The Game - Neil Strauss

[martin]

I'm more amazed with the backwards premise that these guys are coming from. I mean, it's hardly a well-kept secret that women dislike men who come on all strong after 2 hours of knowing them, or that whining about how your life sucks would put anyone off. For some reason, they've translated it into a set of codes about timing periods between phone calls and being rude about ear rings. It's a bit like those Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, where women have set up a load of traps and you have to get through it in one piece. The response from the angry nerds on that anti-PUA thread Danny linked to shows they've seen through that scam, but they still seem relatively bitter and confused. Basically, anyone who pays someone who offers them the chance to "have ANY woman you want!" might as well send me £400 for some magic beans.

Incidentally, Whitehouse used sections of the 'October Man Sequence' (apparently some killer PUA linguistic seduction technique) on one of their CDs a while back. I dunno...I preferred 'My Cock's On Fire' meself...

 

[comelately]

That sounds to me like something a woman who's into "The Rules" would do - which is basically the female equivalent of "The Game", right? (I'm not convinced most women, even especially hot ones, are than conniving and tricksy - though maybe I'm just being hopelessly naive here). Which would just seem to back up the xkcd cartoon about 'Rules' women and 'Game' men being perfectly suited to each other...

I don't accept that 'The Rules' is the female equivalent of 'The Game' - it's not really a case of most women being conniving or tricksy as such. Women frequently test men for alpha traits, usually the reasoning will be a subconscious. But the drink test is win-win for them - they either get a free drink, or a potentially fuckworthy guy. I don't want to get weighed down with the whole drink scenario, different 'players' play that game in different ways and do well. But how many drinks do you buy before you're you're trying to get them drunk? It's rarely going to be a good idea to buy a woman more than one drink, and you're probably not going to want to buy that drink in the first 5-10 minutes.

I'm not saying there are no girls who wouldn't laugh at a player, sure there are. But not as many as you think. Women have different ethics and morality to men, in both content and structure. That doesn't make them bad or wicked or mean they must have read 'The Rules'. It makes them women - which to, just to make sure I'm not misunderstood, doesn't mean that a woman who laughs at a player isn't a woman. Though actually, just because a woman laughs at a player, doesn't necessarily mean she won't go home with him 20 minutes later.

There's also this idea that people in 'the game' today are doing all the same shit that the guys in that book were doing. That's simply not the case.

The Louis Theroux doc wasn't about pickup. There was a short section with RJ (who I do respect in a funny sort of way, but Speed Seduction is 95% stupid) but most of the program was about pre-Secret 'Think Yourself Rich' programs. And there are a lot of money-grabbers in the PUA community - this is because if you can pay your bills 'teaching pick-up' then it means you don't have to work a day job and this makes it a lot easier to find time to meet and hang-out with women. The PUAHate forum is funny but also pretty retarded. Generally I would advocate avoiding 'the community' itself, take what you need (if you need it) and move on.

Btw, I'm not very good at winking.

 

[slowtrain]

I don't know, I'm not a "PUA" and I've not read this book. All I was getting at was, I think it's old-fashioned, sexist and simply untrue to assume that if a man and a woman have casual sex, it's because the man has "tricked" the woman, or "taken advantage" or whatever. It just seems to come from the attitude that when a single man is out on the town, it's taken as a given that he's after sex and that's it, whereas a woman in the same situation is looking for a potential husband, a man who's going to be a good father etc., or at least someone to have a "relationship" with*. Which is clearly bollocks, I mean with the advent of reliable contraception there's no reason why women shouldn't be just as up for no-strings fun as men are, and I think on the whole that's basically the case these days.

Of course, there's honesty and then there's 'honesty' - unless a woman is *exceptionally* 'up front', I doubt she's going to respond well to "Hello, would you like a casual fuck?". But just because you haven't explicitly said that, it doesn't follow that you're misleading her or anything nefarious like that.



*which is all of a piece with the idea that women don't really enjoy sex, and do it as a sort of 'favour' to men in return for emotional/financial security, etc. Again, a stupid and obsolete attitude, and one that's not exactly complimentary to men, either.

