Mr. Johnson's Fake Pal Helps Him Score Date; Pros Are 'Better at Hitting on Women'
Cort Johnson, 27, is an affable guy who's skilled at promoting his company—a mobile-application start-up he co-founded. But when it comes to socializing, especially with women, he tends to clam up.
"I'd like to be romantic," he sighs. "But how?"
For Mr. Johnson and many others, the answer is "hire a coach."
Hoping to meet some prospects at a holiday party in December, Mr. Johnson enlisted Thomas Edwards, who runs a service called "The Professional Wingman." For a fee of $125, Mr. Edwards accompanied Mr. Johnson to the event and posed as his good pal. As they negotiated the crowd, the wingman alerted his charge to flirtatious types and helped make seamless introductions.
"I love that," said Mr. Johnson.
Kevin Emmons, a director at Miss Pivot wingwoman service, directs a new wingwoman-in-training on how to read body language.
As romantics grow weary of the digital dating game, so-called wingman and wingwoman services are taking them back in time. Such outfits, which popped up in cities like Boston and New York as long as eight years ago, are promoting the old-fashioned tête-à-tête. They're gaining traction at a time when Internet dating sites are attracting fewer visitors.
Susan Baxter, founder of "Hire a Boston Wingwoman," says she launched her business specifically because her friends were fatigued by online dating. She sensed a good niche.
"You go to meet [the person] and realize their picture was taken 10 years ago and that they are not who you thought," says Ms. Baxter, 32 years old. Paired with a confident wingwoman, her customers "can see prospective partners right away, and know right then and there if there is chemistry."
Ms. Baxter, whose fees start at $130, insists that clients who go out with a pro have better odds of success than those who troll with an untrained male buddy. Often, the friend "says stupid stuff, like 'my friend thinks you're hot,'" she says.
The service's slogan: "We're better at hitting on women than you are."
While online dating sites have changed the dance of romance, academic researchers have been skeptical about sites' purported "success" (code word for marriage) rates. And the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which handles Internet crimes, says it receives thousands of complaints annually from people who get scammed by shady suitors. In an ongoing lawsuit filed in federal court in Dallas a year ago, several Match.com customers sued the company, saying that many of its profiles are phony or are linked to inactive members.
A spokeswoman for Match.com calls the lawsuit "frivolous."
The wingman has been on the dating scene since the days of Shakespeare, when Romeo's closest pal Mercutio helps him to forget a girlfriend by taking him to a masked ball at Lord Capulet's estate to meet other women (in the end, that didn't go well). More recently, the wingman has been celebrated in movies like "Hitch," a 2005 comedy starring Will Smith as a professional Cupid.
Most services say they tend to focus on male clients, the theory being that men need more help since women often go out in groups, making it harder for a lone guy to break in. But the wings-for-hire say they do sometimes fly with female clients, too.
Josh Mitchell, 27, started his Indianapolis wingwoman service, "Miss Pivot," last year after attending an event for young entrepreneurs. Romance aside, there was something else that convinced him he had a winning concept. No one, he says, seems to know how to have a face-to-face conversation anymore. "A lot of social skills you used to pick up watching your parents, but now everyone is busy watching stuff online or playing videogames online," he says.
Mr. Mitchell now runs Miss Pivot with a team of five friends, including a "head coach," plus eight freelance "pivots" for hire at $45 to $65 an hour.
Not everyone is cut out for the matchmaking work. "We don't want someone with a really annoying voice," says Mr. Mitchell. Another no-no: overly emotional types. "They tend to think love is very magical while we think there is a science behind it," he says.
For the dates, the pivots generally stay away from nightclubs, and go to bookstores, coffee shops or pubs where the tables are high. "Sitting on stools brings everyone up to the same level," says Mr. Mitchell.
At the Boston holiday party called "Ugly Sweater Night," Mr. Johnson had slipped in with his wingman. Revelers, dressed in blinking Christmas sweaters, sipped bottles of beer and shimmied to the rap song, "Bust a Move."
Mr. Johnson, wearing a Santa hat, scanned the room and homed in on a blonde woman in reindeer ears dancing with two friends. "She looks fun," he told his wingman.
"I'll go in," Mr. Edwards replied.
Moving quickly, he saw that one of the women had a camera and asked if he could take the group's picture.
Giggling, they huddled together. But when a few people behind them tried to squeeze into the picture, the women stopped posing and looked annoyed.
In their pre-event strategy session, Mr. Edwards had determined that Mr. Johnson is inclusive and fun-loving and needs the same in a partner. He backed away and shook his head at Mr. Johnson, signaling that the young woman wasn't worth pursuing.
"I'm an extension of Cort. If that turned me off, it will definitely turn Cort off," said Mr. Edwards.
Mr. Johnson moved through the crowd and talked to several women with Mr. Edwards by his side. "Thomas is a confidence builder," he said.
When a woman complimented Mr. Edwards's fuzzy white sweater, he put an arm around his client and said, "It would look much better on him."
In their strategy session, they had looked at "sticking points" that were keeping Mr. Johnson from romance. "If he likes someone, he doesn't make it clear he's interested," Mr. Edwards said.
But near midnight came Mr. Johnson's breakthrough. A woman he had talked to earlier, and had liked, sat in a chair pointed away from her table.
He walked over and sat on her lap. Mr. Edwards stared, astonished. The woman's hand went up and around Mr. Johnson's shoulder.
"I love it!" Mr. Edwards said. "I knew Cort had this in him." A short while later, Mr. Johnson reported back to his tutor, grinning, and with the woman's phone number.
Though he was a friend for hire, Mr. Edwards's enthusiasm seemed real when he slapped Mr. Johnson's back and shouted, "Good job!"
Write to Jennifer Levitz at jennifer.levitz@wsj.com
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