The trip to L.A. to attend Christian Carter's first-ever dating seminar in January 2006 was a success...

...on the friendship front.

I left L.A. feeling warm and connected, clutching a handful of email addresses of ladies I'd write to on and off for the next year.  I wasn't sure I knew much more about attracting a man, but what I was certain of is that it is our connections with other women that help us get through those painful bumps in the road to love.

Other women help us feel that we're not alone, that we're not a freak for having been dumped or rejected.  Other women soothe our wounded spirits by offering us affection, reassurance, and companionship.  Other women help us see that what happened to us is just an experience, and that someday we'll be able to offer our story to console a weeping friend, just as our friends are offering the stories of their past experiences right now to us.

The Ladies Room

The first new friend I met was Christy.

She and I met shouting across the stalls in the ladies room . We had breaked for coffee, and Christy and I were the first to dash to the restrooms. As more and more women filed into the stalls, one of those random conversations started.

"We need longer breaks."
"I agree! I feel like we're spending all our time listening to someone rather than meeting one another."
"We should have girl time scheduled in just to talk."
"Totally!"

By the time the girl next to me and I exited the stalls, we found ourselves in complete agreement.

We introduced ourselves. Her name was Christy. Like me, she was here to observe rather than participate. She was interested in the market for this kind of product. She wanted to know what kind of women would attend a seminar on "how to catch and keep a man."

The Type of Women Who Attends a Dating Seminar

The answer?

Well, from the look of the women around us, it was educated, literate, sassy, beautiful women who'd been knocked around a few too many times in bad relationships and wanted to do it right this time around.

I would like to say that there's no shame in attending a seminar on dating and relationships, but not everyone feels that way.  Many women checking into the hotel felt embarrassed about telling the clerk that they were here for a seminar on how to "catch and keep a man."  "It's so old-fashioned!" one participant said.

And "old-fashioned" did not describe these women.

They were independent, professional ladies who excelled in every other area of their life. They knew that the key to success was education. So, if they wanted to excel in relationships, why not educate themselves?

That's something to admire: these women were gutsy to know what they wanted and take action to get it.

The Importance of Community

The more Christy and I talked, the more we realized the importance of community.

Men have been "meeting" online and talking about pickup for years.  If they need help attracting women, they can just jump on one of the many forums or websites dedicated to the topic and get the help they need.  There is even a website called AskMen.com. But is there an AskWomen.com?

No.

Where is the online community made by women for women about all the topics nearest and dearest to women's hearts: relationships, dating, attaction, sex, where to meet men, online dating, and so forth?

Sure, there are piles of e-books and e-courses available on those topics. They'll convince you that they can transform your love life, give you the relationship of your dreams, and make you so attractive you'll have men falling at your feet.  But what they don't do is hook you up with other women who are in the same situation as you.

I think those courses are only half the puzzle.  Sure, it's good to have advice, but how will you be motivated and encouraged to follow that advice unless you have the support of a community of women who understand what you're trying to accomplish?

For several years, we tried hosting a forum in the Members Area of How to Be Irresistible to Men. At first, we got a great response from long-time members keen to exchange stories and see who else was on the forum.  But activity on the forum slowly dwindled away.  I didn't have time to participate as actively as I should.  Spammers blasted the forum with offensive messages.  We finally had to take the forum down.  For it to work, it needed to have a real sense of community, where women felt responsible for showing up and helping one another, and we weren't able to create that in the end.

Christy and I discussed what it would take to create the ultimate online community.  It would be a place where women could discuss which e-books are best, who are the best authors writing on relationships, why one online dating site is better than another, and which seminars really deliver on their promise ... kind of like a "Consumer Index" for female dating and relationship products. It would be a place where women could talk to women and share the advice that works for them.

It was a great idea, I thought. But, alas, it was no more than that: an idea.

