The Real Hitch: Date Doctor David Coleman

by Lauren Byrwa

photographs by Patrick McCue

Date Doctor David Coleman, also referred to as America’s “real-life Hitch,” came to Ohio University last Wednesday to give students a taste of his medicine.

After acknowledging that although he might look a bit more like Kevin James than Will Smith, Coleman says that the movie is indeed about 70 percent accurate to his real life.  He may not take on very many one-on-one patients like the relationship between James and Smith in the movie, but he does have a few select clients that he coaches to “become the right person.”

“You wont find the right person until you become the right person,” says Coleman. “So phase 1: become the right person. Phase 2: identify who or what your interested in. Phase 3: design a strategy. Phase 4: examine how that strategy is working. Phase 5: you don’t need me anymore.”

Coleman says that he has about 10, what he calls “Hitch clients.” These people he coaches through the process and then critiques their social lives or their dating patterns. The biggest part of his work with these clients is to maximize their top three strengths and minimize their three limiting weaknesses.
Coleman says that when he went to college he was not planning on spending his life doling out relationship advice.

“God, I wanted to be a veterinarian,” says Coleman. “Organic chemistry told me I would never be a veterinarian.”

Coleman said he got into speech pathology after his mother had a stroke that left her mute.

“I watched the speech therapist bring her back from the verbal dead,” says Coleman, “and watching that motivated me to want to become a speech therapist. So, my undergrad degree is speech pathology and ideology.”

He also ended up receiving a Masters in college student personnel that led him to working with college students, which ultimately led to his work as a date doctor. Today Coleman says that about 70 percent of his speaks are given to college students across the country.

As well as speaking across the nation, Coleman has also written various books and has been featured in many magazines where he features his relationship advice.

“I don’t think youll find anyone in the country that does what I do. Who will be more brutally honest on one hand, but willing to go the extra mile to help someone on the other,” says Coleman. “There are some people who do what I do who rip people apart, then they cast them aside and they don’t help them. I might rip someone apart but itll be constructively and then I will do everything within my power to give the the ability to live the type of life they want to live.”