The "PUA" (pick up artist) approach to picking up women has gained a lot of momentum in recent years. It's a concept that is often mentioned on 2p2 but is rarely discussed in depth, as most of the other forums here are simply not conducive to that sort of thing.

The EDF is the perfect place to talk about this and any other "approaches" to picking up women. Here, the topic can get a full and intelligent debate without devolving into a shouting match. Please keep in mind the EDF rules regarding personal attacks and useless posts.

Because this thread was spawned from comments made in the general Relationship thread, I'll try to have us pick up where we left off:

Which could explain your success. You don't think you are more confident but you very likely are. If you want to attribute it to some PUA material then fine but what leads to future success is past success. The hardest part of becoming successful with women is going from not successful to moderately successful. Once you get there it just snowballs.

I'd say more than 2% have a natural feel for it but it doesn't matter. Even if someone does not have a natural feel for it they do have observational skills and the ability to mimic others / learn behaviour. If someone is going out a few times a week people they are going to be able to identify who in their group is doing well with women and they can then observe them and do the same things.

No. You are assuming that an action is judged independently of the agent which is not true. Certain behaviours will be seen as positive when done by someone who is attractive and as negatives when done by someone who is unattractive. This is true for both males and females. Also even something like hight will impact what behaviours you can do. There are certain behaviours which work amazingly well if you are tall and thin but which would fail miserably for someone of average hight or a more solid build.

Other than the palm reading this is pretty standard. Because you are following a system though you run the risk of coming off less natural than if you just talk to the girl without thinking about it as much. The palm reading is a little too gimmicky for my taste. It is well known to be part of PUA material and girls don't live in a void so you run the risk of her knowing that. To pull of the palm reading you need to be at least above average charismatic or else it will fail.

It isn't if you buy her a drink or not but how you do it. Most guys buy drinks and do it wrong. PUA material tells them not to buy girls drinks so in a way that is an improvement. It completely misses the point that if they knew how to buy girls drinks properly it could be used to great advantage. The problem is that most guys lack the financial resources to use the drink purchase properly so here I do have to give PUA the advantage since it is probably best for for most guys not to buy drinks.

Yet you think they won't recognize PUA material in the same way?

Which could explain your success. You don't think you are more confident but you very likely are. If you want to attribute it to some PUA material then fine but what leads to future success is past success. The hardest part of becoming successful with women is going from not successful to moderately successful. Once you get there it just snowballs.

I'd say more than 2% have a natural feel for it but it doesn't matter. Even if someone does not have a natural feel for it they do have observational skills and the ability to mimic others / learn behaviour. If someone is going out a few times a week with people they are going to be able to identify who in their group is doing well with women and they can then observe them and do the same things.

No. You are assuming that an action is judged independently of the agent which is not true. Certain behaviours will be seen as positive when done by someone who is attractive and as negatives when done by someone who is unattractive. This is true for both males and females. Also even something like hight will impact what behaviours you can do. There are certain behaviours which work amazingly well if you are tall and thin but which would fail miserably for someone of average height or a more solid build.

Other than the palm reading this is pretty standard. Because you are following a system though you run the risk of coming off less natural than if you just talk to the girl without thinking about it as much. The palm reading is a little too gimmicky for my taste. It is well known to be part of PUA material and girls don't live in a void so you run the risk of her knowing that. To pull of the palm reading you need to be at least above average charismatic or else it will fail.

It isn't if you buy her a drink or not but how you do it. Most guys buy drinks and do it wrong. PUA material tells them not to buy girls drinks so in a way that is an improvement. It completely misses the point that if they knew how to buy girls drinks properly it could be used to great advantage. The problem is that most guys lack the financial resources to use the drink purchase properly so here I do have to give PUA the advantage since it is probably best for for most guys not to buy drinks.

Yet you think they won't recognize PUA material in the same way?

Thanks. The only suggestion I have is to try to edit some of those big block quotes when I'm responding to Henry, for example, and insert what he said that I'm responding to. In one of the middle blocks you pasted, I'm responding to specific points he said and if you could copy paste what Henry said that I'm responding to, I'm sure that it would help stimulate the discussion a lot better.

I figure to be relatively alone on the pro-PUA side for this discussion, but that's fine with me. I will just say another point to start it off, however.

To Henry:

Wrt the Cosmo comment, I let the girl know that I read it in Cosmo.

