I’ll admit. I’m not much of book reader. I hardly get around to browsing beyond the magazine and car section, but for obvious reasons, this one got my attention. Aside from the interesting game in its website (easy2pull.com) that harshly reminds guys like me of high school, it included a few excerpts from the book. Needless to say, I wanted to learn more.
You’ll find this one under biographies, and just like the tag says, it’s nonfiction. Neil says it best: “naked, vulnerable and disturbingly real.” Neil’s written for Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and the biographies of Marylin Manson, and Jenna Jameson (yes, you all know who she is), but this, his most recent book, is about his own two years undercover learning all the tools in the trade.
The book starts with an old device. Neil, a.k.a. Style paints a bleak picture of Project Hollywood, the so-called Pick Up Artist (PUA) headquarters in Los Angeles. Mystery, the number 1 PUA is suffering a mental breakdown and no one else cares to help him except Style, all while Project Hollywood is falling apart around them.
It all starts to flashback to the time Neil’s heartbreak was just beginning, following the lead of Dustin, a natural in the game of courtship, and just not getting it. A couple more years into the future and he still doesn’t get it. Despite all the celebrities he’s met and his successful career in writing, Neil is still single. His initial research to tracking down the origins and contributors of The LayGuide lead him to discover Mystery on the internet. He consequently signs up for his first seminar, fronting the full $500 for it. His metro choice of clothes earns him the nickname Style and his quick learning soon pulls him deeper into the seduction community.
The whole book goes through Neil’s humble beginnings as the lowly Style, to his rise to the top of the PUA ladder. All the while, he takes us through each of his seminars and epiphanies, educating in the counter-intuitive art as he goes along. Being based on forums and message boards on the internet, the book is chockfull of PUA lingo (e.g. AMOG, AFC, LJBF, etc. You’ll find a glossary at the back), forum posts and profanity. Neil even spills a couple of his own routines as well. Techniques range from David DeAngelo’s cocky-funny, Ross Jeffrey’s hypnosis methods, the indirect Mystery Method, and Neil’s very own Stylemogging. Men are taught maintenance like the right answers to women’s ‘tests’ and many ways to diffuse resistance from boyfriends, girlfriends and family. Even a sensory technique to jumpstart threesomes is explained. The result is a formulaic and definitive approach to what most guys had initially thought was a game of chance. Style divulges, not only his own insights, but even those of known seduction experts and authors.
All the characters are called by their internet names which makes for interesting insights into their character if not for a good laugh (e.g. Extramask, Sickboy, Papa, Tyler Durden and Sweater). Neil’s eccentric celebrity friends are also thrown into the mix like the obsessive Tom Cruise, the loopy Courtney Love, easy Paris Hilton, Andy Dick the bi, and even Britney Spears.
Most people would easily label this as the definitive guide to the art of seduction. It’s not so much a guide as it is a digest of sorts of all the existing techniques out there. Neil acknowledges all the other sources and methods available, simply citing his own as the most ideal for his personality. He even recommends a couple of books and sources that might provide more detailed instruction. Regardless, his insights and instructions are more than enough to work with and any avid student need only improvise and do some research to improve.
What makes this different from most of these other ‘pick up’ books is that Neil tells, first hand, the inherent faults in devoting one’s entire life to mastering the art of pick up. Mutiny, fierce competition, partner swapping, antitrust and betrayal result. All this and actually achieving what he set out to do – to find the one – eventually come together to make what was once a lofty dream into a living hell. It reads more like a novel and is driven by plot more than instruction, making for quite a long and informative read.
Any guy reading this will find himself scratching his head in disbelief. Yes, everything you’ve learned is wrong. Fortunately, it can be reprogrammed. Women reading this will be disgusted by the sheer chauvinism and objectification, but will also nod in agreement.
Here’s a little routine right out of the book called the Neg:
“Walk up to a woman, stop, wordlessly remove lint (hidden in the pal of your hand) from her clothing, ask, “How long has that been there?,” then hand her the piece of lint.”
How is this supposed to work?
“Neither a compliment nor insult, a neg is something in between – an accidental insult or backhanded compliment. The purpose of a neg is to lower a woman’s self esteem while actively displaying a lack of interest in her… The point is to come in under the radar. Don’t approach a woman with a sexual come-on. Learn about her first and let her earn the right to be hit on.”
This is used in combination with several other techniques in a strict sequential order designed to break any defense.
Indeed it comes across as demeaning and preys upon women’s weaknesses and insecurities. Neil, however, makes clear his own traumas, and that of men in general, as justification, all the while battling with his own morals on the newfound art. Like any Average Frustrated Chump (AFC) and closet romantic, Neil’s just looking to find the one. Towards the end of the book, the hardest decision he has to make is between just that and the community.
The Game is one of those rare books that gives unique insights into what we all thought was a mystery, combined with human frailty and pop culture elements thrown in. It tells the good and bad, without the force feeding, hard sell or contrived metaphors of the many other books on the subject. It’s still a story, first and foremost, self-help book second.
As for the lessons it teaches… By God, it was so simple all along…
