Episode 75 - Ian Coburn: Lunch Is NOT a Date!

Transcript

Chip August: Welcome to Sex, Love and Intimacy. I’m your host Chip August and on today’s show we are talking with comedian and author Ian Coburn. Ian is a, quite an interesting guy. He was actually voted the “Sweetest Guy” in high school, which he says you might as well, like, not have a penis if you’ve got that label. [laughs] But he kind of…somewhere in his mission, path to adulthood, he decided he really needed to learn about women and improve his success. And so Ian has kind of gone through every male phase: he’s been a nice guy, a player, a bad boy, a jerk. He has sort of found his path into the nice guy that he is and still feel like he has a penis. In the end what he found most was a much happier and balanced Ian Coburn. He shares all that misadventure and the lessons he learned in his journey in a best-selling book “God is a Woman: Dating Disasters”. Some people have called it the “new dating bible” and it’s apparently available in several different languages including Russian. [laughs] And certainly the book has earned him recognition as an expert. He’s a columnist in a variety of places including “Lifetime” and “The Bachelor Guy” and…

Ian Coburn: Robin Williams said that the first five minutes that you’re on stage the crowd gives it to you. But then after that you have to prove yourself. It’s the same thing when you meet someone after a show. A woman could come up to you and start talking to you and think that you are just this awesome guy on stage, so witty and so funny but a lot of comedians…a woman could talk to Drew Carey and he would just shut down. I don’t think he’s like that now, but back then, this was years ago…and then the woman loses interest quickly because the confidence and the character is all just a stage thing and you know, that just turned them off after they came up to you and talked to you.
            Men and women communicate very differently. They communicate through their actions over their words. So if what she says and what she does don’t line up, then you want to heed her actions over her words. I’ll give you a really good example. I was out with a woman a couple summers ago. We played some volleyball and before she left I said, “Do not leave without giving me your phone number.” The following Saturday night she says, “I’m on a dating hiatus” and I’m going “uh oh, this isn’t good” because I’m on a “take a woman out for dinner for no reason” hiatus. I pay for the check, she doesn’t offer to pay at all. So now in my mind we’re on a date. Now she says that she’s on a dating hiatus, but let’s pay attention to the actions.
            The first mistake they make is they’re talking to her and not listening to what she’s saying. The second mistake they make is they follow the dating standards, that is that they are just going to try to get her number and leave it at that. The third mistake that guys make is that they don’t know when to call; they go through that agony of “how long do I wait before I call?” The fourth mistake that guys make is that when they go on a date, they are not prepared. So the next mistake, don’t wait until the end of the date to kiss her. A kiss is all about the moment.

Chip August: Welcome to the show Ian Coburn.

Ian Coburn: Thanks for having me. I’m just going to read a little bit here for you guys.

Chip August: That would be terrific! I just love, just that beginning about why you call God as a woman, you know, why…yeah…
Ian Coburn: Sure, sure. “God is a woman. No discussion, no debate, no denial. She is a woman. That people challenge this notion is ridiculous. The proof is all around. If God were a man, he’d be the only one. There would not be another man anywhere. There would be a whole planet full of beautiful women. Blonds, brunettes, green eyes, brown eyes, big breasts, medium breasts (no small breasts), full or toned butts, tight asses – whatever was needed to fulfill his passing fancy. And none of them would have names. That way he wouldn’t have to worry about forgetting them. If God were a man there would be no STDs and women wouldn’t get pregnant. The only time there would be another man is on the rare occasion when God created one so that he could hike up the guy to the top of the mountain to brag. God would point at all the beautiful women and tell him: “See them? I sleep with all of them, whenever I want.” “Bullshit. You do not!” “The blond over there rolled me all night long. The redhead woke me up with a hummer while the blond was still sleeping beside me. And you know what? I never have to wear a condom. Close your mouth.” Then God would kill the guy, hike down the mountain, and bang a brunette. Yup, God is a woman, no doubt about it.”

[laughs]

Chip August: Ohhkay.

Ian Coburn: The debate is over.

Chip August: Yeah, I got it. You know, speaking as a guy who is part dog, I completely, totally, utterly understand it. So tell me, you’re a comedian, why did you write a book about…and not really a book about dating, a book about all the ways you didn’t score.

