[gcl2]

You might have been inadvertently employing the "disarming" technique used by pick up artists. "The Game" is an amazing book detailing the techniques used by pick up artists (and no, it's just for people who want to pick up ladies but more generally about influencing people).

[badclient]

As someone who has met a few of the people from The Game, I can tell you it's mostly crapware with very little to learn from.

The basic flaw with The Game(and most of the games of the characters in it) is that they take this to such extreme that instead of becoming charming and attractive, you become a paranoid insecure jerk.

That said, The Game has helped motivate many to take action in a critical area of their life.

[Helianthus]

I always refer to it as a 'cargo cult' theory of human interaction

[skore]

I always wondered what bothered me about these 'The Game' approaches to "successfully influence people" and I think you really nailed it down.

OF COURSE people will find it easier to agree with you if they have agreed with you before - that should be obvious. The question is - what do you have to do to get that? 'The Game' seems to say - "well, anything that is necessary, of course", as though aping people into nodding was some kind of accomplishment and as though that accomplishment in itself was admirable and healthy.

I'd rather have people actually agree with me in small things that we both care about and then be happy to agree with me big time. If you need to bullshit, "warm up" or in some other ways mislead people (and yes, that includes "Weather is great, isn't it?" when you don't really care about the weather), you are building a pile of very tiny lies to make the jump to the big lie less noticeable. At some point, you will just cross the bullshit horizon, the point at which MOSTLY what you do is lie to and trick people - and have fun with your empty soul while you're at it.

It is indeed a cargo cult - you do achieve things with it, but then you sit there in your wooden mock-up flight control tower next to your empty dirt runway wearing your headphones made of straws and wonder why you never seem to actually be happy.

[temphn]

But it's not a cargo cult if it works, or even partially works.

[Radix]

It took me a second too. What the gp says is that the fake relationships are cargo too. The players are mistaking the thing for its description. Beautiful people are not beautiful relationships, and friendships built on lies and partial truths are trustless and empty.

[badclient]

Alright now, let's not oversimplify this. There are billion shades of gray in how truthful we are in our daily relationships. Most people hide stuff from those close to us on a daily basis. Does this render those relationships as fake or almost fake? I'd argue no.

Similarly, while some of the relationships formed from your pickup skills may be premised almost entirely on lies, that is not the norm. I'd actually say most relationships turn out to be much like normal relationships--and most certainly not a type where the other party is thinking you're a millionaire when in fact you are broke in reality.