The search function doesn't work.

I did browse a few more topics though.

One I found interesting was a suggestion to increase the perception of social status by nodding at someone who is walking toward you. The hope is that the girl will not see this and that the stranger will nod back. The hope is that the girl will see that and then just tear off your cloths. I'm not going to deny that social status is a major factor but some guy nodding to you is not social status. If you want to use social status to your advantage you actually have to put the time and effort into having social status.

A second topic I found interesting was on the use of VIP booths to get girls. That post was clearly written by someone who has read a lot about bottle service but has never actually gone to a club. The fact that the next ten replies didn't realize this leads me to think none of them have.

I also find the user-names hilarious. Like I'm suppose to take people who call themselves Seduction Mafia seriously. The use of stupid short hand terms and just the general writing style makes it clear they are all losers who gather to talk about girls but don't do any of the things they actually descibe.

Yes, a very real problem with these webboards nowadays, full of keyboard jockeys.

I am glad I found this stuff before it got infested by these people, and this is one of the major reasons I do not find the need to visit that much anymore. If I think long and hard, I could maybe come up with 5 people that are still active that are actually worth reading, all the rest is just a load of crock.

okay, i just read this entire thread. I have to say for all the effort put into it, it is quote pathetic. You guys are arguing in such generalties, I cant even see, what is the argument?? I believe Henry17 has pointed that out a few times.

Arthurious, you come of as hateful and ignorant here. Henry17, I agreed with almost everything you said, which I think speaks very poorly of the people defending PUA stuff here since I also support PUA stuff. Im kind of at a loss of what to post in response here since this thread and the arguments are so screwed.

One thing I think is a glaring and terrible thing to say is this -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.-

To get good at poker, a person has to study the game. There is no way around that, EVERY GOOD player has studied. There are different ways to do that, reading books, thinking it over by oneself, posting in a forum, but they are all similar. Experience is necessary, but the problem most people have in poker is they have too much experience and too little studying. The problem in picking up girls is they have too little experience and too much studying. The reason it is like that, is because it is the easiest. Studying poker is mentally taxing, whereas trying to pick up girls is even more emotionally taxing.

Anyway, where does your point come from Henry? You are the person who has 20 years worth of studying done aren´t you? You can take any skill in our society and match it up with what you say to see how wrong you are. Playing piano (most people have lessons), writers go to school and have editors, baseball players have coaches and dont just play games but also have practices with instruction.

Anyway, it is all almost besides the point here. You are saying Pick up has to be gotten with experience. What PUA is at its best, is something that helps people to get experience. If someone is hopeless and depressed and clueless, what are they going to do? Fight back? Lol, obviously not. They lie down and give up, or take whatever scraps they can get. The specifics of PUA stuff is almost besides the point IMO, and after doing it a couple of years, i have come full circle to where i was at 15 years old thinking picking up girls was ****ed. Its all manipulative in someway or another.

However, there is no way to get around that since all relationships include manipulation one way or another. Maybe we dont know we are manipulating some of the times, and if you want to say since it was unintentional it wasn´t manipulation, that is fine with me. However, it is obvious that action A by me will get response A from a girl or guy, and action B by me will get response B from a girl or guy.

Henry, you say that most of the stuff is obvious? For everyone, i agree, this is obvious on an intellectual level. However, on an emotional leve how many people actually act in line with principle of being UNREACTIVE to a girl? Really, how many people that you meet are 100% good people moral and socially? No one ACTUALLY IS like that, we are all ****ed up.

You talked about mimicking people who are good. Sure, and what if someone doesnt have friends who are good at picking up girls? What´s that you say? He should make friends who are good at picking up girls? Well that is kind of what PUA is. You said confidence is the most important thing. You said that confidence cant be taught intellectually, it is an emotion and is based on experience. Oh really, so how do you recommend people gain that experience? You think they should go out and talk to a lot of girls and try things they havent tried before and try mimicking people they have seen who are good with girls? Oh realy, and do you think they should do that alone or with other people? And what if they dont have any friends who want to do that (if they did, they wouldnt be in the problem in the first place).

See, a lot of the things you believe Henry are in line with PUA stuff. The basic ideas of PUA stuff are simple, boring, manipulative. Like Open, Pretend like you dont like the girl, Then when she likes you- compliment her (showing interest), Play Games, Compliment her/Judge Her more, Escalate.

