have you ever been a target of a PUA (pick-up artist)?

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there has been a lot of talk of pick-up artists and the PUA craft on this board recently, so i thought i would start a thread where people could share their experiences if they had ever been a target. i have been a target of a PUA before, and it had a big effect on me. maybe not every target had a bad experience, but i'd like to hear other people's perspectives so we can talk about it.

i hope you will share your experience too, as much as you are comfortable with.

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background:

this was 20 years ago. my future husband (let's call him H) and i had broken up but were still friends and we were open to dating other people. please note i have always supported the idea of casual sex between willing partners when there is clear communication of intent. also note that i was quite experienced in love and sex when this happened.

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situation:

i was 19 years old, at a karaoke bar with H and some of his coworkers and friends. he left early with some friends as he tended to get drunk fairly fast. i was drinking slowly and was still just tipsy, so i stayed behind. after a short while most of the other people left, but this one guy stayed back (let's call him P). we got talking and i sort of knew OF him - he worked with my H and my dad was best friends with his uncle in school. this gave him and easy "in", apparently.

P wore a cravat and a fedora, but i went to an art high school so those kind of fashions seemed cool. he spent a couple of hours making me feel like the world revolved around me, yet also somehow making me feel like he was better than me so i had to work to get his affection. i can't explain how he was able to simultaneously create that effect.

once we got really talking, P asked me to dance even though there was no dance floor. we danced in between the tables like nobody else was there. he sang softly in my ear and acted like a real gentleman. we had such a strong connection from the get-go, i felt almost like it was destiny for us to be together.

i have absolutely no memory of how P convinced me to take him home, and i don't remember too much after that (not a complete blank, just spotty because i was drunk. and anyways this is the L&D forum, not the Adult forum). i do remember afterwards giving him my phone number and asking him to call me. and he didn't.

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aftermath

it took a few days to understand what happened. at first, i tracked down P's phone number and called him. he made the mistake of targeting someone with mutual contacts, which probably doesn't happen often. i cried and explained my feelings to him, wanting desperately to know why he didn't call. i asked him, didn't he feel the connection? NO. didn't he care about me? NO. didn't he want more? NO.

something inside me sort of broke a little bit, at that point. i realized how stupid i had been, and how naive i really was. clearly i was dumb and easily manipulated and a worthless piece of ass to be tossed aside. i felt ashamed, and still feel ashamed, and i have NEVER told anyone about this except for H, until now.

i started to see men as cold manipulators by default, until they proved me otherwise. i became somewhat bitter and angry and dark about love and sex for a while afterward. i thought i had no value at all.

i told H what happened, and he comforted me as best he could. his actions helped me to remember that men are not universally evil, and over time i did trust men again. by chance H ran into P a few days later and confronted him. he told him what an a**hole he is and even pushed him. P did not understand why H was so angry with him as he didn't see his actions as harmful (or he didn't care), and i was a willing participant.

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addendum

today i asked H what he remembered about the situation, and he told me that P used to brag at work about having power over people. H couldn't remember the exact terminology, but he thinks P called it some kind of special magic. P said he was a master at influencing people, but to someone like my husband who could see through it, that claim was laughable. but to someone like me... i fell for it.

No, only a target for bullies and thugs.

I have. The dude was seriously confused when I didn't fall for it. haha

i would argue that a PUA is a bully.

and i've experienced thugs, for the record. had a gun in my face for the $10 in my cash register at a convenience store... among other situations. but it's not the point of this thread, and experiences like this can hurt. even if being a target of a PUA may seem inconsequential compared to other things, i'd say my internal pain was about the same.

Last edited by hyperlexian on 05 Jun 2011, 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

well, what made it obvious to you? is there some knowledge you can offer to other people from this experience?

I'm well versed on manipulation tactics thanks to my manipulative family. Plus, he just sounded like a child.

did he use any of the known PUA techniques to make it obvious?

Not that I can recall. My memory is bad. I just know he tried to make me feel bad about myself and then build himself up to be the only guy that could make it better.

Men have frequently attempted to charm me with their fake stories and BS, but I never fall for it.

For one thing, I detest being flirted with and having them do it makes me want to flee no matter how "smooth" they seem to others.

For another thing, I am hyper-critical in my thinking and analyze everything logically before responding to it emotionally. For this reason I am also very difficult to sell to or convince of anything. I will pick it all apart logically, defying the emotional components.

Finally, my crazy family is hyper-manipulative, and after this long exposure I have seen every trick there is and long since grown immune.

i wonder if that "helps" some people to have a manipulative family already? it didn't "help" me - i didn't really learn to spot manipulation until a couple of years ago, with massive amounts of therapy. i guess that maybe i always believed that people's intentions were good, because MY intentions were good.

i couldn't really fathom a person being that self-serving or narcissistic, in spite of my own family being that way. i guess i refused to believe it in a way. even as an adult i got myself into all kinds of bad situations after believing lies and trusting the wrong people.

If I have, I probably missed it. I can't flirt for the same reason.

I had a lot of therapy growing up. It may have contributed to my awareness of manipulation.

I know how to do this, but I won't do most of it since it's against my conscience.

I can explain most of it, if you want to hear it.

well, if you frame it in the context of what women (or men) should watch out for, that would actually be really helpful.

how would you know they were a PUA, do you mean if they didnt stick around afterward? Some of the PUAs like long term relationships (Mystery and Straus) so not sticking around wouldnt tell if it was one. Surely if they have manipulated you, you just think 'wow he is lovely, I want him', I cant see how anyone could tell?

Only if they were a bad PUA would you tell as then you would see through the techniques but surely you would not see if they were as effective as they make out?

Ive dated jerks but I dont know if they were PUAs, I think people can be manipulative jerks without being PUA, after all thats why there is a diagnosis of sociopathy.

I know how to do it too, but I never have. I've explained it before, and all I get is a bunch of grief, because I sound like one of those evil NTs. I've also been a target before (it should be noted that the technique is the same, whether the goal is sex or some form of financial support or a free chauffeur) but like the other members here, I've seen every trick there is, and I also have learned how to string them along so I can either learn more or fight back. When you manipulate them right back, they leave you alone FOREVER, because you have gotten their goat. Their invincibility is no longer there, just like knocking out the bully on the playground.