What I’ve taken from all this is that pick up artists use too many emoticons when speaking.
Yes, exactly. Plus with the city example you factor in rivalries. If you’re in San Francisco and say you’re from New York, or you’re in Ontario and say you’re from British Columbia, or you’re from the city with a rival Football team, or you’re a Canadian in America or an American in Canada, or you’re in Springfield and you grew up in Shelbyville, etc. you may trigger certain “oh those people are lame” stereotype biases which you can overrun with enthusiasm.
It works for anything, your job, the car you drive, where you live, etc.
haha sorry, I used to pick up on dating websites a bunch where sarcasm/etc. is hard to convey so I picked up the habit of using a shitload of emoticons. 
- TWTTWN
^^^ This. When written out, it comes across mighty damned more logical than in spoken form. It’s like a computer language almost.
Ok so I snipped a bunch because I had nothing to add, but to this I have something to add:
I wonder if this is why women think you are objectifying them. See, that’s the logic that is illogical, and where women don’t understand men as well as they think. The point here is to anonymize women for their own safety. shrug
Deconstruction. I love it as a trope operand and as a way of approaching life’s problems.
Do you guys even REALIZE how much money you can make parlaying this into the sales arena? All of you could become top salesmen. Fortune 500 level, no less. I know there is more than one guy out there who managed to do this all on his own*. I bet there are communities out there that discuss this. There has to be.
PUA has power in this new economy, and well beyond the world of sales. You could parlay this into PR, diplomacy, all kinds of shit. You even have the groundwork for good ethics. Think big, young man, really big. Work sales, make money, work your way into local chambers of commerce and/or political meetings, hobnob with the rich and famous, make connections, work your way up to hobnobbing with the captains of industry. There is a universe out there for those with people power.
Pretty much that was my teens and 20something life.
… on a 5 year mission, to seek out new dates and social environments… to boldly go… well you know the score!
Okay that has a lot of parallels with me back then, except I didn’t lie about my job or overspend. I DID hide my geeky stuff. I hid my video games, I threw away stuff that I would have wished I hadn’t, were it not for the miracle of re-releases via DVD. What I did was live within my means and bargain shop for good threads. I knew sales on good clothes and I got in and out without bringing people along to catch me and rat me out. I got deals on Lakers and LA Kings tickets and took dates there - although I despise sports, THAT was the lie I lived to satisfy the fish swimming in vapid dating pool laid out before me. But as I said before the first sign of trouble was I was always craving my alone time so I could play Starcraft, Diablo, Quake or WTF ever was out there at the time. Hence the burnout.
It’s more than about being yourself. It’s knowing exactly how to be positive about yourself and your world, if you want her to be positive about it.
So to answer this thread it’s fairly obvious to me that PUA is a neutral to good thing. Like any tool.
- Well, it’s like this. One day I theorized to my wife that a PUA could be a good salesman. She said let’s try that experiment, how much could we lose by experimenting? So we found a good PUA by references, rigorously vetted his background and character, hired him and got him licensed, and asked him to turn his PUA skill into getting clients. He made good on that, in a hurry. It was an adventure for him as much as it was for us. I do feel that at some point when he learns the industry better, he’ll strike out on his own: and as well he should.
I’m not sure I agree, to be honest, which ties into my earlier comment that I’d still be interested to know if the Pick-Up thing works all that well outside the US, at least in the form you’ve described in such detail. I’ve certainly witnessed guys trying some of this stuff first hand, and it invariably comes across as lame, fake, or slightly skeevy.
Now, you might argue that those guys were “doing it wrong” (and they quite possibly were), but honestly, I’m just not as convinced as you are that this whole thing is as… functional as it’s made out to be, except in certain selected areas for the most part.
Thus the reason engineers, programmers, etc. are drawn to it. It presents an organic social interaction in a logical structure flow chart they can relate to. Natural guys who are used to not thinking about this stuff and just going in and being themselves look at that and go “wow dude you overthink this WAY too much”. It’s just a different style of learning. Some people are good at math, some are good at writing.
Oh, easily. We get offered various jobs all the time because people can tell we’d be a good asset to their company or we just connect with them on a level where they want to do us favors. Another bonus to PUA is the amount of free shit you get haha Not just getting into clubs free but like, my buddy chatted up this yoga instructor chick and now they’re friends so if he ever decides “I think I want to try yoga for my health” she’ll give him free classes. People fall over themselves to help me out without my asking for it, the way people fall over themselves to open doors or buy things or be extra polite to super hot girls. People just naturally want to be a part of high-value people’s lives, it’s why people follow celebrity news.
