Need Backup at the Bar? You Can Now Hire a Wingman

Ladies (and gentlemen): take heed the next time you’re approached by an interested single at a bar. The attractive, overly complimentary friend he’s with might just be hired help.

According to the Wall Street Journal, hiring a professional “wingman” or “wingwoman” is a possible future of dating, with services having popped up all over the country.

While dating sites are often littered with profiles featuring outdated pictures or misleading information, Susan Baxter, founder of Hire a Boston Wingwoman, told the Journal that her service allows clients to see past initial judgments by meeting women in person. (Of course, by using a hired wingwoman, the client is being a bit misleading themselves.)

A $130 fee gets clients 2 hours of time with their Boston wingwoman, during which time she helps her shy client break the ice with women, facilitating conversation, and generally making them look good. The Hire a Boston Wingwoman website notes, “Men look that much more desirable when they are seen with an attractive lady by their side,” and that by having a woman start up the conversation it “will not give the appearance of ‘hitting on’ a woman of interest.”

The concept isn’t necessarily a bad one, though—having a friend help with easing into a conversation, and perhaps picking up knowledge about what women and men do and don’t respond to are all useful and helpful experiences.

Miss Pivot, a dating service based in Indianapolis, offers workshops, as well as a wingwoman (or “pivot,” as they call them) service. On the website, they address the million-dollar question: “Is your coaching like Hitch or Pick-Up Artist stuff?”

“While a great movie, Hitch is a Hollywood fantasy,” they write, citing the unrealistic idea of pursuing and dating just the one person on which the client is fixated. The Pick-Up Artist focuses too much on “short-term goals, canned lines, and the sexual side of relationships.”

Those with a crippling shyness or no idea how to approach someone who’s caught their eye might find that a professional confidence-booster (in the form of a wingperson) may be just the help they need. However, just in case their act slips up, he or she should hope their newfound love interest has a generous sense of humor.

Social Gaming Meets Dating

The dating game has gotten more social with sites such as Zoosk incorporating Facebook-like features. But why not tap into one of the most popular aspects of Facebook — social games — to make dating more fun? That’s the idea of CupidsPlay, a new startup based in Bellevue, Wash. looking to leverage the power of games to bring potential matches together.

The site, which is officially launching Wednesday, is designed to use social games as a bridge to help singles break the ice. It’s an idea that’s still largely untapped, but it makes sense. Social games have a lot of engagement, are very viral and boast a good balance of genders, which is necessary for any dating site.

“If you look at the demographics of social games, it’s 54 percent female, 56 percent single and 74 percent said they’ve met new people in games,” said Founder and CEO Philip Yuen. “It’s really perfect for meeting new people.”

CupidsPlay is launching with about a dozen casual titles, including familiar genres like farming and restaurant-themed games. Users create profiles and identify the kind of people they’re looking for. As they play games, they publish their progress and requests for help, which other potential matches can see. A player can then choose to engage another person or help him or her out by buying them a virtual good.

Yuen said the goal is to enlist social and Flash game makers to build their games atop CupidsPlay, so CupidsPlay is making it easy for Facebook developers to port their games to the site. Developers can also run cross-platform titles on both Facebook and CupidsPlay. The attraction for developers is added distribution and the potential of making more money via sales of virtual goods. Yuen said the site will be free, but users will be able to buy virtual goods to help them progress in games or share as gifts for others. He expects members will not be shy about buying goods to help potential matches level up. CupidsPlay is not taking a cut of the virtual good sales yet though that could change in the future.

Yuen created CupidsPlay last year following three years at Amazon ( s amzn), which bought his mobile payment start-up TextPayMe. CupidsPlay closed half a million in seed funding two weeks ago from Clearstone Venture Partners and Yuen’s old boss, Amazon VP of Product Michael George. Yuen said the company will look to add more games, including more synchronous real-time titles instead of single-player social games as well as a video chat service. He said CupidsPlay will also eventually expand to mobile platforms as well.

The dating world is crowded with a lot of established players getting competition from more social and mobile-minded upstarts. We’re seeing more companies look at group-dating ideas to help bring people together. But with social gaming already a huge hit, it’s not a bad idea to integrate dating into the mix. Yuen said people still struggle to strike up conversations with other singles based on their dating profiles. Building conversations around games can be more fun and casual for gamers.

“When I look at profile and look at eye color and age and then have to think of something witty to say, it’s not very natural or effective,” said Yuen. “But when you want to talk to this girl or guy and they need help in leveling up, you can use that as a catalyst to start conversations.”

???? ????, ???? ??? ????? ???

Men Dating Help By A Professional Wing Woman

Men and dating is nothing new in the romance world. There are exceptions of single men dating who are afraid of going up to the woman they find attractive and telling her that he is interested.

No worries anymore, for there is a solution to be her man. To help single men in dating, one can hire a professional wing woman. The purpose of this professional is to reach out to the woman and speak on the man’s behalf. It will definitely work because women who relate to women are more amicable than men.

To help men dating, Susan Baxter launched a new dating site, called ‘Hire a Boston Wing Woman’, which will help single men get the woman of their dreams. Baxter said that,” When I started this, and when I had the concept, I thought this would all be working men in their 30s or maybe 40s.”

The site which already has about 15 to 20 members is doing pretty well so far in help to men dating. She further said that,” Come to find out I have a lot of guys in their mid-20s too, I would say, mid-30s and there’s a couple of stragglers in their 40s.”

If single men fancy a woman, they pay Baxter who provides a professional wing woman for 65 dollars by the hour and for two hours she will accompany the man to a lounge or a bar and slide to the attractive woman, making conversation with her and trying to hook her up with the interested single men. She introduced the professional wing woman in Boston first for she thought that they can use it since it is as very conservative city.

Results have proven successful, because Baxter’s professional wing woman have done good jobs in setting up the guys with the perfect single women.

But to everything there is rules and regulations that needs to be looked into. The rules for the professional wing woman and the client (single men) were that the wing woman needs to be sensitive to what the client is looking for and keep within the boundaries of what makes him comfortable, while the clients should remember that the wing woman is not a date and ‘Hire a Boston Wing Woman’ is not an escort service.