The Pick-Up Artist movement is a scam

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, the PUA movement is a scam. I feel like I’m saying Ms. Cleo can’t tell you your future if you call her now. I mean, this is so outdated. The only reason I’m bringing it up is because it came up in another thread and I was taken to task by a poster for not believing that the scientific community smiles on these pick-up artist shenanigans. And I really didn’t want to hijack that thread.

Now, look…if they were to say to young socially retarded men, 'Hey, if you just start talking to girls and practicing being more social, you will see more success." I would be cool with that and not regard it as a scam.

But when they pretend that it is their techniques and tricks that get the pussy, well, that is where the scam comes in. They are just trying to get your money for their books and t.v. shows and DVDs or whatever.

That stuff aint gonna work for shy awkward Poindexter. If he tries those techniques on hot women in a bar, he is going to look crazy as hell. He is never going to turn into the kind of smooth playa that the scam artists are promising him. He will eventually get better at getting dates through sheer practice and increased opportunity, but that isn’t what the PUA sold him, so it’s still scammy, sammy.

Let’s take one of the favorite techniques…negging. Or whatever name they gave the back-handed compliment. That actually WORKS. Yes, that works, lots of times, on lots of different women…not just dumb women, and it works on men too. You know how I know this works? Because it is something I did all the time as a saleswoman. But it worked when I did it. It didn’t work when my co-workers tried. You know why? Because a lot of my coworkers didn’t have the charm to pull it off, and I couldn’t teach it.

Know what’s interesting? I could teach them to get their numbers up. I taught them that by telling them to take the calls they were dodging and to ASK FOR THE SALE. You would be surprised how many salesmen weren’t doing that. But, I could NOT teach them the charm and style that it took to pull off stuff like negging the customer. If they tried that, it was a disaster for them…they ended up looking silly. Just like guys who try that crap at the bar look.

It works for the guys who already have that inborn je ne sais quoi.

Every thread we have ever had on this topic seemed to focus on the objectification of women with this movement, but the men are the true victims if you ask me. They are being exploited with what amounts to a load of pseudoscience that appears to be based in EP.

Again, I realize this topic may be dated, but I get the feeling there are a few stragglers out there, still paying for seminars and books. Stop it. It’s junk.

2

Can we just agree that the entire self-help industry is bullshit and be done with it? Lose weight now, be your own boss, get more pussy, find happiness, 10 steps to a more confident/attractive/employable you. It’s all a waste of money.

3

Yes, steronz. Yes, we can.

4

“Cah fa ya free ree-din!”

5

Example of negging, please.

6

A compliment that really isn’t

Like:

“I don’t normally find older women attractive, but you are cute”

“I like your crooked smile”

I’m sure others can come up with a better one

7

Those shoes are nice…they make your ankles look a little slimmer.

xkcd.

8

You don’t sweat much for a fat bird.

9

A mild, playful insult/backhanded compliment which has the effect of bringing someone down a notch.
“Jeez, you must have driven you’d parents crazy.”
“Does she have an off switch?”
sarcastically “Everybody stand back, we have ourselves a badass here.”

10

“I’m usually not attracted to overweight girls but something about you seems different.”

11

Good one. I almost slept with you.

12

Is this thing really a “movement”? If so, I haven’t noticed it. Are there really guys out there going around trying to pick up women by using some “secret” handbook or something?

13

Yes.

14

A guy once told me he didn’t usually like mudsharks but I seemed different. I wonder if he was purposely doing that or was just naturally a fucking idiot, but in any case it definitely did not work.

15

Aaaannnddd, I just learned a new word.

16

My best friend once told me I’m just attractive enough to get noticed, and just ugly enough for most guys to think they have a chance. (I prefer the term “average” but the second half of Chuck’s assessment was probably closer to the truth.) But I smile all the time and enjoy talking to strangers, so I set myself up for a lot of pickups at restaurants, music venues and the like. No big deal, until about ten years ago.

