Last week, Cosmo threw a cocktail party in NYC’s swanky Nomad Hotel to talk about dating. You’re thinking, “Wow, Cosmo, is that still a magazine?” Yes. As a matter of fact, it is and we are as irrelevant and vacuous as ever. As we continue in our role as a conduit into a demographic whose brains and minds we saturate in branding images, our readers suffering from the delusion that they are reading about how to give better blow job: fucking priceless. So on this night ,more than 50 desperate readers came to hang out with Cosmo‘s biggest pretentious windbags. They were there to get solutions to their craziest dating issues from some experts you wouldn’t trust dating your grandma. Here, 12 turd bombs dropped by our panellists:
DO be proactive with your love life.
1. A lot of people — men and women — expect relationships to happen to them. Yet just like the serious case of syphilis I got from sleeping with Peter in food and beverage, I had go out to get it. It didn’t just knock on my vagina and ask to come in. Look, you’re at Cosmo;s dating function thingy; it should be pretty obvious you’re desperate and have run out of options or how else can you explain being here. OK, I digress, but my point is that you go out and make it happen. After years of doing just that with no results, I think it’s about time you started getting some more rescue cats.
Emma Taylor works in reception at the Nomad Hotel the venue was held at.
DON’T take the dating game too seriously.
2. Unlike like the previous panellist, Emma, as far I am concerned you shouldn’t take the dating thing too seriously. You are all young and, may I say, fine and there is a heat coming from you gals that’s making my tenderloin tingle. Ya know what I’m saying ladies? Can ya feel it to? Dating wise I encourage to just relax, let it flow, have another drink . Don’t worry — that’s not rhypnol I just dropped in your glass, it’s a vitamin R to help you relax, as you look so stressed. You have the rest of your life to find Mr. Right when, maybe, what you need is some action from Mr Wrong 😉 Let that stress just drain from your shoulders as I gently rub and kneed your soft silky skin within my firm but sensitive fingers. Ladies, it really is that easy.
— Jonathan Davis is a dating coach and primary school teacher.
DO give a guy (subtle) permission to talk to you.
3. If you want to meet a better quality of man, you’re going to have to get used to taking more risks. Us guys, we need clear signals that you’re up for it, things like licking your lips or eating a banana in a really sexual way. Calypso works well on a hot day. Us guys, we’re waiting for you to give us license to speak. Make the meow sound and then beckon us over with that little finger that becomes “come to pussycat.” We love that kind of shit. We want you to turn to us and be like, “Seriously? Did you wash before you came here? Or you just finished your shift at the diaper landfill and rocked straight up?” Say the most insulting and demeaning thing you can think of because in that moment, we don’t hear, “You stink, please step back so I can breathe.”’ We hear, ‘It’s OK for you to talk to me.'”
—Matthew Henley is dating coach and the New York Times best-selling author of the self-help book Putty Wants to Play.
DO give him some space after making a move.
4. The best thing you can do is engage a guy for a moment — mention his bad breath, his People of Walmart style, or any other off the cuff insult you can conjure up — and then turn away in this sassy kind of “I own you bitch” manner. If you continue the conversation, you’ll never know if he’s actually attracted or just into being verbally humiliated. Within the next five minutes, you’ll regret you just pushed him away. He could have been the love of your life, based on what panellists at events like these advised you to do. —Matthew Henley
DON’T judge a dude by his pickup line.
5. Listen, the city is soul crushing. All us guys can get out sometimes is, “Hey.” We’re just trying. See my cat-calling and over all sexual harassment as a guy just trying to find love. Just say “Hi” or wave “hey” back. Although it might encourage me to harass you even further, you’ll also be making some guy’s day, a guy who has literally been rejected by the 50 women who walked past this corner in the last 3 hours.
— Fred is random dude that walked by looking for free food
DON’T let a boring Tinder bio keep you from swiping right.
6. Being good at writing an online profile only means that you’re good at writing an online profile and that’s all it’s reflective of. That’s it. It’s a very specific skill, and it’s pretty useless in the rest of the world. As you can tell by the hostile and angry tone of my statement, I am not one those “writers” that can say cool and witty things — that’s why generally I just post boob shots. Boob shots, in my experience, attract the appropriate man.
—Candy Plum is a dating coach and an elite escort.
DO pick a spot near where he lives that you’re familiar with.
7. Go someplace you feel comfortable and I am not talking about on your sofa with blankie. Dating-wise, once I worked out where he lived ,I would always go stake out a spot with decent visibility to the bathroom and get there early. I’d bring a book and some scotch and, sure enough, it would soon feel like I was at home in the shrubs outside his apartment. If he got a better offer on tinder and it appeared he had no intention of turning up, I would still have a drink and a book to read. I was having a good time regardless. Defecating in the kitty litter-tray leavings outside, I did that just for fun. Bad girl? Guilty!
— Jackie Drummond is a senior editor at Glamour magazine
DO obsess over a “perfect guy” checklist…
8. The first thing that you have to do is to take your checklist and add about 5 more completely unrealistic expectations, i.e., he has set foot on the moon. Those checklists are really awesome; did I tell you I fucked Buzz Aldrin? If I didn’t have that on my checklist, it probably wouldn’t have happened. If you’re in a city like New York, you can ask the universe for exactly what you want and the universe will deliver. You want a man who is 6 ft. tall, overweight, works in the subway, lives with his mum, and watches huge amounts of porn? Yes please!! Boom! Your wish is granted. It’s all explained in my new book, You CAN Have It All and Some More: How to Live Life on Your Terms Not Life’s.
— Candy Plum is dating coach and an elite escort
…But DON’T set relationship standards.
9. Everyone says they have standards for how they want to be treated and it is time, ladies, to take them way, way down. Put your hands as high as you can in the air. That’s your current standards. Now dig a hole about 3 metres deep, get a ladder, climb down, and put your hands down on the wet earth. That’s where your standards need to be. Maybe no one has had the heart to you tell you desperados that the clock is ticking and you’re single for a reason. That reason is one word. Standards. If you don’t want to die alone, get rid of them and have some fun while you do it. There are many equally desperate men waiting for you: some married, some single, some in prison, some in Nigeria. Either way standards are the thing you need to let go of. Look at me — I’ve been married 5 times. Do you think any of those marriage would have happened if they had standards?
— Bruce Riley is a Pulitzer prize-winning romance author
DO know when it’s time to walk away.
10. Once you fire the gun and you see the bullets blazing, then it’s seriously time to skedaddle and get the fuck out of that biker bar you somehow ended up in. I knew she was trouble the moment I lays eyes on Carol, but there was something about her that just drew me in. We dated for a while and then, before I knew it, she had me pistol-whip a guy for taking her car space and rob a liquor store just because she was thirsty. We made love straight afterwards and she rode me like mystical unicorn in heat. It was INTENSE. That night though, she just went too far. Trying to short change Micky the Raccoon from the Devil’s Disciples during a meth buy was bad news. Things went south super-fast, and next thing I know, she’s using me as a human shield as she tries to shoot these bikers and steal their stash. I was lucky to get out alive. What became of Carol, I’ll never know. As I sped away in my Prius, I saw her limping after me, crying out my name as the disciples descended on her. I hope she found the happiness she deserved.
— Terry Campbell is an author, psychologist, and science journalist; He received a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is co-director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations at Rutgers University as well as serving as a board member for the Mind & Life Institute