And if she recognizes PUA for what it is, that's not a big deal. I've learned from talking to girls that even if they do recognize it, it doesn't bother them. If all you have is canned lines that you're doing word for word and you can't adapt, then yeah, it's mad lame. But I try to think of a lot of my own material and adapt it on the fly, tailoring it to the situation that I happen to find myself in.

Like if a girl has bought me a drink and she starts telling me about some ex or some other issue in her life, and I don't like where it's going, I'll say something involving how much I charge for therapy sessions with a wink at her. This fails about 20% of the time. They get upset or mad and yeah. But I don't want girls who can't handle jokes. The other 80% if you make it clear that you're just kidding around, they eat it up. Then it's easy to divert the discussion back to present.

It's really not just increased confidence. I agree that it has increased quite a bit from getting more hot womens, but I had to get them in the first place. I can't attribute that obtaining to confidence. Also increased confidence doesn't remove the nervous feeling in the pit of your stomach when you approach a hot girl or two. But PUA does after solid amounts of practice.


Yes, I agree that if someone has observational skills then they can mimic the behavior of others, but who do you want to mimic? A super-PUA (NOT me, I'm intermediate), or a typical guy, with his mentality/approach toward women? Assuming you're not a super baller, in which case this is all irrelevant, I assume that you'd want to emulate the PUA. But maybe I'm wrong.



5'9" 155, not that it matters. Never been rejected by a girl before because of height or weight. Elaborate?



I agree that the palm reading isn't that fantastic, but again, a girl knowing that you're familiar with PUA is not a big problem if you can adapt. If she **** tests you and does other things as counteraction, or even if she mentions that you're using PUA, there's nothing wrong with that! She wants you to apologize or say "oh, yeah, you busted me, my bad". NO! Just say, PUA, what's that? And when she explains it, ask her if she thinks it works at all? The obvious answer is yes, cause if she's explaining it, she's still SITTING THERE with you.



Financial resources-can you elaborate? Yeah, I'm not rich. Make 58k. I just don't buy drinks and am not aware of an optimal drink buying strategy that involves assessment of available financial resources.

Hmm, well as far as looks go I can chime in on this a bit. I'm short (5'6") and that has definitely negatively affected my ability to pick up women in some way or another throughout my life. No, it's not a soul-crushing thing but it is an issue nonetheless I suppose. Although when traz gets here he'll be able to explain how PUA somehow makes height a moot point...

The biggest threat PUA faces is itself, really. It is inherently a money-making operation, with the aim of reaching more and more "customers." As the customer base grows and the information becomes more widespread, it will lose whatever effect that it may have had.

I don't understand what that means. Practise to me would make sense if you were memorizing something but you've stressed that the majority of it is adapted and made up ad lib so what does practise entail?

Tall guys can use the this coy teasing personality (I can't think of how else to describe it) and it works for them in a way that wouldn't work for someone who was heavier or shorter. It really isn't important as the point was that behaviour is not universally treated the same regardless of agent. The range of behaviours that will work for a given person is determined by a lot of factors including how attractive they are, body type, ethnic background, etc. The problem with PUA material is that it assumes the same behaviours will work relatively the same with no qualification to the person doing them. That simply isn't true.


When guys buy drinks they tend to make a big deal about it. That takes drink buying from a positive to a negative. The reason they make a big deal about it is because drinks cost money and they are now out money. This puts way too much in play and just causes problems so in most cases it is better to not buy girls drinks.

If a guy is going to use buying drinks effectively he has to buy them liberally and with no concern. That either requires an active effort to not show that they care -- which is hard to do long term and especially as they get more intoxicated -- or it requires sufficient financial resources that they actually don't care.

I agree that some women may care, but most won't. Women are less shallow than you think. I say this as a short person as well. I think 5'10" is average in this country now? So 5'9" makes me a short guy.

As for the reality-threat facing PUA, I don't buy it. Watching a couple episodes of the pick-up artist on VH-1 does not a pick up artist make. It took me 2 months of going out consistently on weekends to be able to pull numbers, 6 months to be able to bring 1 in 4 girls home with me, and about a year to get to the success rate that I'm having now. The attractiveness of the average woman at each stage has steadily increased along with my success rate. Women will hear the PUA lines more but you can't fake PUA stuff. Any thinking woman will pound through it rather quickly and see that it's fake. Kinda like poker. You might be able to win a few pots but eventually if you try to move up, the women are wise to your game. Maybe a terrible analogy but it's all I got on 4 hours sleep.