No, I definitely agree with you. I haven't read the book either, or really done any research outside of this thread, I was just going on the sort of concept that the 'Game' is providing you with a system to get women into your bed..?

And speaking purely in that scenario, wouldn't it be more honest to admit that you are using concepts from 'the game' to have casual sex with women, simply because you want to have casual sex with women? Regardless of whether the woman genuinely wants casual sex as well, it seems like that isn't really the concern of the PUA....

 

[comelately]

No, I definitely agree with you. I haven't read the book either, or really done any research outside of this thread, I was just going on the sort of concept that the 'Game' is providing you with a system to get women into your bed..?

And speaking purely in that scenario, wouldn't it be more honest to admit that you are using concepts from 'the game' to have casual sex with women, simply because you want to have casual sex with women? Regardless of whether the woman genuinely wants casual sex as well, it seems like that isn't really the concern of the PUA....

I think this is a ludicrous sleight of hand, predicated on the idea that women have to be tricked into giving up something. A lot of women rather like sex, including casual sex, and love *to be seduced* - a good 'PUA' will manage expectations regarding what's going to happen after the sex, that could be motivated out of self-interest but by no means necessarily. What does 'genuinely want' even mean in this scenario? Ethical realist balderdash really has no place here.

 

[Leo]

how do PUAs handle an ongoing relationship with one woman, versus one-off casual sex with a variety of women? are they generally emotionally mature enough to put aside the manipulative mindgames and show some genuine feelings, or do they continue acting out? or do they typically cower away from a single ongoing relationship altogether?

 

[scottdisco]

how do PUAs handle an ongoing relationship with one woman, versus one-off casual with a variety of women? are they generally emotionally mature enough to put aside the manipulative mindgames and show some genuine feelings, or do they continue acting out? or do they typically cower away from a single ongoing relationship altogether?

that's a good question, i wonder about that too. presumably they have 'left the life' if they sack off the revolving door in favour of one person?

i had never heard of either the Rules or the Game before i read these threads - though since i haven't been laid this year, that's perhaps not surprising

 

[Mr. Tea]

i had never heard of either the Rules or the Game before i read these threads - though since i haven't been laid this year, that's perhaps not surprising

*adjusts pimping hat*

You just need to hit the town with ol' Uncle Ollie, he'll hook you up with so fiiine young lay-deez - very reasonable too, mate's rates, get me?

Ahem.

Anyway, I was gonna say: zhao's chat about rigid rules and predictable responses makes me think of some 'player' in a bar, with a little laminated flowchart that shows you how to perform an optimum chat-up procedure, and prepared lines printed on flash cards...

 

[baboon2004]

Have any women at all posted on this thread? Good.

Therefore, can we just stop short this debate by all agreeing on the obvious fact that women are evil and must be stopped at any cost, and stop beating around the bush with quibbles about the best ways to break them.

 

[lanugo]

Anyway, I was gonna say: zhao's chat about rigid rules and predictable responses makes me think of some 'player' in a bar, with a little laminated flowchart that shows you how to perform an optimum chat-up procedure, and prepared lines printed on flash cards...

This is a typical example of the mental process seemingly underlying each and every one of your critically "humorous" posts: You take someone's generalized statement about the human experience realm and immediately try to ridicule it by imagining some slapstick scenario that is supposed to illustrate the absurdity and preposterousness of any attempt to objectify human behaviour. The comic hyperboles you keep making up in response to certain universal statements only serve to make clear your deep conviction that because of its grand complexity and preciousness and unpredictability immediate first-person subjectivity or human experience in general will always elude final analysis.

Rejecting any kind of determinism when it comes to our sacrosanct private lives - of course, as a scientist, there's no doubt for you about the mechanistic processes at work in regard to the subject matter of the natural sciences - you always act like the apostle of common sense who has come to rid the world of all those abstruse theories and generalizations and replace them with a healthy dose of capito-individualistic To each his own. But guess what: Human life, our lives, are as regular and predictable as any other phenomenon we observe and understand.

