El metodo the game

Ejemplo de escena narrativa en primera y tercera persona. Resistir a pesar de todo. Poema Nada es para siempre. Diez reflexiones de grandes escritores. Sigueme en Facebook. Words of HectorXp. Lee mis novelas y poemas. Escribiendo actualmente. Estuvimos hablando dos horas sin parar. No es que pareciera peligroso ni violento.

A primera vista, Grimble recordaba a una mangosta. Las otras cintas son de Kim y de Tom. Es el seminario de Nueva York: «Anclaje avanzado y otras posibilidades picantes». Y el amigo se limita a levantar o a bajar los pulgares.

Pero yo, desde luego, no era uno de ellos. Yo necesitaba hacer acopio de todo mi valor para preguntarle a una mujer www. Calentamos motores en el coche, escuchando cintas en las que Rick H. Entramos en el restaurante transmitiendo seguridad en nosotros mismos, sonriendo, como verdaderos machos alfa.

Desgraciadamente, nadie se dio cuenta. En cuanto a los camareros, casi todos eran hombres. Caminamos hasta la terraza. Ella se detuvo, dispuesta a escucharme. En esos programas siempre intentan sorprender a la audiencia. Intentaba ligar. Desde luego, no pareces nada aventurera. Te propongo un ejercicio. Se llama sinestesia —le dijo mientras avanzaba un paso hacia ella—. Te ayuda a encontrar los recursos necesarios para www. Es muy interesante. Aunque suelo decirles a las chicas que mido un metro setenta, de hecho mido un metro sesenta y cinco.

Lo siento. Ya entiendo. Llevaba un abrigo largo de lana que flotaba libremente alrededor de sus piernas al andar. Era delgado y desgarbado. Pero, antes de que te vayas, quiero proponerte una cosa. Yo estaba impresionado. Nos apretamos en el Saab de Ross para ir al Getty. Pero la fuerza bruta ya no sirve en la sociedad actual. La idea me gustaba, aunque, desgraciadamente, yo era tan poco sutil como fuerte.

En mi caso, iba a tener que trabajar mucho para lograr sobrevivir. Casanova estaba solo. Nosotros nos tenemos los unos a los otros. Caminamos por distintas salas del museo, observando a la gente que, a su vez, observaba los cuadros. Voy a dar un seminario dentro de un par de meses.

Quiero que vengas. Puedes hacerlo sin pagar. Yo, no Mystery. Tiene el cuerpo de Arnold y la cara de Denzel… Viste como un dandi, incluso cuando lleva vaqueros. Los mejores depredadores se acercan lentamente a su presa, sin amenazarla y, cuando se ganan su confianza, atacan.

Por lo general, yo aprovechaba ese momento para disculparme y me marchaba a casa. Llevo demasiado tiempo siendo un programador de ordenadores en paro. Pero Sin estaba decidido. Yo estoy muerto de aburrimiento —me dijo. Cada persona tiene sus propias razones para entrar en la Comunidad. Algunos, como Extramask, quieren perder la virginidad. Otros, como Grimble y Twotimer, quieren acostare con una chica distinta todas las noches. Y unos pocos, como Sweater, buscan a la esposa perfecta.

No, en Toronto no hay mujeres que te cieguen con su belleza; como mucho hay mujeres 7. Por eso he www. Tengo gente interesada en Miami, en Chicago y en Nueva York. La guerra se ha acabado. Yo voy a ir a visitar a un viejo amigo. Me ha dicho que ya no hay problema, que es seguro. Viviremos una aventura.

Ahora mismo te mando los horarios de los vuelos por e-mail. Ha llegado el momento de que des el paso y te conviertas en alguien nuevo.

Nadie quiere acostarse con un escritor. Quieres ser una superestrella. Por eso te he elegido. Los tengo escritos. Quiero vivir en hoteles de lujo. Quiero viajar en limusina de una gala a otra. Quiero viajar a Inglaterra y a Australia. Y www. Ya no eres Neil Strauss. Cuando nos encontremos en mi foro quiero que seas otra persona. Mystery y Style. Mystery y Style impartiendo un taller. Sonaba bien. Sobrino y ahijado de J.

Los hombres y las mujeres piensan y reaccionan de forma diferente. Para excitarse, a un hombre le basta con ver la portada de un Playboy; de hecho, le basta con ver un aguacate deshuesado. El resultado es que, en cuanto acaba el trayecto, quieres volver a subirte y repetir la experiencia una y otra vez.

Aunque ninguna mujer me diera una bofetada, me gritara ni me tirase la copa a la cara, la posibilidad de un fracaso sonado siempre estaba presente en mi cabeza. Al pasar por delante de una franquicia de Office Depot, vi a una chica con gafas marrones y una corta melena rubia que le flotaba sobre los hombros.

Estaba ante una verdadera chica La chica 10 estaba flirteando conmigo. Si de verdad era modelo, seguro que encontraba una foto suya en Internet.

