In your description, "pick-up artists" are men who realize that they need to actively think about relationships, more or less the same way women have always done. That is exciting.
Thanks. I don't think that this is an antithesis, as what I wrote fits nicely with this paragraph from your essay:
"In contrast to that, men all over the casual-devoted scale tend to see their relationships as a reward for work well done. A sexual or romantic relationship is what comes after work. That doesn't mean that men aren't prepared to work to maintain and support their relationships. They just don't expect the relationship in itself to be work. "
The "work done well" is what I described as building and maintaining the sexual / emotional foundation of the relationship.
I mentioned that for a pickup artist, building a relationship upon a solid and well maintained foundation is the easy part, but maybe that's because this is where women put in their work.
I don't think that pickup artists think of relationship as work the same way most women do. It is more of an upfront investment that yields passive income in the future, but still needs maintenance, rather than actual work.
If any actual work is involved, it's often directed at the man himself, rather than at the relationship - striving to avoid becoming fat, lazy, stupid, rude or unattractive otherwise. I think this is based on an implicit assumption that the only person you can change by putting in some work is yourself. Putting in work to change the other person in the relationship sounds more like what women do, with mixed results (my wife did it a lot though, and succeeded).
I got into way back in like 2005... Now have an amazing wife. Which is what I wanted all along. And in the end, it did "just happen" sort of. But it probably wouldn't have (not with a women I chose, who I am both attracted to and have shared values and interests with) if I didn't have the confidence I gained through hard-won experience. What else was I going to do, wait for the perfect woman to parachute out of the sky onto my lap?
I've drifted more and more to the right and now think Christians were basically right about sex (see Lousie Perry). Therefore hookup culture is regrettable and not ideal. Also, according to David Buss, the "sexy son" hypothesis hasn't been panning out; when women cheat, it's more often about trying to trade up. According to studies, women tend to feel lower self-esteem after casual sex, the opposite of men. So think there is merit after all to the gut feeling most people have that hooking up with women for a completely consensual ONS is still on some level doing something bad to them. As Perry says, consent isn't enough. Enabling others in their self-destructive vices isn't compassion.
Nevertheless, as you say, "Sadly, none of this works if you are a socially awkward nerd". For such guys, the PUA path works, and I know of nothing else that does. "Just be confident" is true but not helpful. The only way for a socially awkward guy to become confident and more socially astute with women is by getting experience with women. You have to get out there, approach approach approach.
That's what it was all about back in the day; self-improvement, taking action, not wallowing in self-pity, taking responsibility for your own results, learning from your mistakes, persisting in the face of adversity... That's what it takes to succeed at anything and to have a worthwhile life in general. Nothing about any of that has changed. From what hear about how the youth are getting on these days, it's needed now more desperately than ever.
As a gay man, this was quite strange but interesting. I’m oversimplifying but generally you say in our world “do you want to X” and the other guy says “sure” or “not interested” and you move to the next step.
I heard that this is how the gay dating app Grindr worked and everything was fine. Then, someone creates a similar app for hetero normies - Tinder - and after a couple of years everyone complains that 'it ruined dating'.
I can only imagine how weird heterosexual dating seems for gays.
It’s a semi-digitized version of a sex party for gays.
At a sex party you generally are “pre-approved” via various filters (invite-only, bring newbies, subject interest, etc.) get naked and then wander around, talk, and then ask (or don’t - it’s assumed that everyone there is available unless in a resting area: there is no such thing as groping).
The (filtered) subject interest is men with very long cocks (“horsemen”: over 20cm (about 8in) are “A” members), everyone else is “B”, public parties are mixed). You enter the bar and take your clothes off (therefore you seem always available), get a bar ticket (a beer is marked on it) then wander around and do whatever you want. When done you pay your ticket and leave.
Nobody really cares about looks (looking above waist), career, pets, IQ, education, etc.
If you want to be a member the secretary measures you and you get a A/B designation and on an approved list.
There are also A-only and A+ parties (24cm or more: 9.5 inches or more: the existence of which I was notified after my joining, exclusive within exclusive: more filtering).
I used to hold monthly pool parties in Texas, invite list of around 150, clothing optional (filtered by me: must bring a newbie). 60-100 showed up, Those who wanted to play identified themselves by getting naked.
Gay apps have subject filtering, and other characteristics which made it a “virtual” version of the sex party to meet men for sex.