Ian Coburn: I though that was the best way to help guys that were in a similar situation to me. There’s really a lot of guys out there, which I really didn’t realize. I thought that everybody went through the same growth pattern that I went through. You know, something kind of similar, in my case, I was voted “Sweetest Guy”. I grew up with a mother and two sisters and father never around, you know divorced. Mom taught us all that women hated sex. You know, so…

Chip August: That’s useful!

Ian Coburn: [laughs] A little misinformation there. And, but that was her way of making sure she didn’t have like, six little grandkids running around you know.

Chip August: Before you were twenty.

Ian Coburn: Right, exactly. So what happened is, I went through this learning process. It started in college and really as I started doing comedy at age 18 and started this process and learned a lot of things: learned how to talk to women, learned a lot more about women what they like, learned how to read them. Just a lot of different things. Learned about myself. I thought everyone went through this process. And when I stopped doing comedy, because I was the road warrior, I was on the road, you know one time 106 weeks straight…

Chip August: Oh!

Ian Coburn: So I didn’t really have the, my basis for everything was comedy. It was my life, it was how I met women, it was my job; I mean everything. And when I got off the road and I moved to a neighbourhood in Chicago called Lincoln Park which is just a very young area, a lot of 20, 30-year-olds here, very hopping all the time. You won’t find another city that has such a saturation of young people in one area. And I was shocked to learn that so many guys were horrible with women, women complained all the time. And I thought, you know, I had a lot of people say, you should write a book because you’re always giving advice and I thought, I’m going to do that. And I’m going to talk about…you get a lot of books on, oh this is what you should do, no one really talks about where they got this information from and how did you come up with this and how does it work? I thought it would be better and more entertaining if I wrote a book of all my flops and various disasters. And then people could see, oh that’s how he came up with the idea and that’s why it works. And a lot of people have read it, have then e-mailed me and said, “I’ve had that same kind of thing happen.” So they can relate to it more too.

Chip August: Um hmm. So is it humor or is it self-help?

Ian Coburn: It’s both. Which is why it’s with a small publisher and not a big one. [laughs]

Chip August: [laughs] Right, because it’s not neatly packaged.

Ian Coburn: Yeah, they’re like “wait a minute.” I had a big publisher who wanted to pick it up, but they wanted to turn it into just a really rude kind of pick-up guide.

Chip August: Right.

Ian Coburn: And I thought that would miss the whole point of the book and kind of the story and the growth, you know? Because I was a jerk for a while and the message I want to get to people is that being a jerk is not necessarily the best thing. How people use the information, that’s up to them. [laughs]

Chip August: OK, now you say you were a jerk.  And there’s a lot of different definitions of what a male jerk is. What do you mean when you say you were a jerk?

Ian Coburn: Well for me, for my case I would say, I always put my own needs and wants ahead of the woman’s. And not just women, people in general. I did it for a couple of years and that was when I was at the peak of my jerk status.

Chip August: Um, hmm. It’s sort of that total obsession with self…

Ian Coburn: It’s all about me, baby!

Chip August: All about…right, exactly! [laughs] Just, just for the record, I don’t actually think that you’re being a jerk, I just think that you’re being a child. [laughs]

Ian Coburn: Yeah, that could be. That could be a better way of putting it. For me it was a jerk, you know, I’d rather think of myself as a jerk than a child.

Chip August: OK [laughs] I got it. But, you know, it is that, you don’t expect your kids, you don’t expect your kids to have like a big compassion for what’s going on for their parents. But…

Ian Coburn: Right.

Chip August:… and I just notice that a lot of men don’t really grow out of that. They don’t, they do stay what you would call a jerk. You know, they kind of…OK, so somewhere in here…OK, so we want to clear some misconceptions first, you headlined, you opened for some pretty big names. This is, I’m pretty clear, at some point in your career, women must have just approached you because you seem famous.