By denying and declaring for unreal any rigid mechanisms of social interaction you're really just confessing to your own blindness to the subtlety with which they manifest themselves in the real world. For all I know, being able to detect them is a privilege of psychopaths, demagogues, artists and philosophers, any way.

 

[DannyL]

That's you told, Ollie.

In this instance, though, he happens to be right. Some of the stuff on the PUA forums is just insane.

"What you need to do is DHV man, then run a NLP Switch routine, then take her up the kino escalation ladder". A lot of it is beyond parody.

No wonder there's a whole forum of guys posting about how it fucked them up. I agree with comelately in that there's a lot of trolling on there but lots of stuff very relevant to this discussion.

http://www.puahate.com/showthread.php?t=3317

 

[zhao]

i would personally be much happier, and believe the world would probably be a better place, if people really were "all different", and behaved according to their own free will, having each been thinking for themselves their entire lives.

but this is simply not the case. perhaps especially not in the context of socializing and mating rituals.

all of my long term girlfriends have been "exceptions" to the "rules", women who are absolutely atypical. and the sort of people who come to Dissensus are probably like me, who are, and get along with the "exceptions" -- and this i think contributes to some perceptual distortions.

but i don't want to make some kind of "us clever ones VS. the sheep-like masses" dichotomy, because even the "exceptions" sometimes fall into certain behavior patterns dictated by society, and all the time fall into other ones.

notions of attractiveness, notions of social value, status, and desirability -- when each of you walk into a bar, house party or coffee house and scan the room, i bet most of us, most of the time, share similar, not as much ideas as "feelings", about these things.

and especially when it comes to sex. for while we may prefer conversations with intelligent people who don't fit stereotypes, i bet most of us would like to sleep with the same stereotypically fit girls.

 

[comelately]

Chris Rock pointed out that on a first date you don't get to meet the person, you get to meet 'their representative'. So I find these questions about whether 'PUAs' are capable of having a relationship to be pretty silly. Some are, some not so much. Quite a few 'community gurus' recommended that those lacking in relationship experience get a girlfriend and stick with them, at least for a while. Others say better stay single until you can be with a woman out of 'genuine choice' (not an unproblematic concept)

That's you told, Ollie.

In this instance, though, he happens to be right. Some of the stuff on the PUA forums is just insane.

"What you need to do is DHV man, then run a NLP Switch routine, then take her up the kino escalation ladder". A lot of it is beyond parody.

No wonder there's a whole forum of guys posting about how it fucked them up. I agree with comelately in that there's a lot of trolling on there but lots of stuff very relevant to this discussion.

http://www.puahate.com/showthread.php?t=3317

A whole forum? As opposed to a quarter of a forum? Oh no doubt a lot of this stuff is beyond parody. But 1) Like it or not, some people do make that shit work for them and 2) There are a lot of pua forums where you will get laughed at for a statement like that. This is not 2005. A lot of PUA forums would have been filled up with 'routines' 3-4 years ago but that will rarely be the case today. It's an evolving community - one part of its evolution are the forming of 'anti-pua' sites, but these sites are very much still part of the community. So when they say 80-90% of the community is bullshit - that applies to the PUAHate forum as much as anything else. The people who get the most attention in the community are the marketer types, and they're the most likely to be full of shit. And there are those who are very good 'players' but aren't very good at teaching, and teach to fund their lifestyle. Sounds a bit like university really.

btw, the aforementioned Sean Messenger put up a torrent pack of his own tutorials on TPB. - http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4817165/Sean_Messenger

 

[Leo]

So I find these questions about whether 'PUAs' are capable of having a relationship to be pretty silly.

no, it's a reasonable question. when someone's life revolves around manipulation, scheming and mind games, it seems like there could very well be a problem with transitioning to real relationships and honest emotions.

 

[slowtrain]

I think this is a ludicrous sleight of hand, predicated on the idea that women have to be tricked into giving up something. A lot of women rather like sex, including casual sex, and love *to be seduced* - a good 'PUA' will manage expectations regarding what's going to happen after the sex, that could be motivated out of self-interest but by no means necessarily. What does 'genuinely want' even mean in this scenario? Ethical realist balderdash really has no place here.