Estaba tan nervioso que me temblaban la voz y las manos. Fue un completo desastre, y eso que ni siquiera era una cita de verdad. Extramask estaba cambiado. Hasta anoche. Fuimos al restaurante La Salsa a tomar unos burritos. Eso quiere decir que, por lo general, no se te da demasiado bien el orden y tienes dificultades a la hora de ajustarte a un horario determinado.

La llevaba escrita en la chuleta que guardaba en el bolsillo. Ella me dio un beso en la mejilla. Pero puedes estar seguro de que, en cuanto llegue a casa, me la voy a cascar a conciencia pensando en ella.

Fuimos a tomar una copa a un bar. Esos patrones de PNL no acababan de gustarme. Me siento bien. Pero no lo hizo. Por fin iba a ver recompensados todos mis www. Esperar al menos esas siete horas es lo que Mystery llama un juego seguro.

Y yo estaba a punto de lograr mi primer jaque. Eran sus pies. Yo estaba algo bajo de moral, y eso se reflejaba en mis aproximaciones. Las cosas no me iban tan bien como de costumbre. Extramask: Gracias. Y seguimos hablando. Eso siempre ayuda. Cara de Pan: Yo busco emociones fuertes. Extramask: Vale. Ahora mismo vuelvo. Voy a decirle a mi amigo que me marcho. Fui a buscar a Vision. Esta noche follo. Vete ya. Salimos a la calle y fuimos cogidos de la mano hasta su coche, que estaba casi a quince minutos.

Al principio, yo estaba bastante nervioso. De nada en especial. Soy virgen y quiero echar un polvo ya. Yo puse una emisora de hip-hop. No… Es broma. Si quieres, yo tengo uno. Eso me pone cachondo. Cara de Pan: Vale. Follamos y follamos y follamos y follamos y follamos y follamos. Esto es una mierda. Quiero irme». Fue horrible, igual que lo de follar.

Y yo pensaba: «Deja de gemir. Deja de gemir de una puta vez, china. La verdad es que sus gemidos no ayudaban nada. Ella me lo estaba pidiendo. Recordad que yo estaba muerto de aburrimiento. Cara de Pan: No. Yo estaba encantado de parar. Cara de Pan: Descansa cinco minutos. Eran las tres y media de la madrugada. Extramask: Voy a ir a buscar a mis amigos a otra disco.

Era obvio que nuestro encuentro era de una sola noche. Y eso es todo. Por fin he conseguido mi primer completo. Ya no soy virgen. Ha sido una experiencia horrible y, al acabar, me he sentido un poco sucio y utilizado. Ya no te necesito para dejar de ser virgen». Que me rechazasen era algo que ya no me preocupaba. Todas las noches, al volver a casa, repasaba los acontecimientos, buscando algo que pudiera hacer mejor. Pero, llegado el momento, era incapaz de decirlo. Pero, desgraciadamente, no iba a tener tiempo de hacerlo antes de viajar a Belgrado.

Llevas gafas. Tienes que ponerte un gorro para disimular esa inmensa calva que tienes. A Marko tampoco le hubiera venido mal un cambio de imagen. Nosotros hemos ido a los mejores colegios privados y a la universidad de Vassar. Tu amigo no es uno de los nuestros. Bueno, ya veremos. He conocido a una chica que me gusta de verdad. Esta vez quiero hacerlo bien.

Todas las noches iba a recogerla con flores, la invitaba a cenar y la dejaba pronto en casa, como un perfecto caballero. Ni siquiera la he besado. Lo que quiere tu Goca es un poco de aventura en su vida. Quiere follar. Eso es lo que quieren en el fondo todas las chicas.

Chupa uno muy despacio. Si acepta, di: «Vale, pero hay algo que tienes que saber. Cuando acabes quiero que me devuelvas mi caramelo». Finalmente la besas v dices: «No es un regalo. Cuando se vaya, te pones el anillo o la cadena de repuesto. Nos reunimos en Ben Ahiba, un bar lujosamente decorado situado a la vuelta de la esquina de la plaza principal de Belgrado.

Lo que me cuesta es dar el siguiente paso. No soy capaz de seguir adelante; ni siquiera cuando noto que le gusto a la chica. Siempre voy a lugares tranquilos. Uno a uno, nuestros alumnos pusieron sus miedos —y sus grabadoras— sobre la www. Enviamos a los chicos en distintas misiones a las mesas de nuestro alrededor.

Sasha fue quien peor lo hizo. Primero, el miedo se apodera de tu pecho, se agarra suavemente a la base de tu www. A pesar de todo mi entrenamiento, estaba aterrorizado. Entonces, el hombre es condenado al ostracismo, y sus genes, como suele decir Mystery, quedan al margen de la cadena evolutiva.

El problema de Sasha era su posicionamiento. Mystery y nuestros otros dos alumnos me observaban. Soy el amigo del que os ha hablado Sasha. Como en una partida de ajedrez, yo acababa de realizar un movimiento impecable. Si quieres, podemos intentar un experimento. Ahora mismo te devuelvo tu asiento. Acababa de ganarme el respeto de mis alumnos. La chica se lo dio. Sasha era un hombre nuevo. Fue entonces cuando me di cuenta de uno de los efectos secundarios del juego. En mi cabeza, hombres y mujeres estaban separados por un abismo cada vez mayor.

