Some of Ms. Slick's posts are making me think this is almost cult like.

I have a problem with the branding aspect. I can't really hear someone say "neg" without it reflecting negatively on them.

I'm trying to keep an open mind but there are three things that I keep coming back to. The first is that in any conversation I have had about PUA there was always at some level a presence of some misogyny. Some times it is blatant other times not so much but it is always there. Possibly this is because a lot of the people who claim to follow PUA principles get it wrong -- certainly there is plenty of examples of that with religion, philosophy, or any doctrine really.

The second is that of the people I know in real life that swear by PUA material all of them are tragically flawed people. Obviously I don't know any of you so I'm not saying this is true of anyone here but only that in the real world with the people I actually know there is almost a perfect correlation between being flawed and believing PUA is amazing.

The third is that I am still having problems deciding if PUA material is a set of scripts / routines or a set of principles from which to ad lib. It seems to flip back and forth between the two. If it is a set of scripts / routines which I believe to a large extent it is then it can't work. If it is a set of principles then I'd believe it would be helpful if someone would post them and preferably in plain english without any of the PUa specific language.

The difference between PUA and anything else is the specific intent to attract women. This is why it's not quite the same as reading a sales book, or just building general social skills, though there may be alot of overlaps.

If you want to replace PUA with "Attracting women" go right ahead.

How many books have you read on PUA?

This is a problem with empowering people in general.

Pretty irrelevant to the point there's nothing to talk about

PUA is essentially the study of attracting women. It is an incredibly large umbrella that includes a ridiculous amount of stuff, from "be confident" to "wear ridiculous outfits and spit scripted lines". It's a spectrum, and most people here are focusing on one particular portion of it.

Certainly some PUA's advocate following routines, but that's only because most guys don't have the skills to forego the routines. It's like training wheels.

At least that's how I see it. I suppose some people may mean Pick-up to be exclusively the art of seeking out random women and bedding them. IE cold approaching constantly. In the current day sense I think it's evolved far from that, but if that's the sole extent of "pickup" to alot of you then much of what I'm saying may be slightly tangent.

The Game and I've browsed Mystery Method.

I've started reading some PUA stuff, mostly a German forum.

And I agree with you - assuming you only know about the Mystery Method - that PUA is bull****.

But once you go beyond that, it is the same thing you do. They basicly teach you to step out of your comfort zone and practice.

I dont need all of that stuff, and most of it is really for nerds, who lack social skills completely.

I think everyone knows being confident is important. The problem is you can't just tell someone to be confident, you also can't teach someone to be confident.

What does that actually mean? Step out of your comfort zone and practise?

With the exception of the don't buy drinks and the palm reading everyone just keeps talking in very vague slogans. I find it very difficult to believe something works --ie there is a system -- that can't be explained in concrete terms or steps. It really seems to be that PUA material is about giving people who lack confidence the illusion that they now know something that will lead them to be successful -- this builds their confidence -- they have success and attribute it to the material when in reality it was their increased confidence.

I don't really want a semantics argument, but when I think of PUA, I think of trying to be a 'player'. And when I think of a player, I think of someone who will say anything, do anything, and sell out anything to get laid. Exaggeration, but you see what i'm getting at. I won't say anything to get laid, in fact, I frequently sabotage my own chances to get laid for entertainment.

I just think that following PUA cult is missing the point. I also find that most PUA 'students' suck so badly at it, its kind of like a losing poker player picking up a few books on tells and thinking thats the be all end all. Its avoiding the fact that you must learn who you are and how to express yourself with the communication tools given to us. You PUA guys aren't fun to hang out with, always talking about girls and all this bull**** identities you create to get laid, whatever happened to just getting a beer and experiencing the company of other people? Whatever happened to just talking to a random girl about a random topic, and when you really want to get laid, just lowering your standards till you find someone? Is it really worth 'selling out' just to try to sleep with hot women that ironically you still don't get to sleep with anyway?

I dont think it is bad to read about something you want to learn more about. Why do you have to be a natural born player, and if not, do you have to live your life this way and cant improve, because it might look goofy to other people?


2nd thing:
I completely agree that PUA absorbs a lot of the people who follow it (btw I am not really following it). I think a lot of them think of girls in terms of things, they dont value them.

But basicly what most people, who are successful with PUA do, is reading some (not a lot, because theory wont help you) and then go out and try it and get experience.

Arturius:
I think you got a complete wrong image of PUA. I used to think that way as well, but they are basicly what 2+2 is for poker. They go out, and if they make errors, they post it on the internet and seek help.

