It is time to stop shying away from people of the opposite gender. Instead, Daniel Packard wants men and women to stand up and be confident.

Packard, the award-winning college speaker, will be giving a speech today at 7 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom. He won’t be offering dating advice, but he will be offering guidance.

Packard said he doesn’t like giving advice to students. Instead, he wants to show women and men that they shouldn’t be scared of the opposite sex.

Packard, who received the Canadian Organization of Campus Activities National College Speaker of the Year award, said he was once in the same shoes as many other men – a 19-year-old scared of women.

Being scared is the reason he became the dating doctor.

“Girls scared the crap out of me,” Packard said. “I wanted to know what I was so afraid of.”

Packard said women were always complaining so much about men, especially him. Everything women said about Packard, he took personally, he said.

“Women were complaining themselves from love and couldn’t see it,” he said.

When Packard was a stand-up comedian, he began talking about the problems with women, which was different than all of the other comedians who talked about the problems with men, he said.

“The whole room stared at me like I just punched a cat,” Packard said.

After the show in which he talked about the problems with women, Packard said a few women came up to him after the show and told him what he had said was accurate.

Packard said he became a dating coach and stand-up comedian when he began giving some of his female friends dating advice that worked.

Now, Packard said he has been a dating coach for about seven years.

Before Packard speaks Tuesday, Amber Holland, University Board lectures coordinator, said he is going to oversee a stoplight social for men and women to meet each other and get practice with interacting with the opposite sex. This will take place at 6:30 p.m. according to Holland.

Alyssa Anderson, vice chair of UB, said the stoplight social is going to be good practice for men and women to have face-to-face contact.

“Practice can help anytime, in dating, or even at a job,” Anderson said.

Anderson said Packard’s guidance should be helpful to students; especially the men and women who are shy and don’t know how to talk to someone.

Packard said men need help approaching women.

“I want to defend men,” Packard said. “They are being beaten verbally by women.”

Packard said he is coming to help both men and women. His ability to help them will begin by how honest they are on the questionnaires they have to fill out at the beginning of the event.

The questionnaire will allow Packard to understand students’ frustration with the opposite sex, he said.

Packard has a simple explanation for frustration.

“Behind frustration is fear and behind fear is a lack of information,” Packard said.

Packard said he hopes he can leave the students with a newfound confidence that they didn’t have before.

“I want confident, loving people in the world,” Packard said.

The stoplight social will precede the event at 6:30 p.m. Packard will speak in the Grand Ballroom at 7 p.m.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7944 or admcnamee@eiu.edu.