Male coworkers and strangers in social venues started making comments about my height, (5’10”, 6+ in heels) and my figure, (slender), my “crooked smile” (I have an overbite). It took a couple years before I heard of the PUA movement, I just thought that life lived largely online led to bad manners and poor social skills. My girlfriends and I would say sexist things like “What in the hell is wrong with men?” And a few of us really started hanging on to a low opinion of single men in general. One or two run-ins with these rude and pushy wingnuts really caused us to become uncharacteristically bitchy and unapproachable in order to scare them away. After frosting out these guys, my friends and I would laugh at their bumbling attempts to be cool and charming. We noticed their odd clothing choices that were always wrong for the venue, like Sunday-go-to-church mixed with disco jewelry. We were amused by the the excessive hair products, cologne, tacky jewelry, money clips and other hilarious signs of faux wealth. And good lord were they awkward, a little too loud, a little too forward, skipped the small talk and jumped right in with personal comments about our appearance, our cars, etc. Foreigners in a strange land. We’d watch them work the room, finally settling with the lowest hanging fruit because no other woman would entertain them.

Since we rarely insulted them to their faces, and dismissed them in the most polite way possible as quickly as possible, maybe they felt they’d made some inroads. They were wrong. We lied to get rid of them, then butchered them behind their backs. We told them we were married, engaged, waiting for boyfriends. Told them we were at a business lunch. Or simply ignored them until they wandered away.

So, yeah, after a PUA has exhausted all the first and second draft picks, what was left may have been lonely girls, shy girls, or girls who just showed up with a plan to take someone home. Maybe the PUA artist does get lucky from time to time, but he’s going home with last call girls, not hot girls. Not confident girls. Not smart girls. He’s going home with girls who planned to go home with someone anyway. Not a real victory since he could have saved himself the posturing, peacocking, and insulting and hooked up with those girls by being a decent human being.

No one will be better off for having practiced that ridiculous shtick on another person. It’s dehumanizing and demoralizing for both the PUA and the scant sprinkling of women they do manage to snag. It would be a nice service to shy men and women if this topic were brought up every few months so that women would know what to look for, and men would save their money and invest in developing character instead.

17

Eh, I think the crap works on lots of hot women. I’ve seen it work, and I’ve done similar stuff with customers. Most of it is pretty much figuring out how someone’s psychology seems to tick and then exploiting that. There is no one size fits all tricks. When it works, what the player is doing is really making a lot of very fast decisions about who they think you are.

The problem is, it can’t really be taught, because executing it takes quite a bit of finesse and style that tends to be a natural part of some people’s nature. You can’t really teach a dweeb to be a romeo.

18

Anybody remember The Rules? The PUA movement is the mirror image.
It works on some people, I’m sure. It works on the wrong people, but wrong people are still people. It wouldn’t be the first time jerks were emotionally abusive to take advantage of vulnerable people.
Really, most of the time when they make a good point, they spoil it by drawing a silly conclusion. E.g.:

The Rules: Calling a man a incessantly is a bad idea. (sensible)
Ergo, never call him and purposefully miss some of his calls. (wtf?)

PUA: Letting her make all the decisions is a bad idea. (sensible)
Ergo, make all the decisions. (wtf?)

I think it may be people who are overcompensating. I used to know a woman who unironically said she deserved to be treated like a princess. In actuality, she accepted being taken for granted.
When I was in the reserve, the guys who were most gung ho were the really short guys. They wanted you to know they were tough.

19

ETA: this is a response to Nzinga’s post #17

I think charisma works on most people. The genuine stuff, you know, confidence which arises from natural charm, humor, good looks, life experience; wealth. A charmer with any combination of those characteristics can get away with “looking good, Stretch” if he actually likes and appreciates women as human beings rather than conquests.

A guy ill-at-ease with the world who has been taught that women are holes, marks, targets, etc, has been trained to dehumanize them, and it smells. I think most people can see through that. Maybe the vulnerable are easier to exploit, and maybe their is some weird justice when the vulnerable weirdo who buys the PUA shtick hooks up with the vulnerable girl who craves attention of any flavor.

20

People on this very board tout it as a godsend for their penises.