As the night wore on we visited several more pubs with mixed results. In one instance Emre identified a blonde lady and said: “I want you to approach her and say you look just like the girl from The Hills.”

I was hesitant, protesting I’d never seen The Hills.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Quite a lot I replied, if she says ‘Which one?’, I’ll look like an idiot.

“She won’t,” Emre replied.

I did as instructed and the supposed Hills lookalike nervously thanked me before the exchange died an instant death.

I had more success with a lady in red called Sophia from Rome. Having survived the initial three-minute period using my new skills the conversation became natural. Ultimately her phone number proved elusive but the exchange was a step in the right direction and an example that the methods can work.

Overall my crash course was an interesting if, at times, daunting experience. The courses on offer don’t come cheap, though. The confidence course costs €800, while the one on one and infield courses will set you back €1,200.

Earlier I asked Nolan how that sort of outlay can be justified in the current economic climate and expressed bemusement at the 100% money back guarantee offered to unsatisfied clients. Surely, I argued, even if a client is now dating Rihanna, he’s going to claim he’s getting nowhere in order to get his cash back.

“You can pay two or three grand for a car and it’s out of date, it’s 2005. After two or three years you’re buying a different one,” Nolan counters. “What are you getting from this? You’re getting a woman, you’re getting skills that you can approach any woman so you’re going to get a relationship out of it and if you make a balls of it, you’ll have the ability to get another because it’s a skill-set.

“You’re talking about money at this time of the economy, its businesses like this that mushroom in recessions because people are unhappy with everything in their life. They start to realise the core things in life is what they need. This is the most core thing.”

And what about the possibility of people telling porkies in order to get cash back?

“It’s very hard for people to do that who are meeting you regularly and who invest in you about themselves. If you came to me for the confidence course, I’d know everything about you and I’d know if you were lying to me or if you’re not. I’ll know the success you’re getting as well because I’ll be out with you. I’ll be the one getting Rihanna into the car for you. I’ve never had anyone ask for their money back.”

* For more information visit www.kamalifestyles.com