Boot Camp in War of the Sexes
One by one they entered the classroom, 25 men who had loved and lost and who wanted more than anything else to love and win for a change.
Silently, each man took an empty chair, and anxiously trying to look relaxed, occupied himself with a meaningless task to avoid making eye contact with those around him.
They were a diverse lot. Some wore ties and some T-shirts; some were balding and some barely had begun to shave.
But despite their different fashions and ages, they shared a common goal--to learn, as the title of their for-men-only Pierce College seminar promised, “How to Treat a Woman.”
The source of the group’s new knowledge would be Brenda Blackman, a blond former modeling teacher in a white decollete blouse, black high heels, and a red-and-black checked jacket decorated with a pin spelling “PARIS” in sparkling stones.
After each student had paid his $25 fee--free love went out of vogue in the Sixties, after all--Blackman laid down a rule.
“No taping, please,” she advised the students, none of whom appeared to be planning to do any such thing. “I’m in the process of writing a book on this material, so I would like to have this information for my book.”
She started off with her qualifications as an expert on men, women and the combination of the two: former jewelry store owner, modeling teacher and “communications trainer” for a local self-help group. She has been divorced twice and her age is none of your business.
She began teaching seminars in 1979 after continual hounding by clients who envied her business success, she said. Now, she teaches seminars full time, offering 19 courses, including a companion seminar to this one, for women only: “How To Be an Alluring, Captivating, Enticing Woman!” She wrote a book, “101 Ways to Meet Your Lover,” and appears on radio and television.
But the would-be Valentinos from the Valley appeared likely to challenge the teaching abilities even of a Brenda Blackman.
Explaining why he was there, one student lamented that “for some reason, most women are not interested in going out with me after the first date. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
Another explained that he was “just here to find out about how the opposite sex works.”
A third revealed that “sometimes I’m uncomfortable about talking, not knowing what she’s going to say back.”
A musician, emptying his soul to the rising uneasiness of those sitting near him, said that “what I’m after is getting in touch with my real feelings--with the lying and the cheating.”
And a 17-year-old summer day camp counselor, half the age of most of his classmates, explained with a toothy grin, “I’m here to learn from you guys.”
The blind leading the blind.
Luckily for these hapless fellows, Blackman was armed with 150 minutes of insightful advice. “We’ll see what we can do to help you,” she repeated as each student recounted his womanizing woes.
“Men need to be men and women need to be women,” Blackman counseled them. “I know when I say this I get in trouble with feminists, but I say, ‘ Vive la difference !’ ”
“Women love cologne,” she said. “Get something that’s really attractive to women. Cologne turns women on.”
Right. Never thought of that.
“Wear clean underwear.”
Yup, that should knock’em dead.
“Trim your ear and nose hair.”
(Does Tom Cruise know this stuff?)
And, perhaps the most secret wisdom of all: “Spitting in public is a no-no.”
(Hey, wait, you mean . . .? Wow, no wonder she washes her hair every night now.)
She advised them that if they took care of themselves “as we’d like other people to take care of us, then we really do become our own best friend.” (This may not have been all that helpful to a roomful of guys who are darn sick and tired of being their own best friend.)
But Blackman was not simply a source of helpful dating hints. For a price that, according to Blackman, was no more than the expense of a small gift from Tiffany’s, the men got a trenchant analysis of the opposite sex.
Blackman peppered her lecture with references to studies at Stanford and Harvard and with terms like “rejection-inducing behavior” and “neurolinguistic programming,” all with a straight face.
She referred to a public television documentary on the differences between male and female brains, asking if any students had seen it.
“I may have,” mumbled the only student wearing a tie pulled tight to his neck. A model of proper posture, he had been taking copious notes. He had three spare pens.
“I’m in the process of looking for someone,” he explained later. “I’m just out there trying to find my way.”
And who knows, perhaps Blackman’s boot camp for the romantically backward will help him.
But, as another student, an airline pilot, said during a break in the seminar, the tips are “appropriate for the beginning. But there’s a lot more.”
But the pilot’s skepticism didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for Blackman’s concluding exercise. He joined right in when she told the students to rise, pound their chests Tarzan-style, and bellow: “I’m a strong, sexy, masculine man.”
That should get the next date off to a running start.