The catch is you have to remember that I didn’t just come from a place where people didn’t help me out, but I came from the complete 180 of where I am now, people would glance over me, ignore me, treat me like a loser, etc. So this is a huge life change in a very short amount of time, all things considered, and it was all through conscious study of game concepts.
Oh ya, a lot of PUAs focus on that stuff even. One of the oldschool guys arranges parties at the Playboy Mansion. The guy came from nothing, but he learned to network and made his way up the chain to where he has rich and famous people on his cell that he invites to events he throws.
A PUA buddy of mine took a cold-calling sales job just because it was good practice at getting over Approach Anxiety and learning to build connections with people fast. He was like a top salesman at the place he worked and it helped his pick-up game out.
I don’t have an interest in sales, but I know I could do it easily. I’m starting my own business and the skills I’ve learned will help me with marketing/advertising, networking, managing employees, etc. I have 100% confidence that I’ll be successful because I have social skills.
Ya, people who skim over PUA teachings give us shit calling us dishonest…but really, were you being honest? Hiding who you really were? Doing things you didn’t WANT to do? Nowadays if I want to talk to a girl about videogames, I will, and she’ll be interested because I’m not ashamed of it. If I bring her home and she sees my giant anime poster and asks about it instead of going “oh that’s just some cartoon stuff, I dunno, a friend gave it to me so I have to have it up.” I’ll say “isn’t that fucking awesome?? that’s my favorite show, come hop on the bed and we’ll watch an episode on my laptop!” (and then we have sex haha)
haha that’s an interesting story, I haven’t heard someone make a conscious experiment like that before. The result is pretty much what I’d expect. If I can collect 5 girls phone numbers in a night there’s no reason I can’t collect 5 business cards from soon-to-be clients.
A lot of PUAs don’t care about money. We’re happy with just enough to get by. When you have a social skills, you don’t NEED as much money. I don’t have a car, but if I need to get groceries there are 20 people who will gladly take me and help me out. I don’t have a fashion consultant but if I buy a new shirt I can round up a few girls in the store or the mall area to give me their opinion. If I want to travel for cheap I can call a flight attendant chick I met a few months ago and see if she can help me out or pass me on to someone who can. If I want to go to Europe for a while, I can Facebook a friend I know who lives there and crash on their couch or have them help me find a spot to stay at for cheap.
Often PUAs get to a point where life experience becomes more important than money. We start travelling the world, making friends in various cities and seeing and doing things that we never really cared about back when we were in the standard societal rat-race. This isn’t necessarily a good long-term thing, depending on your goals in life, because you should be saving up money for a rainy day and your kids’ education and everything, but at the same time we tend not to worry that we won’t have money if we need it because we’re confident capable people.
You don’t have to agree, but this IS how it works. 
Watch this clip from How I Met Your Mother and you’ll understand haha:
“Ted Mosby, architect. (guns) ;)” VS “(shrug) Ted Mosby…architect… :(”
“Well, you know…soul of an artist…hands of a master craftsman. It was inevitable, I guess.”
“Marshall’s great, he’s JUST a lawyer, but I mean, someone has to push the paper around for us creative types right?” (this is gold haha)
Try not to focus on the specific example of “where are you from?”. Switch it to “What do you do for a living?”
Me: What do you do for a living?
Her: (anything)
Me: Awesome, that sounds cool. Personally I’m just happy to be out at all tonight, I’ve been working SO much overtime lately…
Her: (inevitably) Oh, what do YOU do for a living?
This conversation routine will work like 99.9% of the time, it plays off social politeness and stuff (ask people the same question they just asked you).
Now if you respond “oh…uhh…well it’s kind of nerdy…I’m just an engineer. :(” the girl will feel like it’s a lame job the way you do. If you respond “I’m an engineer! I’m working on this awesome design right now! It takes up a lot of my time but I love doing it, you know?” she will think it’s the coolest job ever.
The point of the exercise is to teach you that how you feel is how she’ll feel, so if you’re embarrased by your beat up old car, she’s going to think it’s lame, but if you act like it’s awesome and you think it’s funny to park it beside nice cars and you like that it’s run-down because you get to work on it and you love working on cars, she’s going to think it’s awesome.
