The Game

much real-world experience, they have learned to socialize almost entirely through rules and theories they’ve read online and learned in workshops. They may never be normal again. After a great twenty-minute set with many of these social robots, a woman begins to realize that they don’t have anything more going for them. And then they post online complaining that women are flakes.
    The Internet newsgroups and the pickup lifestyle can give you so much—I know it’s given me so much—but it can take away a lot too. You can end up becoming a one-dimensional person. You start to think that everyone else around you is a social robot too and begin to read too much into his or her actions.
    The solution is to remember that the best way to pick up women is to have something better to do than to pick up women. Some guys give up everything—school, work, even girlfriends—to learn the game. But all these things are what make one complete and enhance one’s attractiveness to the opposite sex. So put your life back in balance. If you can make something of yourself, women will flock to you, and what you’ve learned here will prepare you to deal with them.

    —Style

“I can’t just tell students not to come to your workshop.”
    Mystery and Papa were arguing again.
    “You booked too many students,” Mystery said, throwing his hands up, exasperated. “It’s not fun for me. And it’s not fair to them.”
    “And you’re making my business look bad.” Papa’s voice was stuffy with pent-up frustration.
    “Fine,” Mystery yelled. “Then take my name off your website. Our business relationship is through. I don’t want anything to do with Real Social Dynamics.”
    It was a doomed partnership to begin with.
    The next day, Herbal offered to be Mystery’s business partner. It seemed as if he’d been laying low the whole time, waiting for his moment to get involved in the pickup business. Since he’d arrived at the house, he hadn’t been with a single woman besides Sima, an ex-MLTR of Mystery’s who had moved to Los Angeles from Toronto. When Mystery and Sima started getting on each other’s nerves shortly after her arrival in town, she started showing IOIs to Herbal. Instead of getting upset, Mystery sat Herbal down and told him everything he needed to do to sarge her. Sima and Herbal ended up fooling around that night. Afterward, it only served to strengthen Mystery and Herbal’s friendship. But they seemed unaware of something that everyone else around them realized: a bad precedent was being set.
    Once Herbal started working for Mystery, we truly became a house divided: There was Real Social Dynamics, encamped in Papa’s room, and Mystery Method, which had the rest of the house.
    I was the only person under the roof who wasn’t on the payroll of either. But that didn’t stop Papa from snubbing me along with Mystery and Herbal. I was guilty by association. If Papa and I happened to bump into each other as he snuck around the back of the house, he’d walk past with a brusque hello, staring vacantly through me.
    He wasn’t angry. He was just operating on some sort of program thatdidn’t include me. The curious thing is: Most robots don’t program themselves.
    In the meantime, every single rule we had laid down at the house meeting—requiring approval for guests, giving the house a percentage of seminar money, not hitting on another PUA’s woman—was bypassed and ignored. We had no idea how many students, sargers, and instructors Papa was packing into his room. They scurried around the house like peacocked rats. We didn’t even bother to lock the doors anymore.
    His latest recruits were two interns who looked like younger versions of himself. No one knew their names. They were known simply as the mini-Papas.
    The mini-Papas were just as cold to me as Papa was, but they were constantly around. They watched my every move, as if it were an assignment they’d been given. Sometimes I’d see them sitting at Mel’s Diner with Tyler Durden. The three of them would be talking about me.
    “He’ll reposition his body to steer the conversation in his direction.”
    “He’ll leave at times to show scarcity.”
    “If you make a joke, he exaggerates it to steal the glory.”
    “If someone asks him to do a routine, he’ll say, ‘In the field,’ so that it’s on his time and the person appreciates it more.”
    They weren’t criticizing me. They were trying to model me. Yet, oddly, they never hung