I suppose I should start off this review with full disclosure; for quite some time now, I have known myself to be a relationship person.
I feel more secure, more confident and more self-aware when I am committed to someone but that does not go to say someone couldn’t feel those exact same qualities while living the single life.
I am merely bringing up my character to explain that people with different relationship statuses will approach relationship advice in different ways.
With this in mind, I walked into The Dating Doctor assuming that David Coleman was only going to re-assure me of a few of the many things I have learned within relationships. Furthermore, when I heard the term, “Dating Doctor,” I figured that those attending would be present because they were both single and seeking the help that I was convinced I did not need. But now, as I look back on my two predictions of The Dating Doctor, I have concluded that I was both right and wrong.
Firstly, I feel like a good portion of the advice that the audience received at The Dating Doctor was already known. I am not saying this because I feel that I know as much as The Dating Doctor, I obviously do not have anywhere near the credentials that Coleman has to back that statement up. I can explain, however, why I believe that many of Coleman’s pearls of wisdom were common sense.
For example, Coleman at one point urged the audience to always pause before they hit “send” on a message because with today’s technology, one’s thoughts can be viewed both instantaneously and permanently. This, to me, was a no-brainer. Of course you do not want to send a passionate text or Facebook message expressing how you feel in the heat of the moment.
People pay for this mistake constantly because even as we sit, hovering over the “send” button, re-reading the words concerning whatever matter—that is all too often, more sensitive than a text—we are aware that it is probably better to wait. And yet, we still click away our fate with the potential or current mate merely because it is easier to just “get it over with.”
The described process is one that I can say I am convinced each audience member had lived at one point or another. So for me, several points were unwritten rules.
But in other elements of Coleman’s presentation, I was given—as promised by Coleman—advice that was applicable to a relationship and not only being single. One of the messages that I zeroed in on arose after Coleman asked the audience, “who is in control in a relationship?”
The response to Coleman’s question: “whoever cares the least.” Now, I had never considered this before.
Coleman went on to explain that apathy in a relationship will only drive the other partner to try even harder to win their apathetic mate’s approval. The only time when the control can be taken back is to step out of the relationship, because if someone no longer cares, the relationship has no ground to build on and a caring partner’s efforts are being wasted.
Throughout Coleman’s discussion, I had tried to keep in mind that Coleman had been awarded Entertainer of the Year. So, although I may have been there to critique his dating advice, he was also visiting to entertain the Pacific audience.
At this, Coleman succeeded by including audience members’ farfetched, humorous answers with rewards of candy bars chucked into the crowd, and scene-setting many awkward encounters that commonly arise between you and someone with whom you are interested.
In conclusion, I can honestly say that I sat in the audience at The Dating Doctor to be entertained and reminded of the things that are and are not advised when single or in a relationship.
Regardless of whether you agreed or disagreed with Coleman’s advice or whether you choose to apply it to your dating life, one thing must be agreed upon by all parties—this was the final thought, in my opinion, that Coleman drove home—and that is that you have to approach a relationship as nobody other than yourself or else you will be settling for less than what you want.
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