At an in-person party or sex venues, you can select a man to play with in a second. With an app it takes minute, hours, days.
I calculated they are basically a complete waste of time because of geometric expansion due to larger radius of selection for sex (“dating”) pools and the inverse probability problem ( likelihood of meeting goes down faster than the number of people who you might meet due to geometry problem ), and there’s more competition for attention (they can see more people).
I calculated that it is much, much easier to meet people by developing groups of friends who filter for you, host events where you meet lots of people friends invite (you can reciprocate their filtering with your host pool). So old-fashioned.
You avoid the online “radius” problem, you can see people instantly, and pre-filtering by friends makes most of the awkwardness to start talking easy to overcome with warm socialization. Speed dating (as I’ve read) is a strange filtering process without any warm socialization. I’ve never seen speed dating for gays - why bother.
I’m lucky, a unicorn, and outlier. I have the CCR5 Delta-32 mutation which makes me immune to HIV.
In gayland terms I’m a top, have a very large cock, I maintained a 34” waist but 240lbs of muscle for decades - sought after for porn (but not done) since I was 18. Blond, bearded, moderately hairy, and love getting guys off. The older I got the more and more men pursued me. I look similar to Adam Goldberg as Santa Claus lately. Deep boomy voice.
Non-gayland I, speak multiple languages fluently (as does the author: I collect languages for fun), extremely curious about other people and ask incessantly about what interests them, make jokes only about my own failings, Caltech brainiac, always made plenty of money in tech, read incessantly and hypnotize people speaking for some reason.
Combine all the above and that’s why I’ve had sex with thousands of men (I’ve been having sex since roughly 1979). Women also come on to me when I’m in non-professional venues where there are women. I’ve been married now 25 years (married in NL), we agreed 31 years ago we are both complete horndogs so we can play around just don’t deprioritize each other ever. Not hard at all.
If I were to recommend one thing from reading this post it is develop other in-person human friends who have circles of in-person human friends and who enjoy group social events, hosting and attending (not sex parties in particular: for gay men that is a social event). Apps are a waste of time, social media is an abomination, in-person connections (not speed dating) in easy environments where everyone is relaxed because of pre-filtered common connections. It takes a lot of practice and time investment: a small circle of fiends who meet in-person (stop the apps) and gradually expand (bring a friend) will introduce you to far more people (women) than you could conceivably ever realistically meet on an app.
Take it from a person who has had decades of sex, the volume of sex contacts was inversely proportional to time spent on apps and directly proportional to meeting in person in social situations (bars, concerts, movies, dinners, sports, lectures, barbecues, conferences, happy-hours, museums, art openings, - you get the idea). Be utterly honest, develop ways to handle being rejected (my ego is bullet-proof by now), get off social media. Talking intimately in public takes a lot of practice, and what I call “non-lethal” critics. Never speak badly about anyone but yourself, ever.
I’m sorry to go on and on but the more I read of this post the stranger I feel.
Social media a total buzzkill I’ve seen before and after and it’s not pretty.
I'm curious. Do gays find the thought of straight sex as disgusting as straights find the thought of gay sex? I have known plenty of gays, and wish I knew some that I could ask many questions of, but I think my questions would be off-putting to them. I think the reality of gays is fascinating but doubt many could discuss the issue dispassionately. Can you even imagine that my question, above, is not meant to be offensive?
I had a hard time believing that men actually had sex with women until my early-20’s. I understood it intellectually, of course, but the idea of having sex with someone without a cock was faintly nauseating, and sort of “what’s the point”.
I had a Greek roommate at one point at Caltech and he and another Greek friend visiting from Reed (stay wierd!) wanted to go see strippers on Sunset and I was the guy with a car. You know how college is.
We went to the Body Shop. We went in and these guys were just absolutely drooling over the dancers, the music was “Brick House” and “Take Your Time” (I have a bizarrely exact episodic memory, I could make a list) and I was enjoying the atmosphere of horny men when a stripper leaned over and said “Wake Up!”
Mortified.
I finally saw with my own eyes men horny for women. We went out to the strip afterwards and they talked to hookers while I drove around. It was an edifying evening. The phrase “Hi Honey” is etched into my memory.
I had been to male strip clubs illegally since I was 15 (Congressional control of DC zoning is its own amazing story, I went to DC a lot with family) and that’s where I learned how to dance, from male strippers.
I enjoy straight porn purely from looking from the men. But the idea of actually getting into bed naked for a woman is not on my top 1000 things to think about.
