Mystery is back on VH1 for a second season of teaching a bunch of adult losers what most people learned in high school and college. Discuss.
Discuss what? Have you people seen the first episode yet?
It was on today. My GF and I caught the last 10 minutes or so. I found it ironic that Matador told the one dude he looked like a “drug dealer”.
Apparently not…
Strange. I thought it would be a popular show for this crowd, given the number of “how do I meet girls?” threads.
Maybe that has something to do with the fact that the dude looks like 6 random 80s music videos thrown into blender and is impossible to take seriously.
It’s a show where they teach 9 grown adult men (I use the term loosly) most of who are virgins how to meet women in bars. What’s to take seriously?
This is great news! I love transformation shows, and the original Pickup Artist was one of the best shows I have ever seen. It was like Extreme Makeover, except with people instead of houses. What a great time to be alive.
msmith, I find your attitude towards this show to be disturbing. Yeah, VH1 has made it a bit ridiculous, but I find nothing wrong with a bunch of guys wanting to improve their lives. What I find far more loserish is the attitude that learning ends in high school, and criticizing those who want to better themselves.
And make fun of Mystery all you want. Personally, I find him to be a really smart guy with a lot to offer the world. So far, all I see from you is petulant childishness.
Grow up.
Big fan of the first series here too. So have any of you read “The Game”? I’m currently halfway through it. It’s the supposedly true story of this guy, Style, who started out an average frustrated chump, but attended a seminar with Mystery and went on to become his wingman. He meets tons of other guys in the pickup community and becomes one of the best. What’s very interesting is how depressed Mystery is behind the scenes. At the point I am in the book he was suicidal and they had to take him to a hospital. It’s so strange reading about him after first seeing him on TV.
I agree with the others here that while the show is pretty over the top, there is plenty to be learned about social skills and confidence, and to see the changes in action is pretty incredible. Fans of this show would probably like Beauty and the Geek also.
Well, msmith is right that they are “adult losers”, they admit that themselves. So I don’t see why you are so harsh on him.
What I disagree with is that most people learned this stuff in high school and college. Few people I know even talk to female strangers, let alone charm them.
Perhaps I was harsher than I needed to be. But I find it laudable that they have the balls to do something about it. I find little to admire about those that sit on the sidelines and criticize.
Anyway, about the episode…
That guy with the pony tail… Greg I think. Was anybody else flabbergasted as to how much the make-over improved his looks?
Also, Matador has been working out since the first season. He looks like some sort of cliche action hero. Any minute I expect a tree or something will fall on one of the contestants, and he will single-handedly lift it off them.
That was quite a change!
They guy with the teeth – How did they plug the gap? I’m unaware of any dental procedure that can fix that in a single visit.
I didn’t like the fact that brass chain guy was asked to leave before he got any training at all. Seeing as how they started with 9 guys instead of 8 this season, I’m guessing that the plan all along was to dismiss someone on the first episode, but that seemed pretty harsh. Good on him for saying that he was going to learn the Method on his own.
I didn’t say learning ends in high school. What I said was that most guys generally learn how to meet the opposite sex, certainly by the time they hit their 20s and usually long before that. Usually when they are teenagers and are surrounded by lots of other teenagers and have little responsibility other than school and trying to get laid.
I can see how it could happen though. You start out as a shy, weird guy who never gets laid in high school. You go to college and instead of reinventing yourself, you end up as one of those kids who sits in his dorm every weekend playing World of Warcraft or whatever. And it’s probably worse now since it’s a lot more acceptable than it was 10 years ago. Next thing you know, you’ve graduated and you’re 22 living with your parents or in an appartment never having learned the skills of suduction.
Look, I emphasize with those guys. I once felt like they did. I mean when I was like 12. I can’t imagine what it would be like pushing 30 and not having the faintest idea as to how to meet women.
Also, I don’t think I mocked Mystery or his method. I mean the guy has made a career out of spending all his time picking up women. I find the show facinating.