Ian Coburn: Well you do have that happen. It’s a perk of being a comedian. But just because you have it happen, doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to do anything. I’ll give you an example. Robin Williams said that the first five minutes that you’re on stage, they give it to you if you’re a big name. The crowd gives it to you. But then after that you have to prove yourself. It’s the same thing when you meet someone after the show. A woman can come up to you and starting talking to you and think that you are just this awesome guy that you were on stage and so funny and so witty. But a lot of comedians…you know, Drew Carey was one of them. A woman could talk to Drew Carey when I worked with him and he would just shut down. I don’t think he’s like that now, but back then, this was years ago, he’d kind of fidget and be nervous, that kind of thing and a lot of comedians were like that. So, and then the woman loses interest quickly because the confidence and the character is all just a stage thing and that just turned them off after they came up to you and talked to you.
            You also meet a very specific kind of woman. You meet the woman that I call “Trixy”.  And to me, a Trixy is someone who her friend’s opinions mean more to her than her own.

Chip August: Right.

Ian Coburn: So she’s the one who like, you know, goes to the bathroom in groups, that kind of thing. Who’s got the brain group right now? OK, let’s just talk to her, OK? And you tend to meet that kind of woman more as opposed to the girl-next-door type who tends to be more shy and doesn’t want to approach the comedian. So, it has some perks, but it also has some disadvantages. Because most guys will tell you, they’d rather meet the girl-next-door.

Chip August: Well in, I think there’s a lot in your book about, you don’t exactly use these words but, there’s a lot in your book about just, like listening, you know? [laughs] Actually…

Ian Coburn: Oh yeah.

Chip August: That there’s a, you know, you have to actually pay attention to what the person’s communicating to you, a person who just wants to know you because you’re famous, just wants to know you because you’re famous.

Ian Coburn: Yeah, it’s, it does happen and you do need to pay attention and listen and respond. That’s a big thing. A lot of guys don’t get that because, and I used to be one, I was so nervous thinking about what I was going to say next that I’m not listening to anything she’s saying. Because I’m thinking, OK, what am I going to say next and how’s it going to be funny, how’s it going to be like this, and so I would do that. But you’re right, when, that is a real perk because one of the hardest things to do is break the ice. And if the ice is already broken because they feel like they’ve known you, that’s what it is, they feel like they know you from being onstage for 15-20 minutes…

Chip August: Right.

Ian Coburn: …and that’s who you are. And in my case, a lot of times it was. But, you know, that ice is already broken. And that, that is a big advantage because you don’t have to come up with that opener, that witty thing. You do have that, where they feel like they’ve just had a 20 minute conversation with you, even though they didn’t.

Chip August: Right. They got a glimpse of you at least. Now you have some definite opinions about pick-up lines.

Ian Coburn: I do. I’m not big on them. [laughs] I don’t like them at all.

Chip August: Good.

Ian Coburn: Yeah, the pick-up lines is just, that, to me that, what happens with a lot of people, a lot of guys, especially now because there’s a lot of advice out there for guys. A lot of it is on the Internet. But…

Chip August: And a lot of it’s junk.

Ian Coburn: It is, a lot, most of it’s bad. It’s, it’s more about the guy who is giving the advice sounding cool and trying to be the cool guy he wasn’t in high school. And I understand that because for a while I wanted to be that guy, but you want to move past it. But what it is, is when you get comfortable with lines, you’re not getting comfortable with women, you’re getting comfortable with your game. And you want to be comfortable with women and those are two very different things. So want I like to do is find the common denominator. That’s what I call it. There’s always something that you’re going to have in common with someone. Something in the room, something that happened, something that you both see and you use that to, to get the conversation going. For example I’m a big Eagles fan, even though I live in Chicago, raised here. When I was seven, I decided that the Philadelphia Eagles had the best logo on their helmet…

Chip August: Absolutely.

Ian Coburn: Yeah, so I’m glad you agree! You’re a fan!

Chip August: No, I’m just, I’m a, an NHL Sharks fan because I love the shark breaking the hockey stick. I understand this loyalty to logo.

Ian Coburn: It’s just as good a reason as any other. And even better than I was born here. Yeah so I was saying, I’ll be going to an Eagle’s game this Sunday, obviously we’re playing the Giants. And that right there is my common denominator. Anybody at that bar I can have a conversation with just because we have that in common. We’re here in Chicago and we’re Eagle’s fans. So there’s always something. And even when worse comes to worst, and people can use this, but not in Chicago [laughs]; one thing I’ve done and I haven’t had to do this in a long, long time but one thing you can do is say something like, “Are you out celebrating a good night (like on a Friday or a Saturday) or are you out celebrating a good week or are you out trying to forget a bad one?” And that’s something that everyone has in common because you’re all out drinking now. Once you say it once or twice it becomes a line, you know.

