Dating Tips Straight Out of the Cosmos

First off, don’t tell my therapist about this, OK? She’s always urging me to be more proactive about meeting men. So all right, I tried, and it’s not that I’m traumatized by the results or anything clinical like that; it’s just that I really don’t want her to be disappointed in me. She might fire me. It’s been known to happen. This is Hollywood, you know. So I’ll tell her in my own good time, when I’m ready.

You, I’ll tell now. It started like this: I was getting a manicure and pedicure from Tran, my Chinese Vietnamese manicurist who says the reason I don’t meet men is that I’m “too much power woman.” She meditates for three hours every night, so she could be right, but on the other hand, she thinks Chuck Norris is sexy, so who knows?

Anyway, I happened to pick up a copy of Cosmopolitan (no, I didn’t buy it) and stumbled on, as so often happens with Cosmo, exactly the article I needed (no, not the one about how to have a better job, thinner thighs and multiple orgasms on a shoestring budget). Writer Karen Duffy started out breezily, “Has your dating pool grown stagnant?” Stagnant? How about completely dried up? At this point, the Gobi Desert could be compared favorably to my dating pool.

So I took the article to heart, and out of the salon with me in my purse, even though it was the brand-new August issue (someone had already ripped out a recipe for “5-Minute Chocolate Mousse That Will Turn Your Boyfriend Into Your Love Slave,” so I figured, what the hey!). I followed its advice implicitly, by which I mean I took as many of its 30 tips for meeting men as I could cram into my power woman lifestyle and tried them out.

Here’s what happened.

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Get gutsy. Write your name and number on a piece of perfumed paper and at the next party, introduce yourself to the hottest guy there, and slip it in his pocket. No one’s ever accused me of not being gutsy. The morning after, the guy called me and asked me if I could help him get a job as a comedy writer, since he was bored with his current job as a brain surgeon. I told him I would, if he would give me all the money his parents spent to put him through med school. He didn’t call back.

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Take your camera outside in the afternoon and snap candid shots of people eating. Tell them you’re collecting photos for a report on how people spend their lunch hour. Well, I never got as far as the explanation, but I did meet a very nice security guard at Century City, only, unfortunately, he was married with children and grandchildren. (Taking my supposed interest in photography at face value, he showed me their photos while courteously escorting me to the parking garage.)

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Join an art museum--regular members are always invited to special events and lectures. Go solo, sit next to a cute art lover, and impress him with your appreciation of art. Worked like gangbusters. Not only did I meet a cute art lover, I met his lover too, and next week we’re all getting together for the Joan Crawford retrospective.

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Stop the next roller-blader or biker you see and ask his advice on where you can purchase your own set of wheels. Mixed results. The roller-blader was only 14 and had a lightning bolt shaved into the back of his head, which to my mind lowered his “date bait” potential, but thanks to his reconstructive dental work I couldn’t understand most of what he said, except for “hard core” and “thrashin’,” so it didn’t really matter.

The biker was a lot more receptive, but after that one wild night in Reseda, I never heard from him again, and I didn’t get his number.

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Play your radio too loud. Then meet and apologize profusely to neighbors who complain. Easy. I already play my radio too loud. The problem is, I live in Hollywood. Nobody complained. I tried playing my car radio too loud in my convertible, but all that happened was some guys in woolly hats in a Jeep Wrangler turned their boombox up way louder and then cut me off at the intersection with a rude gesture. And I didn’t get their numbers.

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Head to the park and feed the ducks. Offer a stranger a few crusts to toss with you. Instant success! Except that the stranger ate the crusts. But the ducks looked overfed anyway. The stranger, who told me his name was Millennium Bob, had some interesting theories on electricity and how World War II was actually a hoax perpetrated by Steven Spielberg. I could’ve gotten his number, only he didn’t have a phone.

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Hang out at the magazine racks of a big bookstore in your town. Zero in on your favorite magazines and shoot the breeze with people who are flipping through them too. Maybe I made a mistake waiting until after 11 p.m., but I was so busy trying out the other tips I didn’t have time earlier. I knew better than to zero in on Vogue or, god forbid, Cosmo (too obvious), so I snatched up a copy of Toe-Fancier’s Monthly and started flipping. Much to my surprise, I met Eddie Murphy. But when he offered to be a good Samaritan and drive me home, I had to tell him I had my own car. I think he’s married, anyway.

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The next time you ride a plane or a bus, instead of burrowing your face in a book, shoot the breeze with your seatmate. The breeze is one of the few things I can reliably shoot (hoops, no; the breeze, yes). But on the transcontinental hop I quickly booked for this purpose, my seatmate was an elderly Japanese businessman, who said one word during the flight: steak. He was talking to the stewardess. And I didn’t get his number.

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On a crowded bus, pretend you’ve lost your lucky pen. Being stranded on the East Coast provided the ideal opportunity to test out this tip. I left the driving to Greyhound and waited until we were somewhere past Milwaukee to make the announcement. By Tucson, I had met lots of people, including the bus driver, who was threatening to put me off the bus. I had to buy a pen in a souvenir shop, find it and pretend it was my lucky one.

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Get the scoop on some local movers and shakers by becoming a reporter for a newsletter or small newspaper staff. Now, this sounds promising. If there are any movers and shakers out there, I’d appreciate hearing from you (recent photo and telephone number a must), and my therapist will thank you for it (not personally, of course). Please enclose a SASE. No freaks or phonies.