All relationships follow the same basic guidelines. IMO they are all manipulative. If you do it subconciously Henry and get girls, and I dont get girls and then learn to do it conciously - does that make it worse what I do?

Anyway, the idea in PUA stuff is actually to get less manipulative. To be very honest. The problem for almost all guys who are bad with PUA stuff is that they are afraid to say what they are thinking. So they end up trying to use tricks. The idea with PUA stuff is to have the MOST fun by being able to just say whatever comes into your mind. See, if a loser is thinking -this girl has such a great sense of humor- and wants to touch her arm, but is afraid to say it, what will he do? He will be a loser and resort to loser things and fail and have a bad time.

So jerks like arturious say, SEE the problem I see is that it takes all the fun out of interactions!

Yeah, thanks jerk. The problem is that a loser doesnt have fun in the first place. So, he needs to learn what to do and he will practice that in many interactions and CONTINUE to not have fun. Then at some point he will learn it on an emotional level so he can act like you Arturious (assuming you are as social and cool as you imply), or a guy like henry.

Great post bruiser. I tried to make a similar post earlier today but you're much better at putting your thoughts into words.

My whole objection has to do more with the 'why', less with whether PUA as a tactic for a means to an end actually works. I think until you ask yourself deeper 'why' questions, you'll never fully understand what you're doing, and you'll be unable to see the whole picture, just the picking up women side. Its sort of the same belief I have in poker, that trying to memorise lines and a preflop chart is missing the point greatly.

Alamo, you'll probably reply with "but thats only some PUA people but some of us realists understand everything like mr X". It seems like all your rebuttals are perilously close to a "no real scotsman" argument, my comments are about the PUA community and a majority of those who write for it. I have no doubt that cool guys exist in the PUA community, and there's cool 'leaders' who are good writers and express some ideas that may reflect reality. But this isn't an argument as to why PUA is an optimal path to self enlightenment, because if the whole methodology is flawed, it doesn't matter who is part of the community. Likewise, if the majority of the community is made up of socially awkward people, that's usually a pretty good indication of the target market, thus all the answers as to 'why' PUA is popular with this crowd is on the same level as to why self help book celebrities like Tony Robbins appeal to obsessive compulsive dumb people, because the methodology is built around satisfying one's dreams and ambition, rather than the need for intellectual and philosophical stimulation. In other words, they're entertainment based, per say.

I pretty much agree with everything Henry wrote in this thread and I'd imagine he'd agree with most of what I said.

why would henry agree with everything you said? you have been making wild and wrong claims which were completely different from specific and well reasoned things henry said.

also your WHY point is terrible. as henry said, confidence comes from experience. your telling a loser to philosophize on why they are a loser and why they should do certain things or WHY questions about anything are just stupid, will just depress them more, will not help them learn and move where they want to go.

You can't be truly confident until you understand or have confidence in your ability to create an understanding on the run.

Do you believe that everyone can benefit from a PUA course, or are there some people that are going to be life losers no matter what they do? What percentage of people actually succeed at this?

i have to run, but quickly- arturious i have no frickken idea what you are talking about. confidence comes from experience, not from philosophizing nonesense.

as to your second point, i dont have a lot of confidence in my opinon so take it for what you will... i think some people will always be losers. but, for someone that is a loser and has it in themselves to change, a PUA course is a way for them to help themselves.

Btw, for anyone interested, I am more than happy to trade PUA advice for helping me improve my poker game and move up limits fast. PM. I know what I'm good at and what I'm not good at.

lmao

Well, experience is a large part of creating understanding, so its line with what I've said.

I never said PUA doesn't work, either, I just said its on the same level as self help books, its a sub optimal way of trying to achieve a goal. I think people should always be concerned with the big picture, to create a poker analogy, bankroll management, # of tables played, time taken to review opponents post-game, taking time out to work on psychology and tilt problems, all of these are critical to being a successful winning player. PUA is like teaching you how to be a sick at playing overpairs, yeah that will probably win you money and you'll probably feel more like a balla, but I believe there's more aspects to it, like being a rounded person.

PUA for entertainment + a new perspective as a casual read is probably a good thing, I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a good tip or two from my hilarious PUA friend. But PUA as a dogma where you dedicate your life to perfecting it like an art? Better ways to do it imo.

Just read this whole thread and kinda feel dumber for doing so. I mean, ofcourse some PUA stuff is "valid". The question I wanna ask is, WHAT about it is valid??