I'm not tall, and that's my personality. PUA has refined it and made be bring it to new levels, but I was always a guy with a great sense of humor but wasn't sure how to refine it or take the sharp edge off it. I agree with the generality that behavior is not universally treated the same, but it is DEFINITELY possible for a non-tall guy to pull off the coy teasing personality, and a fat guy can as well. One guy from another forum that I sarged with (went out to pickup chicks) once is 5'5" and about 200 pounds. He's been doing it a lot longer and the night we went out together in my city he had been doing PUA for about 4-5 years. I had been doing it for 2 months. I got thouroughly pwned by some hot chicks when they saw through my act, but he opened a three set and got two numbers and some oral out of the deal a few hours later. I've seen it happen and I know what you're saying just isn't true. I'm not saying you're lying, just mistaken.


The problem here isn't money or financial resources, but it's expectation. Guys who buy drinks for women expect something, even if the girl didn't ask for it. This is the wrong way to approach women and will often equal failure.


I agree, but in this case the guy is not buying the drink with an expectation. He's buying it cause he's just a party guy who doesn't mind spending money on people. That's why it's effective. NOT becuase he buys drinks, but because the girl can see he's not buying it out of expectation. If he buys her a drink and leaves for about 15 minutes to talk to some other girls, and then finds her later, the girl will not assume he has an expectation. Compare this to a guy who buys a drink for a girl and then sits there for half an hour talking about himself and complimenting her on her eyes and outfit. The girl will soon regret she accepted the drink.

P.S.- Is it just me or is twoplustwo slow as balls today? Maybe it's my internet connection.

You know, the whole thing I have against the PUA-bashing is the fact that everytime this happens, it is as if the one delivering the arguments against the whole PUA-thing actually knows what he or she is talking about.

I will just sum up the assumptions/statements made in the first multi-quoted post.

ArturiusX wrote:
Statement 1: PUA stuff is just practiced by a bunch of nerds.
Statement 2: The content of the "self help book" of seduction is known by ArturiusX.

In answer to 1: You are just plain wrong. I can only speak for myself, but I am definitely not the nerd-type. I have always played sports, always have had a bunch of friends, both male and female, partied a lot and whatnot.
So your first statement is already false.

In answer to 2: Please let me know what material you have had your hands on. Sure, in order to effectively criticize, you must have read an important part of the available material?

Henry wrote:
Statement number 3: Part of the material that is being "taught" are things that everybody who is moderately social knows on a subconscious level (if I may take the liberty to alter your words a bit without changing the essence).

In answer to number 3: Henry, would you, by the description of myself above, call me "moderately social"?
I realize you have not much to go on of course. But your description of the average guy who has friends and goes out to social gatherings sounds pretty much like me, now, and back before I discovered PUA.
So how come I *do* fit the description, yet did *not* know these plainly obvious things?

Statement number 4, also made by Henry:
In answer to this statement: yes, to *you* they are plainly obvious.
But, does it not border on arrogance to in essence say that you provide the benchmark for what is the "generally social guy"?
Other than that, I am and was this generally social guy. And you can bet this stuff changed my life for the better in so many ways, I thank the day that I discovered this material. So where does that leave your statement?

I have read many posts by you Henry, and even though I cannot say I agree with everything you say, you definitely seem to have your own mind made up about the whole female/male relationship dynamic.

But could you not entertain the thought that things that for you are blatantly obvious, are not that blatantly obvious for otherwise very normal, average, good-hearted, kind and happy guys who believe all the crap about women that is fed to them by society?

Other than that, I always feel strange having these discussions, because I just know that my discussion partners *do* have an opinion about the topic, but *do not* have a full understanding of what they are actually talking about.

I am European. No idea about American Football, I know the basic rules, but nothing else.

Wouldn't I look dumb if I would chime in on a discussion about the superbowl and make radical statements about this sport, the (lack of) quality of players and coaches, and the tactics employed, while all I have going for myself is that I caught some games on TV in Europe?

One more remark, I have seen there is also a mention of the whole buying the girl a drink thing.

This shows me the MsSlick is relatively new at this (and that is perfectly fine).

What Henry needs to understand (and that is why i agree with him it is fine to buy a girl a drink if done correctly) is that these things get taught to guys that are "rAFC's" (recovering Average Frustrated Chumps) in order to give them some training wheels.

Please do not make the assumption here that this rule is golden.
It is only golden for people that start off with this stuff, and need guidance.

