Is "The Game" by Neil Strauss worth a read?

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first of all, do NOT call me a fool as it is a personal insult and breaks the rules of WP. on this board you are expected to engage in civilised debate and focus on arguments instead of personal attacks.

second of all, your counter-arguments quoted above are rubbish and don't even require any sort of response.

Perhaps if a decent man was the one who designed PUA techniques then it would be so. But this is not the case. I can find many pretty shockingly misogynistic articles written by these PUA men. It is not the desire to improve the ability to talk to women that is the problem, but what some of these men are doing to achieve these ends, in other words they will stop at nothing.

Do you honestly think there are no men that are sexually attractive? Men can be good looking too. And on top of that they can be wealthy. Do you not think men have pulling power?

If I might tender an opinion here?

"PUA" is nothing but a form of spectacular disrespect.

Courtship and mating are not a game that can be codified in the form of something that can be "taught" and I would suggest that any one attempting this will come across as a world-class, Olympic-qualifying-standard, ocean-going tool.

^^^this

Erm......

I think it might be helpful to identify which PUA "techniques" we're talking about. I'm cautious about dismissing the entire thing as inherently "evil," especially if we're discussing individuals such as the lonely, down-on-his-luck Aspie who uses a few tricks to help boost his confidence.

In regards to the misogynistic PUAs, I've said it once and I'll repeat it: the cornerstone of "misogyny" is actually NARCISSISM. If you're ever bored, google the term "malignant narcissism," and I can guarantee that you will begin to identify the same patterns in the PUA "women-haters" for which you speak.

After some research, I've found that malignant narcissists are fairly easy to spot. For one, they're extremely "attention-seeking" and will get their "attention fix" anyway they can, be it through "positive" or "negative" social interactions. It's why my basic strategy is to ignore them. You can't "debate" them or change their views. Ever. You're just going to get sucked into a hole.

For example, one moron I dealt with on a schizoids forum insisted that all of the women everywhere he went were secretly plotting against him and trying to "assert their sexual dominance" over him. In reality, I doubt most women even knew he was alive, but, in his mind, he couldn't handle the thought that he's NOT important enough for everyone to notice him and care about him in some capacity. Even being hated is better than being ignored.

My point: most of the men here don't fall into the MN category, although a few probably do.

Last edited by XFilesGeek on 09 Oct 2011, 3:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oddly enough, I had typed up a long post along similar lines with the same conclusion, but deleted it. I would only add that it seems a bit redundant to call in malignant narcissism . Is there benign narcissism? On whole, though, I agree with you.

I think the "malignant" part is meant to distinguish it from the idea of "normal" human selfishness, and, from what I read, there's a "spectrum" of narcissism, pretty much like there is for autism. But I get your point.

I disagree, that would imply that anyone who is not good at courtship will inevitably end up alone with no way of being able to effectively offset this imbalance themselves except to rely on fate and pot-luck. I believe there are social skills, dating skills, relationship skills and yes, sex skills, that are there to be worked on, if one desires to do so. I desire to do so, and if I were of an insecure standpoint as to my desire to learn about these things, I would take offense to being labeled a "world-class, Olympic-qualifying-standard, ocean-going tool". Luckily I don't care, and you reserve every right to voice such an opinion

I am beginning to understand why there is so much hate for PUA, even among the alleged gurus I listen to. Was listening to a David Wygmant interview with Carlos Xuma in which they both denied having anything to do with the PUA community, and they are the two people I really listen to with regards to their dating concepts. I read other PUA literature, but not religiously, more curiously.

I don't wish to offend anyone, but the only reason I defend PUA here, is simply because when it comes to the subtle nuances involved in "courtship", most of the alternative advice/literature given is......well, unsatisfactory IMO.

The acquisition of the skills you detail seem to be best absorbed by observation and osmosis rather than codification.

The central conceit of "The Game" and tomes of its sort I find particularly distasteful is that it implies all males and all females are the same and will react in the same way.

Surely you'd recognise this to be an issue? v

I wouldn't know because I haven't read it. I do tend to agree that everybody is certainly very different and unique in experience and taste, but these differences are not so incredibly vast that most people don't respond to certain qualities that most would deem attractive. I do a lot of observation yes, but the osmosis required never works for me courtship-wise for 2 reasons:

1) I rarely get to observe men who are actually skilled in dating and know what they are doing, much of the time, it is pot-luck (especially if they happen to be good looking).

2) The rare time I do meet someone who is skilled in this area, I never often nailed down the behaviour traits simply as I found I was imitating it rather than cultivating it.

Thus, reading e-books such as Magic Bullets, Secrets of an Alpha Man and Seduction Method, was an easier way of adopting some pretty general skills that I had not yet picked up from other men. That is where my osmosis is coming from generally.

And with regards to observation, the only thing that works in that area is that I often learn what NOT to do when it comes to women

A mainline narcissist seeks to have other validate him as a white knight, beautiful, powerful, brilliant, etc. no matter how unrealistic those attributions are. But, they are generally harmless, often downright pathetic people who have a more deluded quality than anything dangerous. A malignant narcissist is a narcissist who will do overly negative or even dangerous things.

A way to think of it is Kim Kardashian is a mainline narcissist while Kim Jong-Il is a malignant narcissist.

I've met both.

Most of the PUA woman-hater types fall into the "malignant" category, IMHO.

Try reading this book.

The Art Of Seduction is a book by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers which, while examining social power much like their book The 48 Laws of Power, does so through the lens of seduction.