Era joven y delgada, con el pelo muy largo y un traje rojo que dejaba a la vista unas piernas tan hermosas como largas. Y Mystery iba a acercarse a la mesa. Mystery estaba trabajando con dos principios. La he creado para poder conocerte.

Es mi regalo para ti. Pesa ochocientos gramos. Mystery le sostuvo la mirada. Pasaron dos segundos. Ocho, nueve, diez. Al llegar, se sentaron el uno al lado del otro de forma poco natural. Hubiera jurado que se trataba de un IDI. Era un cuerpo de mujer. Al contrario, el alcohol les permite a muchas personas hacer precisamente lo que siempre han deseado. Nuestros labios se encontraron.

Lo estaba echando todo a perder por miedo a ser rechazado. Sin embargo, en lo que a las relaciones sexuales se refiere, nadie duda de que son las mujeres quienes deciden. Es lo que Mystery llama falso alejamiento. Antes era parte de Rusia. Y basta con decir que eres norteamericano para acostarte con todas las chicas que quieras. La vida es corta y el mundo muy grande. En ese momento te sientes capaz de cualquier cosa. Y esas ideas siempre giraban en torno a lo mismo.

Necesito que me hagas ese favor. Al ir a pagar nos dijeron que no aceptaban la moneda de Moldavia. Pero cuando un soldado te apunta con una pistola, puedo aseguraros que Pridnestrovskaia es algo muy real. Marko le dio al soldado su paquete de Marlboro y ambos empezaron a discutir. Las cosas se estaban poniendo feas. Cuando acabe contigo no te va a reconocer ni tu madre. Venga, sal del coche. Odio a mi padre. Estuvieron hablando un rato y Marko le dio varios billetes. Hicieron falta otros dos sobornos de importe equivalente para conseguir cruzar la frontera.

Cuando por fin llegamos a Odessa le preguntamos por Pridnestrovskaia a la conserje del hotel. Y te ha hechizado. Pero yo no se la di. En cuanto veo abrirse la posibilidad, me empiezan a entrar las dudas. Pero mi problema no me permite alcanzarlo. Tiene un ciento por ciento de efectividad. Si te sostiene la mirada durante tres segundos, es que quiere que la beses. Al acabar la cita la invito a venir a casa y sirvo unas copas. Jugamos con mi cachorro.

Salimos a la terraza. Mientras ella juega con las visualizaciones del WinAmp, le digo que se siente en mis rodillas y le doy un beso en la mejilla. Una de dos, o se vuelve y me besa en la boca o sigue jugando con el WinAmp. Lo que quiere ella es que yo la dirija. Eso es lo que quieren casi todas las mujeres. El resto ya te lo puedes imaginar. Una vez en mi casa, le digo a la chica que me duele la espalda de jugar al baloncesto y que necesito un buen masaje.

Al principio, me limito a masajearle las piernas, pero, lentamente, voy subiendo hacia las nalgas. Llegado ese momento, suelo bajarme los pantalones, ponerme www. Lo cierto es que no me importa. Ya no soy Style. Vamos a ver si le gusto o no. Y, si me odia, me importa una mierda». Piensa en todas las chicas con las que no has cavernicoleado que hoy no forman parte de tu vida. Y, si te da una bofetada, no pasa nada. Dile: «Mira esas marionetas tan monas».

Y vuelve a tocarle la teta. Me dijo que ansiaba vivir aventuras. Y ha vuelto a funcionar cada vez que he vuelto a intentarlo. Problema resuelto. Al negarse ella a hacerlo, le di la espalda, a modo de castigo. Y, esa vez, lo hizo. Pero el mordisco que me dio fue lamentable. Y esa vez lo hizo fenomenal. Yo www. He superado mi problema. Estoy listo para dar el siguiente paso.

Style www. Clare Boothe Luce www. Su lema es «sigue hasta que ella te diga no». Pero yo me alimentaba de todos ellos. El problema es que beber de la fuente del conocimiento tiene un precio. Y ese precio es la fe. Yo iba vestido de manera informal, con una americana negra y una perilla perfectamente recortada. La frase era de Mystery. Las gemelas tardaron diez minutos en acercarse. Mi primer IDI. Nos sentamos juntos y hablamos de cosas sin importancia; el tipo de cosas que los MDLS llaman despectivamente relleno.

Y acababan de encontrarlo. Era la oportunidad de redimirme. Para eso hay ser muy lanzado. El agua caliente no funciona en casa. No es mentir; es flirtear. Pasaron cinco. Pasaron diez minutos.

Una de las gemelas dijo algo. Yo hubiera preferido que entraran las dos, pero quien mendiga no puede exigir. Le dije a la otra gemela que viniera a sentarse con nosotros. En la vida real, nunca nos abrazamos; casi ni nos tocamos. Me fui del hotel sin haber conseguido nada. Pasamos dos horas tumbados en el suelo, hablando de la Comunidad y de nuestros progresos. Y eso es lo que hace que vuelvas a intentarlo una y otra vez. Y acababa de anunciar su primer taller.

