:rolleyes: Please. The tone in your post and Nzinga’s post is far from “oh, by the way, here’s my little ol’ opinion about something.” It’s very clearly “allow me to share with you the absolute objective truth about something.”
It’s gross. It’s commonplace around here. And it’s ignorance, pure and simple.
Hey, that’s just, like, your opinion man.
Hey, if you weren’t such an alcoholic I’d totally want to date you. (Am I doing this negging thing right?)
Let’s hear your opinion on the PUA technique, because we’re all about sharing our opinions here in In My Humble Opinion. Go on…
A wise friend of mine once said “Smart, Sexy, Sane. You get to pick two of them.”
I’m certain that he was inclusive in his statement, and that women have the same choice.
But I am a cynical bastard of a curmudgeonly misanthrope, so YMMV. 
Or doesn’t like people but is damn good at cold reading anyway. Understanding a subject does not require or involve liking it.
I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say this pick-up artist stuff is a scam if the people making money off of it claim that it is more effective than it is. If Mystery and his ilk were saying “Hey guys, if you follow my advice then you’ll have better odds of getting laid than if you never approached a woman at all!” then I wouldn’t consider that a scam. The whole thing would still be pretty awful for a variety of reasons, but people would at least be getting what they’d paid for.
But I just pulled up Mystery’s book on Amazon to check what his sales pitch is, and I was not surprised to find that he makes claims a bit bolder than “Following my technique is better than literally doing nothing.” You can read an excerpt of the first chapter by clicking “See all Editorial Reviews”, and in this first chapter he says “If you follow the Mystery Method, as outlined in this book, you literally should be able to seduce any woman you meet–no matter how attractive she is and no matter how far out of reach she seems”.
He doesn’t just say that his book will help men to be better at seducing women, or that his strategies work on many women, he’s claiming that by following his method any man will be successful at seducing any woman in the world. If that’s not true then this is a scam.
The technique teaches guys to strut around, overdress, regard women as something less than human, and say shitty things to them. I guess if that behavior gets someone laid it’s not technically a scam, but the process turns a shy guy into a woman hating jerk. So maybe not a scam, but a path to erosion of character and image to be sure.
I’m hardly an expert, but my SO and I used to watch that Mystery show on VH1. They didn’t have any of this “Pick up Artist” stuff when I was growing up. I had to learn the hard way. Through years of trial and error talking to girls in class, at bars, keggers, frat parties and whatnot.
From the show, a lot of that stuff rings true. Paying attention to body language. Not overstaying your welcome. Not alienating her friends so they get all “we need to go home now” while at the same time trying to split her off. Even that “neg” stuff. But back in the day we just called it “being a typical douche frat guy trying to get laid”.
I guess that’s the question. How much je ne sais quoi is inborn and how much can be learned?
But yeah, the “successful at seducing any woman in the world” stuff is bullshit. Do guys believe there is some magic jedi mind shit that some gross unattractive woman can use to get you to sleep with her (besides maybe large volumes of alchohol)? They what makes guys think that stuff works for all women?
The other thing is, how much of your personality do you want to have to fake all the time in order to get laid? My sense is these PUA guys don’t try to bring out the best “you”. They try to turn you into some sort of club hopping cheeseball so you can pick up the sort of girls who go to clubs to meet cheeseballs.
I have really mixed feelings about the whole scene.
There is A LOT of really gross, misogynist bullshit in it. And there are plenty of snake-oil salesman trying to cash in on the dim and desperate. Overall, it’s a slimy scene for sure.
Underneath the window-dressing is some solid good advice: Don’t hesitate to approach people you are attracted to, understand that sometimes women are looking for casual sex partners too, be honest with yourself about what kind of relationship you are looking for from a given partner, don’t over-invest in a relationship before the other partner is matching your intensity, have a life outside of your date, and don’t treat people you are attracted to like unapproachable deities rather than ordinary human beings. It’s a lot of the same advice you see, repackaged in a slightly different set of bullshit, in women’s dating books like “The Rules.” In the end, it all usually boils down to not getting over-invested too soon, which is a solid good idea for any gender.