Chip August: Right.

Ian Coburn: But that at least is one, it’s not intrusive and it doesn’t sound stupid.

Chip August: Well I get that you’re not really saying it as a line; you’re saying, “Look, here’s a way you can get somebody to start talking about themselves.”

Ian Coburn: Exactly. It’s a conversational…

Chip August: Right. We’re going to pause here for a moment here. We’re going to take a short break to support our sponsors and listeners we would appreciate it if you would listen to these ads. The ads are created by my sponsors of my show, they help me bring my work to you and obviously if you can support the sponsors that helps them support me. So I’d really appreciate it. I actually get credit for anything that you buy. So please listen to the sponsors. Also, you might want to take a look at the episode page at personalifemedia.com, where you will find several really good offers and some dollars off deals on all kinds of things and I’d really appreciate it if you would support the sponsors while they support us. This is Chip August, you’re listening to Sex, Love and Intimacy and we’ll be right back.

[Commercial Break]

Chip August: Welcome back to Sex, Love and Intimacy. We’re talking to Ian and we’re talking about dating disasters. Well, we’re not really talking about the disasters but we’re talking about Ian’s book, “God is a Woman: Dating Disasters”. When we left we were talking a little bit about pick-up lines and opening lines. You, you have some things to say about the distinction between when you listen to the words and when you listen to the action that I thought was pretty interesting.

Ian Coburn: Absolutely. One of the worst things and probably why I was voted “Sweetest Guy” and nice guys always finish last is that men and women communicate very differently. And what, what women do is, they communicate through their actions over their words. So if what she says and what she does don’t line up, then you want to heed her actions over her words. And what happens is, a lot of these nice guys, we go, well, hey she said this and that means that’s what she means and we follow that to a “t” and then we end up getting burned later.
         I’ll give you a really good example. I was out with a woman a couple summers ago and it was the last time I’ve had a woman do anything like this. I met her on the beach and we played some volleyball and before she left I said to her, very clearly I said, “Do not leave without giving me your number.” And we’re having a good time, obviously I’m interested, I was very clear what my interest was. We went out the following Saturday night and the first thing she says, we go out to dinner and you know, the first thing she says, “Just so you know, I’m on a dating hiatus. I’m not looking to date anyone.” And I’m going, uh oh, this isn’t good because I’m on a “take a woman out to dinner for no reason” hiatus.

Chip August: Right [laughs]

Ian Coburn: So this isn’t going to line up well. So I paid attention, we have a conversation, we have dinner, check comes, I pay for the check, she doesn’t offer to pay at all. So now in my mind we’re on a date. Now she says that she’s on a dating hiatus, but let’s pay attention to the actions. She knows that I’m interested because of the way I asked for her number. She agrees to go out with me, we have this dinner, I pay for everything, she doesn’t offer to pay. So either clearly she’s not on a dating hiatus or she sucks at it.

Chip August: [laughs]

Ian Coburn: So I, I don’t know, I walked her home and on the way home I made a move and then two weeks later we were officially dating. Now, see, a lot of nice guys would have been like: OK, I paid for the dinner, and said, “Well if you change your mind, if anything changes let me know” and that would have been it. And I went through that a lot in college. A lot of times I’d go out with someone and they’d say, “Well I’m really too busy to date anyone right now and I just don’t have the time to go on a second date” or blah blah blah and a later or even a week or two later, I’d see them going crazy with some guy. And I ask them when I have a chance, “Hey I thought you weren’t dating anyone?” and not only are they dating the guy, but they changed their whole schedule so they could be in the same classes and you know [laughs] walk together to…no one ever changed their schedule for me! It was because I was because I was paying attention to the woman’s words over her actions.
          And for women it’s the same thing, but it’s the opposite. I have a lot of women who will write in to me and complain: “Hey I met this guy. He said when I met him that he wasn’t really interested in dating at this time but then he asked for my number a little later. We went to dinner a couple times and you know, we started to sleep together and date and then of course I asked him where this was going. Then he dumped me and he vanished and I’m so hurt. I don’t know how this happened.” Well, it’s the same thing. With a guy it’s the opposite: it’s “pay attention to the words over the actions”. What you told that guy when he said, “Hey I’m not interested in dating” but later asked for your number, and you gave it to him, you just told him in his mind that you’re OK with just hooking up.