Yes, some were, some weren't, also, I never stated I was unsuccessful.
I had my share of success with the fairer sex, but somewhere along the line it dawned upon me I was doing something wrong, or something was off.


So this is what you base your opinion on? Ok...

False and false. One of my best buddies is a ladies magnet, it also happens he is damned good looking. So here I am, not as good looking as him, so I had the self-defeating attitude that I could never be on the level that he is. That does not mean I tried and learned a lot.
The thing with naturals is, they are so capable of dealing with women, that they are having a hard time to explain what they actually do that makes them successful.

For instance, my first language is dutch. My language seems to be very hard to learn. If a foreigner asks me what rule he or she should employ in order to conjugate verbs or construct sentences in a correct way, well, ehm, I would fail at explaining, because I never gave this any thought. It is just a natural process to me.
More about mimicking below.


And now you oversimplify. I hope you can appreciate there is a huge difference to being accepted in a social setting, group dynamics if you will, on one side, and seduction and dealing with women, with all it's subtleties and fine-line walking, of which a lot happens in private between a male and a female anyway.

One can mimick the big chunks and be attractive, this is what I did, but the difference between mimicking successful people and actually knowing what you are doing, is as big a difference as night and day.

Two whole different games imo.

You are totally right there, PUA is all about pick-up, but the dynamics change so much in a relationship, especially if you are living together with a girl.

Errr, good point there. When I first started having success, I did some pretty screwed up things to girls.

And yes, I have had a time where it was hard for me to respect women, especially when I picked up a couple of girls in almost the exact same way.
You know, when you hear "I never do this on the first date" and "I feel like I have known you my entire life", it is hard to take women seriously.

However, that times has passed. I now fully understand that they are just as dumb or intelligent as myself, because they have the same knee-jerk reactions to certain things that I have.

The only difference is what males and females have this knee-jerk reaction to.

So learning a skill makes you a dork or a nerd. I think you just have a problem relating to guys that cannot do what you naturally can do.

But anyway, if I am that to you, that is perfectly fine.

I have always been very good with languages. I speak 6 of them. It just comes very natural to me.

God forbid that one day I make the mistake of looking down on people because they are having a hard time learning a foreign language, or deriving a conclusion about their personality and intelligence from that.

Sure, have a laugh. Amusing to see somebody telling me I am missing the point, while I am pointing out the flaws in their statements. Weak comeback really, but ok.

Meh, not really offense. You are just wrong, but that is ok.


I quote myself, from post 192 in the dating/relationship advice thread:

"my point was that most dudes do not look beyond the easy lay. And I can't blame them, because kids/candystore.
But the ease of picking up becomes an end in itself, while I am referring more to the inner game issues. Think about it, you become very good with girls, and that to a lot of guys serves as a band-aid for other, deeper issues that they have.
Inner game is what I am getting at, you must know the term."

The rest of my posts in this thread should make you aware that I am advocating looking beyond the whole sexual aspect of PUA. So we are at least on the same page there.

I do not see what is intrinsically wrong with this, we human animals all have the need to have our ego stroked once in a while.

But you are onto something here, however, I don't think this is exclusive terrain of nerds. One of my buddies has the (imo) pathetic habit of stealing women away from other guys. She can be as hot as hell, but if she is single, he is not interested.

The moment he finds out she is seeing someone, he will go out of his way to have his way with her. Which is quite easy to him, because he is tall, well built, muscly, and has the face of a greek god.

Maybe the term "nerd" should be seen in a much broader context in this discussion.

Says who?

There are definitely things that work better at attracting women than others. PUA is about finding these out and doing them to maximize effectiveness and efficiency. How is that so hard to understand?

If you don't believe that a man can "trigger" a women's attraction than that's just a disagreement we may never get over. I believe and have learned through experience that there are certain things men can purposefully do to increase a woman's attraction towards him. This goes beyond just helping a guy become more confident. There ARE techniques that help ramp up attraction, and when put together it creates a PUA.

The attitudes and inner game are primary but the techniques are still important relevant.

Seems a lot of people are missing your points ArturiusX. It is us, or??

Anyway, jokes aside, even though I fully agree with you both things are very much related, but a "book on sales" is again oversimplifying.

What kind of book? Large corporate account sales? Telemarketing sales? Sales on the road? Based on appointments, or cold visits/calling? Selling what?

Everything of the above is related, but each one has it's own strategies and subtleties, and a guy that sells vending machines to groceries/gas-stations needs a whole different approach that a guy (or girl!) maintaining large corporate accounts.

