Calling you out for a strawman is a weak comeback? Usually when someone makes a broader point about a more indepth topic like the self/ego, you're usually going to get mocked when your comeback is:

Which I never said, I just said it appealed to nerds, which is linked to the whole paradox I was talking about in my first post (the only people who could use this stuff don't need PUA etc). You're not doing very well so far.

PUA apparantly doesn't teach people how to give robust arguments supporting their view!

Well, that's not really PUA, I mean, it stands for 'Pick Up Artist', ie treating dating and ****ing women like its a business sales maneuver. Like I said, why not read a sales book, they have great tips on people interaction and the information is probably applicable to more life scenarios.

Conventional psychology says stroking the ego with shallow behavior can turn problematic. You're right, there's nothing wrong with the quick and dirty ego stroke and validation, but this is an observation of PUA people, they seem to make it their life to receive this validation, and everything they do is centered around this pursuit. I mean, what do you do when you're married? Old?

Don't get me wrong, plenty of 'non-nerds' read these types of books. I had a good friend who was very into this stuff, as a fun side thing, and he wasn't a nerd and was a pretty interesting guy to hang around with. My problem is more it looks like a fix to a problem in some people who probably need a better solution. Removing self esteem and confidence issues aren't as easy as picking up a blonde girl at a bar. Victory within the self is an intense psychological battle, and large problems within ones ability to interact socially with the world I don't believe are solved by PUA books.

So in short, I'm not against PUA books per say, but if thats the only thing you read and what you center your life around, lets just say the 95% of you guys stick out like a sore thumb, and the rest of us normal people roll our eyes at you. Not only that, living a more balanced life will probably allow me to steal that blonde girl at the party whom you used 5 different gimmicks on, because in the end, a deep understanding of social dynamics is a far bigger trump card than anything those books will teach you.

This is sort of like thanking pocketfives because it allowed you to discover 2p2, I mean I guess so, but I'd prefer to read the staples in philosophy/psychology first and work my way from there

My two books that did it for me: The Moral Animal and Sperm Wars. I'm finding it hard to believe that any PUA book can give you more confidence than just reading those two and realising it all doesn't matter!

You need this PUA stuff to get chicks in Asia? Really?!?

One of the biggest problems with PUA to me is that the "goal posts" are constantly in a state of flux. This prevents most people from looking at it in an obejctive manner:

Goal: Get laid. If not, at least you got a date! If not, at least you got a number! If not, at least you talked to her for 5 minutes! If not, at least you talked to her! If not, at least you smiled at her!

This is the kind of thing that makes it almost seem like a cult, as Henry said.

Lol, not for the average chicks no.

I moved here about a year ago, business, and before that I was in Europe.

Try reading what I wrote, instead of singling out one phrase.
It should be bloody obvious to people that me being Caucasian gives me a huge edge here.

Other than that, I interacted with some local models here, and you can be damned sure that being a Caucasian then only gives you an advantage over the local Asians, but this place is crawling with expats, so yeah, there it comes in handy again.

And if you have read my arguments, you know I totally agree with you here, I just used different wordings.
However, these books are able to put you on the right path, if you take them seriously. But that is where we have a difference of opinion.

A bit weird considering I know the contents of these books, and I am willing to go out on a limb here and say you do not.

How on earth can you have an opinion about something when you never took the time to actually read it?

This just seems off to me.

He just made a joke, relax dude. Didn't PUA teach you not to be highly strung?

Sperm Wars is a great book as well, correct, I don't know The Moral Animal though.

And you are probably spot on that no PUA book can be a substitute for the 4 books mentioned in this thread. But I would say the power lies in the combination of the PUA-belief system (or at least, what it is for *me*) and mentioned books.

I treat and treated the whole PUA thing like a loose thread in a sweater. You start pulling, and what lies below the surface reveals itself, but you only see a small picture. Enough to have some success, but you are far from where you, imho, should be.

Then, when you keep on pulling, more and more of this "treasure" that lies underneath will reveal itself. You are getting closer to the end goal, imho.

Then, when you finally are at the end of the thread, and the whole treasure has been exposed, you realize that you don't need the treasure anyway, because you know have integrated the exposed wisdom (if you will) into your personality along the line anyway.

Most people get stuck in the first phase. No argument there.

Lol, I am far from highly strung, but thanks for your concern.

And yes, I do taste the disdain and mockery of your words.

You have your mind made up so it seems.

All well.

Funny, but the build-up is actually the other way around. This is why it is called a build-up, not a build-down. This for people who begin with PUA.

I am quite experienced, but you think I ever deluded myself in thinking I am able to bed any woman I want? Lol, PUA's who believe that are either social geniuses, or full of ****.

But I sure as hell am going to find out about her, by approaching her and talking to her, and just being friendly and relaxed.

This is where it all leads to, to be able to talk to very hot women, but not only that, basically to anybody, without your heartrate going up like crazy and your face flushing.

Because in the end, you know that only your opinion about yourself counts. And as much as people wanna tell me this also applies to them, I have seen only very few people who possess this attitude naturally.

So the outcome does not matter to you anymore, and this is very attractive of course.

My beef with this whole discussion, how on earth can I respect the opinion of the discussion partners if their perception of PUA and their practitioners is based upon hearsay, the odd PDF they skimmed through and whatnot.

I mentioned this before, and it just strikes me as odd that nobody reacts on this.