Chip August: Right.

Ian Coburn: You know? So that’s where we really fall apart and have a lot of these problems between each other and you have to kind of, you know, understand and yourself in the other shoes and kind of understand how the other side communicates and communicate in that way to in some extent so that you at least read it so that you can be, you know, have a more successful dating life.

Chip August: Now I’m a parent of a teenage girl so I want to make sure…

Ian Coburn: Uh oh! [laughs]

Chip August: No, it’s OK we actually have great conversations! She’s pretty open and she’s pretty self-revealing and…

Ian Coburn: Are most of them in person or in texts? [laughs] I’m just wondering.

Chip August: No, no we spend a lot of time IMing and texting too, yeah but [laughs] that’s OK. You’ve got to be a part of this century. You’ll always be living in that century. But when I hear you say that, I’m afraid some guys are going to hear the old “women say no but they mean yes”. And I just noticed that advice that I just heard you say sounds really good for like first and second and third dates but sounds like really bad advice for having sex with somebody.

Ian Coburn: Yeah that’s not intended for, for when you’re having sex.

Chip August: OK. I just want that said out loud because…

Ian Coburn: Yeah. Oh no, absolutely not. That is, we were talking about reading people we’re not talking about in the bedroom, what’s going on, that kind of thing. So we’re just, we’re talking about relating and communication and conversation. We’re not talking…once you get into sex and other things you’re talking about different things and I was….
Chip August: Well, it’s a more complicated communication.

Ian Coburn: Yeah, it is. It gets a lot more complicated and you need to…you’ll know when a woman is not interested and doesn’t want to further into it and she’ll state it. So…

Chip August: Well my, my…I think every guy ought to, every person that’s being sexual, ought to take on…you know, like when a person says ‘no’, believe their ‘no’ in that moment…

Ian Coburn: Right, right.

Chip August: You’re welcome to talk about it but when they say ‘no’, stop.

Ian Coburn: You bring up a really good point because there’s a story I tell in the book where I almost date rape someone. And again the point of the book is to be honest and give this information. And what happened is, I met a woman, very attractive woman, I met her at a bar one night. We ended up coming back to my place. We had both had a good amount to drink and I was in my, oh probably like 23, 24 something like that at the time. And we wound up back at my place, things start to progress and she pretty much starts to fall asleep. And she’s lying there naked. Very attractive. And you know, we’re both naked and she kind of dozes off and I’m like what’s going to happen here, and she’s kind of murmuring. I stop and I said, “Do you want me?” and she said, “Yeah.” But I stopped even though she said yes because this isn’t right. And the other thing is, I wasn’t going to get any pleasure out of it.

Chip August: Right, exactly. Having sex with somebody who is asleep is not exactly high points.

Ian Coburn: [laughs] Exactly, I’ve checked that off the list, whoo! No, not at all. But it was very tempting. And I could realize that if I was younger, had I been 17, 18, 19 years old, I might have. Because I had more experience and I realized and I thought, “Is this date rape?” and for the first time…because well all think that date rape is a situation where a guy deliberately intends to go out and try and have something happen if the woman doesn’t want to have happen or uses a drug or whatever. But that’s not necessarily the case in every situation. That was the first time where I could see, wow, I could see how a guy could be in this situation and have sex with someone and she doesn’t really have the ability to say yes and at the same time I’ve had a lot to drink and I’m not really using the best judgement. So you’re best thing you can do, especially if you’re younger, you know, and I followed this ever since then, is once you’ve had a certain amount to drink, once the woman’s had a certain amount to drink, don’t bring them home, don’t go home with them.

Chip August: Exactly right.

Ian Coburn: That’s what you do, you stay out of that situation. Because I’m lying there naked and she’s naked and I have to tell you it was extremely tempting. So you’re best just to stay out of that scenario.

Chip August: [laughs] OK so I want to ask you, it’s sort of a hardball question here: it seems like, in the book, success is having sex with someone, failure is not – is this just a score book for guys, you know?

Ian Coburn: No. I mean there are at times. And not about how to score, but at times it seems like that’s what it’s about. Because that’s what I was going for, that’s what I was going through. That’s my learning, growth and development. And I’m trying to show people how you can start off as the sweetest guy and… they said that if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water it would jump out, OK? But if you take that same frog and put it in a pot of regular water and slowly turn the burner up, the frog will cook itself, it won’t try to get out.