Ese tipo de personas suelen convertirse en escritores. Y yo esperaba que fuese lo segundo. Y eso es algo que se descubre a medida que vas conociendo mejor a alguien. Como un periodista de una revista sensacionalista, buscamos tanto grandeza como debilidad, pues ambas cosas pueden ser explotadas. Realmente, Style era un bien tipo. Hay algo en su aparente fragilidad que resulta muy excitante. Las mejores seducciones son aquellas en las que es ella quien da el primer paso.

Clac, clac, clac, clac. No es que no lo apreciara; al contrario. Las primeras palabras que le diriges a una mujer apenas tienen importancia.

Yo tampoco lo soy. Ninguno hemos tenido nunca una idea genial. El tres por ciento de las personas transmiten entusiasmo en sus respuestas: «Muy bien» o «Fenomenal». Y el dos por ciento responde con honestidad: «Fatal. Mi marido acaba de dejarme. Se ha liado con la secretaria de su profesor de yoga. A esas mujeres no hay mas remedio que adorarlas.

Nunca someto a las mujeres a un tercer grado. Ella se dio por aludida. Siempre me doy un ocho. A veces incluso un ocho y medio. O puedes hacer afirmaciones: vivo en Ann Arbor, Michigan, donde www. No se seduce interrogando.

Seducir es preparar el terreno para que dos personas puedan mostrarse la una a la otra. Las afirmaciones pertenecen al mundo de la intimidad, de la confianza y la generosidad. Eso ya lo he hecho yo por ti. Eso es una idiotez. No puedes llevar la voz cantante si no sabes renunciar a ella.

Mi amigo no tiene ni idea. Siempre les pido a mis novias que me escriban cartas de amor y me den masajes. Soy muy exigente. Pero yo pertenezco a la vieja guardia.

No puedo permitir que hagas las dos cosas. Eran las manos de una abeja obrera. Dijo algo sobre dormir en una cama de clavos. Ser un MDLS es un motivo de orgullo. Tengo amigos actores capaces de matar a quinientos enemigos sobre un escenario a los que la sola idea de acercarse a una chica en un bar los hace temblar.

Y los comprendo. Una chica sentada junto a la barra es otra cosa. Da verdadero miedo. Es como un gorila con un traje ajustado y, si la dejas, te puede destrozar. Es lo que queremos todos. El de San Francisco era mi primer taller. Quedamos en un restaurante, cerca de Union Street. Durante la cena practicamos distintas frases de entrada, como la de confundir a la chica con una estrella de cine. Ellos asintieron amablemente con una sonrisa. Le di un abrazo.

Yo no he sido siempre un MDLS. Siempre llevaba un destornillador encima. Juguetes, bicicletas, cafeteras… Puedes desmontar cualquier cosa si sabes encontrar los tornillos. Mi hermana intentaba encender la tele, pero no pasaba nada; los tubos estaban debajo de mi cama. Me hice malabarista, actor callejero, comediante… Y www.

Mi forma de abordarlas era tan sutil como eficaz. Pasamos la mitad de la noche hablando en susurros para no despertarlos. Si quieres, puedes venir gratis. Seguro que intenta copiarme. Y, lentamente, ese foro dio lugar a una comunidad internacional de MDLS. Pero no es posible registrar los derechos del deseo sexual femenino ni declararse autor de sus elecciones de pareja.

This is a memoir -slash- cautionary tale about the dangers of living your life constantly seeking validation from others. The various PUA artists in this book are all depicted as sad, pathetic, self-loathing, mentally unstable people who truly believe that being desirable to others will make them like themselves more. But from chapter one Strauss makes it clear that doesn't happen.

They get everything they think they want and end up more miserable for it. The problem is this book is too fucking long. I half suspect that most of the people both women and men who talk about it in terms of its seduction secrets did not read it to the end.

Add to this the fact that Strauss is trying to stay in character as he narrates his journey from True Believer to Disillusioned Master and the profound brilliance of The Game barely has a chance. There are plenty of hints dropped throughout the book about Strauss's eventual enlightenment, but some people have no mind for subtly I guess. Part of what annoys me about the so-called "feminist" reaction to this book is that there's a multi-billion dollar industry built around convincing women of the exact opposite and humiliating anyone who dares to call bullshit.

An industry that makes the bulk of its money by inventing flaws and imperfections to make women feel horrible about themselves. And yet the best we can come up with to combat it are fairytales about "different standards of beauty"? These feminists act like liberation from the image-obsessed media is all about accepting your lot in life and just waiting for a partner whose standard of beauty happens to fit your look to come along. They accept the underlying notion that some people are "pretty" and some are not The big problem with this thinking is that people are not static.