It works all over the world. Attraction is attraction. Most bootcamp instructors fly all over, they host bootcamps all over North America, Europe, Spain, Russia, Australia, etc. They’ll even go to places where they don’t speak the language, and teach guys who barely have a grasp on English, and pick girls up, because it’s not in the words they say, it’s in the overall vibe they give off. There are pick-up communities in other countries that don’t speak English at all, but are teaching the exact same concepts to guys in their culture for picking up girls in their culture.
One test of skill a lot of PUAs do at some point in their travels is to pick up a girl who doesn’t speak the same language. It’s a way of re-enforcing that it’s not the words that matter, it’s the subcommunications (confidence, body language, touch, etc.).
In really loud nightclubs I’ll play with this by literally just saying jibberish. If it’s too loud to hear what she’s saying or for her to hear what I’m saying I’ll just go “Rhubarb rhubarb carrots & peas.” but do it with various facial expressions and tones of voice and she’ll react the same as if I was spitting out some golden routine. I have my subcommunications down now, so I can do this.
Another test is to pick up a girl without speaking at all. Pure leading, body language, eye contact, etc.
These are common things in the pick-up community and they work world-wide. Plus like I said above, a lot of PUAs start to travel because they grow to love experiencing new places and people and cultures, so they use game wherever they travel.
You DO calibrate your game for the culture however. In Europe you can be more physical and you have to AMOG guys a lot more because society is way less sexually repressed there and a lot more guys are alpha/player types, and the girls are cooler with a higher level of aggressiveness because they’re used to it. But in Japan, the culture is so sexually repressed that you would have to get a girl isolated alone before you even touch her, basically being friend-zoney until you two are alone and she can let down her Anti-Slut Defense and let you escalate.
But this is just the same as calibrating to the particular girl…if you meet a shy innocent type girl, you don’t be as aggressive as you would with a bar-star flirty girl.
Under it all the same concepts build attraction.
It sounds like a cop-out but ya, they were “doing it wrong”. Most guys are terrible when they first start learning this stuff. Even down the road some guys can do this for a long time and still never fully grasp it. It’s not an easy thing to learn. It’s like the blackbelt with a giant beer belly who can’t run up a flight of stairs without getting tired…that doesn’t mean the martial art doesn’t work, but it comes down to the individual and how much effort they put into it.
The reason I know those guys were shitty PUAs is because if you meet a really skilled PUA you won’t KNOW you’re talking to a PUA. You will just think you’ve met a cool social out-going natural dude. That’s the ultimate goal of pick-up, is to get to a point where all of this comes off as just completely normal and you’re just a charismatic cool guy.
- TWTTWN
There does seem to be a point where people like TheWhoToTheWhatNow seem to sort of go overboard with the whole thing. He’s like a freakin mad scientist in a lab.
It does sound creepy though. Because these guys describe themselves as “social losers” who have then spent years perfecting this PUA “craft” in order to ingratiate themselves with strangers so they can glom sex, free yoga lessons, room & board, whatever from them. I have to wonder why were they such “losers” beforehand? And why do they need to study the minutiae of social interactions like an alien from another planet in order for people to like or respect them?
And how good are these “friends” really? The whole thing seems to hinge on these people thinking that the PUA is some sort of “high value” individual. The thing is, they really aren’t. They aren’t rockstars or CEOs or professional athletes. They are just some guy.
The point is, they don’t sound like “friends”, they sound like people the PUA use for some end goal.
I’ve done that a couple times when I was younger. It totally blows people’s mind because they have no idea what’s going on. In one instance, from what a bunch of my idiot fraternity brothers could tell, I basically walked into our party room and without a word took away this hot little blond girl they had been playing Beer Pong with all night:D
It’s not magic though. I looked like a “cool guy”. I had hooked up with one of her friends who was in the room a few weeks before and I’m sure she mentioned it at some point. I caught the girl glancing at me when I walked in the room so clearly she was interested. Now in all fairness, I didn’t act like some mute freak. I simply nodded her over and asked “do you want the tour of the house?” Now had I been a classically trained pickup artest, I would have had my next move planned (I didn’t), but fortunately her next question was “where’s your room?”
Basically women don’t give a shit what you talk about. They know from 30 seconds if they want to sleep with you.