A "book on sales" will teach you very general stuff, but not the tricks of the trade. For that you need more specialized material.

So, when you want to sell yourself, you also need to read material that is talking about how to sell yourself. Simple really.

Aha, you are onto something here. On the PUA webboard, one of the more accomplished posters once said "I relate the quality of a man directly to the level of hotness of his wife/girlfriend."

And I find this a load of crock.

Also, I have been with these drop-dead gorgeous women. Exceptions aside, I am a firm believer of the theory that the better-looking the woman, the less developed her personality is.

So I changed my taste in women over the years. Of course she still has to be physically appealing to me, but I think the guys who need the drop-dead gorgeous girls have the inner game issues I referred to earlier, and they shoudl realize that their need to bed as many hot women as possible is a flaw in their own personality and belief system, one that needs to be corrected.

Once you can truly say you do not need validation by being with a hot woman, you are " allowed" to pursue them, based on a whole lot more than just their pretty face.

Philosophical maybe, but this is the point where the whole PUA thing has brought me.

But then again, I am 39, and I can relate to 23 year old guys that just want to have a good time and satisfy their raging hormones.

This is what a lot of us have a problem with right here. In sales there is a resolution. Either you make the sale or you don't. Even when you are selling yourself in an interview, or something similar, you get the job or you don't. As a PUA, either you get the number or you don't. Or you get laid or you don't. Most of the PUA stuff we have all heard about and seen has very little to do with connecting with someone on a deep honest level. It's just about game. I respect a guy who says he wants to be a PUA so he can nail hot chicks. It's when you guys don't admit that that's all you're doing that it starts to sound false.

It is chump. I'm goin on 4 hours sleep as I mentioned in another t hread on this

I am not arrogant enough to proclaim I can explain this to you, but a good starting point would be this:

http://www.geocities.com/protopop_1999/treatise.html

It is long, but I believe it could be an interesting read to you.

Also, you are referring to canned scripts, but you have to realize that these materials, and the whole not buying a girl a drink thing, are merely meant as training wheels until one starts understanding the deeper thoughts, principles and values of what it takes to be a man.

You are merely referring to this, which leads me to think you have a skewed perception of what PUA is all about, even though I immediately admit that many many aspiring PUA's have that same skewed perception, and will always be a victim of their own lack of self-worth, and never will go beyond the band-aids that PUA provides them with.

For me PUA has never been about picking up girls. Well, almost never. In the beginning, it was, but maybe I was lucky by experiencing so many many changes for the better, both privately and professionally, that I contributed to PUA materials. Not so much the Mystery stuff and so on, I never have been a big fan of gobbling up material and accept it as a truth, even though his methods bring success with women.

I am talking about material I would have never discovered had it not been for the PUA community.

Think about books like "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins and "The way of the superior man" by David Deida.

PUA has sparked my interest in genetics, psychology and biology.

But then again, I am a bit of a nerd

PUA just made me understand a lot of things. And I believe that I am not that different from any other man that sees something he is interested in, and wants to learn more about it. We are all members of this webboard because we want to get better at something as well, right?

False

Read my posts and see if you can appreciate me saying that it is not all about bedding hot women. Not anymore.

Yeah, I hear you. You can take the concepts and apply them elsewhere, including meeting women you are actually interested in having a relationship with. But I think it's very hard for someone who learns the craft of being a PUA, as I understand it, to not just be player and nothing more, at least initially. Then again, I don't know all that much about it. I read most of The Game and saw the TV show, but that's it.

On an aside, Alamo- What is it like being a late-30s PUA? Do you find your age is a deal breaker for a lot of younger women, or do you mainly date in your own age bracket? Do you not bring it up, or is there a PUA protocol for us old guys to put it out there so we can then dismiss it and move on? I know you said you were in Europe, so maybe it's a non-issue there. I'm curious because I look really young for my age, like ten years younger, so it always ends up being a big deal for me when women find out how old I am. Are there specific tips for older PUAs? Help a brother out.

Well, I can only speak of my own experience. I am in Asia right now, by the way.

Seeing that here older age is much less of an issue, I would say an advantage even, I have dated girls of 19 to women of 35+. Also, in Europe it would vary from early twenties to mid thirties.

I think that as long as you don't make a big deal about it, she will also not. If a girl asks me for my age I always respond with some nonsense, then say it is just a number anyway, ask her with disdain if she thinks that is of such importance, if she is shallow, and that is that in general.

For a little while at least, and when she really starts getting into you it doesn't matter anyway.