Chip August: Right.

Ian Coburn: It doesn’t realize the changes. And that’s what was happening to me. I started off the sweetest guy, I went out there, I made a deliberate point of going “I need to get better with women” , I need to communicate better because I’m frustrated. And I’ve had women e-mail me or tell me that, you know, I can see that after reading your book, the role that we play sometimes in some of the stuff. You know because some of the changes I was making, some of the things I was doing was to, was going, “OK I need to understand why this woman is doing this and I need to do this as a countermove and I need to realize that she’s saying this, but I need to read it as this” – it can get confusing. So for a while there I was after sex; that was a goal. And I was trying to, when I first, the first person I slept with, because I graduated college a virgin –

Chip August: Wow.

Ian Coburn: The first person I slept with I wanted to, I wanted to be someone I dated, I wanted to be someone special, all that. And then I realized as I was doing comedy that wasn’t in the cards. I mean who do you date who says, “Hey, had a really good time, I’ll see you in 22 weeks.”

Chip August: [laughs] Next time my tour takes me to town.

Ian Coburn: Exactly. It just doesn’t work. So then I went down a notch to I just want it to be someone who I feel she’s really cool, I feel that we would date, had we had the opportunity. And one of the stories I tell in the book is: I met this woman and basically, to make a long story short, I got cock-blocked by a guy who was her friend but knew her for like three or four years and never had the balls to make a move on her and tell her. And he totally screwed it up for me, I mean he tricked me. He did it, he did a really good job of it and we ended up missing out on something that could have been very special for both of us, so in my mind he’s not a very good friend.
          And then after that I kind of went on this rampage against guys who were friends. They were, it’s always funny, the grass is always greener. For them it’s like wow, he’s a comedian, he can talk to them so easily, she’s interested in him. And for me, I’m going, wow, he’s so lucky because he could date her because he lives here, I can’t. you know so it’s really, the grass is always greener on the other side is really truthful. And so I did go on a bit of this rampage, and then I was like, well, the woman I’m going to sleep with, the first woman I’m going to sleep with, she’s going to be someone who I’m attracted to and we’ll just see what happens. And I don’t even remember her name. I think, I think it was Rachel but I’m not 100% sure. How many guys don’t remember the name of the first woman they slept with?

Chip August: Not too many actually.

Ian Coburn: You know? But I was in my 20’s and it just, it’s weird how that happens.

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Chip August: Welcome back to Sex, Love and Intimacy, I’m talking to Ian Coburn. We’re talking about his book “God is a Woman: Dating Disasters” and we’ve been talking about dating and what we’re learning. What would you say the top five mistakes that guys make when they meet a woman?

Ian Coburn: Oh wow, only five.

Chip August: Well you could do seven, you could do three. Whatever, pick a number.

Ian Coburn: I would say the first mistake they make is not listening. You know they start talking to her, they’re not listening to her, to what she’s saying. The second mistake they make is they follow the dating standards and that is that they’re just going to try and get her number and leave it at that. I would say that when you meet someone you want to stand out. You don’t know, she could meet four or five guys in the same night she meets you. So what you want to do instead of getting her number, ask her a question in the conversation. You know, if she mentions her favourite Italian restaurant, say you’ve heard that, you know, a little while later you might say, hey I’ve heard that restaurant’s really good. I haven’t been to an Italian restaurant in a long time, why don’t we go there some time next week? And then you get her number and now you have a reason to call.    
     So the third mistake that guys make is that they don’t know when to call. They go through that agony of, how long do I have to wait before I call? The standard seems to be five days. You’re supposed to wait five days to build interest, get her interested and all this. Now you have a reason to call so you don’t have to worry about that.
       The fourth mistake that guys make is when they go on a date, they are not prepared. A date is all about building momentum and setting the tone and that’s what’s going to make it fun. And if you show up and you say, OK, I’m going to wait until the date, you’re going to stop and get cash at a cash station. You get to the place you’re at, you don’t realize parking is bad in that neighbourhood, you have nowhere to park, you have to drive around for twenty-five minutes looking for a parking spot. All these things take away from the momentum. So be prepared. I’ve called restaurants ahead to make sure there’s not some kind of lodge meeting or some stupid thing. The last thing you want to do is go to some restaurant and turn out it’s the drunken 40, 50 year-old guy, there’s eighty of them [laughs].
       The next mistake I would say, I forget what number we’re on…

Chip August: Well this is probably the fifth one, yeah.

