The Game

Sasha raved. “This is probably the best day of my life.”
    As anyone who regularly reads newspapers or true-crime books knows, a significant percentage of violent crime, from kidnappings to shooting sprees, is the result of the frustrated sexual impulses and desires of males. By socializing guys like Sasha, Mystery and I were making the world a safer place.
    Mystery threw his arm around my neck and pulled my face into his wizard’s overcoat. “You’ve done me proud,” he said. “It’s not just about getting the girl. It’s about the students seeing it happen and believing it can be done.”
    It was then that I realized the downside to this whole venture. A gulf was opening between men and women in my mind. I was beginning to see women solely as measuring instruments to give me feedback on how I was progressing as a pickup artist. They were my crash-test dummies, identifiable only by hair colors and numbers—a blonde 7, a brunette 10. Even when I was having a deep conversation, learning about a woman’s dreams and point of view, in my mind I was just ticking off a box in my routine marked rapport. In bonding with men, I was developing an unhealthy attitude toward the opposite sex. And the most troubling thing about this new mindset was that it seemed to be making me more successful with women.
    Marko drove us to Ra, an Egyptian-themed nightclub guarded by two concrete statues of Anubis. Inside, it was nearly empty. There were just security guards, bartenders, and a group of nine noisy Serbians clustered on barstools around a small circular table.
    We were about to leave when Mystery spied, among the group of Serbians, a lone girl. She was young and slender with long black hair and a red dress that showed off a set of perfectly tapered legs. It was an impossible set: She was surrounded by stocky guys with crewcuts. These were men who had clearly been in the military during the war, men who had probably killed before, maybe even with their bare hands. And Mystery was going in.
    The pickup artist is the exception to the rule.
    “Here,” he told me. “Clasp your hands together. And when I say so, act as if you can’t open them.”
    He pretended, through the art of illusion, to seal my hands together. I pretended to be amazed.
    The commotion attracted the attention of the bouncers in the club, who asked him to try the feat with their hammy fists. Instead, Mystery performed his watch-stopping illusion for them. Soon, the club manager was giving him free drinks and the table of Serbians had halted their conversation and were gawking at him, including his target.
    “If you can make a girl envy you,” Mystery told the students, “you can make a girl sleep with you.”
    Two principles were at work. First, he was generating social proof by earning the attention and approval of the club staff. And, second, he was pawning—in other words, he was using one group to work his way into another, less approachable group nearby.
    For his coup de grace, Mystery told the club manager he would levitate a beer bottle. He approached the table of Serbians, asked to borrow an empty bottle, and made it float in the air in front of him for a few seconds. Now he was in his target’s group. He performed a few illusions for the guys and ignored the girl for the requisite five minutes. Then he relented, started talking to her, and isolated her to a couch nearby. He had pawned the entire club just to meet her.
    Since the girl spoke only a little English, Mystery used Marko as a translator. It was a longer set than usual, because Mystery needed to convince her that he wasn’t practicing any form of witchcraft or black magic. “Everything you’ve seen tonight is fake,” Mystery finally told her, via Marko. “I created all this to meet you. It’s a social illusion.”
    The two finally exchanged numbers—“I can’t promise you anything other than good conversation,” Mystery instructed Marko to tell her—and we collected the students to leave the club. However, on our way out, an AMOG from the table blocked Mystery’s path. He wore a tight black T-shirt, exposing a physique that made Mystery’s doughy body look feminine in comparison.
    “So you like Natalija, magic man?” he asked.
    “Natalija? We’re going to be seeing each other. Is that okay with you?”
    “She’s my girlfriend,” the AMOG said. “I want you to stay away from her.”
    “That’s up to her,” Mystery replied, taking a step closer to the AMOG.