Meeting Christian Carter

The day I arrived in L.A., I had met with Christian Carter, the author of Catch Him and Keep Him. We sat and had coffee in the hotel restaurant.

Carter is a lovely man: gentle, sensitive, and self-effacing. He's genuinely in the business to help women. He sees the process of educating himself about relationships as an important step in his own personal evolution and growth.

Luckily for the women attending his seminars, he's also great eye candy. Fair haired, lean, well dressed, and gallant, he wouldn't be out of place in the pages of any woman's romance novel. Unfortunately, he was taken. At the time, he was dating a girl that he'd known since he was a teenager.

Carter was highly aware of his touchy position as an unmarried man teaching women how to have relationships. So, when he heard my proposal about creating an online relationships community for women, he said, "It sounds great. Do it."

"I can't!" I protested. "I'm not based in the U.S."

He shook his head. "A woman needs to lead this thing. I'll contribute, but I'm not the one."

So who was?

Enter Fate ... and a chance encounter in a bathroom stall.

A Women-Only Online Community

Christy had been working in an internet company doing marketing, on the periphery of the seduction community but unsure of her place in it. She was 25, the perfect age to figure out one's place in the world and grab opportunity when it arose.

I presented the idea to her. Christy was in.

Christy had the resources to set up the community and fund it. But we needed a name and an identity. Fate was with us still.

A woman was sitting in the row in front of us. She was dark-haired, mature, and very experienced in the seminar scene. When Christian called upon us to select a partner from the audience whom we didn't know, DeNeice turned around and chose me.

Our first impressions of one another were uncannily accurate. We didn't have time to chat then, but as we left the seminar room at the end of the night's program, we started talking. DeNeice was a wonder. She was a qualified attorney and journalist who also happened to sing jazz. She knew more about the experience of being in a relationship than either me or Christy. She'd been previously married and was currently in a long-term relationship that she wanted to last.

That night, we sat and chatted until 10pm. We talked and laughed and shared ideas in the hotel bar, and it was DeNeice who came up with the name: The Ladies Room.

By the end of the next day, the details were ironed out. A plan was made. Funding was promised. Some of the best relationship experts selling products on the Net promised to post. Our community was going to be a reality!

The Decline of a Dream

We launched "The Ladies Room" forum to great fanfare.  Our graphic designer had done a killer logo, and we sent the link out to all our friends.

I participated as much as possible, in between my other work commitments.  But to become a reality, The Ladies Room needed women to post. It needed women to ask questions. It needed women to read.

And sadly, like my How to Be Irresistible to Men Members Forum, the critical mass just wasn't there.

Every forum faces a critical period some months after launch where the novelty has worn off.  Participants must be committed to keep visiting and posting.  If there's not enough activity, those few loyal members will gradually stop coming back.

And that's what happened.  Eventually, Christy broke up with her boyfriend and lost funding for the website, and The Ladies Room vanished into a vague memory of once-high hopes.

It's Still Possible

I know that, for me, connecting with other women is essential to feeling good about myself. I need to know that other women share my experiences. It helps me to hear how other women have dealt with dating and relationship issues. I feel supported and cared for when I share my stories with other women and they understand. Girlfriends bless our lives a thousandfold.

Now, imagine what it would feel like if your network of female friends expanded to include women from around the world, all interested in helping other women and sharing information.

Would you feel more connected? Would you feel like you could ask anything, even things you'd be embarrassed to ask your own girlfriends? Would you feel like -- no matter what happened to you -- you would have somewhere to turn?

If so, then consider becoming part of a women's dating community.  Attend a dating seminar and talk to the other participants.  Follow a dating blog.  Google "women's dating forum."  Do whatever it takes to spread the message online that women are techno-literate and we have a voice that won't be stifled.  Our issues are just as important as men's issues.  Our sense of community is just as strong.

The Ladies Room may have faded into a distant dream, but the dream of women coming together to support one another is very much alive.  It's still possible, if we're willing to create it.