Looks change over time. If the answer was to rely on the off chance someone somewhere thinks you are beautiful exactly the way you are By contrast Mystery's Method claims attraction has more to do with how people feel around you than how you look. Mystery teaches his students about group think and instructs his pupils to focus on the friends of the hot girl, rather than the hot girl. People are strongly influenced by the opinion of the group.

Anyone who's taken a basic organizational behavior class has read the mounds of research on this. When your target sees everyone around her acting like you are amusing and desirable, she will be more attracted to you.

People become much more susceptible to that suggestion when they themselves feel insecure. So the second thing Mystery teaches his students is the "neg".

Probably the most controversial part of the book, the neg is basically just a back handed compliment. It's teasing, innocent, and delivered in a flirtatious manner. It's this disconnect between the words which sound like a criticism and the way they are delivered which sounds positive that makes people second guess themselves. And the suggestion that maybe the PUA isn't interested in the target makes the target more likely to convince themselves of an attraction.

The group desires something apparently unattainable Of course some readers seem to have interpreted the passages about negs to mean "act like a fucking jerk" That's not at all what Strauss is describing. Most of The Game's secrets resonated with me because I've been there. When I was twenty-two my life fell apart and I moved to the Czech Republic to escape my demons. My first week there I fell for a stocky, thirty-six year old statistician with a bowl cut and coke bottle thick glasses Revenge of the Nerds all the way.

I knew objectively speaking this man was in no way attractive, but I couldn't help myself. I had the biggest crush. I was also in a strange country where I didn't speak the language. I had no idea where I was going to live, whether I could get a job. Of course I was smitten. At the same time two of my American roommates were fighting over a balding, short, bespeckled geologist who smoked way too much pot and had abandoned his pregnant girlfriend back in the states to run off to Prague So yes, it's not that people have "different standards of beauty", it's that attraction is psychological.

Now take a minute to consider what that means: you can be with any person you want. Right now. Absolutely anyone. The determining factor is not perfecting your physical form, but making them feel a certain way around you. They won't suddenly think you're beautiful, they will suddenly not care that you aren't.

Consider that unlike your physical appearance, your personality and social skills don't change. Every girl in America should read this book. Strauss moves from discussion of technique to long rambling conquest stories with backgrounds of various PUA mixed in.

Although the PUAs become important later, at least half of these could have been cut. Prior to this Strauss has tried to maintain the voice and perspective of someone who believes he has discovered the secrets of the universe. There is the occasional remark that alludes to problems with the PUA lifestyle many of his Until Strauss's mentor begins to self-destruct.

At this point Strauss realizes that most of his students haven't gained anything by being PUAs, they've actually lost a lot. Even though they win the women they want, they only wanted those women in the first place because they were trying to impress others. Instead of seducing the crowd to win the girl, they are trying to win the girl to seduce the crowd. Instead of surrounding themselves with awesome people who make them happy, they inevitably surround themselves with people who they think will make them look attractive and successful to others but ultimately do not like.

This soulless existence only increases their underlying self hate. The tragedy being that as soon as the PUA gets to know the person providing the validation, once they become a human being with their own flaws and insecurities, they're approval is no longer valuable.

And so the cycle continues until everyone is miserable. View all 6 comments. Recommended to Leajk by: male acquaintances of the past. Know thy enemy. One extra star for pure entertainment value, especially the very first scene where 'the hero' of the book, Mystery, lies curled up crying on the floor of the communal pickup mansion dressed in the bathrobe previously belonging to his stripper ex-girlfriend.

Apparently he misses her, like a lot, which is quite sweet I suppose. That is for a man who reinvented himself from a living-in-his-parents-basement type of guy, to the cons-insecure-wannabe-starlets-in-LA type of guy.

And the Know thy enemy. And thereby invented the trend of men wearing ugly hats. And ugly jewlery. And doing 'negging'. And who destroyed magic for me. And briefly dating. Actually strike what I said earlier: I think I just enjoyed to read about him crying. You know how there's always the shy, but kind of nice, guy in every group of men? Me and my friends knew two of those in two separate groups of guy friends during high-school. The funny thing was that they were so similar to us, despite their groups being very different, that we thought they might've been twins.

Both were tall, thin which they tried to hide with ill fitting clothes and with blonde badly cut hair. Both of them were as I said quite shy, and were both hoping to have future careers within computer sciences of some sort. One of them once arrived at one of our parties to cry on a couch during the rest of the evening.

He had just reached the profound realisation that he was never getting laid. One of my girl friends force fed him ice-cream in an effort to make him feel better. So I understand the frustration of teenage boys not getting laid. Hell, I understand the frustration of teenage girls not getting laid. I've been there.

Then on the other hand you have the other of my blonde geeky high school friends, let's call him Mike. Mike was always one of the most talkative ones in his group of friends. He was friendly and easy to get along with, although shy around girls he didn't know.

Then suddenly at one party he started to become really snappy. He'd criticize all the female attendants clothing and most of what they said. We asked him what the hell he was doing and it turned out that he had just read this book It turned out to be 'The Game naturally. We asked him to please stop and go back to being, you know, a normal polite human being.