There is a very slowly growing recognition that this hookup culture thing is not working so well for heterosexuals. But I don't think it is Tinder only, it also happened IRL. Women lack the emotional elements in it, men have a trouble with the intense competition.
This is hard to admit, because no one wants to look like some kind of religious conservative prude, so people keep looking for new words. The way people talk about it in my circles is that friends with benefits are fine, but they should be real friends.
I have never agreed with PUAs and argued with them a lot, but I am too old for casual sex culture and that might have changed things. In my generation, the obviously attractive man is George Clooney - clearly a gentleman, not any kind of Conan-like "alpha" or "dark tryad bad boy". But my generation went on two no touch dates before the first kiss and then started a monogamous relationship.
All this might change in a very fast-paced, lots of noisy, not enough signals, generally shallow environment of hookup culture. It is possible, that in that setup only men who emit the loudest kinds of signals can compete. I can't tell but it is possible - and "bad boy" signals are loud signals.
I think it can change things. But PUAs themselves misrepresented it when they represented it as a marketplace. It is not. What you want is not a large number of women low-key liking you a bit more than the next guy. What you want is 95% of women to immediately reject you, so you don't waste your time, and 5% absolutely fall for you immediately. This means simply be unusual. In any sense whatseover. Just be different.
The only reference I have for the PUA community was reading The Game about five or six years ago, and I don't remember it being about anything other than conning women into bed (mostly) and pretty much nothing about cultivating the ability to have a good relationship. It was, however, the absolutely best analysis of female psychology I've ever encountered--these guys knew women's heads better than we do, and I mean that seriously. But all they wanted was sex and notches on their bedposts. Some of them failed at relationships later, and Mystery had an emotional breakdown when he couldn't handle emotions and an actual relationship (I felt sympathy for him even though I thought he was a scumbag), and Neil Strauss grew up, got married, had kids, and eschewed the PUA community. They older guy they called Sweater joined the PUAs specifically to find a wife as he was terrible with women. Well he found one, alright, and got married, but he couldn't sustain the relationship because all he knew was how to con women into bed. It was sad but I got two great articles out of it.
How this developed (descended) into the Manosphere cesspool? My observations were this.
1) Originally it was about impressing women, and originally it was mostly about being interesting.
2) But as time went on, what one may call the concept of the "alpha male" has been more emphasized, and that concept, originally complex, was eventually simplified into a Conan-type primitively aggressive heroic masculinity.
3) Then it was slowly less and less about impressing women and more about impressing your male discussion partners, because that primitive kind of masculinity, while works better than being a boringly average type, is not the best way to impress women. It lacks suave. But it is an excellent way to impress men as this is roughly how the hierarchy at school has been sorted out.
I think the answer is probably: "Most of the Redpill stuff I have seen is a corrupt, clickbait version of some parts of the seduction community body of knowledge, repackaged to cater to the mass audience of male social media users."
Ie: same thing that happened to everything else: social media.
99.9% would rather complain than take action. Same as it always has been.
Regarding Point 6 about cold approach: Isn't a random woman who I meet and don't know anything else about statistically extremely unlikely to be compatible with me?
Yes, and that is actually my point: men who don't cold approach are the ones actually ending up in relationships with random women: classmates, coworkers and others that life simply served to them without any agency from their side. They only meet because they happen to be in the same organization or group. It's extremely unlikely for them to be compatible, which contributes to high normie relationship breakup and divorce rates.
Conversely, the women pickup artists meet are not random. First, they approach women where they live, shop, study, work or party, so they are more likely to meet women who live similar lives and like similar things. Second, they get to choose the women they approach. People, especially young women, tend to express themselves via appearance: blonde bimbo, goth freak, nerd, church girl, normie, bookworm etc. - all of this tells something, and cold approach allows the man to choose accordingly.
Also, I believe that relationship compatibility is overrated. As a teenager I believed that I need to find a girl I have a lot in common with: same hobbies etc. Eventually, I learned that it's most important to be compatible sexually/emotionally and have the same moral values and plan for life (i.e. children/no children, stay where you live/move elsewhere). Everything else is negotiable or optional.
“A common theme in stag parties” was a pretty hefty hint you’re originally from Europe, which I’d be proud to recognize until I remembered you explicitly said you attended school in Poland. (In the US, they’re called bachelor parties)
Random thoughts aside, good post. Sums up some aspects of PUA and explains how a sane person could get behind them, if they can get past the label.