Oh and I think there’s a deleted scene where Lorenzo Lamas calls Matador and asks for his style back.
Yeah what a bunch of losers those guys on the show are. Anybody that wants to improve him or herself is a real jerk. If you haven’t learned something according to some predefined schedule then you should just give up and stop trying.
Like all those people from foreign countries trying to learn English at age 30. They should have just learned it when they were twelve like a normal person would have.
First of all, I apologize for being so harsh. That was uncalled for.
Second, you might be surprised at how many guys never figure it out, even in their whole lives. One figure I’ve heard bandied about (no linkable cite) is that 99% of guys never figure it out. Ever. Most are content to leave it up to pure luck. Notice, as you move through life, how many guys still think that it has something to do with looks, or money, or some intangible magic something or other. I remember one of your posts from a while back where you talked about the extreme importance of looks. (And I consider you to be one of the more enlightened board members on the subject.) Not to say that looks play no part, but they are such an incredibly small part.
When I first started watching TPUA last year, I figured that the mPUAs were born with natural good looks and charm. Not so. Most of the world’s top dating gurus were once the most pathetic losers, some even into their 40s and 50s. Mystery himself was one of them until around the age of 25.
As far as taking the show seriously, I’ve often heard it said that men who get that area of their lives together usually see it spread to other areas of their lives, such as other relationships, finances, health, business, and general happiness. In the past year I can see the truth of that.
So, yeah, I take it seriously.
On a more personal note, early on in my current relationship, I fessed up to my lover that I’m studying some of these things. Her response? “Hallelujah!” She was tired of dating guys who just don’t get it. We’ve been very happy ever since.
I guess I do sort of take it for granted. I went to a bit of a party college so there were always social events and I had a lot of friends who liked going to bars and clubs and parties on the weekends, both in college and when I was home for
breaks. So I had a lot of opportunity to throw together a rudamentary “game” in lots of different social settings through trial and error. Plus I just try to make a habbit of talking to people instead of standing on the wall, even if I’m not trying to pick girls up. I also pay a lot of attention to social dynamics. Why are the girls interested in this guy and not that guy? Why do they come to this fraternity party and not that one?
I actually find this stuff facinating.
One thing I would like to see is Mystery use his method in NYC instead of Austin TX college bars. His whole method seems geared for hitting on really young drunk chicks (yeah Mystery…I know why you send in the clowns first and then you and Matador do your schtick later in the evening). I’d like to see how that game works on your typical cosmo sipping 30-something Carrie Bradhaw wannabe wants to marry an investment banker and live on Central Park West jaded Manhattan woman.
Actually a friend of mine has a high school friend who is one of Mystery’s trainers or wingmen or whatever they are called (he’s not on the show). He said he kind of doesn’t like going out with him though because my friend just wants to chill in a bar for a bit and this guys immediately starts whipping out a deck of cards or pidgeons or whatever and going into his schtick with every girl.
Me too.
What’s interesting is that when I watched season 1, I had no idea what the students were doing wrong. In season 2, I spotted a lot of stuff right off the bat. For example, I noticed right off that the bearded guy was way too kinetic. He needs to learn to find his cool and slow down. I admire his enthusiasm, but it comes off as creepy and desperate. Give the guy 30 minutes of body language training,and his game will improve dramatically.
I think that in general, his game works anywhere. His instructors teach in every major city in North America, Europe, and Australia. In his book, he states early on that you need to calibrate for venue, inebriation, age, looks, and of course the individual woman. But some things are universal. What comes off as creepy in Austin will come off creepy in Manhattan. What comes off as confident in Sydney will come off as confident in Skokie.
Not that I’m anywhere close to an expert, but in the past year I’ve had some success with women age 19 and age 50-something, drunk and sober, pretty and not-quite-so-pretty, in bars, subways, and lunch lines. Good social skills trump demographics.
Wow.
From different families? 