GIRLS and boys, meet Dr David Tian, a smoothie who could well make your dates sizzle - and possibly lubricate the process of getting you hitched.

He is no matchmaker. But he does claim to be able to make Singapore men more suitable suitors and, thus, ease Singapore's procreation woes.

His services hold the promise of solving the neverending gripe among Singapore women about the way Singapore men behave.

But can this 31-year-old really turn crass into Casanova?

His claim to fame? He claims to have been intimate with 30 women in two months.

His qualifications? By day, he lectures Asian Culture in the National University of Singapore (NUS).

By night, he is a lifestyle consultant. His job is to train men on how to attract women, how to date women and how to maintain relationships with women.

Sounds familiar?

Recall Hitch, a movie starring Will Smith, about a dating consultant.

Dr Tian's consultancy services include boot camps and one-on-one sessions, over the phone or via e-mail.

This month alone, he has already been booked for services worth $10,000.

Dr Tian's clients are men in their early 20s to early 40s, from Singapore and Beijing.

Boot camps that cost from US$1,500 ($2,120) a person are booked via the websites thesocialman.com and www.powerofbeingasian.com.

Fork out more money and you get private one-on-one consultancy.

So what makes Dr Tian such an expert? Can he really make a Greek god out of Mr Singapore Geek?

His resume: Three years of learning from self-help books, personal time with American self-proclaimed dating expert Christian Hudson, the founder of thesocialman.com, and his experience with Beijing women.

Depression after his failed marriage spurred him into becoming a lifestyle consultant, much like the script from Hitch.

Dr Tian said: 'I believe in something called social freedom which I think many men in Singapore lack. It is to be able to put aside one's ego and not be afraid of making mistakes.

'I discovered social freedom when I was at the lowest point in my life. I didn't care what people thought of me.'

An ex-client, who gave his name only as Brian H, is a 23-year-old IT consultant in Los Angeles.

He wrote of Dr Tian after undergoing four months of private coaching: 'David turned my life around. As an Asian guy in America, I had a lot of trouble talking with hot girls. But David showed me my limiting beliefs, how they were tripping me up, and how to overcome them.

'Before I met him, I could barely look a girl in the eye. But now I'm dating two girls and meeting more every weekend!'

Born in Taiwan, and raised in the US, Dr Tian moved to Singapore from Beijing last month, where he was doing his archival research and dissertation for his doctoral thesis.

At 31, he is sitting nicely at the top of the education rung, holding two master's degrees and a doctorate in Asian studies.

He has fellowships with Ivy League institutes such as Harvard and Princeton.

He speaks and writes Japanese, French and Classical Greek, apart from English and Chinese.

His bachelor pad, a rented apartment at The Sail at Marina Bay, has a commanding view of the city.

Okay, so he's bright (we checked his qualifications), and lives in luxury (yes we did check out his bedroom).

In his website, Dr Tian claims to be 'specialised in meeting, attracting and pleasuring Asian women especially high status, high quality, high value women in East Asia, including China, Singapore, Japan, and Korea'.

How does he propose to change men's lives?

'First, I enter my client's life, observe his daily habits- his hobbies, the way he speaks and thinks, right down to how he eats... Then I slowly deconstruct his life from within and train him to develop a new lifestyle that is appropriate and beneficial to his life.'

Dr Tian shared with The New Paper on Sunday an example of a man who would require some lifestyle training: 'Either he finds that he can't seem to maintain a relationship with a woman, or women turn away even before he can speak to them.'

Growing up

Dr Tian can identify with the situation. Growing up, he felt like the odd one out as an Asian raised in an upper-middle class ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christian family living abroad.

He was awkward being smaller physically compared to his peers, and had self-confidence issues.

He got married and separated shortly after, leaving him depressed. It took psychiatric treatment from two doctors before he could recover.

Then he met Mr Hudson, who helped turn his life around.

He started blogging about his encounters with different women.

Dr Tian wrote in one of his blogs: 'I guess in the land of men, I still am the odd one out. But this time, it's in a good way, at least if you consider something like 10 per cent of the men in this world have slept with over 90 per cent of the women and the top 1 per cent have slept with more.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on Sep 7, 2008.