In 2009-2010 there was definitely a lot of it - a couple of pretty active forums and blogs, I estimated a few hundred guys active online & offline at the time.
Some English content did osmose, but it was mostly through the seduction gurus & coaches relaying it onto our forums and blogs. They did also come up with a lot of the original content (some of which may have possibly been English content repackaged without crediting the source). I personally didn't ever need to access any English content because the Polish content was so abundant. Also, learning about English content (i.e. The Game / Mystery Method) via the stuff Polish guys wrote about it more sense considering that someone possibly either field tested it here or at least thought through whether any of this makes sense in our local cultural context, which, as you see, can be very different from US.
I am planning to write more about how the seduction community in Poland looked at the time in a follow up post.
To be honest, I don't really know how the community is doing now - I did a few quick searches a while back and it seemed like things wound down over the years in a similar way you described in your "Scene" post. But maybe I didn't do enough digging and there is more. Poland is typically lagging a couple of years in terms of adoption of any cultural trends coming from US.
Interesting. I was DEFINITELY doing self improvement in my early 20s... and never in a "LinkedIn culture" sort of way. Now when I look back, I think "What kind of 21-year-old acts like that?" It's kind of weird behavior at that age... but worth it, eventually. Thanks for writing this!
I got into RSD for a bit back in the late 2000s. There was lots wrong with that subculture - and it got worse over time, eventually splitting into red pill/incel - but I have never seen anybody before or since break down the components of what a good 'vibe' is with a woman than some of those guys.
I read your text as an anti-thesis to what I wrote about here: https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/men-consume-relationships-women-produce
In your description, "pick-up artists" are men who realize that they need to actively think about relationships, more or less the same way women have always done. That is exciting.
Thanks. I don't think that this is an antithesis, as what I wrote fits nicely with this paragraph from your essay:
"In contrast to that, men all over the casual-devoted scale tend to see their relationships as a reward for work well done. A sexual or romantic relationship is what comes after work. That doesn't mean that men aren't prepared to work to maintain and support their relationships. They just don't expect the relationship in itself to be work. "
The "work done well" is what I described as building and maintaining the sexual / emotional foundation of the relationship.
I mentioned that for a pickup artist, building a relationship upon a solid and well maintained foundation is the easy part, but maybe that's because this is where women put in their work.
I don't think that pickup artists think of relationship as work the same way most women do. It is more of an upfront investment that yields passive income in the future, but still needs maintenance, rather than actual work.
If any actual work is involved, it's often directed at the man himself, rather than at the relationship - striving to avoid becoming fat, lazy, stupid, rude or unattractive otherwise. I think this is based on an implicit assumption that the only person you can change by putting in some work is yourself. Putting in work to change the other person in the relationship sounds more like what women do, with mixed results (my wife did it a lot though, and succeeded).
Ah, kind of a light version of what women are doing for relationships then. Better than no version at all (which tends to be the default alternative).
I got into way back in like 2005... Now have an amazing wife. Which is what I wanted all along. And in the end, it did "just happen" sort of. But it probably wouldn't have (not with a women I chose, who I am both attracted to and have shared values and interests with) if I didn't have the confidence I gained through hard-won experience. What else was I going to do, wait for the perfect woman to parachute out of the sky onto my lap?
I've drifted more and more to the right and now think Christians were basically right about sex (see Lousie Perry). Therefore hookup culture is regrettable and not ideal. Also, according to David Buss, the "sexy son" hypothesis hasn't been panning out; when women cheat, it's more often about trying to trade up. According to studies, women tend to feel lower self-esteem after casual sex, the opposite of men. So think there is merit after all to the gut feeling most people have that hooking up with women for a completely consensual ONS is still on some level doing something bad to them. As Perry says, consent isn't enough. Enabling others in their self-destructive vices isn't compassion.
Nevertheless, as you say, "Sadly, none of this works if you are a socially awkward nerd". For such guys, the PUA path works, and I know of nothing else that does. "Just be confident" is true but not helpful. The only way for a socially awkward guy to become confident and more socially astute with women is by getting experience with women. You have to get out there, approach approach approach.
That's what it was all about back in the day; self-improvement, taking action, not wallowing in self-pity, taking responsibility for your own results, learning from your mistakes, persisting in the face of adversity... That's what it takes to succeed at anything and to have a worthwhile life in general. Nothing about any of that has changed. From what hear about how the youth are getting on these days, it's needed now more desperately than ever.