I've read quite a bit and most of the **** I've found is about like memorizing stupid made-up stories about a stripper or whatever. I have a couple friends into this stuff and I've been out to the clubs with them quite a few times. Now I'm not very familiar with clubbing and don't really like it at all, but I don't think I saw them cold-approach even once. Weird thing is they kinda agree with me when I say most of the PUA stuff is bull**** but they can't really tell me where there's "good stuff", even though they've been doing it for years(and seemingly had some success that I can't verify). I'm gonna have to google this franco guy or something. Also I liked stephane from ideagasms quite a bit but I never really saw him talk about pickup, just relationships and spirituality.

I assume you mean of poker and not education although the answer would be yes regardless. That said, I have never read a poker book. My main source of income is sports betting and I have never read any of the material on the subject. I don't even post in the sports betting forum. I believe that to understand something and really be capable at it you have to understand it from first principles. My issues with books are that they are often simply descriptive. They tell people what to do which is fine if you are doing something once or twice but if something is important the only way to master it is to start from first principles. I feel the same way about books on investing as well.

That is assuming the scraps don't do more harm. After spending a decent amount of time on that site today including some of the so called "Masters" section I can say with certainty that reading that site will leave someone who is seeking to improve themselves worse off. Now maybe that site is just a bad example but I'm working from what I have been provided.

What I would do if I was young and having problems is just think about it critically. Look at failures and success both mine and of people I observe and see if I can extrapolate what works and what doesn't. Maybe seek advice from friends who I know are successful and who I trust. Also become friends with girls. I have more female friends than male friends and that is really helpful.

That is an interesting way of looking at things. It pretty much reduces all behaviour to a manipulation. I see it somewhat similar to the there is no such thing as an altruistic act argument in that at some level it is true but not really at a meaningful level. I'm too tired to pursue it at the moment but I don't think I see all acts as a form of manipulation.

I wouldn't disagree with this but I'm not sure how it relates. Yes most people are pretty ****ty. It is depressing if you think about it too long so best not to. Given the size of the population though you only need a small percentage of them to be good people. Also as long as you know where you stand and what people are like you don't need to limit yourself to good people if the goal is just entertainment.

The problem is if you don't have the ability to be successful with women how can you judge if the people you meet via PUA do? I was looking at the Toronto section of that site. Not much activity but I looked at the ten or so topics and these guys were horrible. They are planning an outing for Fashion Week and I was actually tempted to ask if I could come observe on the false pretence of wanting to learn just to see how much of a train wreck it would be.

Baby steps if they are not ready to do anything radical. If they are willing to commit then a complete recreation is a good idea. Something like moving away for university is perfect but if that is not possible just moving or changing scenes so that you are a complete new person. Take six months before that to workout, get a wardrobe, take care of your skin, figure out what interests you so that you have interesting things to be involved in. Then when you start off you really still don't have confidence but you have been building up to this so you just commit and do it.

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What to do if you don't have friends seemed to be the gist of the last few paragraphs. My answer is to go out alone. When I moved I knew no one so I was basically for all intensive purposes in the same boat. I just went to the same small group of bars for a few nights. As long as you are nice, friendly and appear approachable you'll meet people. Tip well and be friendly to the staff -- you don't want to make bar staff feel stalked but at the same time if they initiate and you can get an in to the bar staff scene you are set for friends as they all know each other and in turn they know everyone who goes out.

We are guys which makes it so much easier than girls to go out alone and just meet people. Drink at the bar near a TV when there is sports on. You'll be talking to the guys around you pretty quickly.

Oh god please do this.

I think you're kind of missing the point of these things. Do you think these guys would have approached the women otherwise? A lot of these things are just designed to make people comfortable with talking to women, not as a way to actually get them in bed. It's pretty well agreed in the good community that the absolute best pick up line is "hi"

These things are just to get people who have anxiety to drop it and give them a plan to talk to women until they gain he confidence to be able to just say "hi" and then hold a conversation.

You know, it is really difficult to discuss these things with people that do not have first hand experience with the whole thing.

Bruiser made an excellent post, he obviously is better in putting his thoughts on paper than I am.

See, I am not advocating PUA as a lifestyle, and I am certainly not blind to the flaws of the community as a whole. One basic problem in these days is that the blind educate the deaf, so to speak.

