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laguna
Joined: 27 Jun 2010
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 Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:32 am Post subject: |
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| neilsputnik wrote: |
| laguna wrote: |
| neilsputnik wrote: |
I never had a problem meeting women nor sustaining long term relationships, but I stumbled onto 'The Game' from a (female) friend weirdly enough. I found it initially very amusing, these wacky characters on some alternative lifestyle trip. Strauss is a good writer too.
Since then, I have read a lot of the material out there, spanning most of the 'systems'. I used to think it was great and very funny stuff, and although there is a good side in purportedly helping guys with no social skills, it quickly becomes apparent that a lot of this stuff is marketing hype, as well as ethically dubious at best.
-- A lot of the theories are based on an narrowly circumscribed evolutionary theory of humans. "Push the right buttons, and she will be 'hardwired' to respond." This is faulty namely because it doesn't take into account the role of real life personality differences and situations, culture, ideals, nor intellect. To me, there is something missing painting humans as the sum of their DNA. Further, a lot of mating and flirting rituals are culturally formed, and transform culturally, so I am not sure that I agree with the hard core evolutionary argument often implicit in much of these theories. Pushing it to its logical conclusion, you should be able to walk up to ANY woman, ANY time and push the right buttons. This is clearly not the case. In a move of (to me) astounding illogicality, many of the systems state, or their gurus confess that "some women just don't want to be picked up and you just gotta improve your odds by learning the material."
-- -- A realist response is that the techniques work so it must be hardwired responses. However, the information that isn't revealed is the ratio of success to failure. It might be the case that certain women respond differently to different guys, and if so, it appears to be some other variable accounting for success or failure than tapping into the hardwired responses.
-- It doesn't account for different types of people meeting each other. For instance, the theories assume that geeky (or insert any pejorative term) guys cannot meet attractive women. However, it seems reasonable to me to suggest that geeky guys can meet other geeky women, and geeky guys can meet (attractive or otherwise) women who like geeky guys.
-- A lot of systems seem to be about borderline manipulation. If you get into the material, you will hear a lot about 'frame control', 'alpha males', 'dominance' and such. To me, these are just euphemisms for doing what you want to whomever you want merely for the purposes of being 'attractive'. Whilst this may be an aspiration for some, it is not something I need nor advocate. The people I am close to don't feel the need to dominate others because the starting point is different: acting civilly and with virtue is just a good thing to do outside of the possible benefits you might get.
-- Related to this point, the philosophies often espoused are very often narrowly utilitarian. That is, acting in a certain way is only justified because of the results YOU will get. This is ethically bankrupt.
-- A very small proportion of the gurus have long term girlfriends, wives or families. This is fine on the grounds that might be what they want. However, digging a little a deeper, and I get the sense that there is a lot of sexual addiction for the 'successful' guys in the community. Also, it seems the material teaches you to get the girl, but not keep her. It would be interesting to read some retrospectives in 20 years time though.
-- A lot of the material is canned, even in so called 'natural game'. You learn what to say, what not to say, what to do in certain situations, what not to do in others, what to wear, what personalities to have, what jokes to tell etc. Although there is attraction in a rigid system and dogma for ease of learning, it is very robotic and hollow. Do you want to show women who YOU are, or what some guy has told you to be?
-- There is a limited pool of useful information; a lot of gurus recycle other people's information as well as there own, just in slightly different packaging.
-- I think there is also a claim here to preying on male insecurity as women's gossip and fashion magazines partly do to women. The situation is often set up as such: "Are you too: bald, fat, insecure, old, tall, short, poor, inept, sexually stunted etc." ... And the solution is of course to buy the latest material .... 'then I can teach you how to meet any women you want, all in the space of 200 pages!"
Whilst there is no doubting that SOME of the stuff works, especially for people who are on the shy side, I would suggest to anyone seriously considering getting deeper into the material to take it with a 'pinch of salt'. That's my take on the pick up scene. |
I can counter all of this with a simple rebuttal;
statistics
All of your points are for statistically low probability events.
A geek with a beautiful girl? Sure, so long as he has money. There are other things to take into account, but even if one gets lucky, nature wins over the long runs and she will cheat on and/or drop him in the long run.
Also, being ethically dubious has no baring on effectiveness.
This is an odds game, some people can do the opposite and beat the odds, but just like going to the casino, the house always wins. You are assuming everyone can win the dating lottery, which is naive.
Also, there is not such thing as a "sex addict". We are born for that purpose specifically. |
The point about sex addiction. Yes, that is why we have something called culture. It is an attempt at civilizing some of our baser instincts and to view us a sex machines misses the whole evolution of humans entirely in terms of rationality, democratic systems, language etc. If you want to view yourself as some sort of machine, by all means, but don't go passing this off as fact. |
All of those things...just to pass the time between sex, or to obtain more sex, or something to do with the offspring of the aforementioned sex.
People are machines, yes. They tend to react the same way under the same circumstances, anything to the contrary is a matter of differing life experience, and even that is the same with the same life experiences and resources. |
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Hotwire
Joined: 29 Aug 2010
Location: Multiverse
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 5:50 pm Post subject: |
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Okay for one night stands.
But any chick that fallls for that long term - you are dating someone with low self esteem and serious issues.
Not the kind of long term realtionship you wanna be in.