Ian Coburn: Fifth, OK. I would say that, don’t wait until the end of the date to kiss her. A kiss is all about the moment and if you wait to the end of the date, there’s all this tension and all these issues and it may not be the right time. Maybe she steps into a big puddle right before you go to make your move – it’s just, kiss in the moment. And if you don’t feel the moment, don’t kiss her. I mean, you don’t have to kiss on a date. It might not be the right person for you and that’s OK. But try and kiss in the moment. You tend, you’ll know when she feels that you feel it. She feels it, that’s when you want to kiss her and that changes everything. And then another good thing is to set up the next date when you are on the current one so no one has the agony of ‘is he going to call, I don’t know, how long do I wait before I call?’ I think those are some basic mistakes.

Chip August: Cool. That kissing thing, by the way, I have to say I coach this, clients all the time. If the two of you, as you start the date, you look at her and she just looks so beautiful and she’s looking at you and it just looks so sweet, start the date with a kiss. You know, it breaks a whole lot of tension and it answers a question really fast.

Ian Coburn: Yeah! Yeah, yeah absolutely. That’s good, that great advice.

Chip August: So what are the top five mistakes women make when they meet a guy.

Ian Coburn: Well, I would say that women, say that they do not, they’re not realizing that the guy is communicating through his words over his actions. I’d say the second thing is that they look to their friends too quickly to see what their friends think. OK, I mean, if you’re talking to a guy for 15 minutes and your friends haven’t talked to them, how can they have any idea about this guy.

Chip August: Right, right. If you go back and say “Is he cute or not?” they’re not really, they don’t know shit about him.

Ian Coburn: I don’t like his shoes. You know, really? OK, the third thing is to realize that we are not our friends. A lot of times women seem to rate guys more based on who his friends are that he’s with. And just because of who we’re hanging out with, that’s not who we are. OK, so if someone is a loudmouth or someone is kind of dorky, that doesn’t mean that we’re big Star Trek fans or whatever.

Chip August: Although I would say to men and women is that you are going to be judged a little by the company you keep. If you are hanging around men, you know, if you are hanging around with a bunch of rowdies that are saying rude things to people that come into the bar, and making noise and stuff, you’re probably going to be perceived as a rowdy who does those things. Women, if you are hanging around with a bunch of women that are completely just dissing everyone around and you’re going to be perceived as somebody who disses, so…

Ian Coburn: Sure, absolutely. And that’s stupid.

Chip August: Yeah, exactly.

Ian Coburn: That’s dumb but if that’s not necessarily the scenario…

Chip August: Right, but, if there’s a range, don’t assume you know something about the person just by seeing the friends.

Ian Coburn: Right. We’re not talking about the extreme cases necessarily. The other thing is that when you, when you’re meeting a guy, realize that other guys are watching you, OK? Because a lot of times what will happen is, women will be rude to one guy because they are not interested in him. And then that guy that they’re interested in never comes over and approaches them. And they can’t figure out why. Well he just saw you be rude to some other guy. And now he, even if he still would talk to you and he’s not nervous about that but he might go, well she seems like you know, a jerk and I don’t, I’m not going to talk to her. That guy might seem like a nice guy and all he did was come over and say “Hey how are you” and she was kind of rude to him. I’m not going to go over. So remember that you’re not in a vacuum, other people are watching and if a guy is interested in you, he’s probably going to watch you for a little bit before he comes over to see if you’re with another guy and to build up his confidence a little bit before he approaches.
       And I would say the last, the fifth mistake I see women make is they hold guys accountable for where they meet them. I, it’s not, you know, I can’t help that I met you in a bar. So you really need to be careful about developing weird dating rules, like I won’t go out, I won’t give any guy I met in a bar my number. Even though you talked to them for twenty minutes, had a good conversation, then you go home and get on the Internet, e-mail a guy two times and – give me your number! And it’s like wait a minute, you don’t know anything about that guy, you don’t know what he looks like, you don’t know nothing. So just be careful about setting up just bizarre dating rules and holding guys accountable for where they meet them.

