Seduction School: Size Doesn’t Matter

Channel 4

There is no braver warrior on the planet than the unattractive nice guy approaching a pretty girl in the hope of "getting to know her better”. Men will walk to their certain deaths secure in the knowledge that it can never be worse than the symbolic annihilation thousands of men put themselves through every weekend in the sick ritual of chatting up the honies. To men like Aerial Telly it holds no fear of course because from the moment I walk in the club your girl be clocking me and I gots to tell her to back up off a brother. We all know that I’m going to be macking that dame before the night is out. She’ll quickly find an excuse to visit the bathroom the moment I make eye-contact. And while you stand there waiting for your pint to evaporate she’ll be dry humping me against the back of the DJ booth. Two hours later she’ll return to you, my number in her phone, to be greeted by the 14 Bacardi Breezers you bought her on your journeys to the bar. She’ll look at you like the contemptible turd you are and order a taxi home to dream about me. Then you’ll be left, hands in pockets trying to strike up a conversation about football with the bouncers.

"Adrian can’t get girls to see him as more than just a friend. In fact, they can’t see him at all without crouching."

Your reality is one shared by many men. Something addressed in Seduction School: Size Doesn’t Matter, the first instalment of Shape of the Nation series, a three-parter dealing with our obsession with appearance. The show featured seduction gurus Wayne Elise and Jonny Saviour (proponents of the Juggler Method) trying to drill some mack tactics into three hopelessly insecure men. Neil is a 22-stone virgin who has never even kissed a girl; Dave is a grotesque 6ft 6 GIANT who wimps out of approaching women and Adrian is 5 ft tall and therefore The Smallest Man That Ever Lived. He can’t get girls to see him as more than just a friend. In fact, they can’t see him at all without crouching.

"Neil strikes up the first meaningful conversation by claiming to be a panda bear. The only thing giving him away is that a panda bear moves quicker."

The gurus put the boys through a boot camp of approaching strange women in the street and starting conversations with them. Dave the Giant puts in an abysmal effort, taking 20 minutes to even sit down at a table adjacent to some females. Tiny Adrian walks up to a girl seated on some steps but his squeaky Jiminy Cricket vocal merely causes her to collapse in gales of laughter and swat him aside. Walking lard mountain Neil strikes up the first meaningful conversation by claiming to be a panda bear. The only thing giving him away is that a panda bear moves quicker.

So the seduction gurus are faced with a reasonably tall man who believes he is Goliath, a man in a four-year-old child’s body and a smiling tub of guts who believes himself to be a panda bear. You can see that they have their work cut out.

"And on they go with the usual self-improvement makeover horseshit that we can recite in our sleep by now."

And they quickly get cracking teaching the losers the importance of kino (light touching), assertive body-language and statements of intent (letting the target know you think she’s sexy). And on they go with the usual self-improvement makeover horseshit that we can recite in our sleep by now. The Juggler Method is a bit shit to be honest. Heavily derivative of the superior Mystery Method it’s a mixture of the bleeding obvious and highly tenuous. The most effective thing any man can do to improve his strike rate with the dames is simply to get out there, get chatting and try his luck. The seduction gurus force them into these situations relentlessly so it’s not surprising that some progress is made. Tiny Adrian is having difficulty telling a female friend that he wants her in the Bad Way. At some point, he plucks up the courage to tell her and she tells him to fuck himself which he seems to take as some kind of victory. If that’s a positive outcome, what’s your version of a failure?

"The seduction gurus seemed to claim success on the final night because Jabba and the dwarf got a phone number each and Dave the Giant had a snog with a flagcracker."

The seduction gurus seemed to claim success on the final night because Jabba and the dwarf got a phone number each and Dave the Giant had a snog with a flagcracker. And if you see the fucking prices they charge you realise that since Neil Strauss blew the lid on the underground seduction community in The Game, this is one helluva racket these guys have got going on.

And it’s not slowing down any time soon. Every fucker’s an expert on women now and they’re all taking MasterCard. Men are always going to want to get laid and where alcohol and flattery haven’t worked, paying a stranger $1,600 to shout at you in public probably seems fair enough.

The best thing about it: The panda bear gambit. Be fair, it took a lot of nuts.

The worst thing about it: They’re still not getting any ass.

The verdict on Seduction School: Size Doesn’t Matter: I think of you more as a friend.

Marks out of 10: 6