No Shirt, No Service

The Millionaire Matchmaker was quite an experience. As the cliche goes, "It's not the things you have done that you regret, it's the things that you did not do".

I have to say I have mixed feelings on Patti's methods and even more so about my experience in general with a woman setting me up with other women. I have my own theories on matchmaking and have found that, given my tastes in women, that a woman who sets me up with a friend rarely understands what I or other men are attracted to.Even more so I think Patti is faced with a real challenge. Successful men, for good or bad, are generally pretty confident and capable and are not always open to someone like Patti coming at them with strong opinions. For instance, I heard Patty talk a lot about various men on the show with phrases like, "he needs to grow up" or, "he needs to not worry so much about looks." It seems to me that as long as a man is not looking for something illegal or unethical who cares what he is attracted to. If a guy who looks like Danny DeVito wants a woman who looks like Pamela Anderson why does Patti want to psychoanalyze him? It struck me that Patti placed a lot of judgment on what I, German and Peter wanted. As an amateur evolutionary biologist, I think it's a give that men are a bit more primal than women. I feel there is no good or bad to this tendency. In fact you could argue that this is how nature designed men and it's relatively pointless to fight this propensity.

I agree that it is wise to set expectations and tell a man that it might be hard to find a match if he is too strict with his requirements. But then again isn't that why a man would hire a matchmaker and spend money? For the matchmaker to find that elusive match that the man has not been able to find on this own?

An example where I disagreed with Patti was when, in our post-date interview Patti tried to scold German and me for greeting our double dates with our shirts off. It wasn't something we had planned but had just spontaneously happened. German's date was super late, so while we were waiting upstairs in the heat we had taken off our shirts. When the girls finally pulled up in the limo we put on our blazers with no shirt underneath and rushed downstairs to greet them. Obviously, this was supposed to be funny. Plus it was definitely a good litmus test for the girls since German and I like women who are fun and a bit goofy.My date, Erin, didn't find it that funny and this was part of why Patti was critiquing our little prank. But my reply was, "Patti, then find me a girl that would think that was funny." I don't feel like changing every little part of my personality to accommodate someone else's random preferences. I believe in natural relationships, i.e., be yourself and see if the girl finds you attractive in spite of your idiosyncrasies.

I also have to say that I was not really big on the way we met the girls. I'm more of complex, deep personality and sticking me on a boat with 30 girls and chit chatting is never going to be a way that I can figure out who I like. German loves to bounce around and be the center of attention so it was more his style. I am more interested in focusing on one person and having a conversation to see if there is a real mental connection. Obviously having two minutes per girl is not really going to give me a chance to do that.

Erin was cute and was one of the only girls I had time to talk to for more than a minute. She mentioned that she reads a lot and I found her quite well read so I ended up picking her for my date.

The date itself was fun. Once we got past the whole "no shirts" joke, Erin was a great date. She went along with the whole thing and it was fun dancing. But I don't think there was ever really a love vibe. It was more of just a fun, social date which suited me just fine because I'm not sure anyone on the boat really matched who I was looking for. I generally go for either the edgy girls with tattoos or the super intellectual girl like in Good Will Hunting (or better yet, edgy and intellectual.)The screening process to me should have been a bit different. Also forget the clothing makeover. I was not too excited about my Abercrombie and Fitch outfit on the boat!

Personally, I doubt I would hire Patti again to match me up. But as a venture capitalist it did reinforce the idea I had in the past to start my own matchmaking business -- a service for men by men. This thought started years ago when a friend who is an astrophysicist told me he had done his own mathematic calculations in finding the number of soul mates each person has. By his analysis, he says everyone has approximately 70 soulmates across the world. The point is not the number 70 but that there are multiple soulmates for every person. If he was correct then what are the odds that even one of these 70 soulmates lives in my hometown Los Angeles? If you do not meet people outside your normal social circle or better yet throughout the country and the entire world then you are likely missing out on numerous connections and exposure to your best match.

As for my dating status, I am currently single. German and I are still hoping to find our dream girls, preferably sisters or best friends. We've been in relationships before where our girlfriends didn't get along, which can be a bit awkward, since German and I hang out a lot. We figured that dating sisters or best friends would solve that dilemma. I do think that Patti has a great heart. She has a very different technique and probably a good niche. She would probably be very good at dealing with older, divorced men who are getting back into the dating world after a twenty year hiatus. She would be a strong and determined coach.

Thanks, Bravo. It was an interesting experiment on my part!

-Tai