NOT ALL MAGICIANS ARE LIKE THE PEOPLE IN THIS BOOK!

Ok, got that out of the way, now onto my thoughts. Most of what I thought about this book, both before I opened it and when I started it was wrong. At first I thought it would be an interesting look at this weird subculture (which it was, but not all it was about), then when I started reading it, I thought it was this misogynist bible, reducing women to numbers and pick ups to formulas (which it was, but not all it was about), and then I was pleasantly surprised when I found that the book was also this arc of the author's self discovery (this was the best part).

It is sad to say, that most people are predictable. Ask a waitress who's worked at the same place for a long time, she can probably tell you what people will order just by looking at them. These pick up artists use this (as do many "psychics") plus different psychological hooks to pick up women. I can see why they have to reduce women to numbers because someone with low self esteem who needs help talking to people need that kind of boost to give them enough confidence to go for it.

Watching the author grow was really the best part. The gaining of his confidence, the mastery of his skills and finding who he became was really a joy to read. I think the last quarter of the book, was the most compelling, and it was difficult to put down.

I would recommend this book to men and women alike. I think everyone can gain something by reading it.

I am giving this book 4 stars only because there is no 4.5 to rate.

As far as I 've been superficially following the development of the game in the last 5 years or so, I had no Idea How it all started. So I'm happy that I read this.
Here you find really good insight of pick up community.
However, I consider that some of the views can be subjective here, and written from the place of arrogance, but It is how anyone tells the story of him being so good. Apparently, the author was that good... Idk.
Surprising that I read about RSD alongside with other companies. So now I know, kind of...

I recommend reading it if you are familiar with the game already. Or even if you are not. Even if you are a girl or something like me

wtf am I talking about... ok.. f.it, i roll.

Не съдържа отговори на въпроси, свързани с личностното развитие. Съдържа отговор на въпроса как се прави тройка. Съдържа и много истории на абсолютно откачени хора, които го играят гурута и духовни водачи.

2 причини да не дам 5-ца. Първата е, че оставя усещане за мърсотия и е смущаваща. Втората, че не ми звучи достоверно.

2 причини да не й дам 1-ца. Мърсотията не я прави лоша. Това, че звучи недостоверно не значи, че не се е случила.

Препоръчвам само на хора със здрави нерви, които четат бързо.

Hoo boy, how to rate the seminal book that launched the Manosphere? I first became interested in this book because of my love of books. I found a leatherbound copy in a used book-shop in Seoul. I ended up not buying it, but the book's weird biblical format, and in-depth look at a a secret society of men who could have sex with any woman they wanted was naturally intriguing.

That said, when I finally got around to reading it - not the leather-bound biblical version, but as an e-book - it was basically obvious from quite literally Page 1 that the kind of men who enter this world are desperately emotionally damaged, and the kind of women that fall for their schtick have their own emotional handicap.

Indeed, looking up contemporary reviews for the book, only the book's apparent target market - lonely, nerdy, confused men who are attracted to the idea that there's a way to cheat-code (in a hundred acronyms) reproductive biology and dating culture in the post-modern age - seem fooled by the facade on these broken, self-determined experts in the art of human seduction. By the end of the book, half of them (including, allegedly, Neil Strauss himself) realize that the hole inside of them that they desperately try to fill with sex is actually a hole that is far deeper and far more abyssal than they realize.

Hell, the opening scene of the book involves Mystery, whose "Mystery method" involves accosting women with magic tricks experiencing one of his many emotional breakdowns recorded in the book. It's hard for me to understand how anyone could actually read this book understanding the type of men and type of women it describes and go, "This is the goal. This is what I want to achieve in my life." Neil Strauss describes having a pair of daughters who accuse him of sexism, which he shrugs off with, "I guess I kind of am," and that's not exactly the be-all-end-all of the book's gender issues. Rather, I find the book's understanding of men to be far more pessimistic than any thought these self-proscribed pick-up artists have ever had about women.

As a bad Chuck Palahniuk novel, it's an interesting story, but is pretty passable. As a piece of journalism, it earns its second star, but brought down by its focus on the continuous emotional collapse of the men in question. There's a huge section of the text devoted to Courtney Love. Not as an object or even subject of their pick up community (if she has sex with any of the men in Project Hollywood, Strauss has kept it secret, and if anything, she tries to learn "the game" in order to seduce a man in her life, a Freudian fever dream, certainly) but as a kind of hanger-on. Strauss interviews her for a magazine article, an interview which ends up turning into a days-long bender, very much bringing Strauss' objectivity as a journalist into question (though by the time we reach that point in the book, journalistic objectivity is clearly more of a wink and gun gesture), she then moves in with the PUAs in their California "Project Hollywood" frat house, and after a Russian stripper named Katya triggers another Mystery emotional breakdown, resulting in violence and chaos, she brings out one of Kurt Cobain's shirts to use as an altar to purify the air.