As a gay man, this was quite strange but interesting. I’m oversimplifying but generally you say in our world “do you want to X” and the other guy says “sure” or “not interested” and you move to the next step.
I heard that this is how the gay dating app Grindr worked and everything was fine. Then, someone creates a similar app for hetero normies - Tinder - and after a couple of years everyone complains that 'it ruined dating'.
I can only imagine how weird heterosexual dating seems for gays.
It’s a semi-digitized version of a sex party for gays.
At a sex party you generally are “pre-approved” via various filters (invite-only, bring newbies, subject interest, etc.) get naked and then wander around, talk, and then ask (or don’t - it’s assumed that everyone there is available unless in a resting area: there is no such thing as groping).
Here’s an example of one I used to go to:
https://www.eagleamsterdam.com/event-type-2/horsemen-knights/
The (filtered) subject interest is men with very long cocks (“horsemen”: over 20cm (about 8in) are “A” members), everyone else is “B”, public parties are mixed). You enter the bar and take your clothes off (therefore you seem always available), get a bar ticket (a beer is marked on it) then wander around and do whatever you want. When done you pay your ticket and leave.
Nobody really cares about looks (looking above waist), career, pets, IQ, education, etc.
If you want to be a member the secretary measures you and you get a A/B designation and on an approved list.
There are also A-only and A+ parties (24cm or more: 9.5 inches or more: the existence of which I was notified after my joining, exclusive within exclusive: more filtering).
I used to hold monthly pool parties in Texas, invite list of around 150, clothing optional (filtered by me: must bring a newbie). 60-100 showed up, Those who wanted to play identified themselves by getting naked.
Gay apps have subject filtering, and other characteristics which made it a “virtual” version of the sex party to meet men for sex.
At an in-person party or sex venues, you can select a man to play with in a second. With an app it takes minute, hours, days.
I calculated they are basically a complete waste of time because of geometric expansion due to larger radius of selection for sex (“dating”) pools and the inverse probability problem ( likelihood of meeting goes down faster than the number of people who you might meet due to geometry problem ), and there’s more competition for attention (they can see more people).
I calculated that it is much, much easier to meet people by developing groups of friends who filter for you, host events where you meet lots of people friends invite (you can reciprocate their filtering with your host pool). So old-fashioned.
You avoid the online “radius” problem, you can see people instantly, and pre-filtering by friends makes most of the awkwardness to start talking easy to overcome with warm socialization. Speed dating (as I’ve read) is a strange filtering process without any warm socialization. I’ve never seen speed dating for gays - why bother.
I’m lucky, a unicorn, and outlier. I have the CCR5 Delta-32 mutation which makes me immune to HIV.
In gayland terms I’m a top, have a very large cock, I maintained a 34” waist but 240lbs of muscle for decades - sought after for porn (but not done) since I was 18. Blond, bearded, moderately hairy, and love getting guys off. The older I got the more and more men pursued me. I look similar to Adam Goldberg as Santa Claus lately. Deep boomy voice.
Non-gayland I, speak multiple languages fluently (as does the author: I collect languages for fun), extremely curious about other people and ask incessantly about what interests them, make jokes only about my own failings, Caltech brainiac, always made plenty of money in tech, read incessantly and hypnotize people speaking for some reason.
Combine all the above and that’s why I’ve had sex with thousands of men (I’ve been having sex since roughly 1979). Women also come on to me when I’m in non-professional venues where there are women. I’ve been married now 25 years (married in NL), we agreed 31 years ago we are both complete horndogs so we can play around just don’t deprioritize each other ever. Not hard at all.
If I were to recommend one thing from reading this post it is develop other in-person human friends who have circles of in-person human friends and who enjoy group social events, hosting and attending (not sex parties in particular: for gay men that is a social event). Apps are a waste of time, social media is an abomination, in-person connections (not speed dating) in easy environments where everyone is relaxed because of pre-filtered common connections. It takes a lot of practice and time investment: a small circle of fiends who meet in-person (stop the apps) and gradually expand (bring a friend) will introduce you to far more people (women) than you could conceivably ever realistically meet on an app.
