Noah Heymann of DateCoach.com is Helping Bears Find Love

Noah Heymann is the founder of DateCoach.com. Using methodology based on years of personal study, experience and data, he has been helping his clients achieve their romantic goals for the past several years.

Originally serving in the US State Department’s Foreign Service for over a decade, Noah left his career as a diplomat to pursue his passion for helping people form meaningful connections and relationships. He coaches people of all genders and sexualities but specializes in coaching bears, chubs and cubs due to his very special personal relationship with our community. As a self-identified chubby chaser, Noah is very familiar with the needs and wants of our community members and can often be found at various bear runs getting to know the clientele.

As a husband and father, Noah can help you pursue a long term relationship but is also down to help you get laid as you’ll see in our candid discussion below.

BWM: What led you to become a dating coach?

Noah Heymann (NH): I started DateCoach.com four years ago because I could no longer stand to see so many great guys lonely. I had always been that unusual guy at the bathhouse who wanted to get to know you, that friend you pretended to be annoyed by when I wanted to help you rewrite your Growlr profile, or who pushed you to turn your next hookup into a kind-of date by meeting the guy for coffee first. My friends urged me to make it my career, and I’d respond that our local community was too small. Once everyone hopped on Zoom in the pandemic, I had no more excuses.

BWM: And how did you prepare to become a dating coach?

NH: I spent years studying and practicing coaching, and all the aspects you’d associate with my field: relationships, sexuality, communication, attachment, etc. But as a huge data nerd, one service I provide my clients that I’ve seen from no other coach is to provide every answer on what works in online dating. This includes all the criteria of the most attractive photos (an open-mouth laugh, in the natural light of magic hour before sunset, portrait mode with your face more crisp than the background, specifically a depth of field of 2.8 or lower, and dozens more), all the facets of the most attractive profile narratives (~50 words, phrased only positively like “guys over 50” rather than “no guys under 50,” demonstrating originality even if you funnily-enough have to copy it from other profiles, and dozens more), and every aspect of effective opening messages (10-20 words, asking an open-ended question you care the answer, to based on something in his profile, using your first name and his if listed, and dozens more).

BWM:  I read about your previous career as a diplomat. How do those skills translate to date coaching?

NH: I wasn’t quite conformist enough for government bureaucracy but excelled at creating good relationships with my counterparts in the governments of the countries in which I lived, so that the US and those countries could accomplish more together. This required learning languages (I coach in Spanish too!) and understanding how each person is affected by and distinct from the culture around them. As I built my reputation, I discovered even more fulfillment coaching my colleagues to form connections and relationships. Still, it took me years to build the confidence to throw away that interesting and comfortable career to do what I was born to do.

BWM: What could a potential client looking for love expect from working with you?

NH: On DateCoach.com you schedule a free intro session on your romantic goals and circumstances and my methods. Once we decide we’re a great fit for coaching, we come up with every option to make it more likely to find love, then prioritize them and dive into our first step! We might need an exercise to transform our body confidence, or techniques to feel comfortable in conversation, or flipping a psychological script where we weren’t trying our hardest out of fear that we’d feel even worse if we still couldn’t find love. The results are tangible and surprisingly quick, not the dozens of sessions many of my clients expect from assuming coaching is akin to therapy.

 BWM: Do you provide coaching for people looking for more casual connections?

NH: Absolutely! It’s fewer guys than are looking for love, but I help guys looking for FWBs or hookups or even just friends with where to look; if online then their profiles/pics/messages, if in person then how to approach a guy and be approachable. Yes, I also provide sex coaching from the nuts-and-bolts of increasing physical pleasure and performance to how to elicit and explore his kinks.

BWM: I know you coach people of all genders and sexualities but have a special relationship to the chub and chaser community. Tell us about that.

NH: I’m a chaser! 300? 400? 600? Yes please! 200? Let’s play a board game and be friends. I wasn’t always so confident; I was deeply closeted until 23. Even then my first few years dating I was doing it all wrong. If only there’d been a dating and relationship coach for us back then. I meet my clients where they are without judgment: closeted at 65, virgin at 40, sex with 1,500 guys but never a boyfriend, or most-commonly successful at almost every part of their life with this glaring and painful exception.

BWM: What is your relationship to the bear community?

NH: Ah the chub/chaser community is the little brother of the bigger bear community, with so much overlap and no hard line between the two. I go to many bear runs, and bears are a significant portion of my friends and clients. Despite the temptation to define ever-smaller groups within a tribe, I notice more what we have in common: like the desire for romantic connection and the frustration with online dating.

BWM: I know your coaching is tailored to each individual client, but I was wondering if you could give more generalized pointers on how shy chubs and bears can build confidence and how daters can make an impactful dating profile?

NH: Sure! On body confidence, let’s try an exercise. If you’ve seen Good Will Hunting, we’re trying to get into the headspace of Robin Williams’ character when recalling his deceased wife, how he loved every little aspect of her, even how she used to fart so loud in her sleep she’d wake herself up. Now, we are going to say out loud what we find attractive (nothing negative or even neutral!) about every single part of your body, and there should be a couple dozen you describe. However, you are not speaking as yourself, but from the perspective of your loving partner (who might be imaginary for now). You can include anything physical (voice, scent, etc.), but nothing about your personality. “I find his bald spot so charming. His bushy eyebrows are so manly. I love holding the soft warm sag at the bottom of his belly.” Etc. Try it and let me know how you feel!

NH (con’t): For profiles, I’ll give you an example from a local bear client this week of why not to include anything negative in your profile. My client was driving from lunch to dessert with a guy he’d just met on Scruff, and pretty sure the guy didn’t want anything more than a friendly hangout. Even when the guy was staring at my client’s belly. Even when he started rubbing my client’s belly. Even when he took my client’s hand and placed it on his crotch. Only when the guy said, “Would you take me back to your place?” did my client realize the guy was sexually interested. The guy asked my client later why he had to hit him over the head with a frying pan to get through to him, and my client said, “Your profile said you weren’t into hookups.” The guy was confused and said it didn’t. They looked and found it said only, “I don’t trade dick pics.” That little negative phrase had mixed with my clients self-doubts and turned into the thought “He doesn’t like me.”

BWM: What has been the most gratifying part of your work?

NH: I’m most giddy when a client finds love, but always deeply fulfilled seeing the immediate transformation in their confidence and dating habits. Each improvement we make compounds our chance of success. If the right photos (variety, AI inputs, crowd-sourced selection, etc.) attracts say twice as many views; and the right profile (topics, humor, call-to-action, etc.) attracts say twice the rate of messages; and the right messages that skip small talk to an authentic connection results in perhaps twice the rate of meetings. Suddenly 2 x 2 x 2 my client has 8 times as many first dates and that much better a shot at love! It’s also exciting when a client comes back to me long after our initial work to achieve something new, like he found a boyfriend and now wants help removing jealousy from his open relationship.

For a FREE intro session video chat with Noah, you can schedule on DateCoach.com or message him on Instagram @DateCoachDotCom.