The Pick-Up Artist movement is a scam

In My Humble Opinion
261

The discourse keeps boomeranging back to personal opinions about the tactics of PUA’s rather than if it’s a scam or not.

Even the bits about the scam nature of PUA are fairly weak. So PUA is a scam because it doesn’t deliver on the promise “It will get you laid with any woman you want?” I guess Joe’s coffee from the diner down the street isn’t the world’s best cup of coffee either.

The people who buy into PUA don’t honestly believe they’ll get laid by anyone they want. They’re still rational human beings. 100% of the guys who go in just want to get laid by SOMEBODY - more probably they just want to know how to talk to girls so they can get a gf. They’re learning techniques on how to be a sleazy bar pick-up guy and 99% of the guys bow out after sifting through the BS and learning the social cues and get a gf. What’s so wrong about that? The 1% that stick with it and actually believe the lessons as gospel? Well then it seems the scammers are only scamming themselves so no harm done.

262

Lamia, if Strauss and his ilk recommended having an HB6-10 (PUAs don’t bother with ones through fives, read his message board to find those women labeled ugs, fugs, and uggos) produce a notarized hold-harmless legal consent form it still wouldn’t negate the sheer volume of suggestions to coerce sex from a reluctant partner. “Lol, there’s always alcohol” to enable compliance.

263

1 - The book (to me) is more about a man’s journey through the different layers of PUA as it is a manual on PUA.
2 - When I read Mijin’s paraphrase, I thought of the specific part you referenced. Now he might have crossed deep into the gray area by not stopping but he did stop. I do remember reading something about if she was truly uncomfortable and wanted to leave, call her a cab. And at the end, they do end up making love. Now, whatever the reason - she actually was just playing coy, if Strauss manipulated her, or the Game Gods shot an arrow into her, etc. it happened and at face value, it was consensual.
3 - That’s actually one of the less eye-rolly bits of the book. There are other parts about how he picked up a girl with her bf right at the booth by pissing the BF off passive aggressively, or to bring a manila envelope of pictures with you doing awesome stuff with other girls like skydiving to give yourself "cred’ etc. Yes, all eye-rolling but I just don’t get the hate, and least of all, the “scam”.

264

Pancakes, it almost seems like you are conflating the two issues on purpose. You keep saying things like, “I don’t get the hate. Why the anger? Wherefore the vitriol for a so called scam?”

But you can see that there are two different positions on one side. Some people who are taking umbrage at the way they feel women are treated by PUA and then those who just think its a rip off.

Those who just think it is a rip off haven’t demonstrated any hate at all, so I don’t know why you keep confusing the matter.

The ones who think it is anti-woman may be a little pissed, but based on what I’m hearing about not taking no for an answer (which you are handwaving) I’m not at all surprised to see our more feminist members of the thread getting a bit more ‘hatey’. What is so hard to understand about that?

As for it not being a scam, I think it depends on what one calls a scam. You can say it is like joe’s diner not having the best coffee, but I think anyone being honest can agree it is much closer to fad diets and crap, and we all know that shit is bogus.

265

Analogy time. Say you are afraid to drive, but want the status associated with an expensive car. Salesman takes your money, tells you don’t bother with driving lessons, rules are for suckers, then spends awhile dissing and devaluing the car you just bought. You hit the road in a car you can’t operate, attempt to break all the laws, and ultimately hate the object you initially desired. You’ve been scammed.

266

That is possibly the most incoherent analogy I have ever encountered.

267

K, salesman profits from socially awkward and inexperienced guy, promises he can date the most beautiful, unattainable women, then gives him a handful of cheat codes, teaches him to devalue women, lie to them, and pretend to be someone more interesting. Confidence can’t be bought. Scam.

268

You lost me after “pretend to be someone more interesting.” Confidence is 100% mental. Be it placebo or not, guys who buy into the PUA’s pitch gain it.

Then the question begs if these cheats, tactics, tricks, gimmicks, ruses and maneuvers work? Can these customers now go to a bar and come out with more phone numbers than they could before? **Nzinga **doesn’t believe so. I think the more correct answer is that yes - they do. The girls may not be the smartest girls in the room, or the prettiest, or have the highest self esteem of their own, but using using these ruses (negging, parlor tricks, peacocking, etc) will attract more girls than just standing in the corner mute. It may be a monkey paw wish but the wish is still granted.

If you want to start another thread questioning the morality of the methods, or even flat out pit them, but I think the debate on if you can actually meet more girls with PUA is a non-starter or at best, a nitpick over semantics.

