This difference is that this is explicitly described as a “compliance test” where the woman is “supposed to comply” with the man.
I think you’re fooling yourself. Does this guy not speak English or something? He uses some variant of “to comply” three times in his first six sentences. That isn’t a mistake, that’s a very clear expression of his intention with this little game.
*It isn’t implied, it’s stated flat out. “The understanding is clear on his face that she is supposed to comply”. This is a test to see how easily a woman can be dominated.
Yeah, I think there are at least two issues going on here. One is about shallow kind of guys who are using the PUA thing in the manner which SWB talks about, and others are guys using the PUA thing in a manner to improve themselves in a more permanent way.
Just like a lot of other things, if you only develop a social skill-set for your personal gain (not your personal growth), you will have a one-sided, hollow personality. Those guys on the forums SWB linked are an example of that.
Like trying to drink to get happy. You’re taking a short-cut. Sure, you may be happy for a few hours, while you’ve got your buzz on. Later you won’t be so happy. If instead you worked on your internal issues, you’d achieve a level of satisfaction which no drink can provide. Short-cuts don’t work.
I don’t get the vibe, however, that Autolycus means to be trying a short-cut. I do get the vibe that those dudes on the pickup forums are.
Doctors use the term “compliance” all the time in referring to meds, but that doesn’t mean that they’re dominating patients, forcing them to submit to taking drugs and obeying orders. (Well, not all of them are. Doctors can be their own special breed at times…)
Mostly I just like watching Mystery’s show with my girlfriend. Ironically, I picked her up at a holloween party so technically I wasn’t being “myself”. Unfortunately I had to wear a muscle suit under my clothes for several dates afterwards though (just kidding about that last part).
My general sense of the PUA community is that they are mostly nerds who couldn’t get laid when they were younger and then specifically studied the behaviors and traits that women respond to in order to maximize their chances of scoring. Erik von Markovik (AKA “Mystery”) even admits to not losing his virginity until his 20s. They then seem to take it a step further and turn picking up women into a sort of hobbie, which they approach with all the enthusiastic minutia obsession of a Star Trek nerd.
From what I’ve seen in the show, they sort of objectify women at the same time putting them up on a pedistal as prizes to be obtained. They don’t operate on a level that they are equals or peers. Women are “targets” to be “closed”.
That is not to say that I don’t think there is value in what they do. There are a lot of shy or awkward guys who are probably pretty lonely. They probably want to meet a nice girl, but they don’t know how to go about doing it.
Or to put it another way, if you moved to a new city and didn’t know anyone, how would you go about meeting people? Would you just wander around and hope you just “happen” to meet people? What do you do when you end up at a party where you don’t know anyone? How do you approach people? I think these PUA techniques just help provide a framework for doing that.
Women always talk about being yourself but “yourself” isn’t working for those guys. Women like to think that some guy will spontaneously pop into her life and it will be magic and they will fall in love forever (of course that guy is usually tall, wealthy, and successful). They seem to resent the idea of men actually thinking about how to improve their personality to make themselves more attractive. Which is ironic, considering how much money women spend on crap to make themselves more beautiful.
On the flip side of that, even the PCA community warns against turning into a PCA “robot”. Basically a guy who is nothing but his finely crafted facade. It’s a lot easier to portray yourself as a “high value male” if you actually are one. In other words, if you have real friends, a career you enjoy, good family relationships, interesting hobbies, stay in shape and so on.
**Lamia ** - They don’t use the term “compliance” to mean “dominate” and they aren’t “jerking girls around the dance floor”. They are little tests to see if the girl is interested. For example, if I’m talking to a girl and I say “I have to leave soon, walk with me as I get my coat”, that is a test. If she follows me over, it indicates she is interested. If she says “no thanks” that means she’s happy for me to be gone.
Your holier-than-thou attitude is thicker, deeper, and fetid.
I do remember some of your oogy stories from before you found her. I’m glad you found her, too.
There aren’t enough eyerolls I can make to the “let’s fight some ignorance” as if what you’re about to say is fact. It isn’t. It’s your experience with what you’ve read and your impression. Your opinion isn’t any more valid than those of us who’ve looked through a lot of this information.