I also have stated numerous times throughout this thread that PUA has sparked a personal development for me that goes way beyond picking up girls, and I don't think it is very constructive for guys to just learn a couple of gimmicks, get some success, and think that are their deeper issues are solved.

This is the road to failure imo, or at best sucking just a bit less at life.

Honestly, even in the time where the webboards were not flooded by these young kids that learn two or three things and then call themselves specialists, I read articles by the so-called guru's that were bordering on ******ed mumbling.

As said, my discovery of PUA has sparked a life-journey to me, of which I can imagine it could have also been sparked by something else, reality says otherwise though.

What Henry says, I really have no problem with that, I can see where he is coming from, I just believe he makes the mistake to setting himself as exemplary for the male part of humankind, and that is just a tad too simple.

Also, his assumption that knowing PUA-material leads you to knowing only this particular type of girl that is sensitive to this material, but any woman in her right mind will see through this is just plain wrong. But ok.

Bottomline: If socially awkward guys discover this stuff, and apply it, have some success, and then get *stuck* on that level, they are selling themselves short.

I am in the lucky position that for some reason unknown to myself, I dug a lot deeper, and I am happy I did so.

With what purpose?

So Henry does this, the guys suck, so everybody must suck.

or

So Henry does this, the guys do not suck so much, but then the girls they approached/kissed/took home were just meh.

or

So Henry does this, the guys do not suck so much, but then the girls are only of a particular "type".

I have seen this before. It is of no use. People who are in disbelief about and look down on PUA do not tend to change their mind.

Unless they see the results/changes first hand, over a longer period of time.

One last remark I would like to make:

I think a lot of the people who don't like, believe or understand PUA have a big problem with a couple of concepts:

Firstly, that seduction of the enigmatic creature called woman is a linear process that can be broken down in steps.

Secondly, that the mysticism of love, the whole "meant to be" thing, can be reduced to a state of mind that can be triggered by pressing the right buttons of a person.

That does not imply one is going to have a 100% success rate.

But ask anyone who is halfway good at this how they felt about it when they first discovered that the whole mysticism of love is just another banality, my best guess would be that they were pissed off.

It is just not nice to know some things. I know I had a very hard time with it at least.

Are you always this analytical?

It does not take a very analytical mind to know what is coming next imo.

A trip report would entertain me (and many others), just like watching huge ego pros badly misplay hands in WSOP TV coverage; train wrecks are funny.

Thinly concealed jealousy imo.

the one and only insight mystery (and mystery alone) offered the world is the following: seduction, and more specifically generating attraction, follows a specific ritualized sequence of interaction types. this is a non-trivial insight, even though many may claim otherwise.

i) approach and open without conveying interest;

ii) demonstrate value along whatever dimensions the target is most likely to care about;

iii) once she's shown attraction, force the target to qualify herself along dimensions you care about (ideally this is you screening the girl, but for most pua nerds she need merely be attractive, so they feign caring about intelligence or unique hobbies or skills).

iv) start having normal conversations as equals. ''get to know each other''. everything after this should be easy for any socialized person.

there are phase-specific heuristics but most of them are obvious. as soon as the ''problem'' is framed as it is above calibration becomes easier and the intuition develops rapidly.

does it work? i'd say so. every pua ive met has sex with 30-50 girls a year. is there value in it? i think so. for one it illuminates the path-dependence of emotion, something most people, including those devoted to studying human behavior, would do well to better appreciate.

(i am not in any way, shape, or form a pua)

So the assumption is that said TR would describe failure, as you make a comparison with playing bad poker.

Good.

So basically what you are saying is that you enjoy to see others fail.

Even if they in no way disturb you, or are able to influence your life directly.

Thanks for pointing that out to me.

Meh, I for one trust Henry to report back in an objective manner. Although he disagrees with PUA he's obviously approached the subject in a way that is free from bias.

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what my biggest problem with PUA is, exactly. I thought about it and realized that I disagree with one of the core tenants of the PUA philosophy-- "Every man deserves a woman."

If they were going to random bar XYZ, then I wouldn't care. If dumb wannabe pro Mr X wants to play badly at a random card room, I wouldn't care. But when stereotypical internet PUA people want to attend fashion shows to pick up women, I can't help but think it'll be comical to see someone who can't crawl trying to run.

Hoiler-than-thou entrapment usually doesn't work well on a message board, particularly when you know exactly what I mean and how standard my thinking is, but you decide to run with it anyway just to snipe at me.