P.S. The problem with your analogy specifically would probably be where the salesman tells the customer to ignore driving lessons. Isn’t PUA exactly analogous to driving lessons? But hey. Maybe driving can’t be bought either and everyone should just go out and drive for themselves. Some may be better natural drivers than others. If you’re a shitty driver, just try to self improve and read some books and make yourself a better driver. No shitty scammy “driving lesson” can help you. Even if they do, they’re only effective on “their” cars and driving “their” style with their magic cheats like always drive with sunglasses on because the sun doesn’t set on a badass. Asshole sleazeball charlatans.

269

Edit: what pancakes said

270

"Oh gi-irl, I didn’t mean to come off rude
Just wanna spend the rest of my night against you (what?)
Did I offend you?
Well I’m sorry, but I intend to

I wanna take you home
Cuz I’m easy
And I’m sleazy
Wanna catch you all alone
Yet you don’t know me
But it’s only tonight"

♫

271

But see, this right here is what makes it scammy, to me. Pretty much anything will attract more girls than just standing in the corner mute. The idea that only these secret techniques and phrases will be effective, and that you have to pay good money to learn them, is a load of crap. The specific techniques are irrelevant; what matters is the part where you actually go up to women and talk to them. It’s exactly like one of the bajillion diet supplements out there that say “MegaFatBlasstR 3000 is most [read: only] effective when used in conjunction with sensible portions and moderate exercise.” Well, yes.

And unfortunately, there *are *going to be some guys who simply can’t pull off these or any other techniques. They get flop-sweats when they look a woman in the eye, and no matter what they say or do, their awkwardness oozes from every pore. There is plenty they can do to improve their ability to pick up women, and I wholeheartedly applaud the desire and attempts to do so, which is why I feel bad to know that guys like this waste money to learn “secrets” that will not work for them. In the diet supplement analogy, they’d be someone with, say, some kind of medical condition that precludes eating small portions or exercising. The magic supplement is never going to work for them, because they can’t do the thing that’s actually effective. They need to deal with the underlying condition first. Then, they’ll be able to use the supplement as directed, but again they’d do just as well - if not better - skipping the supplement (the PUA skillz) and sticking with the sensible diet and exercise (just go up and have a conversation).

In short: the techniques won’t work for everyone, and the people who they do “work” for don’t actually need them anyway. If a placebo helped them, great, but if they paid for that placebo, I am bummed that they got scammed.

272

Your OP says otherwise. The entire theme is telling awkward guys that they just can never be as good as the real PUAs. It’s all about how these guys are never going to be good enough, and that’s the basis you use to call it a scam.

I do agree it’s a scam, but not for your reasons. It’s a scam because these people are all in it to make money, and the best way to make money is not to give away your actual secrets. It’s much better to take advantage of the fact that even a placebo approach, if the user believes in it, will help you get somewhat better results. They tell you things that you see work, but they don’t tell you the secret that makes it work. Now maybe some of them don’t even know that secret, but the point is that they pretend that they do.

I still say that the PUA movement changed as it became more and more mainstream. Back when it was more niche, it seemed much less misogynistic, and there seemed to be a much better sense of community and just wanting to help people out. It was a direct response to a guy who was telling you that you could use waking hypnosis to make any woman fall in love with you. A lot of it was about how much better it was not to be a manipulative bastard.

I think I may have been the person who introduced this board to sosuave.com, and it was because I thought it would be like it was when I was a teenager, and would show how PUA wasn’t all that bad. But I was sorely mistaken. And maybe I was somewhat more oblivious back then. But I know I never thought of women as subhuman, and I never realized anyone else did. Now I see people flat out say it.

The main problem I had with the PUA movement was just that their goals and mine were not aligned. Their goal always seemed to be to get women in bed, and that was something I preferred to save for an actual relationship. While there was some common ground, we soon parted ways. Yet now, if I look back, I find I can’t even make myself look for the good in the cesspool that is so bad.

273

The better analogy is to a fad diet. It “works” because, if one uses some food discipline, that will work. Doesn’t mean that the techniques are some sort of magic.

Similarly, actually asking women out after taking care to dress nicely “works”. What there lacks, is proof that the PUA techniques works better then that.

274

If anyone has gotten this far and still wonders what this fad is all about, there was a good article in the Washington Post Magazine a couple of years ago profiling James Norton, who runs workshops on this stuff.

First step to a successful self-help scam: Find desperate customers:

And then Norton the PUA finds that what goes around comes around:

275

[QUOTE=Me]
I don’t understand your point 2, mostly. Who’s calling these guys losers? I firmly believe that socially awkward nerds can learn to practice socializing to the point of having success with women. I don’t believe they should pay con artists for help.
[/QUOTE]

Look at those two quotes, BigT. The first one, I say, “I don’t think they are losers, I do think they can learn to be successful with women”

In your post, you say my OP says otherwise… Oh yeah? Let’s look at a line from my OP…

[QUOTE=Nzinga’s OP]
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.
[/QUOTE]

Yep. Right there in black and white, from my OP, I state that I do indeed believe that nerds can practice being more social and find success. I don’t see anywhere in the OP or anywhere else in this thread where I regard the awkward guys as losers. Suckers, maybe, but I know lots of gullible people. Doesn’t make them losers.

