I did play with the idea of adding some material to Debunking the Seduction Community but not only have I for the most part moved on from bashing this industry. I am also quite intimidated by the enormous amount of material I have on various people in this business. Debunking was not necessarily about “guru” A, B or C, but about the industry as a whole, and about general trends and common problems. I did not have the intention to slag off some guys. In fact, I really had to restrain myself from not spilling the beans on some people. However, the occasional blog post that surfaced in the meantime did rectify this.
Today, I have something very special for you. It is a “business secret” of one of the many #1 PUAs / dating "gurus" in the world. You can make your own guess, but probably someone will chime in in the comments and reveal it sooner or later anyway. Let’s just call him PUAZiph.
The story goes as follows: Our internationally renowned dating guru PUAZiph needs some money. He always needs money, just like the invisible man in the sky. Thus, he sets up a couple of boot camps in the United States. Because he himself can’t demonstrate all that much, as he doesn’t want to piss off his wife, he enlists some “assistant coaches” from a local lair. He’ll just tell the boot camp students that he’s trained them. It’s also a neat way for him to make more money since those guys are more than happy to “help out” such an esteemed person as PUAZiph free of charge.
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| This is even worse than VK's "number closes"! |
The student sees something like this:
The PUA instructor tells the guys, “watch this!”, and walks up to a woman at the bar. After some conversation, they witness him keying his number into her phone and ringing it, and they are all giddy. After all, they haven’t seen such a God among men all their life.
However, this is what really happens:
The PUA knows that he doesn’t do any better than your average schmuck, and if his numbers are a bit higher (but not that much either) it’s merely because he’s always “out in the field” and has a stash of viagra in the car in case he pulls a fattie once again. Therefore, he’d have good reason to be anxious about demonstrating “number closes” in front of eager students. Thus, his "game plan" is the following:
1) He's looking for a girl who seems friendly. She may or may not be by herself.
2) He starts a conversation that goes something like this: “Hey! Could I ask you for a favor?” Then he'll tell her a little story about how his phone doesn’t quite seem to work and that he has to reach one of his friends, or want to make sure that his friend can reach him. Hold on, because I am not done yet!
Now you may think that this is an utterly stupid “opener”, but it works for its intended purpose. After all, you only want to get her number, and it doesn’t matter that it was a completely non-sexual interaction. It's a bit like the bastard version of Mystery’s “We’re throwing a big party at our pool this weekend. Can I take your number? You can bring your friends, too.”
To make sure that the PUA can get his “number close”, he then asks the girl whether she could possibly call his number from her phone. Since he wasn't exactly a “sexual threat”, and she just viewed him as some random guy instead of a potential sexual partner, she readily calls your number. He made a friendly request, and she wouldn't even have to bother about "shooting him down" since the interaction is not on that level.
The PUA's phone rings, and he has achieved his objective, namely to demonstrate a “number close”. Now he thanks the girl, and if he's feeling lucky, he may try to make her kiss him on the cheek before heading back to his students. Those, of course, will now hear a story about his awesome opener, and the sexual innuendoes she has made, that he and his "material" are "so money," and that she is “as good as in the bag”. Phrases like "Have you seen this, bro?" are likely to be repeated numerous times.
Some of his students may even fawn and say stuff like, “Wow. Awesome! You are really good. I wish I was as good as you with women.” But now you know how this dirty trick works, and you can easily be as good as your favourite #1 PUA in the world. All you need now is some desperate men who want to part from a couple of grand.
Another common tactic is plants.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most notorious ones, is where a Croatian guru actually planted a chick on the street, he opened her, and then made out with her 20 seconds after the opener. Guys actually bought it and spread stories of "20 second make-outs on the street".
Some more expensive boot-camps are known to have used cheap whores to get a high-paying client laid.
Cheap whores sound very natural to me. If I was a scam PUA guru charging thousands of dollars for a weekend bootcamp, I would probably use a lot of hookers and escorts to prove that my methods get "results".
DeleteTo be honest, I am actually surprised why more PUA companies don't use them when they clearly go to great lengths and spend a lot of time and effort in scamming their clients. I can't imagine a cleaner and less hassle-free approach to have a stellar reputation as a guy who gets results. Then you can charge even more money and get better escorts and hookers. Goes to show PUAs clearly don't focus on efficiency, not even in scamming people properly!
Some of the videos you see online are obviously staged. Sometimes, you hear duded defending their "hero", saying stuff like "she can't be a hooker because hookers don't make out with johns". Oh, really? For a bit of extra cash they sure do.