A lot of what you’ve said so far basically seems to be very similar to sales and marketing techniques (I’ve been working in sales for around 15 years or so now), but I will say that fictional TV shows- especially comedies- are almost never reliable cites for how things work in the real world. I mean, apparently, I’m a “pick-up artist” (even though I’m clearly not) because I know that talking up what I do in my awesome job as, say, The Stig’s stunt double is going to make me more interesting to people than mumbling that I work (say) in the mailroom at an accountant’s office somewhere.
Anyway, the thing is, surely you must concede this stuff isn’t foolproof? There are doubtless people (either the gamer or the gamee, for want of a better term) for whom It Just Doesn’t Work, yet a lot of the stuff I’ve read seems to imply that absolutely any woman (who isn’t a nun or something like that) can be persuaded to go to bed with if you’re awesome enough, when that’s clearly not true.
The ironic thing here, though, is that IMHO every time you write “haha” after something, it comes across to me as an insecure or very nervous person laughing at their own jokes. I’m sure that’s not how you mean it to come across, of course, but thought you might appreciate the heads-up all the same. 
Seriously, the thread has been fascinating and I’m impressed by the polite and civil tone it’s maintained; especially when you consider how quickly threads on anything even slightly controversial usually goes pear-shaped pretty quickly around here…
The thing is, most bullshit artists can spot another one at range, so I wouldn’t be quite so sure of that.
And gosh darn those 'some guy’s for wanting to step up to the level of CEOs or professional athletes. Because if Mother Nature didn’t give you mastery of Game, you shouldn’t have it, dammit! Just like if God wanted man to fly we’d have wings!
:rolleyes:
That evil end goal, of course, is to find ways to achieve more satisfying social interactions with people. Damn these sinners all to hell. They should be happy with their lifetime helping of shit pie. Curses!
This has never been remotely true of me.
Don’t get defensive. It lowers your value.
I think you are missing my point. **TheWhoToTheWhatNow **said “people just naturally want to be a part of high-value people’s lives, it’s why people follow celebrity news”. And that’s true. But what does that mean to be “high value”. And how much of their time is spent building a facade of high value vs doing things to actually increase their “value”.
And I agree with you about applying PUA skills to other areas like career. There is a huge overlap between PUA, sales, theater, marketing & advertising, management, leadership (civilian and military), religeon, psychology and even (or maybe especially) cults and grifting. It’s all about crafting a message or reality in order to influence others.
Here’s a question though. Are PUA’s fundamentally different from the guys on The Jersey Shore bringing girls back to their “Smoosh Room” every weekend?
Maybe because we haven’t met yet.
Friendships go both ways. If my buddy meets someone who wants to take a yoga class, who do you think he’s going to send them to? His friend who teaches yoga. If I crash on someone’s couch, I’m going to buy them dinner and hang out with them and take them out and we’re going to have fun together. If I have sex with a girl, she has a good time too and she’s happy we had sex.
Already been discussed thoroughly in this thread. We didn’t learn the ropes of social interactions the way other people did growing up.
Already been discussed. We didn’t understand how social interactions work the way other people do, and often we had the wrong notions/beliefs because we didn’t have good guidance, so we had to make a conscious effort to learn them when we were older in order to learn them quickly and catch up to normal people.
Already been discussed. And is this really a fair question? If someone cares about me and I care about them and we share the details of our lives and are interested in the details of the other person’s life, we’re friends. Not everyone is going to be your best friend, but to dismiss normal friendships as “not good enough” is to have a pretty narrow view of friendships. Do you not interact with anyone who you didn’t grow up with? (actually some people don’t haha) At some point your best friend now was a stranger or someone you just had a casual friendship with until you hung out more.
That depends on your definition of high value. If you think high value people are high value because they’re famous or because they’re pro athletes, then no, we’re not high value. If you think someone is high value because they’re fun, positive, help people around them, encourage others to come out of their shell, make people smile and laugh, and are good in bed, well, then ya, we’re high value.
It’s not like we go out saying “hmmm, I need free yoga lessons, hi, do you do yoga? No? Okay bye, hi do you do yoga? No? Okay bye, hi do you do yoga? Oh you do? MIND MELD HYPNOTISM!!! ZAP!!! Gimme free shit!”
I don’t see why you have to paint it with a negative light. You aren’t friends with your friends just for what they can do for you, are you?