You are correct that I don’t believe these socially awkward men can, generally speaking, be as good as the PUA gurus or as good as naturally charming playas overall. But that is just the same way I don’t think fat housewives will ever be as fit and trim as the models in the commercial for that stuff you sprinkle on your food to ‘block the fat’.

You are way off thinking that I think nerds are losers though. If anything, I look up to nerds. Look, if I could trade in my comfort level with strangers for a better understanding of math, I’d jump all over that. Shit, in my younger, hotter days, I’ve given more than one nerd a ride on the wild side. I had to make the first move though. And the second. Let’s face it, I had to run the whole show. But we got it poppin in the end!

276

Even if this is true*, and all that matters is just going up to women and talking to them, I still don’t see it as a scam.

Put it this way. Say we have our stereotype “sad” guy. The last few times he approached women in bars it went horribly. The last time he asked out a girl at his college/work/whatever she bluntly rejected him. He wants to remain positive but he’s finding it difficult.

So some guy says “You got rejected because you didn’t have these magic beans. Hold these in your hand and you’ll be irresistible”. This gives him the confidence to not just approach a girl but do so with some degree of self confidence, and to not take personally any rejections he does get. Eventually he meets the girl of his dreams and the feeling’s mutual. He believes the magic beans worked and was money well spent.
What’s the problem?

  • And I don’t believe that it is the case.
    e.g. There are guys I’ve seen who make simple faux pas like leading with something negative about themselves, or not giving enough eye contact. No-one that they approach is ever going to point out to them what they’re doing wrong. And if such things are self-correcting with experience…well that self correction must take years in some cases. Friends are more likely to try to reassure than give an honest appraisal.
    But one night out with a guy coaching them on such things…it’s invaluable.
    I don’t just believe it, I’ve seen it, many times.
277

There would be no problem … if said magic beans were but a harmless placebo.

The problem arises if the magic confidence-inducing beans require what many consider acquiring a nasty attitude towards others to “work”.

The problem is that the guy has more success with women via the placebo effect - and in the process, harms his character. When it is unnecessary. He could have the same amount of success with women without acquiring those bad characteristics. And he’s paying for the privilege of having someone teach him how to become (or, at least, mimic) a jerk.

The problem is that, holding the magic beans has taught him to view women as marks to be manipulated. So when he meets the woman of his dreams, he may well get to have sex with her - after all, he’s more confident, he dresses better, he’s learned about body language etc., but she will quickly see he’s a manipulator and dump his ass. If he was holding magic peas, which work equally well but do not require pretending to be a jerk, he’s still be more confident, dress better, know about body language etc., but presumably the woman of his dreams is more likely to be interested in him after dating him.

278

Let’s just agree that in the short term it has the positive effect of helping this hypothetical guy get out there and be confident. I’m obviously not going to agree that it has the side effect of making him a dick.

Because it’s just not my experience at all. For instance, I’m attending a wedding this month of a friend I met at a PUA class. I know like me he doesn’t consciously think about PUA theory any more, but also, like me, he really needed the advice he received in those classes.

279

Act like, not necessarily make. A person could easily use the techniques and not actually be a jerk. Such a person could quickly jettison the techniques when unnecessary and, hopefully, the woman of his dreams will be able to see through the facade to the sterling character underneath.

Point being, it’s a risk. Look, for example, at how many of the women in this thread react to the techniques. Consider what the woman of one’s dreams is likely to think, should they (say on your first date) notice the “Pick Up Artist” class materials on your desk, and idly leaf through them.

But yeah, lots of guys need advice about looking good and being sociable, and about flirting. What they don’t need, is the whole ‘be an Alpha male pick up artist’ shebang.

280

As I said upthread, in the early days of this, one subject I knew would be of interest to man and woman alike was the PUA thing. So I would often discuss some of the things I’d learned with women I’d just met. I’d invite them to the classes.

And indeed, at the classes I helped organize, we had around a 60:40 ratio (I will fess that the coach was bisexual so the classes were more broad than guys trying to get better at meeting girls, but I assure you it never strayed from standard PUA material).

So, the question is, has PUA been corrupted in the years since I was involved or is it being mischaracterized?
Well based on this thread and others on the Dope, it looks much more like the latter.
e.g. Several times in this thread you’ve had people say that PUAs resort to alcohol when all else fails. What the hell is that based on?