Читать книгу The Moaning of Life - Karl Pilkington - Страница 11

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 they’ve nothing else going for them. I’m sure that’s why babies are cute; otherwise most people wouldn’t have them, as they don’t bring much else to your life for years. I’m sure the only reason we try and save pandas from extinction is because people find them ‘cute’. The Cape stag beetle is on its way out, and no one gives a shit, as it’s not cute, is it?

Rather than chat-up lines and false charm I would get someone interested by telling them good animals facts like:

	•	Bats hang upside down even when they’re dead, as their claws automatically close.
	•	Wombat poo comes out in squares.
	•	A lot of koala bears have bad backs, as they sit up all day even though their spines aren’t designed for it.

At least then, if they don’t like me, I haven’t totally wasted their time. They go away with a little nugget of information that they’ll remember, which also means they’ll remember me.

Next, Vinnie told us we were going to be walking on fire.

VINNIE: Why would we walk on fire? Well, most men see women who they want have goals and dreams, and they hesitate. So this is symbolic for charging forward. Interacting with women, you see her in the distance – what comes first? Foot first, everybody. What comes first?

MEN: Foot first.

It didn’t seem like a sensible thing to do, but neither did smashing a piece of wood with my hand. But I’d done that, so I thought I’d give this a go. Plus, I’d had a few verrucas of late from staying in hotels where the bath hadn’t been cleaned properly and I thought this might help get rid of them. While we took off our shoes and socks, Vinnie continued talking. It was relentless. He could do his speech in his sleep, that’s if he had time to sleep between all the having it away. If he wasn’t talking to us he was kissing Valerie, his French girlfriend.

I’m not a fan of people kissing in public either. Fine if it’s a quick peck, but when people are all over each other it does my head in. They seem to think it’s okay to do what they want because it’s ‘love’. Again, in the films when some bloke holds a plane up to get on board to propose to some woman and all the passengers cheer – it’s ridiculous! I wouldn’t feel like cheering. We’d probably have missed our take-off slot and we’d then be waiting on the tarmac for another forty-five minutes. Selfish, that’s what it is. It’s the same with Romeo and Juliet. She was shouting to him from her balcony, yet no one ever considers the person who lived in the ground-floor flat who might have been trying to sleep. As it happens, on this occasion I didn’t mind Vinnie kissing Valerie, as at least it meant he couldn’t speak.

Shoes and socks off, I joined the queue to fire walk. I was in agony. Not from walking on fire but from walking over to the fire. The ground was covered in sharp stones and bits of twig that I’m still removing from my feet now. Vinnie got us to chant ‘Sex NOW, Sex NOW’ as we waited in line. It came to my go. I don’t know what the fuss is about, as it actually didn’t hurt that much. Nowhere near as bad as walking over the ground to the fire. Once we crossed the coals everybody high-fived each other, and Vinnie told us we were ready to put what we’d learned into practice.

Vinnie had rented an apartment where we all met up at 7 p.m. It was a bit of a bachelor pad. Lots of black and red, dim lights, a round bed that rotated, and a shower that could fit fifteen people with a pole in it. I didn’t want to ask why you would want fifteen people in a shower cos I know for a fact that it isn’t because Vinnie wanted to be environmentally friendly. I don’t think I’ve ever had fifteen people in my house at the same time, never mind in my shower. And what is it with pole dancing? I don’t understand it. It seems like a wasted skill to me. Has anyone ever told one of them women who do it that they could probably make a fortune putting up scaffolding? They’d be able to do it in no time.

We headed to the Strip in a huge pink Hummer limo. It was stupidly long, like an aeroplane with the wings taken off. Inside, music was pumping. As we were driving about, Vinnie showed me some YouTube clips of him doing his thing around the world. Basically, videos of him going up to strangers and kissing them, and I’m not talking just a peck on the cheek either. It was like a front cover of a Mills & Boon paperback.

It was a cold night, and as we wandered about on the busy sidewalks Vinnie kept getting us to chant ‘Some will! Some won’t! So what!’, which must have been taught on another day of boot camp, as it was new to me. It has a bit more substance to it than the classic ‘It’s not gonna suck itself!’ Vinnie was also dishing out advice on how to approach girls.

VINNIE: Look both sides, be strong, you gotta go for it, start sooner and start stronger. What is it? Sooner and . . . ?

MAN: Start stronger.

VINNIE: Sooner and stronger, alright. Walk first, foot first, faster. Okay, now you’re ready.

MAN: Yeah.

Vinnie kept using the expression ‘she’s hot’, an expression I’ve never used. Vinnie was in his element, but I couldn’t help thinking he could put his skills to better use by becoming a charity collector. A lot of those blokes in bibs collecting for endangered species seem to use it as an excuse to chat up women, anyway.

Alice, Vinnie’s assistant, asked me what my ‘type’ was, but I don’t really have one. It’s not a battery I’m looking for. I’m sure there are loads of different types of people I could get on with, but I wouldn’t go for someone who is knocking around the busy streets of Vegas at this time of night, as I don’t live that sort of life. I’d prefer to be at home with a Twix watching the telly. And I don’t believe that ‘opposites attract’. Whenever I think of that phrase I always think of the film King Kong. When the big monkey starts fancying Naomi Watts, people in the cinema were crying and wondering, ‘Will they or won’t they get it on?’ As if it was ever going to work out. He was a bloody hundred-foot gorilla! You know every love story has been done when a gorilla is trying it on with a woman. Anyway, Alice wasn’t giving up.

KARL: Have you heard of Kim Wilde? The singer?

ALICE: No.

KARL: Right, well, in the 80s she was alright. In the 90s it was Patsy Kensit. Have you heard of her?

ALICE: Maybe?

KARL: In the late 80s Kylie Minogue was vaguely popular. She was in Neighbours, have you heard of that? Now, I didn’t like her in that, but, come 2000, I thought, ‘She’s alright.’ So it just goes to show, your tastes change.

Thinking about it, I reckon haircuts attract me to women. I’ve had arguments with Suzanne when she lets her hairdresser do what he wants and she comes back with a daft haircut that I then have to put up with until it grows out. Nice hair is important. Look at cats, nice and cuddly. If they were bald they’d have died out by now.

ALICE: Any situation where you’re trying to convince someone to do something, whether it’s to buy a product or to go out with you, whatever it is, the 10–10–80 rule applies. So 10 per cent of people will say no, no matter what. I mean, you can offer them everything under the sun and they’ll say no. Ten per cent will say absolutely yes. You could walk up to a girl with a sign that says ‘Will you sleep with me?’ and they’ll go for it . . . even if you are absolutely disgusting. But the remaining 80 per cent, they’re sitting on the fence, and all the techniques that the pick-up artists will teach you, everything applies to that 80 per cent, because it’s a matter of how skilled you are as to what level you can pull towards you. Those skills – practice really does make perfect, so when you do find that beautiful woman you’re already gonna have that ability.

As much as some of what Alice said made sense, it’s just not the way I work, so I left Vinnie and his followers to it. People who I’ve gone out with have been friends of friends who I’ve got to know over time, so there was no going up to strangers and trying to chat them up needed. I didn’t even like a couple of them that much to start with, but then we ended up getting on over time. It’s like my relationship with olives. They were always plonked on a table when I went out for dinner even though they were not requested, and I didn’t like them. Couldn’t see the attraction. I didn’t even look at them. But over time I got used to seeing them, tried them one night, and now I love them. This is the way it works for me. Each to their own, though.