A little rusty on the romance front? There's professional help

Alan Burt winces, slouching in his chair, tapping at the table at McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant in downtown Seattle, his hand wrapped around his Tanqueray and tonic, his eyes focused on a woman in a hot-pink top.
It's time for action. Sarah Taylor, his wing woman/dating coach, barks the orders.
"I want you to go all the way around, make a big loop ... . Make eye contact with her and flirt," she tells Burt. "Tell me something about her when you come back."
He circles to the young woman's table, but unnerved, walks past her and returns to his seat.
Taylor folds her arms in disappointment.
He says: "She's watching TV."
She says: "So? Ask her what she's watching."
He says: "Look! Now her friend is sitting down."
She says: "So?"
And like a child who has run out of excuses, Burt, 31, of Ballard, gets up and faces the inevitable, gulping his cocktail before taking what seems like the longest six steps known to mankind.
(The waitress behind him makes it to the other end of the room before he gets halfway across.)
He faces the woman, who appears to be in her late 20s, and tells her he would like to grab coffee sometime, offering his business card. She politely takes it and says "Thank you." Her friend covers her mouth and giggles.
And off Burt goes to another bar with his dating coach.
This town needs help
In March, Burt hired The Professional Dater, a Pioneer Square group of "image consultants" who are in the business of helping people find love or just a date.
The coaches will help you write your online dating profile, teach you how to flirt, even help you with your, ahem, game.
And if you're a guy, which 60 percent of their clients are, they can give you a girl's-eye take on your bachelor pad and wardrobe, help you shop for shoes and trendy shirts, clean you up and even be your "wing woman" on your nights out, working the sidelines, scouting which girls don't have wedding rings or chatting up prospects for you.
The idea came from Alma Rubenstein, 38, of Seattle, a former actress who has been a contestant on "The Bachelor," "Blind Date" and other reality dating shows.
As Rubenstein sees it, in the Seattle dating scene, guys are too timid and girls don't smile, make eye contact or put out social clues. Thus, a lot of singles miss opportunities to date, and that's how Rubenstein got the idea for a new career, thank you very much.
"The [singles] in Seattle, they dress up to go out, but they don't do anything," said Rubenstein, who started her business three years ago. "Everyone is afraid of rejection here. But you have to take action. Just flirt or just talk to people. That's what we try to promote."
The client list varies: the divorcées and widowers out of practice. The shy guys needing a social clutch. The romantics looking for Mr. Right. The bachelors looking to hook up.
All pay up to $2,000 for a Queer-Eye-for-the-Straight-Guy-type makeover, even though the coaches don't promise matrimonial bliss. (Though they did get two 50-year-old singles engaged recently.)
The three "dating doctors" don't possess any special academic qualification or training. Instead, their main qualifications seem to be that they are tuned into the singles scene, to what bars are hot and which shoes are "in."
"A therapist doesn't set you up on dates or tell you you need to wear cologne," said Rubenstein. "We are not afraid to say you need to cut your nose hair."
Nor are the coaches bashful about showing clients how to "work the scene," taking them out to the bar, coffee shop, bookstore or Green Lake to practice flirting or to pick up someone.
The education of Alan
One recent client was Alan Burt, an acoustical consultant, who was focused on climbing the career ladder this past year and is now ready to date again. Worried he was rusty, the Spokane native paid $2,000 for a dating coach.
One Tuesday evening, Taylor walked in, dropping her pink umbrella on Burt's front porch and then surveying the two-bedroom townhouse he shares with a friend.
She is a 34-year-old gregarious blonde from Phinney Ridge who had worked in sales and marketing for Brooks Brothers and Ralph Lauren on the East Coast. She made Burt her project, sprucing up his home and his look in five weeks.
Take down some Rat Pack, John Wayne and Johnny Cash pictures, she advised, and hang some vacation snapshots to make the rooms more inviting for women.
"And get a dining table."
About his fridge: "OK, smell that? [Use] baking soda, guys."
On whether he properly washes his collection of black clothes: "You got dark detergent?"
Burt: "I got Costco-size Tide."
On his disco-style shirts: "... Uh, Neil Diamond."
On a few of his casual shirts: "You got a little K Fed going on here."
They make an appointment to shop together at Nordstrom Rack.
On a Saturday, Taylor flipped through the "new arrival" racks, throwing a rainbow of pink, lime, blue and purple shirts Burt's way as he tried them on in front of a three-way mirror.
Within three hours the pair had racked up $1,500 in new clothes.
"Man, she works fast," Burt said.
By evening, he had a new wardrobe: four pairs of shoes, five sport jackets and 34 sweaters and shirts mostly in bright colors and bold stripes.
Taylor and Burt agreed to meet for happy hour in the coming week to watch him flirt and give him feedback.
You can dress him up, but...
One recent Friday, at McCormick, the new Burt sports a pink checkered shirt over a black T-shirt, dark-blue pinstripe pants and a pair of soft suede Bacco Bucci slip-ons. (Taylor's idea.)
He feels great — until the woman in the hot-pink top he tried to hit on didn't seem that interested.
Try to relax, Taylor says, as they cross First Avenue to the swanky Boka Kitchen + Bar.
Walk around like you own the place, she tells him. She demonstrates by sauntering across the room, making eye contact with bar hoppers, and chatting with the host while touching his right arm.
Burt does "the walk," only he looks more like a guy desperately rushing to the men's room.
He tries again at an Irish pub, scanning one side of the room to the other, as if looking for his friends. "Now he just looks lost," Taylor mutters.
Slow down, make eye contact with people, she tells him.
Taylor eyes a group of young blondes at a corner table at the pub. She leads Burt to a table next to theirs. But he thinks the girls are too young.
Easy, Alan, be cool
On to the bar at the Alexis Hotel, where Burt eyes a toned and tan blonde. Taylor circles her table and returns with a report: The blonde doesn't have a wedding ring, but she does have six friends with her.
Burt strolls up, clumsily introduces himself, hands her his business card and says he wants to have coffee with her sometime. The startled blonde doesn't give him an answer. Their exchange is brief. As he walks away, the friends giggle.
"That felt like trial by jury, like you are going through a gauntlet," he says.
Taylor reminds him to relax, to feel confident, to let the girls see his funny side. And keep the conversation going.
They return to Boka. An exhausted Burt is ready to plop down at a dining table, but his dating coach spots two blondes at the bar.
Burt takes a seat at the bar, with Taylor sitting one seat over to signal she's not his girlfriend. She leans over. "Excuse me, what are you drinking?"
The blonde says it's a modified peach and vodka. The girls chat about cute-looking drinks, then Burt jumps into the conversation. Taylor backs off, leaving Burt and the two women to talk about art galleries, happy hour and life on the Eastside.
Burt appears relaxed for the first time.
Later that night, at another bar, over steak-and-bacon kabob and a potato pancake, washed down with a Tanqueray and tonic, Burt has an epiphany.
That opener, about what the girls were drinking, "That was genius," he says. "They were talking about the drinks instead of talking about them, so it was less threatening."
He makes a mental note ... for next time.
Epilogue: A week later, the blonde at the Alexis Hotel e-mailed him and the two had coffee, but there were no sparks, Burt said. In recent weeks, he has met two other women but had little in common with both and didn't date them again. Burt said he feels more relaxed and confident since that first outing. And yes, at bars, he uses the opening line, "What are you drinking?"