| Now, I understand that I'm posting on a forum for aspiring pick-up-artists. I know that aspiring players - myself included - are very idealistic, imaginative, dreamy - we are told, very eloquently, that the Game is a way out, a way to change from our stiflingly mediocre selves and achieve a crazy, vibrant, new life which is universally attainable, though even the most dedicated MPUAs seem strangely unable to fully achieve (read The Game, does Mystery ever get his two bisexual girlfriends?).
But I'd like to make it clear that I really think highly of the whole phenomenon overall. The idea of men actually getting together to talk about how to be better with women is something which must be just unprecedented on this scale in history. The community has transformed from one centred completely around the (big words coming up) messianic quasi-spiritual rote-learning of Ross Jeffries, to the more holistic but still very routine-based game of Mystery, to the strange mix of styles, egos, voices, marketing, influences, locations and so on which characterise it today. Its pull is quite amazing - which fifteen year old boy doesn't google "how to pick up girls" and come along Neil Strauss at some stage?
The messages are heard by scores of the most malleable, vulnerable and insecure male minds every day. Millions of men (boys?) are wooed by the flashy banners, taglines, promotions and acronyms. I'm eighteen now, and I've experienced the PUA community as a single guy and someone in a relationship. We have a responsibility to try to improve the lives of these men, because the footprint of our massive men's movement is huge.
I'm still learning, and at the moment I've entered a relationship with a girl I'm attracted to and respect more than any girl I have before. So naturally at the moment I want to keep her. I was reading about the PUA thoughts on maintaining a happy, healthy relationship, and I'm going to put it out there, a lot of it was misogynistic bullshit, and I'm not saying that from the point of view of a smitten, one-itis prone newbie, which I have been in the past. I'm saying that from the point of view of a rational, well-meaning guy. I mean there was stuff like "you have to train your woman like you would your bitch". Personally, if there was a woman who would enjoy hearing that, I wouldn't want to meet her.
I read good stuff, but even amongst that, there was an underlying selfish, patronising vibe. It was like: How do I get her into threesomes? How do I keep the upper hand? How do I have multiple girlfriends? Now, I understand that these are legitimate concerns for someone who wants that sort of lifestyle. But this is a whole extra level from a fluffy bit of pea-cocking, alpha-male attitude at the bar. This is about wanting to psychologically change a woman into obedience, changes and a new life. It's absolutely against my moral code.
When you think about it, the PUA community has the potential to breed terrible people. No wonder - the training ground for romance is the bar and the club. The pre-requisites for a good woman are how good looking and how sexually charged she is. (I mean we put numbers on them!) The end game is always sex. And on top of that, every single MPUA wants to sell you his product - he sees you as a customer, not a student. Maybe our priorities are wrong - maybe you can't structure your social life like you can a business or sports team. Maybe PUA is too far gone to change, and it will fail in its mission of making us better men.
But it doesn't have to be like that. As challenging as it can be to learn to seduce women, maybe we need to throw a few more challenges in voluntarily. What are they? I'm not completely sure, I'm talking straight from my imagination here. My ideas would be to never treat women like a commodity. Never to fall into the trap of bitterness over someone treating you horribly, and letting yourself lose your trust in women. To realise that beyond all this posturing, all this talk of demigod alpha males, social domination, there are principles to which all men should hold themselves. Kindness. Respect for other men. Listening to women, not just because you want to learn their trance words, but because you can accept that a lot of the time, women know exactly what they want, and they know exactly how to communicate it. The ability to accept defeat, to accept that you're wrong, to accept that, this time, you shouldn't use a Boyfriend Destroyer just to nab a hottie. The unapplauded, unappreciated, unprecedented inner drive to do the right thing by other people at a basic level is something all PUAs ought to have, even if it means they will sleep with 100 women in their lives instead of 200.
I'd also like to offer a correction to official lore. I know that David DeAngelo would tell you "attraction is not a choice" - that's true. But it doesn't matter how much you change externally, no woman will ever leave you happy if you're a hateful person deep down. The most poignant, and least appreciated line I've heard in all my readings and practicing, is "leave her better than you found her". I am racked with guilt over some things I've done in the past two years with girls. PUAs need to be decent people first, everything else second. This is the lesson nobody will teach us but ourselves, and it's always saddened me to read about people who could have been anything becoming complete arseholes in the name of PUA.
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CHAT
