Ashiwi wrote:Most women don't want to be hooked up with a psychological timebomb with a massive inferiority complex who can't find or keep a job and can't take care of himself out on his own - viewtopic.php?f=43&t=21121&p=198152&
This almost perfectly describes Mystery, the master pickup artist who initiates Neil (aka Style) into the pickup artist (PUA) lifestyle. Throughout the book Mystery puts on a great game, picks up the most beautiful women... and then mistreats them until they leave, only to follow this up with a massive emotional meltdown that nearly ends with suicide. This, apparently, is the kind of man women are attracted to.
If he knows the right lines, tricks, games and hypnotic wordplay.
Therein lies the problem for me. While the PUA community will tell you it's all about building and becoming confident, I actually saw very little confidence from any of the people in this book. It's more about a rote skillset to be mastered than actual self-improvement, and in some ways it almost seems immoral. From lying about fights as a conversation starter to using psychological tricks to convince credulous women psychic abilities are real the skills are largely ones I would hesitate to use. They talk about the necessity of projecting your value, while having so little faith in themselves that they resort to magic tricks to hold the interest of their target.
Yet, it seems to BE a necessity. I don't get the impression any of them, and by extension me, have the slightest chance with any of these women without resorting to those tactics. No one wants to hear that I spent an hour today figuring out why the colors wouldn't alternate properly in a report I was designing. I bet some of you fell asleep just reading that! So what is left for those of us who weren't born charming and interesting, who don't have stories of meeting celebrities or getting four touchdowns in a single game?
The most depressing part of all is how many women fall for it. From Playboy Playmates to strippers (and yes, I do wish I had read this before meeting Kayla... the techniques seem to be effective on strippers) to celebrities and rock stars. Everyone, really, except for a certain lead guitarist. Style himself says that the process dehumanizes the women as well as himself, yet they all eat it up. Eventually he stops describing the conversations, or even the women... instead referring to an entire evening as a list of routines he used. From halfway through the book right up until the end I almost felt like giving up entirely. Who wants to be with women like this, after all? What's the point? A whore would be quicker, more to the point and possibly cheaper!
These women are so enamored with the routines that the PUAs build harems of women who know about each other. They're so desperate to find a guy who's every word is a pre-planned routine that they'll share, while the guy who would buy them flowers and a nice dinner while being faithful is simply shunned.
The book ends with some redemption though, at least for Style. The lead guitarist I mentioned earlier is Lisa, and is completely immune to his PUA skills. So immune, in fact, that he almost loses her by trying these tricks. Style and Lisa share some special connection, and honestly reading those parts remind me of how Kayla made me feel. In the end Lisa helps Neil realize how shallow and empty the lifestyle was, and he gives up his harem and moves out of the community completely. (Granted, a LOT of other crap was also leading him to this point... but she pushed him over that final hump.)
In the end it appears that the choices are:
1) Become the kind of guy every girl says she hates, eventually meet the right woman and then risk losing her because she's the one who actually hates that guy
2) Hope you meet her by chance, even though you don't have the skills to approach her because you're not the guy from 1.
So yeah. Great.