The following is part of a series on pickup artistry by longtime reader and contributor Johnny:
If you really like someone you suspect is a pickup artist – and that’s a decision you may re-evaluate now that I’ve lifted the veil for you – here’s what it takes for a woman to lock down a PUA:
1. Traditional femininity. PUA’s are chauvinists. Wear make-up, grow your hair long, dress nicely. Be demure, mysterious; be willing to follow his lead. Be SUBTLE. This is an uphill battle for most women, as traditional feminine deportment is no longer taught. You might have to go out and learn it, just like PUA’s had to go out and learn traditional masculine attraction.
2. Sex. If you’re not the best lay in his life you don’t stand a chance. If you don’t fuck him on his time frame, he’ll bounce. If you don’t fuck him the way he wants, he’ll bounce.
… but PUA’s aren’t entirely as selfish as you might think in this regard. They consider themselves great womanizers, and like giving women orgasms. They love going down on women, they love when a woman gives sexual instructions – PUA’s are sex-positive, for a bunch of sexists. Pleasing women sexually one moment is part of how they justify being dicks to them the next.
The bedroom is where you break the traditionally feminine role and become a freak. Making him come is great, but coming yourself will give his ego a stroking that no dick-stroking can compete with. Not that I’m suggesting you fake it or anything…
3. No-to-low drama. Don’t cry, don’t make demands, don’t pick arguments, don’t nag.
4. Get in shape. These are guys with choice. They don’t settle.
5. Once you’ve got your hooks in… TURN THE TABLES! You’re a WOMAN. Y’all INVENTED attraction games. Guile and subterfuge in the field of romance are YOUR domain. PUA’s are just men made of flesh. If they can flip your switches, you can flip theirs, PU protocol be damned.
It’s not like steering a car – you can’t just make him go where you want. It’s like steering a super tanker. He’s the ship. You’re the current. If you’re soft-handed and gentle about it, he’ll wind up where you send him.
Just look at me! I made the biggest PU ‘mistake’ of all: in the middle of a real hot streak, I met a wonderful woman and settled down. It took her a little while for her to get me where she wanted me, but now I am very much taken and in a long-term relationship with a woman who began as a quick pickup lay.
I became aware of the PUA scene after meeting my now-wife, so I’ve always been curious about it from an outsider’s perspective. I read The Game, which was admittedly fascinating. I couldn’t help but wonder about the whole negging thing… if that mainly works more on mactress-types–superficial women I was more interested in hooking up with, but never settling down with. I have my doubts as to how effective it would be among more intellectual, secure women, as well as how it’s just… well, a shitty way to go around treating other people.
I’ll certainly cop to the fact that there was a long stretch when I looked to hook up as much as possible with as little commitment as possible. There’s something that skeeves me out about the idea, though, of codifying it and turning it into this whole jargon-laced lifestyle with a mindset that goes beyond objectification into what seems to actually be a depersonalization of women.
Again, I loved being single, had plenty of no-strings fun, and highly recommend it to everyone… but I don’t feel like I was ever trying to trick anyone, or that I was not seeing them as actual people. There’s something that seems almost sociopathic to me in the PUA scene. There are obvious tenets, like be a good storyteller (duh), and all of the stuff that leads men to have more of a spine, be more confident, etc. All of that seems sensible enough. But when it moves beyond having a spine and telling good stories into something more nihilistic and depersonalizing, it just seems to me like angry dudes seeking payback for some bad high school years or something.
Is what I’m thinking of just the angrier, darker dude-bros in the PUA scene giving everyone else a bad name? Is it like ISIS bringing shame to Islam? Johnny, you seem like a thoughtful, intelligent dude, so I’m curious to hear your thoughts on if it’s possible for someone to be a true, by-the-book PUA and still actually respect women as humans.
“I’m curious to hear your thoughts on if it’s possible for someone to be a true, by-the-book PUA and still actually respect women as humans.”
Yes. When I first looked into PU – not the game, but the actual real-time community – I was surprised at its positivity. If it had been full of anger or misogyny I would have been turned right off by it.
A lot of guys come to the PU community from painful places. Some of them had their self-esteem destroyed by a bad relationship with a woman. Others never even get that close to a woman, and they’re super bitter about it. I really liked the way the veterans of the community would talk those guys down from misogynistic, adversarial world views, encouraging instead a “we’re all just people who want to fuck” attitude. They’d also flat-out refuse to instruct guys who clung to “women are bitches” attitudes.
PU gets misrepresented in a lot of ways (conflated with red-pill, male rights stuff, for example), but even accurately represented, much of it would be indefensibly sexist to feminists. I won’t say they’re not sexists and chauvinists, but I will defend pick-up artists against accusations of misogyny: they don’t hate women, and they’re not contemptuous of them. They’re just more honest than most men about the fact that their primary interest in women is sexual.
Of course, the community is composed of individuals, so while certain foundational principles are universally agreed on, there’s a lot of variety in style and attitude within the community. Some guys only care about sex, others want to form loving relationships with women.
On negs: I dunno. I never tried them. They always seemed super jerky to me. Can’t speak to their efficacy.