By the way, I’ve watched some of David DeAngelo’s videos and he’s just as bad as the rest of them. He suggest walking up to women and saying “crazy stuff!” to them. One thing he said was to walk up to a woman and say “You know what? My girlfriend thinks you’re so beautiful.” He says to say it whether you’re with someone or not. He says that’s one way to get her to talk to you. Oh yeah? So when you go to ask her out, do you admit to being a big liar or do you let her believe you’re cheating on your girlfriend? Lame! He also talks about going op to a girl you’re attracted to and say “Hey Becky! Becky! It’s me!” as she looks at you like you’re a nutter and then say “Oh hey, I’m kidding. How are you?” Also lame.
It’s about getting men who are desperately trying to find someone into parting with money for a book or a membership to their website. Don’t kid yourself.
It’s already been mentioned that some women play games, and those games have been called out as being wrong. So, sorry, you’re not developing any new theories here, Copernicus.
I spent quite a while going through some of these forums and reading what a lot of these men were saying. Most of what they were saying were tips on how to manipulate, lie to, harass, and wear women down. Maybe YOU didn’t take from the material those attitudes, but a metric shit-ton of these guys are. If there are guys out there who are using this information and not being a douchebag with it, they are sure not posting to these forums.
So you certainly you must think that women who use “The Rules” when dealing with men are a-okay, right? I mean, they’re looking to get married. Marriage is usually preceded by kissing, which is preceded by hugging…
You’ve never had any kind of problem with those techniques used in those books, right? Never posted any kind of negativity in regards to those?
See, this pisses me right the fuck off. A women who is using her “bitch shield” is letting men know that she is not interested in being bothered. Who are you to go up to her and bother her? I’m sure you think you’re original and sincere and therefore YOU are what she’s looking for, but so does every other guy who rolls up with his game. When women give you a signal or tell you no, then bugger off. Otherwise you’re just trying to get her to comply. I know you’ve read “The Gift of Fear” and don’t want to be one of those men who doesn’t hear the word no. Bitch shields are raised for a reason.
They are referring to how well the patients are following directions with the medication to obtain the desired effect of the medication. It’s compliance to help them with their health, yet it is about the patient doing as they’ve been told.
I was pissed off, and so I apologize for that. But there’s a huge amount of misinformation going on here, and I felt compelled to dispell some of it.
Fair enough, though I would say that I’ve probably spent more time with the materials than anyone else here.
Though you’ve watched the videos, it’s clear that you didn’t understand them. He never advocated actually saying those things. He was trying to get guys to think outside of the box. (The misunderstanding is understandable, as the discussion of that first line bridged over from disk one to disk two. It threw me for a loop at first, too.)
I’m fully aware at what it is. While these guys are indeed making money from it, it’s clear to me that they truly believe in what they’re talking about.
But not all of those games are wrong, Kepler. Men and women play games – that’s just the nature of the beast. DD and those other guys are simply holding the rules up to the light.
I’ve read similar but different forums. What I found was truly a mix of guys (and some girls). What most of them really wanted was one really nice person to settle down with. In fact, there was an entire thread devoted solely to that topic.
Yes, I do.
At one time, perhaps. Not these days.
Hopefully, the guy that’s going to score with her.
Part of the game is to be able to read those signals. Why wouldn’t that be a GOOD thing?
You keep saying that as if the objective is to get her to do something against her will. That is simply not the case.
Actually, I haven’t read it. And I’m OK with hearing no.
And of course bitch shields are raised for a reason. I never said otherwise. The reason for compliance testing is to see if she’ll lower it long enough to make a connection. The guys that you likely have a problem with are the guys who persist in spite of the negative signals they get.
Jeeze…does your friend come with an “off” switch? I guess you can dress her up but you can’t take her anywhere.;)
(Now that I have successfully applied a “neg” to Sleeps With Butterflies, apparently there should be some sex soon.)
Seriously though, the number one rule sexual attraction is that YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT WHAT MAKES YOU ATTRACTIVE. If you are tall and good looking, you do not mention how tall and good looking you are. If you are rich, you don’t talk about how rich you are. If you are funny, you don’t talk about how funny you are. And most of all, if you are a blackbelt in Mystery’s Sig Sigma approach to picking up women, you don’t discuss it because the quickest way to dispell attraction is to point it out to someone. If you do point it out, it will become the most repulsive thing about you. You will go from tall and good looking to narcisisstic jerk, you will change from rich to pompous ass, instead of funny you will be weird clown and you will transform instantly from Pick Up Artist to creepy dude who reads pick up books.
