I think it was around 2008 that I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a book called "The Zen of Meeting Women" by Max Weiss. It was a book that combined the concepts from Zen Buddhism and some traditional PUA techniques.

I was already into Taoism at this point, though I don't think I got into Taoism through anything in pickup. I did notice, however, that a lot of the more serious guys in the seduction community were studying Buddhism, so I gave it a shot. Even Gambler says he studied Buddhism to become more calm and collected, etc.

This religion (if you even want to consider Buddhism a religion) really opened up a lot of things for me and helped me learn pickup through a door of opportunity that was letting in clean, refreshing air. Needless to say, that was a big contributing factor in me learning how to truly not give a fuck (unlike pretending to not give a fuck like those Mystery-followers do) and becoming less weird as a whole.

Now, on the more realistic and less spiritual side of things, joining a Fraternity (it's an American thing) helped me become not weird as well. Being a bro means being a cool dude, and if you can't relate to and connect with "cool" men of your peer group, you're going to be weird. All this helped me learn more about myself and others, resulting in awesomeness.

Studying everything I could get my hands on seemed to be a different issue. Of course, my progress was fucking SLOW since I was taking in too much information while not being able to practice and implement it all at the tender age of 14 15 16 17... That made me a KJ for at least a little while. And, everyone hates fuckin KJs.

That's what most kids who try to study pickup are. Fucking KJs. lol

the me the whole notion of pickup is picking up random woman and fucking them... Lets face it , almost all pickup shit revolves around tacticsa and techniques to control something external ,controlling something else than you...

it's manipulation which is socially accepted nowadays..

going out talking to woman is just being social.. it got nothing to do with pickup.. it's the same like saying you read the bible and you go out using it as you model to relate to the world ? in this case are you still doing pickup ? with a bible as reference ?

most guys just use pua as a excuse to to meet woman and get laid.. that is probably their first primary motivation.. so they have done it , they fucked some woman and now the brag about how good life is and how many social friends they have made. lol are you serious.. because intentions are important , results are just bullshit and they vary - results are inconsistent...

when i got into pickup i was just a shy dude.. kind of insecure but hey i just wasn't accepting myself, i had no good relevant model of how communicate to the world and woman - pickup and all that shit just messed it up - it took me like months of hard work to unwire these shitty social models. The reason why i got into pickup was just because i wanted a connection with someone, i just wanted someone to understand how i felt but i mixed it up with ego and sexual desires...

communication with woman.. just talking to them and fliritng is just a natural thing .. it shouldn't be nessecary to learn shit like this.. if you are unable to communicate to woman you have problems , i don't know where you got it - maybe form your parents or you got fucked up by school.. maybe just retarded social conditioning by society.

but if you have these problems and you are unable to relate to woman , learning a false social model like example MM is the worst thing you can do... actually you are better of if you just do some inner game stuff / natural stuff and just approach without any techniques or tricks.

woman are like drugs .. if you haven't a correct model of social interaction you probably have a fucked up model about love as well , just like kasabi said - when you are young relationships are not really enjoyable - ''it's just i fill a gap in your life and you fill mine '''. if i look back to all my previous relationships there isn't much love because i know my model back then was fucked up...a few weeks ago i fucked a woman just for sex , no strings attached - it had more love and connection than any of my previous relationships.

if you are young you just do not know shit .. how do you know if you hookup with a insane borderline woman ? you don't fucking know shit... because at that age you are only talking about pickup and vagina.

aside from that .. pickup is nothing... nowadays i attract woman without doing anything.. i just stand around them - talk a bit.. and for some reason they are into me. if you give a guy a pill ( placebo ) and tell him he gets better succes with woman from it he probably is more likely to approach.. pickup is just the same. pickup is just using something to get a certain result ? isn't drinking alcohol the same ? in that case is everyone doing pickup ?