Take it from a person who has had decades of sex, the volume of sex contacts was inversely proportional to time spent on apps and directly proportional to meeting in person in social situations (bars, concerts, movies, dinners, sports, lectures, barbecues, conferences, happy-hours, museums, art openings, - you get the idea). Be utterly honest, develop ways to handle being rejected (my ego is bullet-proof by now), get off social media. Talking intimately in public takes a lot of practice, and what I call “non-lethal” critics. Never speak badly about anyone but yourself, ever.
I’m sorry to go on and on but the more I read of this post the stranger I feel.
Social media a total buzzkill I’ve seen before and after and it’s not pretty.
Great post.
I'm curious. Do gays find the thought of straight sex as disgusting as straights find the thought of gay sex? I have known plenty of gays, and wish I knew some that I could ask many questions of, but I think my questions would be off-putting to them. I think the reality of gays is fascinating but doubt many could discuss the issue dispassionately. Can you even imagine that my question, above, is not meant to be offensive?
Absolutely.
I had a hard time believing that men actually had sex with women until my early-20’s. I understood it intellectually, of course, but the idea of having sex with someone without a cock was faintly nauseating, and sort of “what’s the point”.
I had a Greek roommate at one point at Caltech and he and another Greek friend visiting from Reed (stay wierd!) wanted to go see strippers on Sunset and I was the guy with a car. You know how college is.
We went to the Body Shop. We went in and these guys were just absolutely drooling over the dancers, the music was “Brick House” and “Take Your Time” (I have a bizarrely exact episodic memory, I could make a list) and I was enjoying the atmosphere of horny men when a stripper leaned over and said “Wake Up!”
Mortified.
I finally saw with my own eyes men horny for women. We went out to the strip afterwards and they talked to hookers while I drove around. It was an edifying evening. The phrase “Hi Honey” is etched into my memory.
I had been to male strip clubs illegally since I was 15 (Congressional control of DC zoning is its own amazing story, I went to DC a lot with family) and that’s where I learned how to dance, from male strippers.
I enjoy straight porn purely from looking from the men. But the idea of actually getting into bed naked for a woman is not on my top 1000 things to think about.
Faint nausea.
There is a very slowly growing recognition that this hookup culture thing is not working so well for heterosexuals. But I don't think it is Tinder only, it also happened IRL. Women lack the emotional elements in it, men have a trouble with the intense competition.
This is hard to admit, because no one wants to look like some kind of religious conservative prude, so people keep looking for new words. The way people talk about it in my circles is that friends with benefits are fine, but they should be real friends.
I have never agreed with PUAs and argued with them a lot, but I am too old for casual sex culture and that might have changed things. In my generation, the obviously attractive man is George Clooney - clearly a gentleman, not any kind of Conan-like "alpha" or "dark tryad bad boy". But my generation went on two no touch dates before the first kiss and then started a monogamous relationship.
All this might change in a very fast-paced, lots of noisy, not enough signals, generally shallow environment of hookup culture. It is possible, that in that setup only men who emit the loudest kinds of signals can compete. I can't tell but it is possible - and "bad boy" signals are loud signals.
I think it can change things. But PUAs themselves misrepresented it when they represented it as a marketplace. It is not. What you want is not a large number of women low-key liking you a bit more than the next guy. What you want is 95% of women to immediately reject you, so you don't waste your time, and 5% absolutely fall for you immediately. This means simply be unusual. In any sense whatseover. Just be different.
The only reference I have for the PUA community was reading The Game about five or six years ago, and I don't remember it being about anything other than conning women into bed (mostly) and pretty much nothing about cultivating the ability to have a good relationship. It was, however, the absolutely best analysis of female psychology I've ever encountered--these guys knew women's heads better than we do, and I mean that seriously. But all they wanted was sex and notches on their bedposts. Some of them failed at relationships later, and Mystery had an emotional breakdown when he couldn't handle emotions and an actual relationship (I felt sympathy for him even though I thought he was a scumbag), and Neil Strauss grew up, got married, had kids, and eschewed the PUA community. They older guy they called Sweater joined the PUAs specifically to find a wife as he was terrible with women. Well he found one, alright, and got married, but he couldn't sustain the relationship because all he knew was how to con women into bed. It was sad but I got two great articles out of it.
How this developed (descended) into the Manosphere cesspool? My observations were this.
1) Originally it was about impressing women, and originally it was mostly about being interesting.
2) But as time went on, what one may call the concept of the "alpha male" has been more emphasized, and that concept, originally complex, was eventually simplified into a Conan-type primitively aggressive heroic masculinity.