Oh, I should also point out that I’m no saint. While my main objective is a a long-term fulfilling relationship, I’m not necessarily against some mind-blowing sex either.
Still with that said, I’ve just received a link that has made me lose faith in this Mystery guy. Sleeps with Butterflies will read this link and probably strain her eyes rolling them so hard:
DD’s advertizing looks very sleazy (as it does for all of those guys), but since he offers a money back guarantee, I thought it couldn’t hurt to try it out. The content is actually quite good, despite the sleazy marketing. He doesn’t promise that you’ll meet and sleep with thousands of HB10s, it’s much more down to earth, and he’s very strong on acting ethically. I would try out his e-book first, as it’s only $20 and you get a week to return it. If you like it, and can afford to spend a buttload more, get his Advanced series. It’s chock full of great stuff. His Approaching series, which is no doubt the one that SWB saw, is, IMHO, one of his weaker products.
Most of attraction takes place at the unconscious level. Some people are very good at reading and sending these unconscious signals and some are not. Those who are not see others attracting partners and feel they are missing out. They feel like something is wrong with them that they can not fix. This helpless feeling can lead to depression, loneliness, and despair. What the mystery method and similar methods do is they make the unconscous sending and receiving attraction signals conscious. They make it possible for people to learn how to be attractive. This is a great service to those who have not developed this ability naturally. Telling someone who has no idea how to be attractive to just be themselves is silly. If being yourself worked, no one would be alone. I am sure the vast majority of guys using pickup are scum because the vast majority of guys are scum. However, the techniques are no more scummy than a girl going to a beauty salon is scummy.
Telling someone to “be yourself” or “be confident” is unhelpful. They are platitudes people with no clue give other people so they will feel better about themselves. I mean if you were going into a job interview, would you tell someone “be yourself”? Maybe. But you would also give them concrete things to do like:
-wear a suit
-speak clearly
-know as much as you can about the company
and so on.
One comment though from the show. In the second to last episode, the final three guys are facing off in the club. So while the guy is running his game on a “two-set” he brought back to a table, this other dude (not a part of the show) just walks up and snatches his target away. That, my friends, is true game. Forget that motor-mouth neg-o-rama bullshit (I’m surprised the girls aren’t like “shit the fuck up gaylord”). A true master exudes so much awesomeness that he can just walk up to a girl and be like “yo…let’s get out of here.”
I’ve had my share of getting roundly blasted (and not just here) for suggesting that playing sociological bullshit junior-high flirtation games with each other is less conducive to successful relationships than treating people like human beings. In addition to being “just what’s done”, the former has a seemingly higher success rate at the outset (despite the initial attraction being basically from one fake personality to another), and that’s good enough for most people. The majority just seem to be cool with having no clue who they’re really talking to until around the third date…witness those in this thread who’ve said they’d be fine with these “mystery techniques” as long as they didn’t know outright that these behaviors were falsehoods.
I’m not arguing the point any longer. If you’re a responsible adult who’s aware that that’s the case and that’s good enough for you, then fine by me. It’s not my place to try and change what makes someone happy.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I have to play. I’ve been there and tried that (raised and trained by one of the best; thanks, Pop), and though it “worked” as far as it goes, I just never got around to seeing why having greater numbers of incompatible and/or uninteresting women be attracted to me was a desireable goal. As such, I’m going to continue approaching women by engaging them in conversations that include actual ideas*, rather than go through the dance of sending and interpreting social cues that basically add up to “I’d like to bang you”. I hold that any woman who’d get freaked out by my approach isn’t going to want to spend a great deal of time around me anyway, so we might as well figure that out up front. My ideal dates will – and do – respond in kind. Admittedly, I do wish there were more of them, but to each her own.
Because someone inevitably gets the wrong impression every time I say this, I don’t mean that I walk up to a girl in a bar and start quoting Dostoyevsky. It’s perfectly possible to have a thoughtful and funny conversation about pizza toppings, or a hopelessly vacuous chat about Aristotelian ethics; the former is what I’m talking about. Look at any number of SDMB threads for copious examples of both.
