THE ART OF PICKING UP WOMEN
I went to meet Vinnie, a professional pick-up artist who was supposed to help me learn how to approach women, should the need ever arise. He runs a boot camp for people who lack confidence to teach them how to do it. The boot camp was in Nipton, a small town in the Mojave Desert about an hour away from Vegas. There’s not much to say about Nipton other than it has a population of sixty, one café and a few desert tortoises. Even though tortoises live for a hundred years, I doubt they’ve seen much change around Nipton.
By the time I got there Vinnie was already in full swing. Vinnie was a forty-five-year-old Italian fella. Not your stereotypical tall and dark Italian, Vinnie was small, dark and pink. If his neon pink hair didn’t grab your attention, his earrings, eyebrow ring, chin ring or tattoos might. He explained how his look is carefully put together to attract women and is known as ‘peacocking’, which is basically making yourself stand out from the crowd like a peacock showing off its feathers. I’ve always thought of them as earth’s natural drag queens.
There were five other blokes at the boot camp. I got in line.
VINNIE: In the 50s the rules of dating were well defined. You would go to a dance, approach a woman and dance with her. Then came the 60s, and women realised that they had a form of power. We call it PUSSY POWER. Right, grab yourselves. (grabs crotch) This is your social workout. If you don’t exercise it now, it’s probably not going to happen, because, gentlemen, remember, we are real men here. IT’S NOT GONNA SUCK ITSELF!
BOOT CAMP MEMBERS: It’s not gonna suck itself!
VINNIE: Come on, grab it! IT’S NOT GONNA SUCK ITSELF!
BOOT CAMP MEMBERS AND KARL: It’s not gonna suck itself!
VINNIE: If you wait for it to happen, it’s probably not going to happen. When was the last time you heard a knock at the door, and they say, ‘We have girls here, they want to talk to you’? No. If you want it, you got to go get it.
Vinnie could talk. But none of what he was saying was making sense to me. It was like watching a trailer for a film that’s exciting, but you haven’t got a clue what’s going on. I’m the sort of person who needs one-on-one training. This is why school didn’t work for me.
Vinnie told us all to grab a piece of wood and then explained that he wanted us to chop it in half using our bare hands. This was to teach us how not to fear tackling the unknown. I wasn’t keen. I damaged my right wrist when I was a kid and it’s not been right since. It aches when I plunge the toast in the toaster, so smashing it against a bit of wood didn’t seem like a good idea. He told me to use my left hand instead.
VINNIE: In life we sometimes have a tendency to make things harder than they are. Each of those boards has a slight natural curve. You want to make sure that you’re going to hit that side, because there is no point in making things harder in life.
MALICK (BOOT CAMP MEMBER): Yeah.
VINNIE: Now, there’s nothing worse than the sex going down the drain because then it’s only logistics, you’re just running a household. Nothing will keep a woman more interested than amazing sex, and it’ll make you feel good too. Research has demonstrated that men who have great sex do better at all levels. So pick a board and identify the side that should be facing. Does that make sense?
EVERYONE: Yeah, it does.
Don’t get me wrong – the sex thing, it’s alright. But I’m not a great believer in going at it all night. Get it done, get to sleep; it’s not something you should drag out. I’ve had neighbours who do that, and it drives me up the wall. To me it’s like getting a sofa through a doorway: you can waggle it about and try different angles, but you just want to get it into the hole, just get it done. I say be like a pigeon. They don’t mess about, they just jump on the back of another pigeon and it’s done in about two seconds and then they wander off again to find a bit of KFC chicken.
One by one we took it in turns to smash the wood. I broke it in half with no problem. It made me feel quite good. Left hand as well. I passed the test. Though I didn’t need to break any wood when I met Suzanne. I wasn’t looking to meet anyone at the time, as I was busy working. She worked in a newsroom at a local radio station in Manchester where I was doing some work in the evenings. I wanted a hot chocolate but had no money, so I asked her if I could borrow 20p. She said yes and then never asked for it back, so I thought ‘she’s alright’ and I’ve been with her ever since. I know Disney wouldn’t buy my story to make into a romantic cartoon, but I think our relationship is built on what’s important. Romantic films have got to be responsible for most divorces – people are trying to live in a make-believe world. Suzanne buying me that hot chocolate is certainly a better reason to be with someone than that bloke who went out with Cinderella cos her foot fitted a glass slipper he found on the street. Isn’t picking someone based on the size of their feet a bit of a gamble? I mean, a slipper suggests she does very little, anyway. And a glass one at that. The noise alone would do my head in. Then there’s the fact she lost it. I don’t want to be going out with someone who’s constantly losing shoes.
Vinnie went over a few different ways to approach chatting to a woman using Alice, his assistant, in the role-play.
VINNIE: If you don’t know what to say, tell her, ‘I got no clue what to say, but you’re really cute.’ When you do that, they’ve got to at least say hello. (Alice chuckles) No, seriously. ‘I’m Vince, what’s your name?’
ALICE: Alice.
VINNIE: Alice, you have a strong handshake. Oh, let’s play who’s got the most bracelets! Let’s see, how many bracelets do you have?
ALICE: Seven.
VINNIE: Seven? Ah, too many to count. You’re cute. So, anyway, it will come, because when you’re closer to her she may talk to you, and you will notice things you can talk about.
I couldn’t do this sort of thing. It’s just not me at all, and I reckon women would see right through it. I wouldn’t approach a woman who is wearing a load of bangles, anyway, as the jangling noise would get on my nerves. It would be like going out with a bloody wind chime. Also, if I was a woman and the only word that could be used to describe me was ‘cute’ I would not be happy. Things that are ‘cute’ are usually also useless – they’re ‘cute’ because