I guess that people who buy in to dating systems tend to already be prone to some bitterness and desire for control, given that they’ve probably not had much success in the past. so it’s not surprising that this approach works so well in selling books.
In any case, I think a lot of guys try it, have fun with it, and eventually move on into more mature relationships. Some don’t, of course, but they’d probably end up being douchebags for life even without some framework for it.
You have to give the PUA guys credit; they’ve made a fortune on this despite never being asked to provide any proof that it works.
Of course, the genius of it is that the prerequisites for following their programs are that, before you use their allegedly wonderful techniques, you:
Of course, steps 1-3 will virtually guarantee you pick up more women than you did before, irrespective of what “techniques” you use. So guys will report that the TECHNIQUE works, when what’s working is they’re wearing clothes that fit and asking a lot of women out. It’s brilliant, really.
But all self-help stuff is like this. Diet books have been flying off the shelves for decades. All basically say “eat healthier food and stop jamming Doritos into your noise hole” but dress it up a little and people will pay $24.99 for than 17,898th book to say the same thing.
What I don’t understand is, nearly everyone is a phony playing some act when trying to score. Or even when just meeting anyone else. We constantly strive to give some impression, present ourselves as some “kind” of person. If your chosen method is ingratiating, cloying kindness and insincere compliments, then that’s OK.
If you chose to use a neg, which as I understand it is done in a way that does not belittle, and thus alienate, the recipient, just hints at your lukewarm interest, then you are commiting some heinous social error.
I think of shampoo
I don’t know much about the whole pua thing, but I highly recommend reading The Game by Neil Strauss, about a bunch of losers who pick themselves up.
Strauss, a journalist, was a founding member of the original PUA group and he wrote an expose. It is truly fascinating. From the moment when Strauss first meets Mystery in Canada, (Mystery is throwing a hissy fit in his bedroom at his parent’s place), to when Courtney Love comes to live with them all in the old rat pack mansion in Hollywood. You will laugh out loud, I promise.
OMG this is more fun than Sauron’s Blog. 
Jesus Christ those Rico Suaves are obnoxious. Sometimes I lurk on Stormfront but I could only take about 5 minutes of the Don Juan Forum.
Yes, yes…we should 
You know, maybe it’s because I don’t get a lot of men hitting on me (and the ones that do, I actually welcome the attention) but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for women who have to put up with guys trying to game them. If a guy tried to game me, I would do one of two things…either get gamed and like it, or peep game and shut the whole shit down. I’m not a victim.
There really are smooth characters out there who play a lot of games and are good at it. Wasn’t one of the reality show PUAs a freakin’ magician/showman? I mean…those kinds of guys are going to be better at getting more women in the sack. That is true.
The scam part is when they pretend they can transform dweeps into Don Juans. It aint happenin’. Women sound a little silly to me when they get all worked up about it, “Oh no! Someone is teaching men to be romeos, and those romeos are going to take advantage of women with their mind tricks!” No. No, they aren’t. The only women who are going to fall for mind tricks are the ones who fall for the mind tricks of the romeos that are out there. Not the poor suckers who are paying for books and seminars.
You know how I know you got too defensive to even read the OP? Because I never said I don’t like PUA techniques. The PUA movement/culture/market is a scam. That doesn’t mean I have a problem with PUAs. PUAs are good at picking up women…it’s a scam because they are charging others to learn to be PUAs and that aint gonna happen.
I started the thread in response to a poster who seemed to honestly believe there was scientific evidence that these seminars and books work as promised. Needed to be said.