Alamo, I think you've gotten better than PUA type thinkers, and have discovered more about what a PUA book/forum could never teach you. But if you let your thankfulness get in the way of seeing the truth about why cult style PUA is sub optimal for social development. Learn to see its flaws and get around the constant romanticising you're giving it.

Arturius, I am not romanticizing anything, and I surely have an allergy for black/white thinking, as life is just shades of grey.

The whole Tyler Durden cult thing, the whole Mystery whacko thing, it just is not what the community represents for me.

I am grateful for discovering the community, but by no means am I blind to the misogyny, the retards that all shaved their heads and wanted to look like Style (I mean wtf is that?), the borderline personality of Mystery, the inner anger of Ross Jeffries, or the major, major, major creepiness of Tyler Durden.

But these are the people that, to people that are the outsiders, represent the PUA-community.

I guess nobody of you, except maybe MsSlick, and other practitioners in this thread that I am not aware of yet, have heard of Franco. Now, if I ever met a highly intelligent, cool and friendly mofo, it is him.

But he has no need to seek the validation that so many many others in the community need (independent of their level of "greatness") because he has got his inner game down. He does not need the constant adulation of others to feel good about himself.

And *that* is the single greatest problem of the community. But then again, every group of people gets the leaders it deserves, so yeah, I am willing to entertain that thought.

And Franco runs rings around most of the self-proclaimed guru's by the way.

I think this thread is pretty fully of sweeping generalizations on both sides.


I think that a lot of the PUA things ARE marketed towards the suckers. It's really the same as poker though. If you're buying a poker book and you just buy every book out there then you're going to end up with some good books:



But you'll also end up buying this as well:






One is obviously made to help poker players, and one is obviously full of a bunch of stupid crap because the author thought it would sell well. Someone tell me that going to Phil Gordon's camp or whatever is a +ev move and worth the money. Well in that same way going to a PUA camp is pretty dumb, and both of these camps are aimed at the same people: those stupid enough to spend lots of money on something that won't help them much.


Also if you go to a website it'll be much like 2p2. You'll get some good advice and you'll get some bad advice. If you judged all of the posters based on only one poster... well you could say that 2p2 is full of the best players ever, or the worst.

PUA teaches a lot of positive and negative things imo. There's a lot of misinformation because it's such a market now, but there's also a lot of good, helpful information out there. It's especially helpful if people just need the motivation to get out there and try.

Alamo also claims that I'm wrong here but I'm not. Confidence cannot be taught. Confidence is a feeling. Feelings cannot be taught. Now there are situations where people can be tricked into a delusional fake confidence -- sit though any MLM pep talk and you'll see this -- but that isn't confidence. It can still be of benefit if the individual goes out and while in this frenzy actually has some success that then will build confidence but that is different.


Of course I agree that there are things a guy can do that will make him more attractive to women. What I disagree with is that there are any universal triggers. What a guy should do is very specific both to the type of girls he is perusing and also to the guy. Unless we are talking about very generic things like be funny, be interesting etc. When it comes to the specifics of how to be funny or interesting that is very audience and agent specific. Unless there is PUA material for picking up club girls, PUA material for picking up vegan hippie chicks, PUA material for girls who are fans of SATC, etc. I can't see this as being effective.

I divide my time between three Canadian cities and how to talk to a girl is different in each of them. In those cities what club/bar I'm at further changes things. It is really hard for me to accept that there is some universal trigger -- especially since if there was supporters of PUA would be talking about more concrete examples than they have so far.

That is not true outside of portrayals of the attractive in popular media. In the real world there is actually very little correlation between personality and physical attractiveness.

I'm in my mid-30s and live in Canada and it is not an issue. My current GF is nine years younger than me. The previous four GFs were all 21-22. With respect to casual dating when I was single I was very active and only one girl was over 25. My current GF is pretty amazing so I think I'm out of the game for good but if I was to be single again I wouldn't consider dating girls who were older than 25. I might go to 28 but I would never start a relationship or pursue someone who was in their 30s. I'm too superficial and age/time is too damaging on female physical beauty.

Poker books was an analogy I was thinking of as well but mostly because I disagree with poker books as a way to learn poker so I see it as similar to PUA material. I'm a strong believer that the only poker book someone needs (assuming they know the rules) is an introduction to finite mathematics textbook. That and some time thinking about the game. The rest has to be learned from experience.

That isn't to say poker books are useless as they do tell people how to play poker they just don't lead to an understanding of poker. It is similar to taking statistics for social science students in that they end up knowing how to calculate standard deviation but they don't really understand what a standard deviation is or why it is important. They just know that they are suppose to press these buttons on a calculator in these situations.

Hmm, well, let's meet halfway then, because I see your point here.
What about "confidence can not be taught, however, it can be taught how one should go about developing more confidence"?

I am with you here, you are simply talking about calibration.

However, qualities like for instance being a leader of men, being compassionate, protector of the weaker, possessing the will to take risks, being able to provide, and having a sense of humor, these are just qualities that are attractive to the female part of our species, and I cannot imagine you disagree with me on that.

You forgot to add "ïn my experience".

You present it as a cold fact, are you willing to entertain the thought that this is a subjective matter?

That is why I mentioned that I am a firm believer of this theory, and last time I checked, I was also living in this real world you mention.

You don't have to agree with me, but to simply imply that your experiences are to be regarded as fact and benchmark is way out there imo.

Other than that, you might be on the more favourable side of the spectrum of possibilities and experiences, and me a bit less.

Who is to know?