"I am 41 years old," said Jon Massey, "and it has been 11 years since my last date."

He paused his unholy confession for a moment to ponder the long, slow sigh that is his love life.

"I have only ever had one girlfriend," he continued, "and she broke up with me when I refused to get a vasectomy."

Jon Massey was this week's participant on Would Like To Meet (BBC Prime; Mondays; 8pm) and a rum old participant he was too. Would Like To Meet is just about the only show that would make me miss Frasier (SABC3; Mondays; 8.30pm), and it has now done so two weeks in a row, which is a measure of the extent to which it grips me.

'Men always seem to be intimidated by girls with brains'

I suppose it is a species of Reality Television, but it is the kind of reality I like: edited, styled, with a storyline and a cast of characters selected because they are - novel idea! - interesting to watch.

Would Like To Meet each week introduces an individual who, for one reason or another, doesn't have much luck with romance. He or she is observed, analysed and, over the course of three weeks condensed into one engaging hour, overhauled by our specialist panel. The idea is to rework and remodel the subjects, to iron out their poor dating habits and chat-up techniques, to build confidence, to sort out their wardrobe and finally to enable them to go out and land themselves a date.

If you had told me that watching a loser trying to get lucky could be so involving and affecting, I would have sneered and rolled my eyes and perhaps made a derisory snorting sound into my wine glass. This, the panel's flirting expert Tracey Cox would have been quick to point out, is not ideal dating behaviour.

Tracey Cox generally has first crack at each week's punter. The show begins with a "dummy date", filmed by hidden cameras, after which the subject's performance is scrutinised by the panel. It can make for excruciating viewing.

Two weeks ago the subject was Shungu Chirumbu, in her twenties and never been kissed. As she sat rigid at the table, hiding behind a menu held before her like a Trojan shield, her date tried to make small talk.

'Join the club, mate'

"So," he said, bobbing and weaving in the hope of catching a glimpse of her, "what would you like to do once you've graduated?"

Shungu glared furiously at the starters. "I'll be a human rights lawyer, so hopefully I'll work for a genocide commission," she snarled at the stuffed mushrooms.

To which I would have been tempted to reply: "Well, let's hope there are plenty of genocides to keep you in business, then."

But that, Tracey Cox would have assured me, is not helpful first-date conversation either.

It is quite an eye-opener to meet people like Shungu and Jon Massey - funny, intelligent and quite charming when they are relaxed - and to get a glimpse of the crippling effects of chronic shyness coupled with an almost suicidal lack of the quality for which Robert Burns once prayed: the ability to see themselves as others see them.

"How do you think it went?" asked Tracey Cox after the date.

"I think it went well," said Shungu, "but he was probably intimidated by me. Men always seem to be intimidated by girls with brains."

One of the strengths of the show is that the experts never flinch from telling painful truths. We watched, rapt, as the panel disabused Shungu of her more cherished defensive assumptions, then took her through a number of basic dating exercises.

Tracey Cox taught her the alluring way of handling a martini glass (with fingers and with eye contact, rather than clutching it in two hands and throwing back your head like a Viking swigging wine from a fallen foe's skull). The clothes expert gave her colour and shape. The communication expert, more painfully, took her into public and forced her to strike up conversations with strangers.

Little by little, as she learnt that her old way of doing things simply didn't work very well, I came to realise why the show hooked me so deeply. The fascination of watching is in the sudden vertigo of recognising one's own defences and self-deceptions, writ more extreme, right there on the screen.

Jon Massey told the panel about his unhappy adolescence. "Everyone had a girlfriend," he said with good-natured rancour, "except me."

"Join the club, mate," I said, in unison with a squillion other men around the world. Like the rest of us, Jon Massey developed defences.

In his case they were the studied poses and overly formal, annoyingly affected speech of a geeky teenager alone in his room, looking for himself in books. Very few of us eliminate those defences entirely, but Jon had never even diluted them sufficiently to get by.

By the time Jon and Shungu had secured their final graduation dates, I was cheering for them and, perhaps, for myself. Ah, but what a luxury was awaiting. Hidden cameras filmed the date, and we watched along with the panel, cheering at each successful sally, each artful moment of contact, each twinkling eye and dimple. It was like watching the final sequence of Rocky or The Karate Kid or some similar film in which the loser - us - makes good.

Then, at a certain moment, the subject excuses themselves from the table. Who should be waiting for them in the bathroom? The panel! "You're doing great!" they say. "Lean in a little when you listen!" they say. "Undo the top button"; "She was hinting when she said she liked the theatre - ask her to go with you."

And like a formula one racing driver emerging from the pit, fuelled and briefed and tuned up, they are sent back out. A mid-date service break! What unimaginable luxury!

How many wasted nights and unspeakable heartaches might we not have avoided had such a service been available? Oh, wasted, wasted youth.