Nope, it’s not magic. That’s the point. You were groomed to the best of your ability and had good body language (looking like a “cool guy”), you had social proof comfort and a jealousy plotline (being in a fraternity, hooking up with her friend, and her having mentioned it), you noticed an Indicator of Interest from her (her glancing at you and you recognizing what that meant). You confidently led, expecting her to come over instead of going over to her (displaying alpha traits and being non-needy because you didn’t chase her around), and you avoided her Anti-Slut Defense by saying “do you want a tour of the house?” instead of “do you want to go in another room and fuck?” so she can say “we just went for a tour of the house and it just HAPPENED!!” so she doesn’t sound like a slut to anyone afterward.
Like I say, people don’t have to acknowledge that this is going on, they can attribute it to “dude, I was just being myself, whatever, don’t think to hard” but this is happening. This is the Matrix that most people will never learn to see. Your pickup followed PUA concepts exactly. If I had been there at the time I probably could have pointed out a dozen other things you did that you aren’t aware of that led to that lay.
Ya, you didn’t have to plan anything out consciously because you were naturally following all the principles of pick-up…but in your mind you were just another frat-guy “doing his thing” while us nerdy guys were watching that going “Fuck, I’d never be able to do that…back to my World of Warcraft. :(”
Agreed. Subcommunications are more important than the actual words you say. Them wanting to sleep with you and the logistics allowing the opportunity for them to sleep with you are two different things, though haha
The cite is: GO OUT AND TRY IT. But you won’t. I can tell you from the experience of answering questions about myself thousands of times over the years, that fictional TV show clip is showing how it works. If you don’t believe it, go out and try it, like the thousands of PUAs who’ve gone out and tried it.
Why? In what situation would being confident, out-going, friendly, interesting, attractive and social NOT result in people viewing you in a positive light?
Agreed, I’ve already clarified this in this thread. The marketing hypes it up as foolproof but the reality is that there are women who won’t go for you, or women in secure fullfilling (emotionally and physically) relationships, or sometimes you’re just not their type. Pick-up is just a method of training yourself to notice and act on optimal opportunities that are happening all around you but most people don’t notice. Also the amount of women it DOES work on is WAY more than most people realize or want to accept…the same way people will say “Sales techniques would NEVER work on ME!!” as they wash their McDonald’s down with a Coke.
Cool, nothing I can do about how you paint your mental image of me typing away at my keyboard. That’s like me saying “every time you type the word “I’m” it makes me think you kick puppy dogs” Like what are you supposed to respond to THAT haha That would be my own prejudiced headspace viewing you through a skewed lens.
haha I actually am too. I was expecting a shit-show when I jumped in the thread. But at the same time, I fully believe in the good side of pick-up so it’s not a huge surprise that when people actually get past the “I’ve skimmed over The Game and it said you have to punch a girl in the head and then rape her it’s evil!!!” knee-jerk surface reactions, there’s not as much to get worked up over.
I said earlier it’s your definition of high value that’s off in this regard (high value has nothing to do with money or fame), but to address this point: At the start you spend time faking high value because you’re starting from literally scratch. I couldn’t tell stories about my life because I hadn’t done anything interesting with it being an anti-social nerd who sat in his computer room for the first 20+ years of his life, so I needed to make stuff up. I wasn’t comfortable holding eye contact so I had to force myself to fake that I was. I didn’t feel confident so I had to fake that I did. I didn’t have much going for me so I had to fake that I did.
But after you get past that stage you get to the point of “fake it till you make it” where those things fill themselves in. You become more confident, you gain more life experience and stories, eye contact becomes natural to you, you get your business/career life handled, you start to travel more because you learn to enjoy experiencing new people, cultures, places, etc. and in doing so you learn more about yourself and grow as a person.
Then down the road you ARE a high value person. One of the top instructors travels all over the world, eats an extremely healthy raw foods diet that most people would have trouble staying on, doesn’t drink smoke or do drugs, and has a girlfriend and a second baby on the way. But he still goes out and socializes and teaches other men to do the same.
An interesting thing about acting is that in PUA terms, acting really comes down to having flawless congruence. A shitty actor comes off incongruent because people pick up subtle or unsubtle traits, mannerisms, behaviors, etc. that register “This person is not REALLY this character!” in their mind. That’s why method acting, where you “become” the character is such a powerful thing…you’re learning to be congruent with the character 24/7. You take someone like Heath Ledger playing the Joker and that’s not the guy from A Knight’s Tale up there, that’s the fuckin’ Joker haha Because everything about him, from his voice to his nervous ticks and twitches, to his body-language, etc. are all 100% congruent with the character he’s playing.