Another analogy, the do not buy a girl a drink is TAG, but once you are Gus Hansen, you can get away with buying her the whole bottle.

And that will take many many generations. We will not live to see that day, human behaviour is the result of many many years of evolution, and some guys coming up with a bunch of material is not going to counter that anytime soon.

Alamo,

Thanks.

I already hit some of the other posters' points you responded to, but it never hurts to have backup.

Let me add that I'm not against buying girls drinks on principle or anything. I elaborated in my last response to Henry that the problem is not drink buying, but rather expectation. It doesn't matter if it's a drink or a nice necklace on a second date or anything like that. It is possible to let the girl know that you don't have expectations through these material purchases, but in bar settings, buying drinks is not required. I have seen PUAs do it before and I may do it sometime, but the drink buying is not what I have a problem with. I just used it as an expectation example cause it's common.


And yes I'm no Gus Hansen. If we're making poker analogies for PUA- then right now I 4-table soft 10/20 6 max and occasionally suck out (I suck at poker so excuse me if that analogy is way off base). My goal is to double my PUA ability over the next 2 years by going out every weekend and a couple weekdays a month, instead of just 3 or 4 nights a month.

It's not you, same problem here.

Funny you should say that. I have this, hmm, how to describe it, standard script I, by now, mostly unconsciously, run whenever I see a girl I like.

I also have travelled a lot for my job, and also in private, so I have had the opportunity to meet many women in different countries and continents.

I have used this standardized thing many many many times, with lots and lots of success. So my little social experiment worked like a charm.

Also, another thing. You mention physical attraction. It is funny, but I think (I know) male attractiveness to women is directly related to the confidence one transmits.

Before I discovered PUA, I never got compliments on my looks. Oh well, almost never. Ever since I applied PUA, women can not stop complimenting me on how good I look.

I know I looked a hell of a lot better pre-PUA days.

Alamo,

Regarding your statement that things may be plainly obvious to Henry but not to everyone else, I disagree with this. No offense to Henry and this is not meant as a personal attack, but unless you're part of the 1-2% that naturally practices PUA, or are wealthy and/or famous and/or extremely good looking, you are missing stuff. You may have success with women but that doesn't mean that you're seeing the entire picture. I guess it's difficult for me to entirely relate because I came from average frustrated champ status, and I do believe you that you have success with women, but I doubt that you have the feeling inside you that you can get any girl you want to. I have that feeling inside me. I may not always succeed, but that's the mentality I have now thanks to PUA, and some months I score girls that I would probably just be masturbating to when I was 15, never even having a glimmer of hope that I would one day talk to them, get their number and get in their pants.

Lol, trust me, I am no Gus Hansen either, but I devoured a lot of material, not even applying 10%, was able to have the lovelife I like, which is good enough for me, and am by no means a PUA.

I hope I did not come off as patronizing, this was and is in no way my intention.

And now I am off to bed, I will pop in tomorrow and see how the conversation developed.

I think that girls like to be approached by confident guys, and that most guys who are trying to learn PUA skills are not as unattractive to women as they probably think they are, physically, because of low-self esteem. Therefore, any routine that enables a guy to approach a girl confidently is going to have some success. All the PUA tricks are really just ways to do what comes naturally to the people that don't need them, which is to exude confidence and fearlessness when meeting new people.

There is really no difference between an Oceans Eleven opener and "Hey, what are you up to?" as long as you have the conversational skills to reply to her answer to the latter with something interesting and take the conversation from there without going "Cool. Cool. Where are you from...do you come here often...are you in school....blah blah...boring...goodbye." These openers just kind of spark a conversation into something fun and interesting the way that some people can spark a conversation naturally.

I think this statement is directed at Henry, but my approach is also a bit different from you. I will approach any girl I like (if I am in the mood, other things are important as well, I have a business to run for instance).

By no means I think I can get any girl I want, but I am not afraid to give it a shot, but sometimes things just don't work out, for whatever reason.

Bottomline is, if I do not get the number/kiss/whatever I want from her,

I

just

do

not

care.

She has bad taste, and you simply cannot win every time.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt

Ok that makes it clear. When someone says practise I assume they mean something done in preperation. I thought there was something you were suppose to do at home to get better.


That is actually a very good way to put it. There is no reason to expect anything. The problem is not drink buying but this expectation.

Exactly.



Was no in the group successful?

No idea. When I was in university a friend of mine started marketing his own. He was always starting some stupid project to make a few bucks. He gather a bunch of stuff to compiles his own. We'd pre-drink at his place every so often so occasionally we'd read some of it for a joke. A lot of it was just horrible.

