MadameA  Photo Image Art

I recently attended Moxie Event Planners' workshop "How to Meet, Understand and Attract Men," led by self-proclaimed "male experts" Dave and Paul. Contrary to what I'd expected, most of the women at Madame X (an East Village lounge) that night weren't overweight, middle-aged cat ladies. They were a mixture of cute twenty-something's, buttoned-up professionals and attractive divorcees. Black, white, Latina and Korean, the only thing they all shared was their single status. We rolled our eyes at each other as Dave - a Brooks Brothers clad, hair-gelled metro-sexual - described himself as an "international playboy" and said, "I'm the guy who will date you and never commit." Paul, a hipster adorned with black nail polish and red highlights, insisted that their collective knowledge would help us land a tool like Dave. Lucky us.

Paul asked what we hoped to learn from the workshop. Some of the women wanted to be more approachable, while others wanted to hone their flirting skills. All grew heated as they discussed their previous dating experiences; men had led them on, never called or broken it off. They were convinced that the guys they'd dated represented all men and they'd had enough.

The women around me seemed to grow increasingly irritated as the evening progressed. They wanted the workshop to cure them of their single status by revealing the secrets of the male mind. "Food and sex are what we think about most," said Dave. "We're simple creatures." I agreed: Every guy I know is equally excited by the prospect of a good meal as he is by a potential a good lay. But the other women weren't looking for straightforward answers. "I find it insulting that you're saying all we need to do to get a man is fuck 'em and feed 'em," snarled one woman. Others echoed her anger and soon Dave had a mutiny on his hands.

I was surprised by my impulse to help a guy I'd written off as a total douchebag but his honesty inspired me to defend him. I piped up, "He's not saying you have to fuck guys and feed them in order to date them. He's just saying that's how the male mind works, and he's absolutely right." Dave's grateful look was overshadowed by twenty pairs of beady, bitter eyes boring into the back of my head.

The women at "How to Meet, Understand and Attract Men" wanted to believe that their being unattached was a result of men wanting thinner, younger, more beautiful women. They couldn't comprehend that their own insecurities - not their looks - made them unattractive to men. I left the workshop pissed at these women for letting their single status affect their happiness, for attributing the negative qualities of the men they'd dated to all men and for losing sight of what they loved about themselves in the process of trying to make men love them. Then I remembered that I was once alone too, and that it's a lot easier to give advice to single women than it is to actually be one.