If Will Smith’s character from the 2005 movie Hitch were a real person, he would be a she, and she would be Chinese and hot. Everything else is pretty much the same, minus the story line and plot, actually only the part where Hitch helps guys with dating advice is the same.
Meet Miss Singlefied, also known as Yue Xu. She was born in Beijing, China and moved to the states when she was 8. She’s lived in Michigan, Colorado, California, Connecticut, and now New York. After reading her blog and trying some of her advice, I had to find out more about this intriguing person. Who is Miss Singlefied, where does she hail from, and can I get her number?
I got in contact with Yue and was able to persuade her into setting up a Jackfroot exclusive interview accompanied with a photo shoot.
For the sake of men everywhere, I present an inside look at Miss Singlefied.
J: When was Singlefied created and how did it all start?
Y: Singlefied was created about 4 years ago. I was at a bar in SoHo, Spring Lounge, and I was waiting for some friends to show up. I was really early, and they were really late. So, this guy comes up to me and he’s like, “Hey I would like to buy you a drink but I don’t know what to do after that” and I had a bf at the time, so I was like, “you can buy me a drink. I won’t refuse a drink, but I would be happy to talk to you about what you should do afterwards.”
We talked for a good 45 minutes, and it turns out that he had a lot of deep seeded dating issues. He wasn’t over his ex girlfriend, he was not really into the whole dating scene in New York. He’s a finance guy but he didn’t have the quintessential finance douchebag behavior, so he didn’t know where he fit in the whole dating scene. We had a really great conversation and he was like, “I would love to talk to you again, but I would like to pay you for your time next time.”
He worked at a large firm at the time, at a hedge fund, so he said “I would refer you to some of my co-workers and friends.” It kind of just snowballed from there.
It became this underground dating advice service I offered. I didn’t tell any of my friends, or family members cause it was just something special to me. These guys were just really awesome, good looking, successful men who just had problems finding the right girl. They kept dating the wrong girls, who were hot, but they weren’t the right ones, and they felt like they were wasting their time.
J: I have the same problem. So what attracts women? It can’t just be looks, cause we’ve see a lot of uglies with beauties all the time, and they can’t all be rolling in dough.
Y:Â So, recently I did a survey, and I had people rate 5 qualities on what they found was most important to them. It was looks, sex, intelligence, money, job and personality/ sense of humor.
I don’t want to totally reveal the results of the survey yet, but a lot of women I spoked to who I had them take the survey verbally said “yea, looks are very important”. Then they saw this other list of things that were also important, and looks ranked last, pretty much consistently for every girl I talked to. What ranked first was either personality or job stability, salary.
It’s interesting, because I think for women we want that emotional connection, we want to be physically attracted, but it’s really we want a man to be a man. We want a man’s personality, we want a man to do his job of providing, and taking care of us. Not that we’re all gold diggers, and we want the man to support us, but we want him to be established enough that we feel safe with him and feel protected and taken care of.
J: I was really intrigued on your color psychology article about what color to wear on dates and what the color projects (link to article). I know it’s just statistics, but have you even seen results from it?
Y : Have I personally seen results? I’ve seen results just from the clients that I have. I definitely recommend them all to wear a nice blue or green on a first date just to make things calm and friendly and warm. But some guys, especially in new york, are very adamant about their fashion, so they might not listen to me. And a lot of guys like wearing red on a first date and I don’t know why. Not that they would say, “Yue, you were right and I was wrong”, but I’ve seen over and over again that when guys wear red on a first date it becomes a very stressful frazzle date. For some reason it could end abruptly, or they get into heated discussions about politics and religion, and I find that really interesting, cause when a guy wears blue or green they end up talking about their family or their back ground, warm and fuzzy. And then all of a sudden when a guy wears red on a first date or even on a second date, it ends up being a heated passionate discussion, sometimes could end up in really passionate sex too, so it could be positive, but guys always come out of those dates that I’ve seen in my observations a little bit stressed.
J: How do you feel about the dating scene in New York in general?
Y: I think the dating scene in New York is a guy’s playground. I describe this place as a guy’s playground. First of all the ratio is great for guys – 5 girls for every 1 guy. Guys from you know, bumble f*ck Idaho can come to New York and feel like a somebody, because all of a sudden they’re surrounded by beautiful women.
Beautiful women. This is the epicenter for beautiful women. There’s models, actors, and the ivy league pure breed women.
I call them pure breed because they’re from Connecticut with the picket white fence. They’re super white and super beautiful.
