Ancient Chivalrous Wisdom From a Hip-Hop Dating Coach

Photo courtesy of Yo Jeff Carroll

Yo, Jeff Carroll didn't get laid much in his formative years. He had eczema in high school, wore glasses, and weighed about 125 lbs. When he finally got up the courage to ask out his first girlfriend, the relationship lasted about four hours. "It wasn't easy for me to date," he says.

Now 41, living in Pembroke Pines, and happily married with a 6-year-old son, Carroll has turned his Steve Urkel past into a business. He calls himself a Hip-Hop Dating Coach. And yes, as far he knows, he's the only one.

He travels around speaking to high school and college students about STDs and domestic abuse, and he privately counsels adults. In late May, he's scheduled to speak at a national conference in Jacksonville about preventing crime in the black community. His message is almost absurdly quaint. "I'm teaching people, men and women, how to find a life partner and get married," he says.

It's not a religious thing or a chastity-belt-till-marriage thing. Carroll is just sick of watching booty calls and baby mamas become the norm  So he preaches the basics -- as in, a kind of chivalry most of us haven't seen since 1956. Respect your partner. Date just one person at a time. Try to pick someone you'd enjoy talking to as well as seeing naked. If you feel like you're starring in a Rihanna/Chris Brown drama, get out.

His shtick includes a Condom Sense Test (which this reporter failed) and a Player Hater List of instructions about how to have mature relationships.

It's all so refreshing and respectable, you have to wonder how Carroll makes a living doing it. Well, he doesn't yet. "I do it because I want to do it," he says. But he's looking for more clients, if you happen to be single...