A couple of things I'd like to address. Thanks for bringing this up, mate. I think they trouble us all.
Quote:
1. Has pickup run its course?
2. After years of repeated lines, women are cautious.
3. Another loser with a method.
1) The community or the game are not going anywhere, because it's not just about a TV show, it's not about a method in particular, but it's about a WAY of life). Mystery began a revolution that keeps revolving for years now and will continue to do so, because obviously things change, but so do we adapt to the change, adopt new techniques, theorized or brought from the field already tested by people not much different from you and I. So it'd say it's very much alive and kicking.
2) Great point, so let me give you an illustration from the computer world. When computer viruses written widespread in the early 80s, they were extremely potent, because like women in the early years of the Mystery method, people didn't have an anti-virus- a protection against this new "disease." Over time, programmers developed Norton and other anti-viral software, and so did women develop techniques to keep away not from old viruses, but form people who used old lines or old ways of thinking.
Now, the good thing is that the virus writers never stopped improving their own technique by learning from the antiviral techniques developed to stop them. The same applies to our case. No matter how known this community, or our methods become, as long as we keep on bringing the game up - by modifying it, throwing things out, being creative with our stories and lines and ways, by not clinging to the old simply because that's what we've been doing for years - we have nothing to worry about.
3) A lot of girls know it, period. The worry obviously is that they know what we're up to. For example, I had the fortunate experience of seating - in a class I was auditing at a university - in front a couple. The guy brings up one of the old stories Mystery told in the early days. Suddenly the lecture hall became an even more uncomfortable place to be in when the girl stopped the guy, continued the story and asked if the guy had anything of his own to add. What a shame that was. And a very surprising, because he was a student, he had to know what plagiarism can mean for him.
Don't ever tell a story that's not your own. It's easy, it's fast, but it's also weak and you will have to face the potential embarrassment.
A lot of friends in the community were getting mad at me for teaching girls what's going on. I never stopped doing it, because when I tell them all I've got, I feel this emptiness, this vulnerability, this feeling of being exposed, of being transparent. And this need to get back forces me to come up with things much more creative and powerful. Following Bruce Lee's advice, I try to empty the cup of water, so I can get some tea.
-Stan