Then you have all the hot mix ethnicities, you have Dominican mixes, the Puerto Rican mixes. So you have this pool of beautiful women that obviously come to New York to pursue some kind of dream. Nobody just comes to New York just to hang out. So women are also very aggressive in their dating behavior too. This is the only city where I see more women approaching guys then I see in any other city. Women are go getters here. They come here and they do their thing, so guys become kind of spoiled in New York City. But one day they’ll get to a certain age or life stage where they’re like “Well, I’ve dated pretty much every hot woman in New York or slept with all of them, but how come I haven’t felt that feeling?” I think at the end of the day, it’s a very empty lonely feeling.
J:Â Are guys intimidated by who you are once they find out you’re Miss Singlefied?
Y: Yea, I’ve had guys who’ve been very honest with me and said, “I feel like you’re diagnosing and observing everything I do, and It freaks me out cause I don’t know if I’m doing it right and I can’t go to you for advice on what to do.” I have to sympathize, like I say I would never want to date a gynecologist because he would know more about my body then I would know myself. I don’t know if there’s something wrong down there, I have no idea. I get it, I understand, but at the same time this is what I do. I very much separate my personal and my professional life. So if i meet a guy at a bar under circumstances of just meeting, I would never be dissecting every little move, like “Oh, he shouldn’t of said that.” But, I have dated people where it didn’t work out and I dissected later and was like “Ahh that’s why it didn’t work out”.
J: Are you currently dating, in a relationship, or have a friends with benefits type of situation going on?
Y: Haha, I don’t believe in friends with benefits, but like most people in New York I’ve tried it and it’s never worked out. I am dating, but I’m basically just meeting people. I’m not in a relationship and haven’t been in a relationship for a really long time. I also feel like I’m dating all my clients cause I know them so intimately, so I feel like I have 10 boyfriends right now, but I really don’t. I get no benefits out of it, haha.
J: So what type of hobbies do you do when you’re not saving men from themselves?
Y: I dance, I dance a lot. I guess I’m still kind of a pro dancer, but I don’t really go out for jobs anymore. I was a professional hip-hop dancer for many years. I started out when I was 6 years old back in Beijing. My grandma loved to dance and she use to take me to these senior citizen disco dance classes and I would be this 6 year old girl among these 60 year old women. We had a blast and were even on national television in China.
When I came to the states I started taking lessons. I’ve dance for teams, been a cheerleader, danced for commercials, I love to dance. Recently I took up ballroom dancing, so I’ve been doing Tango, Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, all that. I would love to go to Argentina and do a Tango Tour.
J: How do you feel about speed dating? Do you really think a quick 5-10 min one on one is all the time you need to know if that person is right for you?
Y: Ok this is the thing, I think speed dating is awesome for many reasons. I don’t think it’s the end all be all to get a relationship or find the one. It’s not. Don’t expect to come out of speed dating with the love of your life or someone you’re gonna date. But it’s great practice and a great way to hone in on your conversational skills. I think a lot of people in New York lack conversational skills because all we do is drink. We go out and we drink. We talk for a little bit, but life is so fast in New York that you forget to get to know the people around you. So you tend to go, “Alright, I’m not interested in this person” and then we close ourselves off.
The great thing about speed dating is you’re forced to talk to someone for 5-10 minutes, and I guarantee you everyone’s interesting you just have to give them the time of day. So i think it’s great practice for people who want to break out of their shell, or just get back into dating, divorced people, people who are socially awkward or just people who are doing it for shits and giggles because you meet the most crazy, fascinating, and eccentric people. It’s awesome.
J: What about internet dating?
Y: Same thing, I feel like it’s great practice. Don’t have the expectation that you’re going to meet someone that’s going to give you the butterfly feeling. But it’s a great way to meet all kinds of interesting people, it’s a great way to find an activity partner. How many of us have been in New York, single, and have been like “I’d love to go on a date.” It’d be great to find someone to do that with, like there’s a new exhibit at The Guggenheim that I’d love to take someone to, and you might not fall in love, but at least it’s an activity partner.
The problem with internet dating is that, I call it “The Buffet Effect”. When you go into a buffet, first everyone always go for the foods that they like the most. So they stuff themselves with the food they like the most. Same with internet dating, you go to ones that you find most attractive, and then you kind of forget about all the other stuff, but you still want to dabble. So you eat a little bit of everything else, and then at the end of your buffet time you’re like, “What did I like? What did I just eat? And I feel like shit.” haha.
I think internet dating can feed into that. You end up dating so much and so many different kinds of people, that you lose yourself. You forget what you like, and at the end of the day you’re still single, and you still feel like shit.