Imagine being a Drama student and fully understanding this concept and all the nuances that go into displaying congruence…you would become a pretty damn good actor compared to the rest of the class.
(for the record I’ve never taken a drama class and they may teach this exact concept in there, haha I have no idea. Also on a side note, a lot of PUAs take Improv classes to learn to flow more fluently with conversations and get off the routine stuff)
“Is a trained martial artist fundamentally different from the bully who beats up other kids at school?”
haha Dopers would actually make really good pick-up artists. The back and forth flirting, massive chains of puns in some threads, general intellectual/over-analytical nature, etc. is prime attraction stuff if they learned to apply it with the opposite sex in real life.
- TWTTWN
Well, it’s true that I could probably figure out the automatic “NOs” pretty quickly…
Naw, just teasing. I simply don’t assign people to “fuckable” and “not fuckable” categories. Other people are just “people,” and the only thing that really matters is what they say.
Right. But the way you described it sounded sort of like a bunch of guys without jobs sort of charming their way around getting free shit and flopping on people’s couches.
No, I get that. But there is an element of “which is the real guy?” Is it the “loser jerk” or is it this polished guy who seems too charming? Or at least people might interpret that.
Which raises an interesting question. Much of the PUA stuff seems designed to create this image of a charming, smooth, awesome high value guy. But people aren’t that awesome IRL. They have flaws just like everyone else. Do you feel you can let people in to the “real you” or is it “all PUA, all the time”.
Just to her boyfriend.
When my GF and I used to watch that Mystery Method show on VH1, I clearly recognized tactics or behaviors that I found successful in the past.
Ya, you didn’t have to plan anything out consciously because you were naturally following all the principles of pick-up…but in your mind you were just another frat-guy “doing his thing” while us nerdy guys were watching that going “Fuck, I’d never be able to do that…back to my World of Warcraft. :(”
Actually that stuff in the show does work. When we were younger, we would try all sorts of ridiculous acts. Mostly just because it’s fun. One of my friends (a notorious “player”) went out wearing a wig one night. Not like a crazy long hair wig or anything. Just a realistic normal haircut wig. I don’t know what he said to the girl at the bar we were at, but she seemed to think it was hysterical when all of a sudden he pulled it off.
Another time when I was living in Boston, we met a bunch of girls from New Jersey. I’m all like “Oh that’s a coincidence! I operate the adjustable lane machine on the Tappenzee Bridge!”
“Your friend said you were in business school..”
“Um…yeah. Do you think they just let anyone drive that thing?”
I don’t know how it would have turned out. One of my idiot friends sort of put the kabosh on it by dumping his drink in her friends backpack. They sort of soured on us after that.
Are they both are in a beating up kids at school contest.
If your goal is to have as much sex as possible, is there a significant difference between a learned PUA or someone who is naturally good at it?
Some people do that. You can do what you want with it. But when you get deep into it you tend to realize “Well part of being a high-value guy is having my shit together” and you actually WANT to get a job, get a home, take care of your body, cut out alcohol/drugs/etc. That’s not what everyone shoots for, but it’s what PUA teachings encourage.
Again at the start there’s that bi-polar identity crisis thing. A lot of guys find out they can land the girl but can’t keep her around because they’re still in the “fake it” stage of “fake it till you make it”. Down the road when you get to the “make it” stage, there is no “loser jerk” in you. You’ve made a very big life, personality, outlook, etc. change. You’re not a guy who’s going “I’m mad at women because they rejected me, here’s my trick to get you into bed :mad:”, you literally think “This is a cute game we’re playing here, but I know we’re going to have sex eventually. :)”
You meet so many people that you lose all the judgements a lot of people have. It’s hard for me to relate to relgion, racism, stereotypes, xenophobia, etc. because I’ve met so many people from so many backgrounds and with so many different viewpoints that I understand those things have to do with your upbringing, surroundings, peer groups, etc. That’s part of why people open up to me really quickly, because they can tell I’m not coming from a place of judgement.
A bitter Warcraft nerd might be sitting in his basement going “fuck those fraternity jocks at school they’re all such assholes blah blah blah” and next thing you know you’ve got a Columbine on your hands. But I look at them and go “cool, they’re doing their thing. It’s not how I want to live my life, but I see why they behave that way and as long as they’re not hurting anyone, I genuinely hope they’re happy.”
