| Aristotle said: "Man is by nature a political animal." By this, he meant that people live in groups and are therefore inherently social beings. He was right. Throughout their childhood, most people build a certain understanding of social dynamics. They learn how to act in and react to certain social situations. This knowledge is primarily tacit: hard, if not impossible, to express in words. Tacit knowledge is opposed to explicit knowledge: knowledge that can be easily expressed in words. Along with social dynamics, an example of tacit knowledge is riding a bike: someone can tell you how to ride a bike, but that is not at all the same as knowing how to actually do it.
Not everyone in the world has the same about of knowledge about social dynamics though. Some know much, and they become leaders in politics, business, or entertainment - and I assure you, these people get laid whenever they want. Sadly, there are also those who miss either the genetics or the environment to learn as much as the average person does in their childhood. It seems to me these people are into 'the game'.
To me, 'the game' is a method of analyzing human interaction. Its goal is to take the tacit knowledge about social dynamics that most people posses, and make it explicit. That is, to formulate rules of behavior that will lead to social success such as getting laid, being a leader, or being an alpha male. But as the bike riding example shows, knowing how to do something in principle is still different from actually doing it. Ultimately, the desired social success relies on tacit knowledge of human interaction: following 'the rules' will only get us so far. However, also comparable to riding a bike, gathering explicit knowledge will enhance our ability to learn the tacit knowledge that we seek. In fact, our dedication and analysis give us an advantage over those without it. So when we've finally lost our muteness, our awkwardness, and our creepiness by putting ourselves in social situations until we feel like our heads will explode, we will outshine all those who have not. We will know everything, we will be the leaders, the centers of attention, the alpha males. We will have game. _________________ One of the most useful things you will ever learn about body language.
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