Category Archives: books

The Game: Part Deux

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This post is a follow up to some research I’m doing on PUA and a book I’m reading on it called The Game. Click on the category link above to see other posts on this.

Here’s the meet and greet for the characters. By the first few pages, you identify with and feel bad for each and every one except the big guy who was going to commit suicide. He’s now the mentor that has taken pity on these poor souls and will lead them to salvation. Surely this is a noble quest to get laid as these guys have no chance of getting some of having a happy life or confident persona. This book so far has been mixing the concepts of going out a getting laid with self confidence and image. I feel like it’s trying to project that to have both, you need both. You’re not a confident, happy person unless you’re getting laid by women. You’re not getting laid by women unless you’re happy and confident.

Let’s face it, neither of those is true. I’ve had boyfriends to prove it, negative, unhappy emo-kids get laid too. There’s a certain kind of attraction reserved for the damaged victims and I’m one that’s fallen for it quite a bit. They also don’t seem to find happiness by getting sex either. People need more than that for fullment.

And I think that happiness can be had without lots of sex with lots of people. I know it sounds shocking. I know this might sounds like a chicken and the egg thing too, but I actually think now to find good connection and sex you have to be a happy and whole person FIRST. Using sex to become happy and confident seems really, really weird to me. I see this as the cart going before the horse. The source of your confidence being your ability to pick up women is maybe as good as any, but I prefer to have a wider and deeper source of why I’m awesome. I have a lot going for me. Sure, I have confidence in my looks and my social interactions, but I don’t let that alone define my source of self worth.

I feel like the more I try to understand, the harder it is to get these shoes on. My feet just don’t fit. I’m still trying to walk this mile.

So the chapter continues and the big guy, Mystery he calls himself (no, not a member of the Xmen or some other comic), starts to get into what they’re going to do over the next days. They’re going to play a game. Well, sure, it’s the title of the book. At first, I think of the Leisure Suit Larry series and laugh a little. Mystery tells his pupils that the game is surprisingly linear. Ah, I say, like an old-school RPG. Then I get to the first line that makes me think that reading this book is as misguided as the Bible reading experiment.

Captain Mystery is talking about how to get the girl you want and essentially says ignore her and become chums with everyone around her. That reverse psychology makes sense. Then he puts on the brass knuckles:

…the pickup artist must intrigue her while pretending to be unaffected by her charm. This is accomplished through use of what is called a neg. Neither a compliment or an insult- a neg is something in between- an accidental insult or a backhanded compliment. The purpose of a neg is to lower a woman’s self esteem…

Did you say what? Did you… oh no you…

Hey all you guys out there, go out and attract women by lowering their self esteem! It’s a well known fact that women fall for assholes time and time again. As their personas get stripped down and they fall helplessly in your laps, you will have the game to thank.

I may just rename this book to How To Be That Asshole I Dated That One Time. Okay, maybe it wasn’t just one time.

My mind races to the questions of, “Has this been used on my by the boy.” The answer: no. Thank ye gods, no. Why? It’ wouldn’t work. As it is, any of his attempts of improving me or any ‘negs’ dropped that I can think have been met with me laughing and throwing it back at him.

Last night, he was trying to get me to stand up straighter. This is a new one. The other day when he did it, I told him the story of a woman I used to work with who said the same thing and qualified it with, “You have nice boobs, sit up strait and let the world see them!”. I teased him, telling him he just wanted to see my boobs better. We joke a lot.

It came up again. I told him another anecdote about how a friend of mine who has immaculate posture actually went out with a guy who told her to stop sitting up so strait and goddamn relax sometimes. It’s a true story.

The moral is if I want to work on my posture, I will for me and my reasons.

The examples Mystery gives are offering a piece of gum after a woman speaks for the first time (implying they have bad breath).

I would do one of two things:

1. I’d say no to the weird guy I just met offering me gum. Maybe there’s a roofie in it. I don’t take candy from strangers. The last time I accepted gum from a coworker it had as much caffeine in it as an energy drink.

2. It’s completely lost on me as a neg. I don’t do certain kinds of social subtlety very well, probably because I don’t give a flying pig crap. So, I take the gum, say thanks, and go about my night.

The other example Mystery gives is saying the woman has lipstick on her teeth…

I don’t wear makeup. I am reminded that these women they’re picking up are not the same kinds of women as me. If it was one of the rare occasions I was wearing makeup, I’d probably say, “Oh, hey, thanks. I don’t wear this crap often, so I have no idea if there’s like a trick to have it not do that. Did you know that a lot of lipsticks supposedly have lead in it? Yeah, and I just ate some. Awesome. Imagine people who wear this stuff all the time- I wonder if people actually get lead poisoning- probably brain damage at least. What do you think?”

No, really, that’s the kind of thing I’d say. I’m a weirdo, remember? And I don’t give a flying wicked witch monkey poo, remember?