He insisted on keeping up with the book, and although his clothing and hair style went from bad to worse, he did eventually get laid.

Though he never seemed too happy about it. She wasn't hot enough or something. This was my first exposure to The Game. Years later I met this other quite shy but friendly guy who due to certain circumstances, such as the number of people left in that town during summer being low, I ended up spending some time hanging out with.

Physically he was the absolute opposite of those earlier male friends, but this guy had constant diet and self-improvement plans going on so it shouldn't have come as a surprise when he drunkenly confessed to having read The Game after I had previously made fun of the book at a book shop.

He even confessed to trying to use the techniques in the book on me. This was when I decided to read this book, in pure self-defense. And I found it a great read. In fact the rest of that summer I wouldn't shut up about it. I felt it was my personal calling to tell all of my girl friends about it so that they wouldn't fall for any of the tricks.

In fact I even managed to detect this awful 'are the two of you best friends? So is my rating of two stars really fair? After all I did found it funny, fascinating and it made for a great conversation piece.

However as I said in the shorter version of my review, it also brought so much pain and suffering into this world. Neil Strauss might be the sane straight man in the story, the one who points out all the follies in the system and who eventually gets out and gets a 'happy ending' i. I say obviously because I keep meeting these men who just didn't get it. Who buy into the negging and peacocking, but engage in no genuine self-improvement I'm not talking about them buying more self-improvement books here, I mean coming to peace with one self.

This might not have been Strauss' intent, but his description of how he went from sexless nerd to sex stud, sure did not help. I think it's that last aspect that disturbs me the most. That the book implies that men and women are really all that different.

I mean I read The Selfish Gene which I think sadly is on Mystery's recommended reading list , and that is not the message I took away from that at all. And that's why this book is sad on so many levels, it makes women out to be this exotic species to be studied from afar.

It also makes it so that there are no cultural differences. Instead Strauss claims that since their strategies worked both all over LA and once in Bulgaria or was it Romania?

Oh, and it's not only the wanna be actresses women you meet in the night clubs in LA, actually one of the women in the Eastern European country they were in, she was a doctor of some sorts, and she liked them, so boom - it works on all smart women as well! I could go on and on, but I'd like to end this review by issuing a warning for all potential readers: - DO read this book as an anthropological study of LA and how far women and men have come from each other in some sub-cultures - DO NOT read this book as a instruction manual - IF you do want better sucess with the opposite sex, you already know what to do: smile, have interests that not only involves your own sex, and don't panic panic makes you smell gross Or possibly read The Art of Love , it seems like fun View all 25 comments.

This is a fascinating trip to vicarious realization of Eros' dreams of shy guys--e. Yet, a journey that--as one might suspect--comes to the author's recognition of the emptiness of sexual prolificity. I concede this isn't one most of my friends will read. I would drift off to sleep nights, praying for a cure. In fact, up until I was maybe 17, it was dreadful: I would clam up even around girls who pursued me. Anyhow, Strauss, a reporter for Rolling Stone, decided he was tired of losing with the ladies so he signs up for some pickup artists' courses and infiltrates the pick-up society.

As it turns out, these guys are far from the bores I pictured when I heard "pickup artist. When I look back on those long ago days of a quarter century ago when I was single, I would have given anything to know the secrets of "Mystery" and his "Method.

Apparently, this " negging " is a well-worn technique of initial primitive attraction, much more successful than not, if the man can maintain his confidence and her interest. Examples include: " Aww, that's cute, your nose wiggles when you laugh. There it goes again! What are you, like 4'9" without 'em? Well, not like cute-cute, more like puppy-cute " " I think I saw you here a few weeks ago.

Were you wearing that same dress? It IS a nice dress. You really wrecked a moment! Your old boyfriends must have really hated that about you. It's all so demeaning to the female. Nonetheless, given my background, yes, it is true that I would find this all very fascinating, notwithstanding its lack of practical use to me now given my age and marital status.

Strauss becomes so proficient and successful that he became somewhat of a mythical figure in the pickup society. Given his appearance and comportment at the beginning--bald, a big honker, short--I seems quite astounding. I was experiencing seducer's paradox: The better a seducer I became, the less I loved women. Success was no longer defined by getting laid or finding a girlfriend, but by how well I performed. People develop a desire for something more.

And when one person's expectations don't match the other person's, then whoever holds the highest expectations suffers. There is no such thing as cheap sex.

It always comes with a price. I think The Game straddles the line between comedy and tragedy. If, as I truly would like to believe, Strauss is joking, then the book is a comic masterpiece.

If the book is an attempt at non-fiction, then the number of devotees is nothing short of tragic. Some of the recommended pick-up techniques are sinister. One involves discreetly undermining a woman's self-esteem by paying her a backhanded compliment in the hope that she will hang around to seek your approval!!?? Honestly, sinister I think The Game straddles the line between comedy and tragedy. Honestly, sinister soon gives way to pathetic in this book.

