That’s called a “scam”. Or, maybe it’s more accurate to call it a “performance.” You’re paying to see him perform a rambling soliloquy, and whatever he says is unlikely to actually help you.
Anyone who just wants to learn to get laid would be better off paying for guitar lessons.
First impression (before reading any of the responses): could be legit, could be creepy.
There are a lot of men who need help, because either they never learned, or they learned the wrong things, about things like dating and relationships and “What does it mean to be a man in today’s society?” (In my own younger years, I was pretty damn clueless about such things, and therefore frustrated and miserable.)
Without knowing more about what this event teaches and how it teaches it, I can’t say whether it will actually give the kind of help that’s needed.
I think Quartz makes a fair point, except for one important thing: “improving their sex life in a post #metoo world” likely means something very different for women than for men.
“Men will be provided with real word concrete tools to be able to expand their awareness and abilities quickly.”
Sounds like they are going to learn some concrete finishing. It’s always good to have a trade to fall back on.
Dennis
Well, I’m curious. What should I be doing differently now that I’m in a “post #metoo” world?
I’m thankful I’m married. Imagine today if I bonked my chosen mate over the head and carried her away across my shoulder.
Eh.
Is this from Marin County? If so, perfectly mainstream (for there.)
New age woo nonsense, but there is a fair chance the guy believes this stuff. If a scam, the scammer is too dumb to charge at least $100 for this. He isn’t going to get rich on $15, $20 at the door.
Move that a county north to Sonoma, and the whole thing makes more sense, including the price. Especially west Sonoma.
$20 is a sweet deal if you come away with one of these: concrete finishing tools - Bing
Yeah, I think you’re on the right track here. If attendees are provided with real world concrete tools then looking for hidden agendas seems conspiracy theoryish. And the guy is pretty straight forward about how you can do some useful things right away, but that you won’t master the craft for a long time.
He has a nice spiritual take on craft and working with your hands — sort of a Zen/Motorcycle/Maintenance vibe. It’s nice how he understands that, even today, women are looking for a mate with the skills to find a well-paying job — but he does not say that’s the only thing that matters.
If the dude is giving the presentation at a respectable venue, it might be sincere, woo-infused self-help. If he’s working from a hotel meeting room, be very leery. If it’s in his basement and no one else shows up, don’t drink anything he offers.
San Francisco. Close enough, I suppose.
The address is in the original post, and it appears to be a private home (presumably his). Not a very nice-looking house, although in this market it would probably be pushing $1 million to buy. Anyway, he can’t be expecting a very large number of people if he’s going to be able to address them all in one room in a small SF house.
On a side note, in addition to complaining about this post to the Nextdoor leads (analog to our mods), I also posted a cranky reply to the post complaining about how posts about really useful services like house cleaning and baby sitting are routinely knocked off by the leads (because the site is not supposed to be a place to shill for your money-making services) we still have to see dreck like this. So far no response from either.
I think the fact that it is so carefully written and any overtones of PUA have plausible deniability should raise flags.
Ask yourself, if you were running a course that was purely benign and wanted to avoid anyone thinking it might be a PUA scam…would you write it like that? would you use those words? would you leave it so ambiguously worded?
Probably not the worse $15 or $20 you ever spent.
I don’t find it offensive or weird, and it doesn’t insult men or women to talk openly about #metoo; though if it’s only men there I’m not sure the conversation would be entirely balanced. Still, if men came to this they’re showing an openness that’s great. We need more of that all around, w/ everyone.
But the host comes off as a person who thinks they have enough insight for a book but doesn’t want to write it. And to have it in their home? Who knows, maybe it’s an organ harvest setup?
I wouldn’t trust men who need this support with real world concrete tools. On the other hand, if the guy could get them to paint a fence, then he might have something.
I’ve been thinking lately about a scene in Bedazzled (the original). Peter Cook is rying to convince Dudley Moore that he’s the devil. Moore calls him a nutcase.
“They said the same of Jesus Christ, Freud, and Galileo.”
“They said it of a lot of nutcases too.”
Yeah, PUA types probably know how they’re looked at these days and would want to distance themselves from that reputation and appear sincere and helpful. Which is also how a genuinely sincere and helpful person would appear. I’m not sure the lack of overt PUA trappings really tells us anything useful.
A lot of this could be good old-fashioned self-improvement stuff, dressed up a little to make it sound modern.
Is the event host going to tell everyone to make eye contact, use the woman’s name in conversation, and practice active listening by restating what she just told you? That’s the kind of advice I got in the Dale Carnegie course 30 years ago. And a surprisingly large number of people actually need to be told how to do those things and can benefit from it.
You can pay 20 bucks and spend an afternoon at a workshop, or you can pay 20 bucks and spend an afternoon reading a self-help book.
I love that movie. I believe the actual line is “They said it of a lot of bleeding nutcases too.”
Regarding this post, it seems to me to be directly in PUA territory but without committing to it. There are some (what I would call) dog whistle references so that the aspirational PUA types would recognize it, but all with plausible deniability.
I can also see the point of those who suspect the woo references outweigh the PUA material in suspecting what the overall flavor of this would be. I presume I’ll never know.
According the IMDb, the full quote is:
So “bleedin’ nutcase” is there, but precedes the part I originally quoted.