Maybe it's showing my age, but the pulling out of Kurt's shirt triggered something in my brain and I realized that, oh, yeah, Kurt Cobain was Courtney Love's husband. And below the story of a secret society of pick-up artists, which constantly hovered on the line between somewhat fascinating and extremely boring - broken men who bully insecure women into having sex with them - there was this Bojack Horseman-style story of a Hollywood starlet going through a slow-motion process of grief-driven self-destruction, falling over herself after her husband's suicide.

Once you get through all these parts, it really sets in that this book is an incomplete tragedy. This "secret society of pick up artists" was really just a way to turn insecure men into sex addicts. Strauss among them. One of these PUAs calls himself "Tyler Durden," who goes through a lot of stupidity - according to Strauss' account - to become the alpha male of their little club. The irony of "The Game" being a bad Chuck Palahniuk novel is no more clear than someone appropriating a name about a book which is fundamentally about the fever dream personification of all the repressed toxic masculinity of modern life, bubbling forth into violence before their human counterpart is institutionalized.

It's an interesting book to read, worth it if only for their trip to Transnistria, and as a piece to the Courtney Love story. Of course, those who have used the book have clearly looked past (or failed to see) the brokenness and depression at the heart of the pick-up artist lifestyle, which has only turned more virulent, more sadistic, and more toxic in the years since it was originally published.

Narcisista al tiempo que curioso. Digno de leer como entretenimiento.

Un libro muy divertido y entrañable, el autor nos da ciertos tips para ligar contando su odisea como maestro de la seducción en la jungla norteamericana.

If Mr. Strauss were trying to be funny, he seriously needs to work on his sense of humor. On the contrary if he were serious...well...a real waste of time...

Great story of rise and fall of a subculture.

I've been fascinated about the idea of a pickup artist community ever since I heard about its existence last year. What do these people do? Does it work? Why? This was the book seen as the essential guide to this underground lair of secret lotharios, written by seminal pickup artist guru "Style" who published an article about the scene in the NYT a few years ago. However, this book was wasn't available from the library, so I read THE MYSTERY METHOD first.

Then a friend got a copy of this book back from the guy he'd lent it to. I kind of smirked when I saw he'd disguised it in the dustjacket of a more benign novel. I smirked less when I found myself flipping to the back of the dust jacket in an attempt to see what Style (aka Neil Strauss) looked like, only to see the picture of Umberto Eco. My curiosity at his looks stemmed largely from the fact that Style, like Mystery, claims to be able to sleep with any woman he wants.

I'm glad I read THE MYSTERY METHOD first, because there are a lot of terms unique to the pickup artist culture. In fact, there's a glossary, but the glossary didn't cover every term I wanted (evolution phase shift?) Even so, there were so many people out "sarging" (picking up girls) that they developed their own styles and terminology to go with it.

The story is basically how Style met Mystery, learned to pick up women, got good at it, rose to the apex of what they though possible, and watched as everything crashed and burned around them. This is a comfortable and successful plot arc, which has been used for everything from crime to gambling to alcohol and drug addiction. Two things made this story compelling. One, Style is an actual writer. Two, most of the characters (especially Mystery) are complete train wrecks.

This book reminded me of WAR (Junger) and EASY COMPANY SOLDIER (Malarkey) in that like frontline combat, pickup artist circles are an exclusively men-only arena, and nothing intrigues me more than a "keep out! no girls allowed!" sign. At one point, they interview Heidi Fleiss, and say that she's "one of them" but I didn't buy it. In fact, as the story progresses to the point where Style, Mystery, and the other pickup artist gurus are living in a mansion in Hollywood, Style points out that "Project Hollywood" (the name for their bachelor pad) is remarkably devoid of women. He got into the game to meet women, but ended up with a band of brothers, who became a band of frenemies.

Although it's not a how-to book by any means, this memoir fleshed out the dry how-to of THE MYSTERY METHOD fairly well. They briefly touch on other techniques, for example, woo-woo "waking hypnosis" where you get the "target" (attractive female) to conjure up happy/aroused feelings, and partner them with a gesture, word, or kinesthetic motion, then use that trigger to re-conjure those feelings. Another technique is "cocky funny" where the pick up artist jokingly and confidently assumes that every woman wants him. Most of the other techniques were varieties on the Mystery method. When you get down to it, the fact that these work is not mysterious. They all pretty much boil down to the fact that women like confident, powerful, interesting men who pay attention to her. Duh. Saying that women are helpless before this is like saying that men are helpless in the face of big sexy hair and giant tits.