DeleteI know another juicy story involving a guy who used to call himself "Woodhaven" but uses a different name professionally, and this I have been told by an ex-client. So, Mr Wood sets up a "stripper boot camp". On Friday, there was absolutely nothing happening, and everybody felt like an idiot. My source told me that there was quite a bit of dissent among the group, something he hadn't seen before. Also, this was during the "golden era" of the seduction industry, when people have bought into the hype unquestionably. On Saturday, everything was different. There were lots of hand jobs, some guys got blown etc, but it was so bizarre that the guy who told me this story said that this made him lose faith in this "community". Obviously, the PUA ended up being little more than a middle man, taking two or three grand from those suckers, and distributing a few hundred to those strippers/hookers. It's rather bizarre.
Johnny's comment goes in the same direction. If you think this scenario through to the end, you actually end up with PUAs going to jail for facilitating prostitution. One can dream, though...
Good point, Sleazy. I had never thought about the legal implications of hiring cheap hookers.
DeleteZiph = AFC Adam?
ReplyDeleteSome of his students may even fawn and say stuff like, “Wow. Awesome! You are really good. I wish I was as good as you with women.”
ReplyDeleteThats so true Aaron, but before we bash the "Gurus" oder those dumb guys who organize the Boot Camps, why not take a look at the men's who pay for that crap?
Have we not be impressed when we first saw Videos from PU Gurus or read their lay reports? To be honest, i was and i thought "Wow those guys are legit and they wanna teach me their skills if i order their book and study it. Why shouldnt i do that? Its not that expensive..."
We as human beings always try to take the shortest road to get results, because we're fucking lazy. There is everything out there to loose weight, build muscles, get educated, be happy, and so on, but there are still ppl out there who'll be taken in every yr by those "Magic Pill" advertisements.
The same goes for pick up: Its easier to listen to a DVD set or read a long book about getting a gf, than actually going out and push yourself.
Therefore we can make fun of those pick up gurus, but there will be always a market to sell their stuff, because there are always guys out there who are lazy.
@Daniel
DeleteYou're right. We are almost as much at fault as the "gurus". We were sitting starry-eyed watching a video of a guy talking to a chick and going "OMG that's so amazing".
Then again, that's because we didn't have enough experience to know that it means nothing... and the gurus know full well they're exploiting inexperienced men.
Interestingly, I was never even looking for a real shortcut when I entered the PUA community. I am a guy who has had to work for every single thing in life, so I know that magical shortcuts don't exist. That is why I actually went out there and did approaches instead of sitting at home or committing only somewhat.
DeleteAlso, I doubt how many people really think it is a shortcut given the fact that PUAs talk about a brutally hard pain period, going out 2-3 nights a week, talking to 10 girls a night, doing 30 day challenges, dealing with emotional ups and downs which comes through cold approaching etc. None of that sounds even remotely fun or supremely easy. Ironically, it was Sleazy who kept saying that it's about going out and hitting on chicks, if it is not fun, then you are doing it wrong.
For me the reason for getting into PUA was definitely not because I wanted an easy ride. I was an inexperienced guy who wasn't getting laid, neither were my friends. So when I read a book where a guy says that I get laid a lot, this is exactly how I do it, anyone who uses this gets laid a lot then being naive that I was, I thought people are honest and thus he must be saying the truth.
Combine it with the fact that a lot of these guys say things like I was there in your position, I know how it feels, you deserve more and if you do this, you too will get hot chicks - well I still think it is relatively easy to fall for such a thing if you are a person who assumes the good in people.
Johnny you are right that there is no magic pill in what some PUAs blatantly say about having to approach a lot and go out X number of times a week for a couple of months. These PUA scammers have become more savyy in their marketing ploys. Now they sell their bullshit as an odyssey and adventure in learning game skills.
ReplyDeleteThe new magic pill being sold is no longer do this and immediately get laid within 3 months (even though this is still seen in most PUA marketing materials). Rather it's that as long as you figure out game you can dismiss other crucial aspects related to success with women.
This means that any fatass or emaciated nerd is brainwashed with the certainty that he will get laid without having to work on aspects of his life that require much more effort than going out to talk to women, such as improving career, fitness, looks, mental and emotional health, etc.
After thousands of approaches, then the wannabe PUAs are bound to get one lay and of course it would be attributed to pickup skills.
Like Daniel mentioned before this runs parallel to many industries out there that target lazy guys. PUAs are effectively targeting:
- Those who can't manage to approach women (don't want to put any effort at all) yet want the quick solution to get laid plastered on 20 DVDs
- Those who are too lazy to improve aspects of their lives that require hard work and years of dedicated effort, but they are willing to do some work so they buy into the notion of approaching 1000s of women using game to get laid
This means that any fatass or emaciated nerd is brainwashed with the certainty that he will get laid without having to work on aspects of his life that require much more effort than going out to talk to women, such as improving career, fitness, looks, mental and emotional health, etc.
DeleteActually even most of those things are a scam.