J: What’s the quickest way to a woman’s heart?Â
Y: The quickest way to a woman’s heart is to take charge. I think this is the best thing I could ever tell a guy is to take charge. For example, when you ask a girl out, a lot of guys go, “Um.. Is it possible to see you again, when will I see you again, let’s see each other soon.” Take charge. If you want to see this woman again you say, “Let me take you out next week, Let me take you out next Tuesday”. You should really just drive the whole courting process. A girl loves to be taken on a journey of like, “Okay he really wants to see me” that’s really definitive. But at the same time, don’t say it to a girl if you don’t mean it. So really put your stake in the ground, ” I want to see you again next Tuesday 7PM, are you free? If not, when are you free?” It’s like. .uhhhh, when you take a girl home and push her up against the wall, it’s the same kind of effect. We want to be man handled, either in bed or in life in a conversation.
J:Â How bout just to get in her pants?
Y: I have a couple strategies. One is called magic hour. There’s a thing that happens when you go into a bar too early everyone’s sober and so every girl’s gonna have their guard up. I call it feminine skepticism. Even if you’re the most attractive, funny, out going guy there, she’s still going to be like “ehhh, I don’t know”. But come 2am to 3am, that’s what I call the ‘magic hour’. All of the people who are too drunk have already gone home. And all of the people that want to stay and have fun are there. So your options are limited, but those options, you’re going to have a really good chance of taking them home because those girls have been trying to scope out the situation all night. You could be the one that saves them and be like “Hey, what are you doing, what’s up?” So you could even skip the earlier part of the evening, go into a bar at 2am and go home with someone by 3am.
The other strategy I have is called the Toast and Bolt. Haha, I think it’s the best way, the easiest way, and I hate giving out these secrets cause they work on me too, but the easiest way to get a girl to go home with you is you under mind her self confidence. So you go into a bar, you see a girl you like, you go next to her and you buy her a drink and then you toast her and you go, “Have a great night, and you leave.” First of all, she’s going to be gonna like “of course he wants to buy me a drink, everyone wants to buy me a drink, oh but wait why did he leave, does he not like me now?” So you wait a while and then you come back, then talk to her. By then she’s going to be like “I need to prove to this guy that I’m worthy of this him trying to talk to me, or try to get my phone number.” it’s like all of a sudden she’s trying to gain your approval because for some reason girl’s will take that as a rejection. “You buy me a drink and then you don’t want to talk to me.” That’s weird, so I call that the Toast and Bolt.
J: What are your favorite foods?
Y: Ooo, I love food. I’m kind of a fat ass. I love sushi and can never live without sushi. I love Korean food, and I love steak. Like I’m all about a big chunk of steak. Love that meat, and I hate vegetarian.
J: What’s your favorite sex position?
Y:My favorite sex position, that’s really interesting. I’m not trying to dodge the question, but it really depends on the guy, and how his penis hangs, cause every penis will hit differently. So, for some guys it could just be missionary that would get me going the fastest. I’m not trying to dodge the question, it’s just really different for every guy, every penis.
J:Â What is the number 1 tip you would give to guys to keep a woman around?
Y: Okay two things, she has to know that you cherish her and you’re not taking her for granted. What I mean by that is, don’t become complacent in a relationship, where you end up just treating her like a best friend. She’s not your best friend, she’s your girlfriend, so you should still do romantic things and remember the things she talks about so you can bring it back later. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture, but just little things here and there or just saying things to make her feel appreciated and that she’s special. Every girl wants to feel special, we don’t want just the girlfriend, we want to be the girlfriend.
The other thing I would say is you have to establish your own life. Like you want to be the nice guy but you also want to have you own friends, your own activities, so give her her own space to do her own activities. I see when couples become too much of one person, and having one life, they end up resenting each other. Because they’re like, “whoa, what happen to my friends, what happen to all my activities that I needed to do.” So in a relation there’s your life, her life, and your life together. There’s three lives going on.
J:Â Of all the countries and cities that you’ve lived in, which have you had the best dating experience?
Y: Best dating experience?! Oooo, Um….hmm…I would say most interesting dating experience has absolutely been here in New York because there’s so many different kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures. The most fascinating thing about New York is how you meet people. It could be randomly on the street, subway, missed-connections on craigslist, it could be a plethora of things. So most interesting in New York, but I wouldn’t say it’s been the best here.
You can read more about Miss Singlefied’s dating advice for men here.
Photography By: Tiago Chediak