One of the side effects of being a successful pickup artist, some of the men lament, is that they no longer trust women to ever be faithful. It didn't matter if their target was married or had a boyfriend, they still got phone numbers. (To this I'd say, it's hard to say that "all women are unfaithful" if your sample selection is "attractive, urban, young women drinking in bars or clubs." )They also became mysogynistic once they realized how easy it was to pick up women with a few simple lines. I've heard similar things from women who lost a lot of weight--that the instant uptick in attention makes them feel disdainful of how shallow men were. Another disadvantage was that sarging soon took over the rest of their lives. They no longer had jobs or hobbies or even girlfriends, as their lives were so consumed with going out to hunt for new targets. Style and the other pick up artists soon realized what every addict eventually realizes--that even sleeping with a different beautiful woman every night won't make up for deep underlying problems you are too afraid to face.

As the story progresses and Mystery and Style become richer and more famous, they become killed by their own success. New students use their material to the point that they can't find a woman who hasn't heard it. The inner coterie of pick up artists act more and more like rock stars, until strange people are wandering in and out, the drama escalates to MTV levels, and at one point even Courtney Love moves in. Ironically, Courtney occasionally comes out as one of the most emotionally mature people in the house, which really says something.

The novel winds up with a happy "here's what they're doing now" ending for most of the main characters--most of which I don't believe. Even Style ends up happy and leaving the scene, after he meets a gorgeous woman named Lisa who won't fall for his schtick. His attempts to seduce her fail and fail and fail again, until he gets one-itis that he breaks it off with every other woman to commit to Lisa. I'd feel less cynical about the ending if I hadn't recognized her "hook a man and land him" strategy. I think she got it from THE RULES.

Auf autobiografische Weise zeigt Neil Strauss hier die Schattenseiten der Pickup-Kunst. Gerade differenziert Denkende werden hier gut unterhalten.

I'll start with the Cliff Notes for those of you who don't like long reviews: This book would be five stars if it was about 200 pages shorter. And if you're one of those people who takes things way too literal, confuses the opinions and attitudes of the subject for the opinions and attitudes of the author, or needs every report of observed misogyny to be prefaced with twelve paragraphs of either apology or condemnation ... this is probably not the book for you.

At the same time this book makes a rather revolutionary suggestion that I think more women NEED to open their minds to. But that's not the way things go with this one ... people get too distracted by the bombast. They either eagerly attach themselves to the promise of some secret seduction technique, or they become blinded by their offense.

It's true, there are a lot of offensive things in this book. But that seems to be par for the course with social commentary nowadays. If no one is pissed off, no one is listening.

My first exposure to this book was Arden Leigh's column on being a female pickup artist (here after PUA). I was fascinated by the idea, but like most I didn't really believe her claims. She looked perfectly pretty to me. Doubtful her "technique" played that much of a significant role in her seduction success. Probably more like a combination of actual attractiveness and good old fashioned confidence.

Then a female friend described this book as "amazing" and "life-changing" and I thought "waaaaaaaatt?" O.o Especially since this friend is normally all positive energy, self love, visualization/actualization bullshit. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

I was intrigued, and within twenty pages I understood EXACTLY why she loved it.

Let me clear something up for the rest of you: THIS IS NOT A BOOK ABOUT HOW TO SLEEP WITH WOMEN.

This is a book that tries to trick you into thinking that it's about having sex with the hottest girls possible, because that is way more marketable than the actual content (especially to a male audience). But that is not what this book is about. The amount of actual advice on how to pick up women is tiny ... barely 5% I'd say.

This is a memoir -slash- cautionary tale about the dangers of living your life constantly seeking validation from others. The various PUA artists in this book are all depicted as sad, pathetic, self-loathing, mentally unstable people who truly believe that being desirable to others will make them like themselves more. But from chapter one Strauss makes it clear that doesn't happen. They get everything they think they want and end up more miserable for it.

The problem is this book is too fucking long. I half suspect that most of the people (both women and men) who talk about it in terms of its seduction secrets did not read it to the end. Add to this the fact that Strauss is trying to stay in character as he narrates his journey from True Believer to Disillusioned Master and the profound brilliance of The Game barely has a chance. There are plenty of hints dropped throughout the book about Strauss's eventual enlightenment, but some people have no mind for subtly I guess.

Anywayz...

