The Game

been orchestrated by a little man in the closet, the wizard of Project Hollywood. I felt like such a chump.
    “The biggest mistake you and Mystery made,” Playboy concluded, “was having Papa move into this house.”
    There was a lesson here, perhaps the last one this community would teach me. And that was always to follow my instincts and first impressions. I hadn’t trusted either Papa or Tyler Durden when I’d first met them. I found Papa spoiled and robotic, and Tyler Durden soulless and manipulative. And though they’d made great leaps forward when it came to fashion and game, Mystery was right: The scorpion can’t deny its nature.
    Yet, at the same time, Mystery and I weren’t entirely blameless. We had used Papa as a patsy to sign the lease and pay for the most expensive room. We had never attempted to befriend him or treat him as an equal.
    When I was checking e-mail later on my computer in the office area of the house, I noticed a program called Family Key Logger. I would have ignored it if it weren’t for the paranoia I’d developed as a result of my discussion with Playboy. So I Googled the name of the program. When I saw the results, anger swung through my body like a wrecking ball. Someone had installed software that was capturing every word typed on the keyboard and storing it in a text file. The computer was intended as a shared resource so that residents and guests could check the Internet. This meant that whoever had installed the program now had everyone’s passwords, credit card numbers, and private e-mails.
    Unbeknownst to me, there had been a war going on in the house from the moment we’d moved in.
    Afterward, I called Sickboy in New York. I wanted a second opinion.
    “Does that match your experience?” I asked after telling him everything Playboy had said.
    “Totally. When Mystery was there, they did what they’re doing to you now. Tyler Durden and Papa would say, ‘Don’t talk to Mystery; freeze him out.’ Everything they do is a routine. The house meeting about Mystery was thought out for days. They’d constantly talk about how to get Mystery to move out so they could take control of Project Hollywood. The house is part of their business plan. I had to leave. I can’t be around that shit.”
    In the days that followed, I talked to Maverick and Dreamweaver. They both told the same story: Mystery and I, supposedly the best players in the community, had been played. The worshippers were smashing their idols.

There was one pickup guru I still needed to meet. I didn’t want advice from him on how to pick up girls; I wanted advice on how to stop.
    Everyone in the community had mentioned his name. He was a sort of spiritual presence that hung over the pickup world, a mythological figure like Odysseus or Captain Kirk or an HB11. He was Eric Weber, the first modern PUA, the writer of the 1970 book that started it all, How to Pick Up Girls, and the subject of the movie with the same name.
    I met him in a small post-production studio, where he was editing a film he had directed. He definitely wasn’t peacocked; he looked like a middle-aged advertising executive, with gray hair, a starched shirt buttoned up too high, and featureless black pants. Only his eyes, which sparkled with energy, gave evidence that his youthful daring had not yet been extinguished.
Are you aware of the seduction community?
    I am. But I look at it with the sense of being imitated. Part of what came along after my book was repellant to me. I don’t believe in doing things that twist and turn a person. I was never interested in conquering women in a despotic way. I was interested in finding somebody to love. However, I didn’t stay passionately interested in seduction. I felt like there were too many other things I wanted to do.
What made you get over it?
    I lost interest after getting married, gaining more confidence in myself, and realizing that accumulating dozens of notches in my belt wouldn’t cure my existential despair. What also helped was having two daughters who have occasionally accused me of being sexist, which I am mildly, I guess.
What was your existential despair?
    I think the existential dilemma is: We’re social animals, so we all wrestle with a sense of inadequacy. But when we realize that we’re not as inadequate as we thought we were, and when we realize that everybody else alsothinks they’re inadequate, then that ache goes away and the idea that we’re not a person of value