I think I’m done reading this book. It’s time to go talk to the boy and try to find my answers that way.

Update: Did last night… but no time to talk about it now. Those thoughts may eventually make there way here.

How the Game Was One/Won

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This is a continuation of my posts on exploring The Game, both the book and the whole secret society of guys trying to get girls (because it’s a big secret guys try to do this..? Why not a secret society of breathing?). It has it’s own category above if you’d like to catch up on the posts and read them in order.

Here are my impressions of chapter one:

Here I expect we’ll get right into the women and picking up, but instead the book opens with the supposed master of all PUA wanting to commit suicide. It’s apparently on behalf of a girl. How’s that for confusing?

It’s a good hook and it reads like a very intentional hook. You expect the book to start in one general place, and next thing you know, you’re in a mental hospital. Wow, how did that happen? I guess I have to read the whole thing now. Yay literary devices!

I wasn’t disappointed completely. Before the end of the chapter, the very hot psychiatrist is told that in a different time, different place, she too would be swept off her feet by Mystery: PUA extraordinaire. The narrator who calls himself Style, the author himself I assume, lays it on thick that this is the absolute truth: Mystery is the man. Style says he’s the man too, but Mystery’s a man’s man (man). They are both the man, and yet Mystery is trying to kill himself.

And meanwhile you wonder what killing yourself has to do with pickup.

Also, I’m left to empathize with the woman behind the desk who gives the, “Uh,-huh, suuuuuuure.” politeness. I roll my eyes with her.

I hope there is meaning to this chapter by the end of the book, and this isn’t just a hook. I enjoy meaning. If suicidal tendencies can be turned into a good meaning, I’m all for it. I’m just hoping that meaning isn’t going in the direction of, “See what happens when you fall for a girl? They ruin you and you want to commit suicide, so stay in the game and don’t fall for the stupid bitches.” I automatically plot out possibilities as I read books. Maybe it’s just my previous prejudices and preconceptions showing, but it’s possible at this point things may be headed in that direction.

The Game

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My biggest issue with my new love interest is that he insists on ‘just dating’ (rather than being in a relationship) even though we’re now going on three months.

I don’t take issue with much. I don’t sweat the small stuff. Snoring? I can deal with that. I wear earplugs.

I’m not the kind of woman that still believes that someday soon before I die some guy will come into my life that is perfect in every way including no snoring. Having flaws is part of being human. If it even were possibly to be that perfect, too perfect is ultimately unattractive since you can’t connect with someone you can’t relate to. How could you relate to an perfect person when you have your own baggage and regiment you follow for self-improvement?

So now that I’m entirely off topic, it’s not just that which makes me uncomfortable, hesitant, and slightly distant. The whole only seeing each other even though we spend a lot of time with each other and have become close is part of it. The other part is part of the why he insists on this.

Part of what makes up his self-improvement regiment is that he wants to learn to be good with women, and he’s got it in his head that he has to learn about women by dating a lot of women.

I didn’t know about this when we first started seeing each other, but he is part, or is learning to be a part of, a secret society of pickup artists. Really. I’m serious. Stop laughing. He goes to these meeting things every Tuesday night that I can only guess is where a bunch of guys sit in a circle and talk about how to figure out and get into womens’ panties and build their own self confidence to do so.

Life is so weird, I couldn’t make this stuff up.

He belongs to an online forum for them, they call them lairs (seriously, stop laughing). He has a bunch of books in his house on the subject of picking up women complete with workbooks and cheesiness. I raised my eyebrows at this the first time I was over his house and laughed:

“AD&D Players Handbook Third Edition… Oracle SQL Interactive Workbook… Visual Basic .Net Programmer’s Reference… The Art of Japanese Swordsmanship… Business Plans for Dummies… A Complete Hacker’s Handbook… Palmistry… How to Attract Anyone, Anytime, Anyplace…?”

…and there were worse sounding titles than that.

Until then, minus all of my art books, and a different flavor of programming books, the library reads similar to mine. I expect the nightstand to have porn, but all of the sex self help wasn’t as expected. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about self help. I’ve read interpretations of the Kama Sutra. I approve of that.

I picked up some and read chapters of some of the books he has, but I’ve been avoiding anything too sketchy looking. Anything with the implications that it’s one of those pick up artist (PUA) guides makes me a little leery.

It’s maybe like getting to know someone and getting real close and then finding out they belong to a cult. I’m trying not to judge, but anything that calls itself a secret society registers as cultish anyways. Anything that is dedicated to getting women in bed makes my feminist sensibilities hurt. The fact that I’ve gotten this close to someone who belongs to any kind of secret society makes me nervous. The fact I’ve gotten this close to someone who I guess is some kind of player in training is just… I don’t even know.