Yeah, I agree with you there, all I am saying is that it doesn't appear (from what little I've read anyway) that the woman's perspective is really all that important, it seems for the PUA that as long as she has sex with him that is all that matters...? That was what I was meant by 'genuinely want', it doesn't matter to the PUA whether she does want casual sex with him, or whether he has made her think she wants to have casual sex with him through whatever techniques, he doesn't actually care which of them, its the final outcome (sex) is all that matters?

(So wouldn't it be more honest to admit this...?)

(Or am I a million miles off?)

 

[comelately]

no, it's a reasonable question. when someone's life revolves around manipulation, scheming and mind games, it seems like there could very well be a problem with transitioning to real relationships and honest emotions.

Well yes, a lot of people generally do struggle to form positive interdependent mutually beneficial relationships. I don't accept for one minute that this is a problem that is particular to or even significantly more pronounced in the pick-up community. "Real relationships" still (imho) require conscious work anyway.

 

[comelately]

Yeah, I agree with you there, all I am saying is that it doesn't appear (from what little I've read anyway) that the woman's perspective is really all that important, it seems for the PUA that as long as she has sex with him that is all that matters...? That was what I was meant by 'genuinely want', it doesn't matter to the PUA whether she does want casual sex with him, or whether he has made her think she wants to have casual sex with him through whatever techniques, he doesn't actually care which of them, its the final outcome (sex) is all that matters?

(So wouldn't it be more honest to admit this...?)

(Or am I a million miles off?)

*shrug* I don't really accept the paradigm you're putting forward, but I think it would depend on the PUA. I would say that, generally speaking, it's not exactly ideal if a woman wakes up and regrets having a one night stand with you. That probably does not answer your question though.

 

[baboon2004]

no, it's a reasonable question. when someone's life revolves around manipulation, scheming and mind games, it seems like there could very well be a problem with transitioning to real relationships and honest emotions.

The older i get, I must admit the less casual sex/any kind of emotional games interest me. Sex with someone you really like is on another plane...is this normal?

 

[comelately]

The older i get, I must admit the less casual sex/any kind of emotional games interest me. Sex with someone you really like is on another plane...is this normal?

Well yes, intimacy is great (and I've had a 9 year relationship). But I've had intimate sex with women I hadn't known for long, and a bit of banter in the first few minutes of interaction did not prevent said intimacy from occurring. Some 'PUA schools' actively encourage emotional vulnerability and the like. Even Mystery (who has problems, let there be no doubt) says that 90% of the game is played 'in comfort' and teaches (rightly or wrongly) that a man must show that he is able and willing to 'emote'.

 

[Mr. Tea]

This is a typical example of the mental process seemingly underlying each and every one of your critically "humorous" posts: You take someone's generalized statement about the human experience realm and immediately try to ridicule it by imagining some slapstick scenario that is supposed to illustrate the absurdity and preposterousness of any attempt to objectify human behaviour...

I accept that most people are, in a very general and fundamental way, driven by a core set of inbuilt desires, instincts or whathaveyou. But how those basic libidinal urges manifest themselves in behaviour is incredibly complex and surely cannot be second-guessed by some kind of glib if-she-does-X-then-say-Y-in-response algorithm-type approach.

But guess what: Human life, our lives, are as regular and predictable as any other phenomenon we observe and understand.

Reeeaaally. Is that so? An astronomer can tell you, to within an excellent degree of certainty, where the Earth or the Moon or any other other celestial body will be a year from now. Can you say the same thing about yourself? You could be exactly where you are now, or you could be dead. You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack! You may find yourself at the bottom of the ocean!

If our lives are so predictable, why does the insurance industry exist?

 

[zhao]

tea, you are forgetting that we live in society, subscribe to its proscribed values, and almost always abiding by its codes of conduct.

especially in the context of socializing and mating rituals.

notions of attractiveness, notions of social value, status, and desirability... these things we all share.