Now guys would disagree... maybe.. i don't care actually.. i know there are guys who pull ass left and right - but those are likely to be the guys who need to game everything or who need to fuck random people... who cares , a significant healthy relationship sounds more fullfilling to me.

once i got into pickup i got fucked over and over.. that made me grow as a person - studying inner game and analyizng those bad experiences instead of running away from it.

if you are the guy who claims that pickup changed his life i must say .. thats really pathethic.. no offense - good for you.. but if that is the only thing that change your life ?!!?!?! pickup gave me experiences ( relationships etc ) , how i gave meaning to those experiences and how i analyzed those is what changed my life - Pickup itself doesn't so anything...you can meet woman everywhere doing pickup while still being the same meathead.

everything can be enlightement... it's just how you perceive shit and what you do with those experiences.

point is you don't need pickup.. you just need a good mentor who gives you a few guidelines on inner game / social dynamics and you are ready to go.. it could be buddhism or whatever. wished someone told me how manipulative woman could be... how fucked up some things are and how some things are in life...if someone had told me the truth on time i probably didn't need to go to all these fucking borderline bitches , pregnancy and all that shit...but they don't write that stuff in pickup books.

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Nice Post!

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Been around the world twice, Talked to everyone once...

I dont have time to read the whole thread because of finals but I just had to comment on this.

PUA for me at least has been most likely the most beneficial thing to my life as a college student. (and I am only 19)

More than anything else, it paved the way for my growth as a strong, confident, and fun guy.

PUA is much more than simply getting girls for myself and im sure many others in my age group. This is because social interactions (with men and women) are the only things that until I discovered the community that i had no clue how to improve on.

As soon as I actively tried to step out of my comfort zone to even just say hi and hold eye contact with REALLY hot girls, it felt like a huge social burden was lifted off of me.

I was no longer ashamed of anything I thought or felt. PUA served as a catalyst for this transformation that could have taken a decade to accomplish.

Thus, I argue that putting ANY restrictions on this community would diminish its value. My interpretation of the community is to have a place where any guy can try to make a successful impact on his life regardless of background, demographics or anything else. Every person is a case by case basis depending on what they aim to achieve. But grouping an entire age group together is not a good way to argue.

In essence, its like me saying that 30 year olds should not practice mixed martial arts because they are more subject to injury than 20 year olds. Does that mean they should not be able to defend themselves in a bar fight?

@chief, I don't really consider Buddhism to be a religion, for reasons that it is proven. I've also came to the realization of how it relates to pickup, more so than you would think at first glance.

I think I can understand what you were going from in your mid teens, you were taking in so much information, and as a result, you thought it would make you extremely versatile, so you could become accustomed to any situation. I agree that is doesn't do this, and is an awful Idea.

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Only more recently I've become more stable in the way i approach getting women, as I read/listened to too much from too many contradictory sources. Thinking that the more information the merrier, regardless if I was applying it straight away or not.

I think that's why pick up can be so dam harmful to some people, it can be looked up from so many different angles that, when one tries to have a high understanding the see one method saying x+y=5 and the other saying x+y=3. They seek more intuition until it makes sense, but it only adds another complication of x+y=6. They try and simultaneously apply this in the field, and it leads them to being outright weird and up in their head.

Of course the older crew will generally be able to see the simple yet big picture easier. This doesn't mean that it's impossible for people who are younger.

I think enuf is said already so my concluding argument to this discussion would be :

A boy normally goes through puberty at the age of 12 - does that make him ready to start having babies and start a family? - NO. He requires 'x' no. of yrs to experience the world and mature.

PUA, at its core, is an art of seduction - one that requires maturity and experience to handle both, ones own emotions and that of others. The younger ones in here can argue, but you dont know what you dont know Hence, try listening to the older more experienced ones in the forum who are trying to guide you. If you think of PUA as a means to having a better social life then thats somewhat Okay. But try to internalize the concepts of being an attractive Person and try to find your social acceptance outside of your skills to seduce the opposite sex

Anyone, who has been around women will tell you - they aren't the simplest beings to deal with. With just a few bad experiences, and without anything to anchor your believes or your worth, you would be thrown in deep waters and start getting dissolutioned about the opposite sex - one that could affect your relationships as a grown up.

Thanks for that conclusion Marc. I think enough opinions have been expressed on this topic. There are some that are starting to get off topic a bit so I'm going to lock the thread where it is.

Thank you everyone for your opinions on this. I've definitely had my eyes opened to some new possibilities and thoughts concerning this.

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Been around the world twice, Talked to everyone once...