As for dorky jargon-laced dehumanization of women… well… ok, that happens. But not in a hateful way, really. PUA’s are students. They like to observe and experiment and learn. Yes, PUA’s go through a phase where women are puzzles to be figured out, but they see no other way. They’ve come to PU because mainstream dating advice has failed them. They’re here to try something new, and they need someone to try it on. So, yeah, the neophyte PUA does spend a while thinking of women as “targets.”
As a guy capable of procuring plenty of NSA fun for yourself, you may find it hard to relate to the experiences of the guy who can’t. Imagine you couldn’t go out and hook up with a woman – you had better odds of being struck by lightning. Imagine you couldn’t even find a girl to share a drink and a laugh with, every woman you ever ask out flaking on you… just loneliness and disappointment, year after year. Some guys resign themselves to a lifetime of that. Some guys just pay for the sex they want. Others will do whatever they have to do to dig themselves out of that hole.
I guess I’m saying that while I TOTALLY see the problem feminists, or even just women in general, have with PU, I encountered mostly normal guys who wanted the same things all other guys want but were willing to go further to get it. I have personal sympathy for them and their struggle, even if they’re total dillholes sometimes.
Very interesting, thoughtful stuff–thanks so much! I hadn’t thought of the guy-to-guy encouragement aspect. Makes a lot of sense. Maybe I’m unfairly conflating the wider PU scene with some of the nastier types on Reddit, etc.
Glad to hear you’re not a neg kinda guy. As I’ve moved out of the single life and have a young daughter myself, that kind of thing strikes me in a whole different way now. And I also believe in karma… not in a religious way, but more of a mathematical/humanistic way. Life’s too short to go around chipping away at people.
Anyway, I really appreciate the in-depth responses. It’s really good to hear this perspective.
The community aspect definitely makes sense, giving guys a way to talk through how sucky the whole pickup scene can be. Because that scene can definitely suck way more for guys — especially those not naturally endowed with player tendencies. But it just seems a shame that the ultimate goal of PUAs appears to be for men to just stop caring about individual women — as opposed to the species of women, as in, “I love women” — so that the rejection stops hurting so much. Is that a fair assessment?
I think that’s pretty fair, even if a lot of PUA’s would argue with the assessment.
Yes, the goal is to eliminate reliance on any one particular woman for sex. But to me that’s not the same as ceasing to care for individual women. The PUA attitude is that there are LOTS of great women out there worth caring about, and when you get too hung up on one you lose sight of that fact. They even have – surprise! – a dorky lingo name for it: oneitis. Oneitis is irrational fixation on one woman to the exclusion of all others. Is there a difference between oneitis and love? I’d say yes, a huge one, but that’s a question that causes screaming matches on PUA websites.
Good question about the motive. I’ve never heard a guy say that his reason for all this is to avoid the pain of rejection. Rejection management is actually one of the first things a new PUA has to learn, and most get over it pretty quickly – if by “rejection” we’re talking about getting shot down in a bar. If we’re talking about, say, getting unceremoniously dumped by a monogamous girlfriend of two years who you were really in love with… well, PUA’s would say that comes with the territory and that’s why you should avoid over-committed mono relationships. So, yes. I guess it’s fair to say that fear of rejection is at least one of the PUA’s motives.
But the stronger motive is the desire for freedom. PUA’s would argue that as long as you lack choice – as long as your options are a) stay with your girlfriend or b) face an indefinite sexual Gulag alone, you’re not really free and can’t be happy. Any PUA, regardless of his attitude toward monogamous relationships, would agree that you can’t have a good relationship unless it’s one you’re REALLY in because you want to be in it – by choice, not by necessity.
They’d also argue that if you’re in one of those survival relationships, not only will you be miserable, so will your gal. PUA’s believe that women, like men, want the best they can get in a partner (and unlike “nice guys” PUA’s don’t hold that against women, choosing instead to rise to the challenge by becoming the most desirable men they can be). And if your woman senses that you’re a whipped doofus with no options who’s reliant on her for sex, well… you’re not the best she can get, and she’ll resent you for it, and she’ll mistreat you for it (a plight every “nice guy” knows; you want misogyny? Try getting in the head of a “nice guy” who feels that he’s been screwed over despite having played nice).
… one more thing in defense of the community.
One guy I liked put it well, and I’m paraphrasing here:
“Females start having nuanced and in-depth conversations with each other about emotion and attraction starting in girlhood. Male conversations on these matters are comparatively idiotic. The result is that by the time they’re men and women meeting on the field of sex, you’ve got relative beginners playing on the same field as experts.”
All the seduction community does is provide men with a space to have the same types of conversations women were having all along.
I recall most sex briefings with my friends being short and dumb: “did you bang her? NO? The fuck, man?”
… but if you go to the community all, “why doesn’t she like meeeeee?” they’ll say, “there there, tell us exactly what happened and we’ll tell you why she doesn’t like you.”
I admire your willingness to share this sort of decidedly unfeminist thinking, Em & Lo. I’m sure you’re not endorsing it, but your willingness to illuminate gross male spaces and let your readers make up their own minds is uncommon and admirable.