Guru gives students advice on dating game

Judson Laipply of Dating DoctoRx said all men and women want the very same thing: what they can't have.

By ANGELA MOORE

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 30, 2001

TAMPA -- Lured by free strawberries, chocolate, whipped cream and handcuffs, about 60 giggly University of Tampa students gathered in historic Plant Hall on Monday night to hear some frank talk about relationships.

The "Creative Dating" seminar, sponsored by UT's Student Productions, featured speaker Judson Laipply, one of several relationship gurus working for a national organization called Dating DoctoRx. Not long out of college himself, Laipply offered common sense advice geared toward college students.

Some of what he said was a no-brainer. For instance:

"You don't need to get trashed on a first date," Laipply said. "And if you do, you're jeopardizing any future relationship."

Duh.

But most of the time he struck a chord with the energetic, talkative crowd. All men and women, he said, want one thing more than anything else: what they can't have. If you remember that, you stay out of the nice guy/little sister trap.

"The line that dooms a nice guy is "I will always be there for you,' " Laipply said. "Because why do you care about someone who you will never risk losing?"

Laipply interspersed the straight talk by reading off pick-up lines and fantasy dates the students wrote on note cards as they came in. The lines ranged from the almost-funny: "If beauty was measured in milk, you'd be a cow," to the gross: "My love for you is like diarrhea. I just can't hold it in," to the true-to-life: "We're in town for the Super Bowl. Would you like to come back to our hotel?"

The crowd was overwhelmingly female. Most of the few men in the crowd came with girlfriends. Steve Carlamere, a senior, and Liz Greenwalt, a sophomore, looked like they needed no help from Laipply. Less than an inch separated the couple at all times, and they cooed and cuddled throughout the seminar.

For the rest of the crowd, sometimes things got a little too cute. Laipply gave Valentine's Day gift advice by suggesting that guys cut the top off an empty two-liter bottle, fill it with some sort of romantic gift and card and mail it to their girlfriends.

"It becomes your own Message in a Bottle, " Laipply said, alluding to the book and movie of the same name. The suggestion met with a chorus of "Awwwww" from the women, but the guys rolled their eyes. Javier Hernandez, a sophomore, was more blunt.

"Bulls---," Hernandez said. Laipply laughed.

At rare serious moments in the rollicking discussion, Laipply encouraged the students to pull themselves out of unhealthy relationship cycles when looking for someone new and to never surrender control once in a relationship.

Laipply didn't share any of his own pickup lines with the crowd, but he did confide his fantasy date to Hernandez and others, influenced by Sunday's Super Bowl.

"Britney Spears. Halftime show," Laipply said. "That's all you gotta say."

Oh, and the handcuffs? Everyone who came got a set of actual metal cuffs. Laipply explained that chocolate and strawberries are aphrodisiacs, and left the handcuffs to their collective imagination.

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