Dinner with the Enlightened Seducers

Contributed by Shawn Conner, Lavalife

One might expect dinner with Zan Perrion to be an orgy of flying phone numbers and steamy flirtations with hot waitresses. One would be somewhat disappointed. But only a little.

Perrion is one of the featured players -- though he would probably prefer the term "philosopher" -- in The Game, the 2005 book by journalist Neil Strauss that shone a media spotlight onto an until-then dimly lit Internet-based fraternity.

Bound together by an insatiable curiosity over what makes a guy attractive to women, these men spent years grappling with questions such as: 'Why do women always go for the bad boy? Should you get her number or give her yours? And what if she's got a can of pepper spray?'

Since The Game's publication, Perrion has become one of the foremost personalities of "the community", as it's called. An international following has gathered around the Vancouver-based dating coach's philosophy and expertise, as presented on his website and demonstrated worldwide through coaching sessions and seminars, like the one given earlier this month in his hometown.

About 60 people, mostly guys in their 20s and 30s, came to hear Perrion, along with woman's dating coach Lisa de Lusignan and tantric sexpert Tanja Diamond, discuss the art of seduction in a small meeting room at the YWCA.

"Everywhere I go," the dark-haired, 42-year-old Perrion had said, "Women ask, 'Where are the real men?' For instance, a guy will ask a woman out, and maybe she'll say, 'I have a boyfriend'. And then what does he do?" asked Perrion. "He apologizes! Why? For being a man and expressing interest?"

A man who is secure in who he is -- what he calls an "authentic man" -- isn't afraid to express himself. Instead of wondering, "Will she like me if I say this?" an authentic man says whatever comes to mind (within reason), confident his date (or whomever) will like him no matter what. And if she doesn't? Well, that option doesn't even enter into the equation.

Later, after the seminar, the ideas continue to flow over dinner and drinks. I find myself amongst a few of Perrion's hardcore followers, along with the man himself, in a dark, polished restaurant staffed by an overabundance of attractive hostesses and waitresses. Also at the table are Ronald Lee, a dating coach and founder of Man Meets Woman (the dating coach company that had organized the day's event), and his girlfriend, Jiamin.

I'm there to pick the love gurus' brains about the community, its past, present and future. Of course, if I'm able to see Zan Perrion in action, even better.

For my own part, I've had a love-hate relationship with the phenomenon since reading The Game. In my own research, I'd become intrigued one minute, overwhelmed the next. Despite my misgivings, however, I have to admit some of what I've learned has caused me to reconsider a lot of previously held beliefs.

For instance, the idea that being successful with women is solely the province of "the natural" -- i.e., that you either have the knack or you don't -- is one I no longer buy into. Feeling comfortable in approaching and meeting women, building attraction -- all this can be learned.

Not that it's simple or easy. And different methods are available to the consumer. Some of the movement's top dogs, like Mystery -- another smoothie featured in The Game, and the subject of the VH-1 show The Pick Up Artist -- teach a skill-set, complete with strategic approaches and dialogue templates. But Lee, along with Perrion, Brent Smith, and a handful others, believes in what the Man Meets Woman dating coach calls "the natural method".

Rather than showing guys how to "harvest numbers", as Perrion puts it, the naturals start from the inside out by encouraging their students to become excited about their lives, to not be apologetic about who they are and to love the feminine and respect women. It's not about pickup lines or even techniques, says Lee.

So how, I ask, did he meet Jiamin? He saw her at a mutual friend's wedding, he says. "When she went to the bathroom, I followed her, and when she came out I said, 'Hi. So, who do you know here?'"

Like Perrion, Lee has been involved in the community since its virtual beginnings nearly a decade ago, and has seen it grow from a handful of hobbyists to a full-blown industry. Since the publication of The Game, thousands if not millions of lost, confused dudes have flocked to websites run by an ever-expanding number of self-styled experts hawking DVDs, PDFs, CDs and MPEGs offering special insight and unique approaches guaranteed to make women's knees tremble at the very thought of you. Lee specializes in one-on-one coaching. He's had students who have given up on women for several years, he says. "They come to me, and within a month they're dating multiple women." He believes, on average, that most guys can learn to be more successful daters in six months to two years. And he thinks the movement has the potential to get much, much bigger. What it will take, he says, is an episode of Oprah.

"The moment this becomes mainstream it will change everything," he says.

But how much bigger can it get? After all, if the average guy hates asking for directions. How will Joe Six-Pack admit he needs dating advice -- some of which might run counter to everything he's been doing all his life?

And if it does become mainstream, the greater exposure might draw more get-rich-quick schemers, which could give a worse rep to something some women already see as a big bag of tricks to get them into bed. The lingo doesn't help. Terms and phrases such as the "neg" (a negative comment designed to let her know who's boss), "opening a set" (approaching a group of strangers) and going out "in the field" (the real world, where flesh-and-blood females gather) give the whole thing a self-serious, Soldier of Fortune aura.

But no negs are coming from our table tonight. When our waitress, a copper-skinned blonde Amazon, delivers his appetizer, Perrion leans back in his chair and fixes her with his patented seducer's gaze. "You're fantastic!" he says, with the kind of supreme self-confidence I can muster only when addressing one of those little old ladies selling raffle tickets at my bank.

"Well, I didn't make it," she says with a killer smile. "But maybe I could, next time." Alas, that's about as hot as it gets between the man hailed by some as "the world's greatest seducer" and our Milestones waitress. The only numbers exchanged, at least that I see, are between some of the guys from our little group who have gathered outside and want to keep in touch.

Eric, a pale, skinny dude with a vague resemblance to Anthony Michael Hall, is among them. I'd heard him mention earlier that he was a university student, and as we're standing in front of the restaurant I ask what he's studying.

"Economics and politics," he says. "But they're not my passion."

I ask what is. "I'd like to be a dating coach," he says. "Like Zan."