A bitter Warcraft nerd might be sitting in his basement going “fuck those women for rejecting me, can’t they see I’m a nice guy?? Women just love assholes that’s all, stupid bitches, grrr :mad:” But I look at them and go “oh, whoops, I came off a little strong there, no wonder she wasn’t into me haha that makes complete sense, I’d better be careful not to mess up like that again next time” or “oh, she likes giant muscle jocks, and I’m not one, well that’s alright I’m sure there’s another girl over there that’ll dig my type!” or “oh, she wants a serious relationship, and I’m not really up for that…well, I hope she finds a guy who can give her that someday!”
You grow to have a very positive “wish the best for everyone” outlook and it becomes harder to relate to really negative people who are convinced everyone has ulterior motives and that the universe is out to get them.
Agreed. Pick-up teaches you to accept people for their flaws and focus on appreciating their good qualities. You learn to cut through all the bullshit surface-level “putting on a facade for the sake of appearances” crap that flows through our society and you get to the actual meat of people.
That’s why when people are like “well you aren’t really making a CONNECTION with these people, talking for 15 minutes with someone isn’t enough time for THAT!!”, it’s like well no, it’s not enough time the way YOU do it, making idle small talk about the weather and the local sports team’s latest victory. When most people ask what a person does for a living they follow it up with “Oh, cool, that must be exciting!” but I know most people hate their jobs and aren’t doing what they really WANT to do, and I’m interested in learning about them as a person (whether it’s a girl I want to sleep with, a guy I’m making friends with, or the bartender who I just see every few weeks for a few minutes) so my follow-up question is something like “Oh, cool, but here’s another question…what would you do if you could do ANY job in the world, right now, if money, education, etc. didn’t matter?” Which of us is going to have a deeper connection with the person? The normal guy is listening to the bullshit “oh well ya it’s pretty exciting I guess, my manager is pretty nice and we get catered lunch so that’s good…” polite social snippet, but I’m finding out about the person’s hopes and dreams.
Sex-wise, one night with a woman and I’ll know about her past experience, her most taboo fantasies, traumatic experiences like her having been raped when she was younger, her fears or insecurities, the things she wishes her boyfriend/husband would do to her, why she’s scared to ask them to do those things to her, etc. etc. I’ll know more about that deep down secret part of her that she doesn’t tell anyone, than her own boyfriends, husband, family members, close friends, etc. do…and she’ll tell me these things because she can tell I won’t judge her for them.
At the start when you’re in the “fake it” stage, you generally stick to “all PUA, all the time”, but again down the road when you’re in the “make it” stage, you’re always sharing the real you with everyone. Just because I know how to get you to open up about what you wish you were doing for a living more efficiently than someone else, doesn’t mean I’m not actually interested in learning that about you. And just because I know when you ask me about the death of a family member that my response might make my “alpha level” go up or down with you, that doesn’t mean I’m not sharing my real feelings about it.
My buddy’s friend just died drinking and driving last night. I care about my buddy and I feel really bad for him, but I also understand that right now he needs me to take his mind off it so I’m going to go over and play X-Box with him and act like normal until we have a few drinks and he decides it’s time for him to open up, and when he starts to open up about it, I’ll console him and help him feel better and read his vibe and figure out if he needs me to give him advice or just sit back and listen to him vent. I know there’s a possibility he’ll blame himself for not being there for his friend, so I know I may have to talk him out of some self-blame tonight.
Knowing about how his mind works doesn’t mean I care any less for him and what he’s going through right now. And in fact it makes me more well-equipped to help him. I’ve never lost a close friend before, but I’ve met people who have and I understand the jist of what it’s like from their perspective…if I hadn’t learned pick-up I might not be able to help my friend out tonight as well as I know (and am thankful that) I’ll be able to.
He’s a guy I met at the bar, and we mostly just hang out on weekends hitting the bar together…but according to some viewpoints in this thread, we couldn’t REALLY have a real deep friendship, I must just be friends with him to use him for something. That’s a silly notion. He’s my friend and I’ll do anything I can to help him when he’s going through a tough time.
The main difference is we’re better at it. Because we’re consciously aware of thousands of factors the natural guy isn’t. That’s why I can take girls from big jacked up rich Armani suit guys at the bar and they go “wtf?? But I HAD her!!!” and can’t wrap their heads around what just happened.