The Game is really a book about the fragility of male ego and how it seeks refuge from the complexity of human relations in a puerile cult of sexual conquest. I find it remarkable how Strauss races up the ranks of the pick-up fraternity even before he has procured so much as a snog from a lady. So bereft of charisma are most of the people who haunt the lothario chatrooms that anyone with a modicum of self-awareness and humour can take command.

It soon becomes clear that the approval PUA's get from other men is more intoxicating than the pleasure they get from sex. I don't usually say I've read a book when I haven't finished it. But I simply can't read the second half of this book without losing little parts of my soul on every page, and I damn well want recognition for those parts of my soul I have already lost. So here I am, reviewing a book I haven't really read. Let's start with something important - Neil Strauss is a very talented writer, His style is not only engaging but often even literary, and I didn't just enjoy turning pages quickly but was quite I don't usually say I've read a book when I haven't finished it.

Let's start with something important - Neil Strauss is a very talented writer, His style is not only engaging but often even literary, and I didn't just enjoy turning pages quickly but was quite comfortable in the warm bath of his prose. So full points for style no pun intended. It's the content that stinks. The kind that is scared of women - and we all know fear breeds contempt, misunderstanding, and misrepresentation. He admits his nerdery freely, but what he seems to have missed in the detail of this horrifically graphic, autobiographical book of sexual exploration and psychological navel gazing, is that pick-up does not transform him.

While he is swept up in a world that gives him magical powers to overcome his own shortcomings again, no pun intended , he doesn't understand that the essential problem in his sex life is that he doesn't see it as social life - in other words, he still sees women as objects, not people.

Style still doesn't understand women because he has failed to identify with them. If this is a book about freeing your sexuality, it is also a book about stifling your humanity. It is about using your words to manipulate, and using sex to dominate. Without throwing a single punch, it is fundamentally violent.

It claims to be about demystifying women, but really it is about stripping them of all reality and moulding them into what some men would rather they were - mindless, obedient pliable, and constantly, overtly sexual. There may have been some kind of redemption later in the book, but I could not wait around for it - too much had already been said.

Too many stereotypes had been promoted and too many coded ways of undermining women had been let loose into the slimy gutters and the minds of readers. I couldn't handle this book. It made me nauseous. Mr Strauss, please use your powers of writing for good next time. Edit : I wrote this 7 years ago; forgive me for being naive. I didn't know what an incel was, or that PUA culture was already the sewer of the internet.

I now know this book is partly responsible for fuelling the rise of violent misogyny that normalised and formed the breeding ground for the resurgent far right. This book is garbage and if you have a copy, I recommend incinerating it. Zero stars. View all 9 comments. Impossible to put down. This is a fascinating tale of a guy with marginal skills with the ladies despite fame , who sets out on a life changing mission to master picking up women.

I dare you to try and not get hooked in the first few pages. The characters are philanderers, gigolos, wannabes, braggarts, and every dysfunctional category in between.

Their quest is obvious, and thrust in your face; to hook up with as many beautiful women as possible. Strauss becomes prolific at the social marketing Impossible to put down. Strauss becomes prolific at the social marketing skill, and becomes addicted to his casanova killer abilities. But as is so often the case, the higher levels of his skill seduction lessens the inner drive and excitement he feels towards his conquest.

The chase becomes not only boring, but a bit frightening. Not a spoiler here, but the author reflects. He ponders. He accidentally finds an inner moment observing from third person where his life has now taken him.

He wonders if it is all he wants to become. He looks closer at his bizarre friends. All of them have major issues. Is this what he really wants? Strauss has written several best sellers, as well as for Rolling Stone, and literally has no competition when it comes to spinning tales of this type.

For this genre, I recommend picking up the best three. His encyclopedia-like book reads like a PHD college course on seduction. It is the template for what Strauss uses in the Game. It lays out the techniques, terminology, and methodology for anyone to learn. This is a devious sexual persuasion guide for hooking up, written by a psych doc who cruised the nightclubs with great success for a decade.

It also contains an asset protection guide to set up pre-marriage to shield you from divorce. Get these three, and get ready to laugh and learn. Really interesting books. Read this almost ten years ago and was appalled that there is a community of PUAs Pick-Up-Artists that go around doing all of this just to get laid. So I read the book so I can be aware of these sleaze bags and their methods. They actually think Read this almost ten years ago and was appalled that there is a community of PUAs Pick-Up-Artists that go around doing all of this just to get laid.

Such utter BS! This is why men dehumanize women. Use women as objects, make them their property. Add another notch to their belt and brag to their buddies about how many women they have bedded. A whole community of disgusting advice like this exists.

Wish more women read this disgusting book so they can be more aware of what type of predator these men can be.

There are some very valid reasons to skim through this controversial, pornographic, poorly written, and often obnoxious anthropological tour of the "seduction community," a network of men who use social psychology and hypnosis to pick up women.

It's fascinating and queasy at the same time. The seco There are some very valid reasons to skim through this controversial, pornographic, poorly written, and often obnoxious anthropological tour of the "seduction community," a network of men who use social psychology and hypnosis to pick up women.