Chip August: That’s great. These are all great. Listen, we’re coming to the end of the show here so there’s a few things. One is that people wanted to get in touch with you, they wanted to learn more about your book or just learn more about you: is there a link, is there somewhere they can reach you?

Ian Coburn: Sure. They can go to, I have a couple of different sites they can go to lunchisnotadate.com, that’s my column, that will get you to the site, also godisawoman.net and there’s also, they can e-mail at [email protected] It’s just my name. But they can get all those things if they just go to lunchisnotadate.com.

Chip August: And listeners, as usual, we will put that link with the episode page on the Personal Life Media Network, if you don’t remember, you don’t have a pen handy, don’t worry about it, just go to personallifemedia.com, look for Sex, Love and Intimacy and look for Ian Coburn and you will find all this information. While you’re there, please feel free if you’d like to send me some feedback, you know, some comments, if you have suggestions for guests for the show, I’m always interested. Just send it to [email protected]. I do read all of the mail that comes in. Ian, we talked about this a little earlier, we like to end the show with an exercise, something that people can do at home that might improve the sex, love and intimacy in their life and you said you thought you had something in mind.

Ian Coburn: Yeah I would say that really the big thing you can do is talk to people. I mean when you’re out and about. This isn’t really something you can do at home but again we’re talking…

Chip August: This qualifies.

Ian Coburn: Yeah, OK, the target that I’m talking about tends to be people a little too shy or whatever. You need talk to people and start very simple. When you’re walking down the street, and I shouldn’t say talk, it’s communicate, smile at someone and see if they smile back. Chances are they will. You don’t have to say anything but you start working on these little things. And I do it when I go to, and I do it with men and women, when I go to a Walgreen’s on the corner, I may joke with the cashier. You know, they used to have those little rats that danced up there, those little ninja hamsters or whatever they were, and I may comment, I’m just bored, I may just comment and say, “I miss those little ninja rats, when are you going to have like the singing fish, the ninja rats – I know you’re bored because you don’t have anything up here. And they’re like, “Oh my God, I don’t want anything up here singing, dancing…

Chip August: [laughs]

Ian Coburn: You know, get a little conversation going and the only way you can do this is to get out there and throw the pitch and start. The other day I was walking and there were a couple of women standing near a puddle and they were a lesbian couple actually and I wasn’t interested in anyone and I didn’t want anything to happen but I’m bored, I wanted to have a conversation and I just said, “OK, which one of you is going to carry me over this puddle, somebody has to!” They laughed and we started talking a little bit. Turns out one of them played volleyball; I play a lot of volleyball. I gave her my info and now she’s going to be playing volleyball with us. So you have to do these things and I nervous because now-a-days so many people are doing everything online. You know I’m going to meet online, I’m going to date online and do all these things online. You still have to develop these skills to have a good sex life and to have a good dating life and if you start to do everything online you’re not developing those skills. So please go out there, say hi to people, say how are you doing. Then, as you do that, you get more used to it, you can take it a little further, little further, little further and before you know it you’ll be able to talk up a storm and have a good conversation. Trust me, I was voted “Sweetest Guy”, I couldn’t talk to a woman to save my life. Now I’m great at it, I don’t have any problems, so really, if I can do it, anyone can.

Chip August: I like to tell people: OK so talk to five people that you’ve never talked to before every single day.

Ian Coburn: There you go.

Chip August: And that’s, you know, because people don’t know, how much, how do I do this? Here’s an easy, simple thing: Start a conversation with five people you’ve never had a conversation with before. It could be someone you have seen, but if you’ve never had a conversation with them start a conversation and do it every single day. And my experience is by the end of the month not only are you good at doing it, but you also have a lot of friends you didn’t know you had.

Ian Coburn: Yeah exactly. And they’ll tell people they know and…yeah it’s really, it’s really amazing.

Chip August: Well Ian Coburn I’ve enjoyed talking to you. I think you’ve been a really great guest, thank you for taking the time to be on the show.

Ian Coburn: Oh thanks for having me, it was a lot of fun.

Chip August: And listeners thank you for joining us again, I really appreciate your support. This brings us to the end of another episode of Sex, Love and Intimacy. Thanks for listening and please listen in again.