Grand Valley State University alumn Benton Miller did not have the best luck with women while attending GVSU. His small high school lacked opportunity for him to develop social skills, and his college dating life suffered as a result.

“Dates with women were as rare as a UFO sighting,” Miller said lightheartedly.

After leaving GVSU, Miller accepted a job that took him further away from his social life and girlfriend for up to 60 hours a week. This proved to place too much strain on his relationship, and his girlfriend soon left him.

All of his time spent fostering a relationship turned into time not-so-well-wasted, that is, until Miller came across a “60 Minutes” segment highlighting what is known as the Mystery Method.

The Mystery Method works to teach men how to build confidence and walks through different levels of attraction, giving men a step-by-step process for dating. Miller realized that this was the information that he needed in order to pick up the pieces of his social skills and gently place them back together.

He and Travis Wolfe, a close friend from high school, started a mission to employ this strategy and get into the dating world. While improving their dating lives, they also learned skills to help in their professional careers.

Together Miller and Wolfe kept a journal, and through all of their failure, learned more about themselves and began to understand women.

“While looking back at these journal entries years later, we realized we had created the perfect play-by-play to help other men deal with similar problems of confidence and social ability, how to handle phone calls, online dating, what to do if she has loads of guy friends and most importantly, how to get the women chasing us,” Wolfe said.

From the raw journal entries, they selected entries with the most significance and from there, polished the entries while adding humor for more appeal. Miller’s degree was in finance and management and Wolfe’s degree was in information technologies and networking, so although their writing skills were not on par with modern literary giants J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, Miller said, they received a lot of help and direction from some of the best editors money can buy.

Eventually, “The Journal: Men’s Quest for the Perfect Match” was born with three parts of helpful information.

The first third of “The Journal” focuses exclusively on how to effectively use The Mystery Method to attract women and build comfort. The next third of the book is a series of journal entries that demonstrate how to use The Mystery Method in any environment, while the final third of the book focuses on the final moves to finding the perfect match, according to the book’s description on Amazon.

While rediscovering dating, Miller dated more than 100 girls casually and maintained five or six exclusive relationships throughout the course of his efforts in a time frame of about a year and a half. This led to him meeting his current girlfriend, whom he has since dated for five years. Through the entire process of experimentation and writing the book, Miller said it absolutely has improved his relationship as well as his work and personal life.

The creation of the book from journal entries makes it a unique combination of the self-help and memoir genres, with Miller and Wolfe lending their own experiences for other men to learn from.

“People are finding the book very entertaining, and initial feedback has been great,” Miller said. “It’s not to be disrespectful, but to implement these ideas into everyday life.”

Currently, “The Journal” is available as an eBook on the Kindle and Nook, but will soon be published in a paper version. For more information, visit the Amazon Marketplace or the book’s website, www.thejournalbook.com.

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