--PART ONE--
The first chunk of The Game tosses out a pretty mindblowing concept for would be Gamers to consider:

n  Attraction is not physical, but psychological.n

Part of what annoys me about the so-called "feminist" reaction to this book is that there's a multi-billion dollar industry built around convincing women of the exact opposite and humiliating anyone who dares to call bullshit. An industry that makes the bulk of its money by inventing flaws and imperfections to make women feel horrible about themselves. And yet the best we can come up with to combat it are fairytales about "different standards of beauty"? These feminists act like liberation from the image-obsessed media is all about accepting your lot in life and just waiting for a partner whose standard of beauty happens to fit your look to come along. They accept the underlying notion that some people are "pretty" and some are not ... and try to use relativity as a weak defense.

The big problem with this thinking is that people are not static. Looks change over time. If the answer was to rely on the off chance someone somewhere thinks you are beautiful exactly the way you are ... what happens when you no longer look the way you used to?

By contrast Mystery's Method claims attraction has more to do with how people feel around you than how you look. Mystery teaches his students about group think and instructs his pupils to focus on the friends of the hot girl, rather than the hot girl. People are strongly influenced by the opinion of the group. Anyone who's taken a basic organizational behavior class has read the mounds of research on this. When your target sees everyone around her acting like you are amusing and desirable, she will be more attracted to you.

People become much more susceptible to that suggestion when they themselves feel insecure. So the second thing Mystery teaches his students is the "neg". Probably the most controversial part of the book, the neg is basically just a back handed compliment. It's teasing, innocent, and delivered in a flirtatious manner. It's this disconnect between the words (which sound like a criticism) and the way they are delivered (which sounds positive) that makes people second guess themselves. And the suggestion that maybe the PUA isn't interested in the target makes the target more likely to convince themselves of an attraction. The group desires something apparently unattainable ... a recipe for attraction.

Of course some readers seem to have interpreted the passages about negs to mean "act like a fucking jerk" That's not at all what Strauss is describing.

Most of The Game's secrets resonated with me because I've been there. When I was twenty-two my life fell apart and I moved to the Czech Republic to escape my demons. My first week there I fell for a stocky, thirty-six year old statistician with a bowl cut and coke bottle thick glasses (Revenge of the Nerds all the way). I knew objectively speaking this man was in no way attractive, but I couldn't help myself. I had the biggest crush.

I was also in a strange country where I didn't speak the language. I had no idea where I was going to live, whether I could get a job. I knew NO ONE. And here was this guy who was knowledgeable about something interesting to me and talked to me like I was SMART. Of course I was smitten.

At the same time two of my American roommates were fighting over a balding, short, bespeckled geologist who smoked way too much pot and had abandoned his pregnant girlfriend back in the states to run off to Prague ... So yes, it's not that people have "different standards of beauty", it's that attraction is psychological.

Now take a minute to consider what that means: you can be with any person you want. Right now. Absolutely anyone. The determining factor is not perfecting your physical form, but making them feel a certain way around you. They won't suddenly think you're beautiful, they will suddenly not care that you aren't. Consider that unlike your physical appearance, your personality and social skills don't change.

Every girl in America should read this book.

--PART TWO--
This is where the book suffers. Strauss moves from discussion of technique to long rambling conquest stories with backgrounds of various PUA mixed in. Although the PUAs become important later, at least half of these could have been cut.

--PART THREE--
The last part of the book is probably the most important. Prior to this Strauss has tried to maintain the voice and perspective of someone who believes he has discovered the secrets of the universe. There is the occasional remark that alludes to problems with the PUA lifestyle (many of his ... err colleagues? have no other interests or pursuits, Strauss finds that while he has no problem picking up women he has become sort of the jerk to his friends, the community's resentment of women alarms him, etc, etc, etc) but the narrative quickly jerks back.

Until Strauss's mentor begins to self-destruct. At this point Strauss realizes that most of his students haven't gained anything by being PUAs, they've actually lost a lot. Even though they win the women they want, they only wanted those women in the first place because they were trying to impress others. Instead of seducing the crowd to win the girl, they are trying to win the girl to seduce the crowd. Instead of surrounding themselves with awesome people who make them happy, they inevitably surround themselves with people who they think will make them look attractive and successful to others but ultimately do not like. This soulless existence only increases their underlying self hate.

Strauss's ultimate point is that the reality of the PUA is giving up all the pleasures of ACTUAL LIFE for the endless quest of validation from some outside source. The tragedy being that as soon as the PUA gets to know the person providing the validation, once they become a human being with their own flaws and insecurities, they're approval is no longer valuable. And so the cycle continues until everyone is miserable.

Empecé a leer este libro por una insistente recomendación que lo cierto es que no entiendo. He leído unas 100 páginas y me ha parecido vomitivo. La cosa más asquerosa y machista que he leído en mi vida. Un manual de seducción basado en destruir la autoestima de tu "víctima". Es que ni por las risas merece la pena, mi cara ha sido de espanto en todas y cada una de las páginas que he leído. A la hoguera.