Inner-game can be just as much as a scam as pua-techniques. Seriously screwed up junkies and insecure men get laid all the time.
In fact, some of the biggest man-sluts are also some of the most insecure, unemployed, spiritually bankrupt people on the planet.
Things like mental health, career, conversational skills, status and spirituality only matter for a good committed relationship. They don't have much bearing on getting laid.
Those who are too lazy to improve aspects of their lives that require hard work and years of dedicated effort, but they are willing to do some work so they buy into the notion of approaching 1000s of women using game to get laid
Well, if you mean years of dedicated effort to lose weight? Otherwise there isn't much that takes years of dedicated effort to get laid. Or if you mean getting laid by having a big social-circle status? Yes, that would take years to build.
The whole idea of "dedicating years to improve sexual success" is something puas came up with. I think you're substituting one fallacy with another.
As I said, that's only true if you insist on getting laid using status or big social circles (popularity) or if you're so fat that it takes years to lose the weight.
I completely agree with Alek here. In fact, nowadays I am honestly beginning to believe that trying to work much on your mental health, career, conversational skills, status and spirituality etc. is potentially counter productive. The issue there is that if you actually do those things, most people can't relate with you anymore nor are your able to relate much with them.
DeleteWhat also happens a lot is that your patience with stupid people tends to reduce a lot and you're like - wasting my time listening to this stupid broad talk about stupid shit is not worth a night of drunken sex. Another point is that you should look at the lives of a large fraction of average girls - it usually doesn't extend much beyond college, partying, sex, celebrity gossip etc.
Look at this reasonably honest LR from Mark Manson - http://postmasculine.com/the-cheerleader. I can tell you for a fact that I wouldn't have been able to pull that off. Most of the time, I can't deal with stupid girls who I don't enjoy talking to or can't hold a decent 5 minute convo with, much less spend hours dealing with bullshit from a borderline ADD girl.
If you are a guy who has a lot going on in life, you too will value your time a lot. Certainly, wasting many hours on a girl who you did not enjoy talking to and at the end having just one night of bad sex will certainly not be a good use of your time.
Now imagine that even this one night stand only happens in something like 1 out of 3-4 nights, and then if you seriously don't love the venue where you are doing cold approaches or don't enjoy cold approaching itself a lot (most guys don't particularly enjoy the experience of constantly being shot down by random girls without much success to show for it), then well, for a guy who values his time a lot, pure cold approaching may not be particularly worth it.
Those are excellent points. In Minimal Game, I make a side note that if you happen to be an over-educated guy, and want to chat up random girls, you may very well feel as if you are acting due to the fact that you'd intimidate most girls if you revealed the actual depths of your intellect. This might strike some as an absurdly arrogant statement, and it's certainly not "pc", that's just how it is. In the worst case, you find yourself listen to utter drivel ("What's your star sign?"). Early on in my career, I actually walked away from girls when they said something incredibly stupid because I just couldn't stand it. This was also a reason to do pretty much "non-verbal game" since twisted logic gives me a headache.
DeleteYour typical "PUA" doesn't really have this problem since he is severely challenged when it comes to making logically valid deductions from a set of premises, though.
However, there is one aspect where intellectual superiority can help you to cope with rejection because you tend to view a lot of woman as children in adult bodies, and how could you take anything they say seriously?
I don't remember if I read this here or elsewhere, but "Game" is basically on long detour through the forest when just next, there is a clean path heading exactly to the same destination.
ReplyDeleteOnly once you are there, you realize that everything you tried to externalize is actually already inside you.
I know Sleazy has reached the end for quite a long time (and he did it quickly too), and that is exactly what he is trying to say to beginners in basically every of his posts.
What's funny about this particular one, is that in Central/East europe, I dont remember the last time a girl did not casually give me her number minutes after meeting in the street. When you realize that the interaction between a man and a woman is probably the most natural thing of the world, all that "numbers game" just seem silly.
Having said that, I have been traveling for almost 2 years now, and my main criticism of the PUA industry is why they actually put so much effort in so low quality of women.
"...if his numbers are a bit higher (but not that much either) it’s merely because he’s always “out in the field”..."
ReplyDeleteMassively agree. The real secret to success with women, as far as I can see, is simply putting in the time and meeting as many women as possible every single day. 'Game' / 'Pickup' works as a placebo in that it gets guys out meeting more women, and since they're meeting more women, they inevitably find more success. The problem comes when they attribute it to PUA / 'Game' rather than the fact that they were "out in the field" more than they were before. Good article, thanks for sharing.
JR
I have an idea who this is, does he live in NYC?
ReplyDeleteI don't know where he lives right now, but the guy I am alluding to has been mentioned in this thread already. I am sure this is a fairly wide-spread "teaching technique", though.
Delete