Oh, oh no! Nzinga is posting in a bossy voice like she owns the place! It’s gross and makes my tummy hurt! She doesn’t say things like, “my lil’ ol’ opinion” so even though she put her thread in IMHO she thinks she is the boss of me and everyone and it’s disgusting and I’m nauseous. Hey, mods! Make Nzinga post more softly and passively! It’s icky!
Snipped, of course.
This is the thing…I don’t believe je ne sais quoi can be taught. Think about acting for a moment. People think it’s easy, I know, but it’s not, and that is part of the reason some people become very rich and famous doing it. Look how much Daniel Day Lewis puts into learning to play a character for just one movie. Imagine what it would be like if you had to learn to turn into a smooth talking playa. It is like a bad movie just thinking about it. When you neg someone and you aren’t a natural at it, you look and sound dumb as fuck.
Now, let’s say you keep trying it over and over…eventually you will get better at talking to women through sheer practice. That is a whole other beast than what those books and DVDs promise. They know if they are honest about what they can offer, no one will buy that. Scam.
Gigi asked for an example of negging in sales.
In my line of sales, the customers used to call in thinking that help was free. So they would be very irate when they find out they are out of software warranty and have to pay. They start yelling that they will fix it their damn self, and never buy a computer with us again. Many, many agents lose sales this way. You could neg a customer here…
"Thanks for holding, Mr. Gigi. I see here in the notes that the tech put in on your last call, you actually *do *have a *slight *amount of technical knowledge! That’s good news, because it means that you know just enough about computers to realize you are going to need an expert’s help with something of this magnitude. Ha, exactly…you would be surprised at how many customers aren’t smart enough to know when to hand over the reigns, and it sure does bite them in the end, they end up needing a whole new unit. So, I’m going to go ahead and set you up with the year premium all American support; which credit card are we going to put that on today?
If you have a natural charm on a call, the customer will buy that. I have called into question their level of expertise and I had the nerve to try to paint it like a good thing.
When I would try to get other agents to do this, it didn’t work. They didn’t know when to crack a joke, or when to shut the fuck up. They didn’t know how to speak with authoritativeness but not pushiness. They didn’t know because each customer is different and you can’t have a bag of tricks that fit everyone. It only used to work for me and a co-worker who was also good at bullshittin’. It wasn’t something you could teach. I really tried. And I wasn’t the only one who tried. We often had all kinds of sales seminars and lecturers and visitors who tried to close the gap between the two top sellers and everyone else on the team. I was sent to Florida once to teach sales techniques. You know I did? I said, “I can teach them to get their numbers up because some aren’t asking for the sale or taking the calls.” I didn’t say, “I can teach them to sell like me.” because I knew I couldn’t do that. I can NOT change someone’s natural being.
When a dude I like is kicking it to me, he has so much of what we used to call ‘steeze’ when I was young. The way he licks his lips, drops his gaze, knows when to smile that sideways smirk, when to touch me, when not to, the way he stands, walks, adjusts his clothes…all of these things are a part of who he is as a cool cat. If he does some more advanced gaming on my ass, I may never even know it. But if he charges a poindexter to learn to pull the same games, the poindexter isn’t going to survive.
All I know for sure is that my act of crying and begging and trembling doesn’t work, so maybe I ought to look into the whole “abusive” thing.
As I’ve said on the dope many times, the core of the PUA thing is self-improvement of a similar kind to assertiveness or self-confidence coaching. Sure, if someone is saying “Sleep with any woman you want!” or shit like that, of course it’s BS, but anywhere that money can be made is going to attract shysters sooner or later.
But the core of it is fine, and I keep a copy of The Game handy for friends who come into this believing it is all about tricking women and making them do something they don’t want to do.
What’s more interesting to me at this point is why some people have this hatred of the whole idea of men (and, indeed, sometimes women) trying to improve themselves in this way. If it doesn’t work and/or “a shy guy will always be a shy guy”, why do you have such a problem with this whole thing? Why, among all the ways that people can waste their money, does this one bother you?