[quote]
So how come I *do* fit the description, yet did *not* know these plainly obvious things? [quote]

Either no one in your group was successful with women or you never though it would be beneficial to observe and mimic the ones that were.

It actually occurred to me that PUA is very similar to financial advice books. The material is plainly obvious yet these awful books like Rich Dad / Poor Dad sell millions of copies. I can't explain it.

No. My point was that in any situation someone should be able to identify which individuals have the behaviours that lead to success and quickly mimic those behaviours. This is a more general point and doesn't just apply to dealing with women. For example, a few years back I found myself in a very foreign environment where pretty much everything I know about social interactions was completely different. I had no idea what behaviour I should employ so I just lay low for a day and watched everyone else until I could identify who I should be mimicking and what behaviours I need to adapt. Nobody is born with innate knowledge about every social situation but we all do have the ability to watch and adapt to the behaviours of those that do know the rules.

i think it is valid.

i also think there is a pronounced tendency for pick up artists to exaggerate how successful they are, which is a big part of the reason many people think it is a load of ****.

Nope. I just went out there, got rejected over and over, posted on PUA forums, learned from my mistakes. Sarged a couple of times with guys in my local area, which helped a lot (kinda like hand sweating in poker maybe). It sucked and it used to bother me a lot. I used to internalize every rejection and blame myself, thinking that there must be something wrong with me because A girl or B girl didn't want me on that night. Wrong way to think about it. At least half the girls my age (23) are in relationships, right? So most of those girls are not going to be receptive. Some will but it takes way more work than on a single girl. I haven't bagged a girl in a relationship. Maybe I could and maybe I couldn't, but I just don't see the point. But that's one reason you get rejected. Another is just if the girl's in a bad mood, or another is that she just isn't interested. It's not a reflection on the guy, **** happens. Just play the numbers. I've improved tremendously since starting out whereas now I don't have to talk to 5 girls a night to try to get one to go home with me-usually I can succeed with the first set I open.

Books and forum posts and everything can help with PUA(as well as other subjects, obviously), but until you get out there and take your beats, you won't improve. Like I said in an earlier post, at this point it just comes naturally to me, like it probably does to some of you in poker. I know how to approach a girl, select an opener, how to defeat **** tests, formulating an appropriate mix of negs and weaving them into the conversation, and how to advance using kino into an eventual kiss test and then it's on from there. Sorry for using so many poker analogies but I feel like more people will get where I'm coming from if I do. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll stop using them.

PUA and normal game is the same thing ?!?!?!

I think people are drawing borders that are completely unnecessary.

PUA has everything explained in detail, etc.
I think people who got normal game are doing wrong to people, who are trying to learn "the game" via PUA by saying everything is BS.
I mean it worked on a lot of people, why should it not work?

Denying the success of PUA, would be like saying online poker is rigged and all the big players are just a lot luckier in life.

How does PUA translate into long-term relationship sustainability?

It seems to me that either you at some point have to revert back to a normal "baseline" personality state (somewhere between PUA high and normal self I guess), or you have to keep up the PUA charade for the rest of your time with that girl.

Also, from what Ms. Slick said about my relationship in the other thread I get the idea that a PUA long-term relationship consists of a LOT of power-struggle awareness, and generally just worrying about making sure you always have the upper hand. That just doesnt seem like a healthy relationship to me.

I agree 100% with Henry about the PUA/Financial Self-Help book analogy

Just sort of wondering what OP is asking. There's a question in the title, but not in the post, and no definition of "valid". Are you asking if the PUA approach works? Is this just supposed to be a general PUA discussion thread?

ive done PUA stuff for a few years, which included 2 bootcamps and reading books. i have mixed thoughts on it at this point. sorry i dont have the time or inclination (after many debacles in the past) to get involved in this discussion here. i do want to state that almost everyone who criticizes it, doesnt have a good understanding of- NOT of the theory, that specific theory is almost besides the point, but of the PUA stuff in a more general way.

As a misogynist myself, I don't mean this as an attack-- but not a lot of the PUA talk seems compatible with respecting women. Am I off base here?

I don't really want to get into any kind of discussion about what the woman's role is in life, but I'm curious-- have you PUA guys noticed a major difference in the way you look at a woman now? Because a lot of the subject material seems pretty well based on the "women are dumb and don't know what they want" school of thought.