I am not suggesting that this man was necessarily using the techniques we are discussing in this thread, however it never ceases to amaze me the lengths some men will go to, in order to trick women in to having sex.

Check this out.

[www.westerntelegraph.co.uk]


It's also a rather damning confirmation about the decline of the British education system!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2009 02:30AM by sparrow.

I was watching "Dragons Den" on BBC2 the other night and was amazed to see the pickup artist Richard La Ruina (Gambler) pitching the Dragons for money to expand his pickup empire! He admitted to annual revenues of £540K ! This just illustrates what a money spinner this type of training is. He is the founder of PUA Training which offers courses of the type allready mentioned in this thread: [www.puatraining.com]

Those in the UK can watch this episode of Dragons Den on BBC Iplayer (series 7 episode 4)

The Dragons did not think it was sething they wanted to invest in!

More insights from The Last Psychiatrist

Here it is--anyone who looks at dating and relationships as strategy is already set up for misery, even if fleetingly, their seduction routines provide fleeting success. The strategic mindset is bleakness, spiced with .

Quote

Consider the "pick up women" books and courses.

He looked at dating as a strategy; he needed to learn the tricks. But he has reasonably good self-insight, so what do you think he would think if the tricks worked? If he succeeded in "getting" a girl, he'd immediately diminish her as inferior: "I had to trick her to get her." He wrote:

He exudes confidence People believe bull shit if delivered WITH CONFIDENCE. Get it??
He thinks the confidence is a trick, not something real. And the words one says to get girls, ahead, etc, are bullshit.

[thelastpsychiatrist.com]

See?

The poor guys who pay money for these pick up courses are not gonna get any lasting satisfaction, either--and thats in addition to how used their 'marks' will feel.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2009 01:58AM by corboy.

The strategic mindset is bleakness, spiced with .

I am quite desperate now to know what it is spiced with. :-)

It is bleakness spiced with adrenaline.

My time ran out at the library computer terminal before I could finish the sentence.

Thanks for that. That is an interesting article. I agree. If a person has to essentially fake a persona or use a routine to succeed with women it is firstly reenforcing the idea that the "real" you is not good enough and thus deepens lack of self esteem, it then fosters contempt for the women who fell for something "fake". Not a healthy combination of traits.

It's interesting that Neil Strauss mentions in his book "The Game" a guy who transforms himself with these techniques and meets an attractive woman who he marries. Later they get divorced because essentially this guy is not the fake persona and cannot sustain the lie. Also the "true" him is not really satisfied by the woman who was attracted by the fake persona. The result was indeed dissatisfaction and unhappiness. At great expense to all concerned.

Sparrow> interesting observation about the 'fruits' of Neil Strauss' fake personae. In pickup it always felt like I was trying to BS my way through life because I was worthless on the inside.

I studied seduction for 2 years and it never worked (Ha ha!). I kept sinking deeper into depression and was getting more and more paranoid and more afraid to even be around, let alone talk to women. Then I found a link to the Sedona Method (currently unpopular on these forums :) on a pickup forum. It claimed to let you release any unwanted thought, feeling or belief. I thought that would help get me laid, and for whatever reason I did. But it still wasn't enough and now I'm in recovery for sex addiction, you see.

Thanks for filling me in, Corboy, and I found The Last Psychiatrist's take on this highly interesting also.

I know we all learn best from our mistakes and I applaud disconnect's honesty in his post but I conclude that the lesson to be had from all of this is that, if we can, we are better served by accepting ourselves with all our foibles if we want a shot at genuine self-respect.
(Self-esteem is a concept I have never been able to pin down or otherwise satisfactorily define.)

The frantic efforts to become someone else, someone 'better at life' always seem to backfire if not utterly confuse and undermine whatever shaky sense of identity we already have.
Because I have had such problems trying to get to grips with this whole 'identity' issue, I have found that making a clear division for myself between my behaviour, which I can change, and who I am, which is nebulous and ultimately not definable, goes a good way to eliminating the problem of accepting my own limitations. If I can accept myself as as a valid person who can't speak Serbo Croat because I have never learned, I can also accept myself as a valid person who is less than socially confident with the opposite sex because I have yet to build that confidence.
True confidence only comes with slow and steady learning, no book or course or PUA seminar can teach it.