3) Then it was slowly less and less about impressing women and more about impressing your male discussion partners, because that primitive kind of masculinity, while works better than being a boringly average type, is not the best way to impress women. It lacks suave. But it is an excellent way to impress men as this is roughly how the hierarchy at school has been sorted out.
There are lots of permutations of pick up artistry. At it's root it is very simple.
1. Improve what you've got. Wardrobe, haircut, get in shape, attend to your hygiene.
2. Get out of the house and approach some women
Most of the rest of the offensive stuff is from angry men who don't get the results they thought that were due them
Except when you actually read Strauss
I think the answer is probably: "Most of the Redpill stuff I have seen is a corrupt, clickbait version of some parts of the seduction community body of knowledge, repackaged to cater to the mass audience of male social media users."
Ie: same thing that happened to everything else: social media.
99.9% would rather complain than take action. Same as it always has been.
Regarding Point 6 about cold approach: Isn't a random woman who I meet and don't know anything else about statistically extremely unlikely to be compatible with me?
Yes, and that is actually my point: men who don't cold approach are the ones actually ending up in relationships with random women: classmates, coworkers and others that life simply served to them without any agency from their side. They only meet because they happen to be in the same organization or group. It's extremely unlikely for them to be compatible, which contributes to high normie relationship breakup and divorce rates.
Conversely, the women pickup artists meet are not random. First, they approach women where they live, shop, study, work or party, so they are more likely to meet women who live similar lives and like similar things. Second, they get to choose the women they approach. People, especially young women, tend to express themselves via appearance: blonde bimbo, goth freak, nerd, church girl, normie, bookworm etc. - all of this tells something, and cold approach allows the man to choose accordingly.
Also, I believe that relationship compatibility is overrated. As a teenager I believed that I need to find a girl I have a lot in common with: same hobbies etc. Eventually, I learned that it's most important to be compatible sexually/emotionally and have the same moral values and plan for life (i.e. children/no children, stay where you live/move elsewhere). Everything else is negotiable or optional.
It’s a shame you had no idea what you were talking about and didn’t bother to learn before writing this
Please elaborate. I don't support the modern redpill stuff, I get it, what else didn't you like?
Everything I wrote here is based on what I learned and experienced myself.
When did anyone ask for your support, and redpill had nothing to do with anything.
The game isn't a guide for pickup.
“A common theme in stag parties” was a pretty hefty hint you’re originally from Europe, which I’d be proud to recognize until I remembered you explicitly said you attended school in Poland. (In the US, they’re called bachelor parties)
Random thoughts aside, good post. Sums up some aspects of PUA and explains how a sane person could get behind them, if they can get past the label.
>> My high school in late 2000s in Poland seemed like an exact opposite of that.
Was or is there much Polish language discourse about pickup? Or did a lot of it osmose through English?
I'm curious about what pickup looks like in other languages and cultures.
In 2009-2010 there was definitely a lot of it - a couple of pretty active forums and blogs, I estimated a few hundred guys active online & offline at the time.
Some English content did osmose, but it was mostly through the seduction gurus & coaches relaying it onto our forums and blogs. They did also come up with a lot of the original content (some of which may have possibly been English content repackaged without crediting the source). I personally didn't ever need to access any English content because the Polish content was so abundant. Also, learning about English content (i.e. The Game / Mystery Method) via the stuff Polish guys wrote about it more sense considering that someone possibly either field tested it here or at least thought through whether any of this makes sense in our local cultural context, which, as you see, can be very different from US.
I am planning to write more about how the seduction community in Poland looked at the time in a follow up post.
To be honest, I don't really know how the community is doing now - I did a few quick searches a while back and it seemed like things wound down over the years in a similar way you described in your "Scene" post. But maybe I didn't do enough digging and there is more. Poland is typically lagging a couple of years in terms of adoption of any cultural trends coming from US.
Interesting. I was DEFINITELY doing self improvement in my early 20s... and never in a "LinkedIn culture" sort of way. Now when I look back, I think "What kind of 21-year-old acts like that?" It's kind of weird behavior at that age... but worth it, eventually. Thanks for writing this!
I got into RSD for a bit back in the late 2000s. There was lots wrong with that subculture - and it got worse over time, eventually splitting into red pill/incel - but I have never seen anybody before or since break down the components of what a good 'vibe' is with a woman than some of those guys.
I remember that Mystery guy and his show (on VH1?) where he taught nerds to grow a spine in approaching women