Even if it did turn into a long term relationship (one started using these 'techniques') she;s eventually going to see your real character and make her judgments based on that.
Desperate strokes for desperate guys I guess.
For me I'll stick with the old 'see / meet girl you like and give her a smile and if she smiles back or gives you eye contact, aproach and make small talk and buy her a drink and talk to her just being yourself' technique.
If that doesn't work I can't be bothered acting like a puppeteer to get laid, might just as well go to the hill... |
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chellovek
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Hotwire wrote: |
Okay for one night stands.
But any chick that fallls for that long term - you are dating someone with low self esteem and serious issues.
Not the kind of long term realtionship you wanna be in.
Even if it did turn into a long term relationship (one started using these 'techniques') she;s eventually going to see your real character and make her judgments based on that.
Desperate strokes for desperate guys I guess.
For me I'll stick with the old 'see / meet girl you like and give her a smile and if she smiles back or gives you eye contact, aproach and make small talk and buy her a drink and talk to her just being yourself' technique.
If that doesn't work I can't be bothered acting like a puppeteer to get laid, might just as well go to the hill... |
+10 |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Hotwire wrote: |
Okay for one night stands.
But any chick that fallls for that long term - you are dating someone with low self esteem and serious issues.
Not the kind of long term realtionship you wanna be in.
Even if it did turn into a long term relationship (one started using these 'techniques') she;s eventually going to see your real character and make her judgments based on that.
Desperate strokes for desperate guys I guess.
. |
Women tend to think guys that fall for these techniques (get suckered into the idea they work) have low self esteem and serious issues too. |
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asc422
Joined: 23 Feb 2009
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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Systematization of your pick-up game is a quick way to depression. Being a robot spoils one of the funnest things in life. It's sad when you have guys spitting off memorized lines, doing magic tricks, and pretending to have fun and whatnot. It screams of insecurity.
You read about how these guys got so good at picking up women that they could stray from the canned material once they were master pick-up artists. That just sounds like they established some self-confidence finally. I think a common thread among PUA's is they have extremely low self-esteem.
To me, I think the real "game" is learning to become so comfortable in your own skin that you can show your real personality in public without feeling self-conscience. I think this happens through combining various self-improvements. You know, how does the saying go? "You gotta love yourself first before anyone else can love you." Something like that. It's pretty true.
All it takes to attract partners is a little swagger. You can get that once you approve of yourself. |
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Bloopity Bloop
Joined: 26 Apr 2009
Location: Seoul yo
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 10:59 pm Post subject: |
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| asc422 wrote: |
Systematization of your pick-up game is a quick way to depression. Being a robot spoils one of the funnest things in life. It's sad when you have guys spitting off memorized lines, doing magic tricks, and pretending to have fun and whatnot. It screams of insecurity.
You read about how these guys got so good at picking up women that they could stray from the canned material once they were master pick-up artists. That just sounds like they established some self-confidence finally. I think a common thread among PUA's is they have extremely low self-esteem.
To me, I think the real "game" is learning to become so comfortable in your own skin that you can show your real personality in public without feeling self-conscience. I think this happens through combining various self-improvements. You know, how does the saying go? "You gotta love yourself first before anyone else can love you." Something like that. It's pretty true.
All it takes to attract partners is a little swagger. You can get that once you approve of yourself. |
It seems like a lot of people in this thread know a lot more about this world than me, I've only read some of Strauss' stuff. Anyway, regarding the part of your post I bolded, Strauss eventually started believing that being comfortable in your own skin actually IS the key to success with women and in life.
He said he disagrees with most of the other big name PUAs in that they are all about projecting certain images of themselves that are not their true selves. Strauss' new/current philosophy is to simply be the best you you can be.
Of course, he still teaches guys those canned routines and stuff to get guys with absolutely no social skills started, but he'd eventually hope they'll develop enough confidence and self-worth to grow past the routines and become the interesting person only their family and closest friends know they are, to everyone.
So in response to everyone: I still think there is SOME value in all this PUA stuff like there is in learning almost everything.
Strauss claims he became as successful as he did by observing all the PUAs that strictly went by their own styles and taking different pieces he felt worked and were congruent with his true self. He's not into peackocking (dressing in gaudy clothes to attract attention and serve as conversation starters) because he doesn't feel that it resonates with his inner self. |
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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 4:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Bloopity Bloop wrote: |
Strauss eventually started believing that being comfortable in your own skin actually IS the key to success with women and in life.
He said he disagrees with most of the other big name PUAs in that they are all about projecting certain images of themselves that are not their true selves. Strauss' new/current philosophy is to simply be the best you you can be.
So in response to everyone: I still think there is SOME value in all this PUA stuff like there is in learning almost everything.
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Right. The people who are dismissing the Game as a mere collection of techniques haven't read the Game. The Game is not an instruction manual on picking up women, although it includes such instructions. Its a novel about that world.
| Peppermint wrote: |
| Women tend to think guys that fall for these techniques (get suckered into the idea they work) have low self esteem and serious issues too. |
Many do. The positive attention men get after reading the Game, even knowing that their failures is not about who they are but about how they approach women, starts to build their confidence. In what profession do we demand people take on the most challenging tasks immediately? We expect a learning curve and a progression. |
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BaldTeacher
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