Like I’ve said, I’ve been meeting some of the friends. One of them I’ve been over his house a few times on my own to hang out, make cookies, and watch X-men. It occurred to me before I met him that it could be a fellow PUA. As I was meeting him, it didn’t take me long, I was sure. I didn’t see the tell-tale books about his house, but I did spy a magazine on his coffee table that told all. When I picked on him for it, he told me he read it for the cool gadgets they show every issue. I’m sure he also get’s porn for the articles too, right? I told him to stop acting ashamed about it- if you’re going to be something be it. I may not understand the scene at all, know much about it, or even approve once I get to know more, but if you’re choosing to be something, you better be okay enough with it to be able to say, “Yeah, so, and? Fuck you if you don’t approve.”

He asked me how much the boy had told me about PUA. I told him truthfully that I’ve been told nothing directly, but I did find his blog which talks a about it complete with thick jargon without a glossary.

What I didn’t go on about was that I’m smart, though. I read books. I surf the internet. I’ve read between the lines on things he’s talked about with self-improvement and groups things that have helped him. I even read between the lines when he tries something out on me. I know that some things are his own creation, and some things are from things he’s learned that he wants to try out (and some things a combination of the two).

Really, though, I don’t know enough about PUA and the more secretive people act, the closer I get to the boy, the more I want to know.

This friend of the boy’s was asking how much I was told as if he would then turn around and give the boy a talking to. It seemed like he disapproved that the boy leaves stuff around. Maybe he was just disgusted at the lack of style, or maybe he was worried he would reveal their secrets or something.

And yet, he was the one who gave me the idea where to start researching.

A book has come up a bunch, and the friend has it listed as his favorite book. I’m not going to read every book, system, and watch every DVD and video clip at the boy’s house. I’d rather read and study the SQL books, but I probably won’t do that either. Still, I want a better understanding of the thing that makes me uncomfortable about a person I am getting closer to as time goes on. He won’t talk about it, so this book seems like a good place to start.

Don’t get me wrong. Dating and meeting his friends and having him meet my friends and taking trips, it’s taking up a lot of my time. I don’t want to spend all of my time researching this and trying to understand him. I still need to focus on me and my goals. I know my blog has been hijacked by him in this indirect fashion lately, but it’s an outlet to keep it him from distracting me the rest of the time. If it doesn’t go into words on here or on paper, it stays in my head playing a bad game of Breakout. Boing, boing. Get the picture?

The title of the book is The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. Okay, now you’re laughing again.

I just started reading it, and am doing so slowly and hesitantly. It’s like the time I tried reading the Bible (Old to New Testament). I didn’t get far. I did it with the idea that doing so would give me a better understanding and respect for people who chose to follow it. At some point while reading, it started to do the opposite. Then I realized most people who call themselves religious or followers of the Bible have read snippets at best, so reading it wasn’t going to help me understand them anyways.

I hope this doesn’t do the same, but if it does, then I at least will be able to have a rational issues with it. Right now it’s more that I’m wary of it because I don’t get it, and I shouldn’t be afraid of it for those reasons. I don’t understand why when things are going so well between us, when he has no time for much else, when he has other more important seeming goals that he feels like he needs to spend time seeing other women or study being a PUA. Who knows if he actually does even see other women. If he does I don’t know when he has time to. It’s not something I want to ask about because it’s not something I think I’d really want to know the specifics of.

Maybe it has something to do with building self confidence and stroking ego. Maybe it has to do with exploring masculinity and breaking away from societies conventions and definitions of what being man means, though one could argue PUA is just following yet another ‘supposed to’ for men. Right now, though, I don’t have much of a basis for my ideas, so I begin to read.

My first impression of the book left me both impressed and disgusted:

If you are reading this, I want you to know I wasn’t running game on you. I was being sincere. Really. You were different.

I laughed and threw up a little in my mouth.

But then he quotes The Feminine Mystique:

Men weren’t really the enemy- They were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.

Food for thought, yes, I do believe sexism is not just an issue that women face. Men have their own stereotypes and issues to overcome that I will never fully know or understand having faced my own journey being a woman. I’m not sure what this has to do with the game exactly, yet, but the use of the quote does intrigue me. Is it a rationalization for behavior, or a statement that the Game is learning to breaking from it?

You might be wondering why I don’t discuss this with the boy, as communication is the way as I’ve said over and over on the blog. The answer is that it’s a secret society. I can’t even get him to say what really goes on Tuesday nights. The only reason I know he meets with a group was vague answers, and then once I’d assumed he was doing worse things, he clarified.

I have tried to push this with direct questions as well as jibes and joking and so far I haven’t been able to draw him into conversation on the subject, so I will continue my outside research.

Maybe you think I should leave this alone, but I’m not one for ignorance. If I’m going to be with someone who plays this game, I want to know what it is.