What I think a lot of people are either forgetting or never had to realize is that being attractive and knowing what to do in a dating situation are very much learned skills. Sure, we have some instincts, and some baseline level of attractiveness, but there’s clearly much more to it than that. If you were lucky enough to learn those skills when you were young, then you’re golden. If not, you’re in trouble (much as puddleglum described), and you’re going to be in trouble until you learn them. It’s not clear that there’s really a better way to learn these skills, especially since the people who have them have some trouble describing what they do that works so well.
Here’s a hypothetical and a question for the women who are against these manipulative techniques. There’s a guy you like–like, really like–and you find out that you’re both going to be at a party. Do you dress up nicely, spend some extra time grooming yourself, hang out around him and giggle at what he says? Or do you throw on sweatpants, run your hands through your hair to try to get some of the tangles out, and just wander around talking to anybody?
If it’s the former, you’re trying to act in a way to change his behavior, which is the dictionary definition of manipulation. If it’s the latter, you’re either lying, or you’re so socially clueless that no one should be concerned with your opinion.
Now the question is, what’s the essential difference between what most girls would do, and what the pick-up artists are trying to do?
If it’s supposed to be about determining the woman’s level of interest, why does it state flat out that it’s a test of her compliance? You can tell yourself whatever you want about how nice and wonderful and normal this all is, but the intent could not be more clear: “she is supposed to comply”.
“Compliance” with regard to medication IS about the patient obeying orders. Force wouldn’t normally involved, but the term is used because the patient is being asked to do as the doctor instructed.
Obviously the word “compliance” doesn’t mean “dominate”, they’re very nearly antonyms. But what the word “comply” means is “to submit”, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Mystery’s intent is that the woman be dominated.
A man could certainly use similar techniques to gauge interest: “If she takes my hand, she must be at least somewhat interested, and if she doesn’t then she’s not”. I believe this is what you are talking about. That isn’t the way the Kino Test was described in the OP, though. If it had been, I wouldn’t have found anything especially objectionable about it. But the quoted description explicitly states that the Kino Test is a a compliance test, not a test of interest.
I don’t know anything about this Mystery guy other than what is in this thread, but the quoted material in the OP makes it perfectly plain that his intent isn’t to find out if a woman is interested in him. It is to get her to comply with his wishes. You all can dance around that all you like, but “she is supposed to comply” is not a paraphrase based on my personal interpretation. It is exactly what the quote in the OP says.
To play the devil’s advocate, so what if the test is intended to test if the woman will comply or not? There’s a big difference in seeing if a woman will comply with a simple little hand game, to being jerked around, dominated, and controlled. Maybe the point with the compliance test is to see if the girl is comfortable with letting the man take the lead and play into the whole alpha male role. I still don’t really think it’s about compliance in the way you are using it, but even if it is… so what?
I think it’s impossible not to manipulate someone. If you walk into a party and smile at a woman, aren’t you “manipulating” her into thinking you’re friendly? A certain degree of manipulation is inseparable from the human condition, I think.
I caught some of the first season of PUA on VH1. Some of his stuff seems heavy-handed. In all fairness though I also remember that he mentioned that you shouldn’t approach a woman head-on because it’s too intimidating. That’s the sort of thing that a lot of guys might do without thinking twice, then not comprehending the result.
Parallel: if I were helping someone practice interviewing for a job, I might remark, “Stop fidgeting.” Is that manipulation? No, I’m making the person aware that they’re giving off a vibe that may make the interviewer uncomfortable and helping the person put his best foot forward. He may be qualified but his delivery is off, or he may not get the job because his resume is shit, but at least he can improve his chances.
From what I’ve seen, I’d say that a scumbag might take some of the tricks, play the game hard, and get into a woman’s pants. But I also think ethical men can learn some things about what they’re doing wrong and give themselves a better chance of finding someone.
It’s kinda like gun ownership: I know people whom I trust implicitly because I know they’re responsible, will store them under lock and key, who use them for legitimate hunting, and so on. There are also people who own guns who scare the hell out of me.
And although two wrongs don’t make a right, I wouldn’t say women have always been extremely ethical with men, either :dubious: (present lady dopers excluded, of course :D).
Doctors can be their own special breed at times…)
A certain degree of manipulation is inseparable from the human condition, I think.