[rdtwo]

Read “ The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists”. It’s ultimately a work of fiction but there are some mind fuck ideas and perspective shifts there that are worth toying around with as a young man and searching for your own balance between his ideas and your vision of yourself.

[mettamage]

In this regard, my favorite is to read about direct game [1], how to touch people when conversing (on the shoulders and arms etc.), learning how to dance bachata [2] and doing meditation. Trying to figure this out when traveling was even more awesome. I'm not 18 anymore for a long time, but before I got onto a bunch of long-term relationships (3 years or more), this was my final style. Relationships seem to be a very different beast.

[1] Last time I checked "60 years of challenge" seemed to have a good philosophy on this style

[2] Not salsa, bachata is more intimate and teaches you a thing or two

[drakonka]

I spent a bit of time in the PU community after reading The Game. Many of these places were just toxic: focused on lying to women out of desperation to get sex. Everything from "white lies" about some exciting adventure you had to make you seem like a more interesting person to lying about your intentions, to putting women in very uncomfortable physical situations on purpose.

Some were better. Most of the people who joined these communities had a similar pattern in the beginning: men who felt they can't communicate with women or who aren't conventionally attractive learn some canned openers based on stuff they read in The Game, memorize a bunch of "techniques", and basically fake it through "outer game".

After a while, I noticed there were usually two paths they took:

Path One was people who remained stuck in this "outer game" phase where they wear weird stuff to peacock and stand out (a la Mystery), regurgitate a bunch of lines, try to time their "negs" just right. Most of them burned out and/or grew resentful towards women from repeated rejection because the techniques are actually pretty cringe. Sometimes they became very vocal in these forums about how women just want to use them, or how shallow women are, or how much meaningless sex they're having (most of them weren't).

Path Two was people who realized that instead of trying to fake being an interesting and attractive person, they might actually want to become an interesting and attractive person. They evolved to focusing on "inner game". They got a tiny foothold in just approaching women a lot and learned that rejection wasn't the end of the world, and then used that realization to grow as a person, have new legitimately interesting adventures, learn how to groom themselves, and generally just have something interesting that _actually happened_ and _didn't need to be exaggerated_ to have a conversation about. Instead of having to strategize how to bring a woman they're talking to down a notch to make themselves seem "higher value", they actually became "higher value" by improving themselves, and attracting more interesting people while they're at it. There was no incentive for them to lie to women about their experiences or intentions (by omission or otherwise). They could be honest about what they wanted out of life and know that there are plenty of people to meet who are genuinely up for that, too.

I still have a couple of friends who were into that scene, ones who broke out onto Path Two and seem to be doing very well for themselves both in business and relationships. The other ones are long forgotten.

[rdtwo]

Path number one is a dead end. I had a theory that the techniques might work when you are really young 14-18 before most folks develop a strong identity but anyone that got stuck on path #1 ultimately ended in a dead end. Path #2 is full of self help gurus that in my day were essentially lesser failed incantations of Joe Rogan. They give you a nugget of wisdom and a mountain of bullshit to wade through. You will get there eventually but also lots of dead ends and bad advice. It is the correct path though just no direct path to finding yourself and making yourself an interesting confident and complete person

[muzani]

This is a fun experiment for a single 18 year old.

[rdtwo]

Yeah ultimately the caveat is that it’s not a book that provides a working formula but one presents the idea that generally most folks can find a working formula if they practice and push themselves. There are unfortunately a some harmful ideas that come from i think the authors desire to make a entertaining read as well as sell to the target audience that come with this book that are worth watching out for.