It's quite sad that so many men are sold the idea that they have to use these fraudulent techniques just to relate to another person. I think if these men tried to relate to women as just other persons first and female second, they might be surprised at their improved results. Any result they got would also be genuine and not require immense financial outlay and an obsession with performance and 'hit-rate'

Hi Disconnect. Thank you for sharing that. In principle I wouldn't object to men, who don't know allready, learning to dress a bit better, improve personal hygeine, body language etc and gain the confidence to go up to a woman and say "Hi" and begin a friendly conversation.

What I don't like is the use of NLP, Hypnosis, Psychology etc to seduce the woman, using very underhand "persuasion" techniques. I also hate the way these same techniques are used to sell expensive courses to needy vulnerable young men.

I met a string of guys who were basically social missfits who had often been bullied for years at school and had usually been very socially unsucessful. These guys really needed some caring, ethical, professional therapy about a whole range of issues. What these guys didn't need was some unqualified grinning Svengali PUA trying to push them in to social situations at great expense "bootcamp" style. They also didn't need these PUAs attempting "therapy" with some powerful but potentially dangerous techniques. I remember one guy who preached the use of Vipassana as the ultimate technique for
overcoming approach anxiety! He even claimed to be a Buddhist.
The use of a Buddhist technique to help better turn himself in to a sexual predator bedding a different woman every night! The irony seemed lost on him. So much for non attachment!

It's interesting that Neil Strauss' transformation (which I think was rather exagerated in the book) was largely down to the extensive therapeutic work he did with a guy called "Hypnotica" interestingly this is only touched on in the book and is completely missing from the courses being pushed on the vulnerable punters.

I think as you say, if anything being involved in the PUA community is more likely to damage people further, rather than "cure" them.

Interesting comments Stoic. I agree that the route to all true healing is total honest self awareness and self acceptance (which is not to say we can't change if we want to)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2009 11:58PM by sparrow.

Sparrow,

If you'll forgive me, I can't help but feel badly for people who get caught up thinking the kinds of thoughts you've expressed here. It's a kind of do-gooder mentality which, in my experience, is usually a cover in it's own right. In other words, it goes around pointing the finger at all of these "evil-do'ers" but not without real love, consideration and understanding of people.... but because it builds a kind of power in its own right -- a power from self-righteousness.

Before this "speed seduction" stuff ever hit any kind of radar, I was naturally using similar techniques without even knowing it. Women would get a glazed over look on their faces and their eyes would seem to be asking me for more. I was a bit conflicted by it, naturally, because one part of me enjoyed it and saw that the women enjoyed it, too; while another part of me felt there was something wrong about it -- that it felt manipulative.

So, I asked a trusted mentor, "Doesn't everybody lie, in a sense, when they go out looking to meet someone? After all, they dress in ways they don't normally dress. Wear colognes to be attractive that they don't normally wear around the house. They never come out, immediately, and offer up information like, 'oh, by the way, im a recovering alcoholic with 17 children to 10 different women'.... so, aren't most people, generally, lying when they're trying to hook up with somebody? Aren't we all, basically, trying to sell an image of ourselves?"

His reply, as usual, was unique, and food for thought...

He said, "Well, in most cases, there's 2 kinds of result of which you want to be aware: first, when you seduce the person, they have a great time and are very interested in another visit/experience; the second, they go along with you because the seduction is still very persuasive but they're not really excited about it, and, when all is said and done, they don't want another go-around."

In other words, people can be seduced past a potential bevy of irrational fears from, perhaps, past unpleasant experiences, movies/tv soaps, etc.... into having a very pleasant experience. While the kind of PUA you describe is like putting a very powerful set of tools into the hands of people with undeveloped, or sleeping, conscience.

So, not all seduction is bad... and not all people who use said techniques are doing so with evil intent, or without proficiency. When a very good looking girl, a little impressed with her own looks, sits down next to me and I tell her that her nails still look good even though I can tell they are fake (called a "neghit"), I'm just, as they would say, "puncturing the bitch shield." One doesn't have to take all these things from the juvenile, or disgruntled, mindset.... but such terms, and actions, reflect psychological states that do exist and how to use them to your advantage before the sociopathic biker dude with 50 tats and piercings gets to her far less skillfully and damages her for the rest of her life.

Lastly, for what it's worth, I really don't like the commercialization of such wisdom. It IS wisdom in it's original form. When it gets packaged and sold, it reaches people who respond to it like it was crack cocaine and, from the very first moment, they are hooked for life.

Cheers,
S.O.B. (Side of Bacon)