“….seduction is a dark art. Its secrets come with a price and we were all paying it, whether in sanity, school, work, time, money, health, morality, or loss of self.”
-Neil Strauss
Hey boys, Sarah Ann, your friendly neighborhood wing girl and part-time model, here! Even before I was a wing girl and dated one of the ABCs of Attraction’s PUA instructors (yes, I knew what he did for a living before we even started dating), everyone told me,
“Sarah Ann, you just HAVE to read the bible for the entire Seduction and Pick Up Arts Community (you can read the second part of my review of Neil Strauss’ “The Game” here)!”
Considering what I’ve read from “The Game” and everything that I knew about the community beforehand, I’d like to think that the ABCs of Attraction is a fairly ethical company with pretty “normal” (albeit interesting, flavorful and occasionally intense) people especially now that I’ve finished reading the book and have something to compare them to.
I was surprised after reading “The Game” just how normal in comparison “my ABCs boys” (I’ve come to think of both our students and the instructors as “my boys”) actually are.
I think what makes a good pick up artist- or in this case I shall call them dating coaches- is the ability to relate to students. If a coach can’t recall the beginners hell they experienced then they are no help to their students.
I’ve met coaches that seem to be on another planet and lack the ability to have NORMAL, much less HEALTHY, human interaction. The Asian Playboy (just JT to all of his friends) has some of the most horrific beginners hell stories I’ve ever heard and he’s not afraid to admit it or talk about it over and over again. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you probably are THAT type of creepy robot PUA coach.
It’s all about maintaining yourself in all of this and not losing touch with the rest of the world.
It sounds heavy, but until you actually encounter weird PUA community guys (which is one of the few negative things I’ve encountered now that I run with the ABCs crew as a wing girl) , you won’t really know what I mean.
Anyways, on to my book review: “The Game” by Neil Strauss is a concise and clear account of the beginnings of pick up as it is known today, while still being a brutally honest account of an Average Joe turning into the guy everyone wants to know.
This book was nothing like I expected.
I mean, I knew it was the holy grail of pickup with its black leather cover and gold leaf pages. It’s a resource that every respectable PUA reads, pretends they have read, or are in denial about having read. This is not a mere instructional how-to book but rather an autobiography of Neil Strauss’s first years as a pick up artist and the rise of this “secret” community. After I closed the last chapter, my outlook on the community as a whole had changed….for the better!
A word to the wise: When I waltzed into Barnes and Noble to pick up my copy of “The Game”, I went to the self-help section. It seemed like that would be the most likely place to keep it. About ten minutes later I still hadn’t located it so I had to ask the elderly clerk if they had any copies. She immediately told me they keep it up at the register (obviously I’m not the only one to ask). A little embarrassed, I walked up and asked for a copy. The girl there got it for me and I asked why they kept it in lock-down. She said that guys are really embarrassed to buy it so they were just stealing it.
A thought occurred to me, wouldn’t it be more humiliating to be caught stealing The Game?
I’d like to think the entirety of “The Game” is true, but as with any autobiographical work, I’m sure some details have been altered, conversations modified, and facts might be a little hazy. Ultimately though, Neil Strauss has managed to put humanity into pick up. His argument is that pick up, at it’s bare base level, is just a couple of guys that want to be able to communicate with women…and maybe sleep with a few along the way.
I commend him for his brutal honesty and sharing in his successes and in some cases major, embarrassing failures.
His account was extremely detailed, awkward, and painful but he seems to have left nothing out. From a beginner’s standpoint, I think this book is a necessary read. Many men (and boys) get into pickup for the wrong reasons or to use it more as a weapon. The Game offers insight into how best to use this skill set for good. Additionally, I think women can benefit from reading this book, but it would be for the disadvantage of the male gender if they did.
A lot of what Neil Strauss has to say deals with the psychological. If women and men understood where the other was coming from, it would resolve a lot of drama.