He Got Game

So I've been flicking through The Game in my break between classes on Thursdays. It's an interesting book with some rather obvious observations in the second half of it that make it kind of hard to evaluate overall.

First, the whole PUA (pick-up artist, if you don't know) thing, or lifestyle, if you prefer. Is it wrong? As long as you (or said PUA) are honest about your intentions, I don't see how it can be. Yes, people will probably be hurt sometimes (he mentions a couple cases where that happens), but for the most part, it should be fine. To me, there's a certain attractiveness to the concept that an AFC (average fucking chump) can turn himself into a full-fledged PUA, can rise above whatever confidence issues he has and find things that will help him make himself more desirable to whoever he wants. I suppose it fits into my general ethos that self-improvement is possible, or at least pursuable. Stef called me a "fixer" once, in that I want to "fix" what I perceive to be wrong with me, and to a certain extent that's true, but I also think there are aspects of your personality that are worth hanging on to. The majority of personality traits have both negative and positive aspects to them, so you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss tendencies you might have. But that's another post, back to the book.

So next, Strauss comes to the first obvious observation: a hundred pages or so into the book, after he's gone off and become one of the acknowledged masters in the field, he notes (and I paraphrase) that the more he engaged in the game and the better he became at it, the more the women he pursued became objectified: instead of Stacie, Kelly and Brenda he thinks of the 9 from Miami, the 8 from LA and the 10 from New York. The game itself, and his performance, become the thrill.

Wow, didn't see that one coming.

It's inevitable, really: any time you spend so much effort in the pursuit of something it will become objectified in your mind. If it's already an object, then no worries. But with women, if you're teaching yourself how to access triggers, how to open conversations with any of them, how to make any woman you want like you back, then of course you have to objectify them; you have to reduce them to a set of predetermined responses to gambits that you will attempt over and over until you find the ones that work for that specific individual. If A then B, if C then B, but if D then E and you get to make out with her, get her number and sleep with her.

This is about where I got bored with the book, so I jumped to the end. I guess the little PUA communal house they'd established gets demolished (figuratively, of course) by younger, up-and-coming PUAs - plus Strauss meets "the one." The book ends with him coming to the "realization" (since I believe he does seminars on being a PUA to pay the bills) that The Game is all about superficiality, when really all the answers he needed and wanted were inside of himself; that when he found that one girl, all his tricks and routines went out the window and all he could be was himself, so he leaves the community to pursue a relationship with his chick.

Well, la-di-fucking-da, and isn't that all neat and tidy.

So learning the game gives you confidence to approach women you wouldn't have approached otherwise, and to attract women who might be way more attractive than you are. But aside from that, for long-term happiness, you're stuck with being yourself. It's the same Hollywood crap spouted in every romantic comedy about the player who sees the error of his ways when faced with emotional solitude for the rest of his life, and "settles down," never to stray again. Not to say that it doesn't happen, but emotional epiphanies certainly don't happen to all of them - look at Hugh Hefner. I also think it's kind of funny (though understandable) that relatively little is ever mentioned about how good PUAs are or should be in bed (though it is touched on in the book). I mean, wouldn't it be funny as hell if some guy could get any girl to sleep with him, but he was the worst lover in the world?

Anyways, I've been reading over here about nights out with PUAs and such for a while now, and I guess the biggest thing about them is they're fun to hang out with, and I'm sure they are, but again, why the emphasis on the superficiality? What's so hard or undesirable about going out and being yourself, sitting and having a real conversation with someone? Are people that uninteresting these days?

Actually, I can answer that, most of them are. Heh.