But again, the PUAs goal isn’t necessarily to have sex as much as possible. That’s an individual thing. Right now my goal is to start a business and maintain a healthy open relationship with my girlfriend. I turn down sex from random bar chicks all the time because I’m not interested in just racking up notches on my belt. But when I started learning pick-up I was definately just looking for notches. Down the road my goals will probably be stuff like being a positive alpha male role for my future kids, maintain attraction and a healthy sex life with whoever I’ve settled with, and grow as an individual (I’ve always wanted to learn to play the guitar, I may try to tackle that one day!).
My natural buddy is phenominal with women and his goal IS to just rack up notches haha He wants to lay 100 girls this year and he’s doing pretty damn good so far. But one day he’ll probably settle down too, I’m a solid 5 years older than him so my priorities have changed with my age.
- TWTTWN
Because that’s how it sounds, at least at first. It really does sound like PUAs go “Hmm, I want to get laid tonight. Let’s go and see how many chicks with no self-esteem I can bang. Better bring someone along to keep score. Oh, and the gym is getting a bit pricey so I might see if I can nail a Fitness Instructor and score some free personal training in the process.”
Now, I believe you when you say that’s not actually how it is. But I’m sure that there are PUAs who are like this, and surely you must agree that they’re giving “Everyone else” a bad name, right?
The thing is, let’s pretend I do go out and try it. And let’s further assume, for the sake of this hypothetical, that I don’t have any luck. You’re going to say “You were doing it wrong!” and we’ve proved nothing (I say it’s because it doesn’t work like that and you because I’m doing it wrong) and I’ve wasted an extremely expensive evening in a nightclub.
Let’s pretend as an alternative scenario that it does work. Overlooking the mechanics of why the evening “worked”, I then have a LOT of explaining to do to my wife, who is going to be extremely unimpressed that I’ve apparently been using Jedi Mind Techniques on Other Women for sex.
So you’re right. No, I won’t be going out to try it.
When people think you’re being a manipulative bastard or after something?
There is, actually. Stop typing “haha” on the end of random sentences and I’m not going to think you’re nervously laughing at your own jokes.
The thing is, “I’m” has no historical connection (at least in English) to “Puppy Kicking” (unless the sentences is something like “I’m going to kick some puppies”), so your analogy fails. That’s how I’d respond. I’d ignore the “prejudiced headspace/skewed lens” nonsense because “normal” people (who aren’t Diversity Co-ordinators or something like that) don’t talk like that in everyday conversation IME.
You know that lots- and I mean “Really quite an awful lot” of posters here are actually married, or have long-term partners, right?
I’m surprised no one has commented on this yet. Are you serious? :dubious:
Sure? I’m not really concerned with them. I don’t identify myself as a pickup artist beyond introducing myself as one for the sake of clarity in joining this thread earlier. I’m just a guy who’s good with people. A good martial artist isn’t really concerned with people arguing on the Internet about ninja death strikes haha
Go out and try it. You won’t “not have any luck” getting people to ask this question and note their reactions when you respond in different ways.
Then logically you have to accept the observations of the thousands of people who HAVE gone out to try it. If you don’t know how a nuclear reactor works, you should probably trust the consensus of thousands of nuclear plant employees, right?
That’s just how I type, I’ve been chatting on the Internet for a long time. If you interpret it weird, that’s not my fault and I’m not going to change what I do to try to get you to stop casting your own biases on me.
I can’t tell if you’re saying nobody in real life responds with stuff like “you’re viewing me through a prejudiced lens blah blah” or if nobody in real life says “haha” at the end of their sentences…but either one is a silly discussion to me. Are you really implying that the way I type in a discussion on the Internet is the way I talk in real life and that I use “hahas” and emoticons in real life? Like I don’t even know why you’re bringing this up haha
How does that change the fact that they have the necessarily skills to be good at pick-up? They might not do it, but it doesn’t change the fact.
Yes. Which part do you take issue with?
- TWTTWN
The guys on Jersey Shore call that “pulling a robbery”.
I have to say, one of the most frustrating things when I was college age was when some of my idiot friends would cock-block through their clumsy attempts at pickup on the same girl.
Impressive, but that sounds almost like a full-time job.
I’ve been with my GF for a long time. But the concepts of “pickup” really aren’t that different from the concepts of “being a good conversationalist” or “charming” and are certainly useful in my career as a consultant. In fact, she always teases me about whenever I have to go to my client’s office. “Oh, you have to go meet with a professional woman age 28-45? You should be fine…you always test well in that demographic.”
You seriously don’t understand why a woman would be upset when a guy doesn’t take “NO” for an answer? That seriously puzzles you?