Jose Covaco did not do all that well with women, not in his early days. Girl after girl, woman after woman left him to pick up the pieces of his confused, broken heart off a bathroom floor. Those were the days before Jose figured out he could plunge into work at the radio station where he jockeyed, edited, programmed and produced shows. Days before he became an MTV VJ, and days before he drew a Venn diagram with a big box called “Work” and a small heart called “Love” in a circle called “Life”. This he has now put on the first pages of a book called Ladies Please! Dating Truths by a Man.
Beginning from his dating credentials to relationships, love and infatuation, and everything he wanted to tell women, the book is dedicated to all his ex-girlfriends. Because now, he is ‘a married man and has nothing to lose’.
“I’ve been collecting these thoughts for a really long time and I’ve always wanted to tell women all the things we’ve never told them so when Random House asked me to write a book, it just clicked,” says Jose. “I was skeptical at first, because I didn’t want to subject people to my writing, but then I decided what the heck, there are much worse things out there.”
His signature humour is there in those less than 200 pages, making digs at himself, and at men. One whole chapter called ‘Things We Don’t Understand about Women’ comes to about one word: Nothing. “From my own experiences I realised that we are pretty much clueless when it comes to the opposite sex. What started off as a book on dating tips, turned into a book about life and love.”
Among the 19 chapters he has written, Jose picks out his favourites: chapter 12 that deals with space in relationships, chapter 13 about the world through men’s eyes, and another on his most important discoveries.
“The book is called Ladies, Please! only because I am a man and it is the only reference point I had and I wanted it to be about all the things I’ve wanted to tell women all these years. But it is actually for both men and women. This isn’t really a serious self-help book or an actual book on dating. I’ve used humour to disguise my brutal honesty because life is tough and if someone’s going through a rough time, I don’t want to contribute to that.”