The second reason is that although this book got slammed by feminists, Strauss is actually a whole lot smarter and more thoughtful than he first appears on the surface. The book is a pseudo-memoir in the gonzo journalism style, mixing participant observation with tall tales about life in the meat market. Strauss is not a missionary for the movement, but instead charts his own relationship with the seduction community from skepticism to enthusiasm to ambivalence to rejection.

I don't know how anyone could miss this, since the opening chapter is about a famous pickup artist's psychotic break and existential despair, and the book continuously circles around the underlying anxiety and loneliness that drives the pickup mentality.

Compared to "Fear and Loathing," which does hilariously glorify drugs, sex, and mayhem, Strauss's gonzo style is more critical and distanced.

Here is how he ends the book: "And though I've learned everything there is is about attraction, seduction, and courtship in the past two years, I learned nothing about maintaining a healthy relationship. Being together has required a lot more time and work than learning to pick up women ever did, but it has brought me far greater satisfaction and joy.

Perhaps that's because it is not a game. Sometimes it takes some baby steps to break out of a disabling mental box, and Strauss charts how sex can sometimes function as a psychic icebreaker to get somebody who is stuck moving forward towards real life. The sex drive is powerful enough to motivate someone who has dug themselves into a deep and alienating silo to climb out of it, and that motivation, under the right circumstances, can help break them out of dysfunctional patterns that are not working.

For example, my favorite part of the book comes early on: Strauss has just signed up for a "workshop" with a pickup artist, who is bringing him and some other shy and geeky guys to night clubs and teaching them how to pick up women. Another guy in the same workshop is 26 and never even kissed a girl before. He is so shy that he cannot use a urinal, because peeing in front of other guys terrifies him.

A few weeks later, he excitedly shares, "I can pee beside people now! It's all about confidence. So the stuff I learned in the workshop isn't just for chicks after all Just because you've always done something a certain way doesn't mean you are eternally doomed to repeat it, people can change and grow and learn. The self is flexible. Social skills, like any skills, can be learned, studied, and honed. It's better to take a risk and throw yourself out there than to waste your life accruing bitter regrets.

The only way to learn new skills is to be willing to experiment and fail and sometimes look foolish, but if you stick with it and pay attention and get good advice and mentoring, you will get better at it eventually and be glad that you had the patience and balls to move out of your crippling little box. Our society is filled with women and men who are lonely and bored and stuck and who want desperately to connect and live and have fun but don't know how to get there.

The sad thing about the book is that it documents the tragic lack of vision in people who settle for the shallow, canned interactions of casual sex rather than taking a real risk with full, authentic relationships.

I learned that I am what, in pick up artist "PUA" parlance, is called a "natural. So I didn't pick this book up for its instructional content.

Rather, I was intrigued into reading this book by curiosity. I wanted to see how my life experience stacked up with my preconceived notion of a true PUA. I envisioned a PUA as being a highly confident, suave, cool operator that women swoon over without being able to control themselves.

I learned that my concept of I learned that I am what, in pick up artist "PUA" parlance, is called a "natural. I learned that my concept of what the PUA is, prior to reading this book, was wrong. In fact, PUAs are very insecure, needy, but intelligent people that have figured out how to give off the illusion of being confident and interesting, to trick or some may say "persuade" women into casual, short-term and primarily physical relationships.

Yet, they long for the long-term relationships, built on emotional connections, that us "naturals" seek and often maintain, but have mistakenly chosen what they perceive to be the best path to get there- i. I'll cease any further substantive review because I don't want to spoil the book for anyone interested in picking it up pun intended. But I will add two more comments: First, viewed in a general sense, the concepts discussed in this book within the context of meeting and successfully "closing" women, can be applied to all other aspects of life.

I plan to incorporate them into my practice and use some of them to "pick up" new clients and negotiate and close business deals. Many of the concepts in Strauss' book were restatements of concepts I found in marketing and persuasive psychology books I've read. Second, the writing is good and it flows well despite Strauss' style of doing the little things that writing instructors and agents caution against- for instance, his frequent use of descriptors that end in "ingly," and switching tenses too often in the same chapter.

Some writers can pull this off and still give you a good read. Strauss is one of those writers. It's a page turner. Oh wow, hard to say if I'm horrified or fascinated or what. I guess some of both. Good thing I'm reading this for book club cuz I can't wait to discuss. I can't believe this is for real. And then what I'm wondering is, what are girls supposed to do? Just sit there and look pretty? But here's some quotes I liked: "In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them.

And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesn't fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you Oh wow, hard to say if I'm horrified or fascinated or what. Usually, what you wish for doesn't fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get it. This isn't because the universe is cruel.

It's because the universe is smart. It has its own cat-string theory and knows we don't appreciate things that fall into our laps. But love isn't like that. It's a free-flowing energy that comes and goes when it pleases. Sometimes it stays for life; other times it stays for a second, a day, a month, or a year. So don't fear love when it comes simply because it makes you vulnerable. But don't be surprised when it leaves, either.