The Game

fraud. Before I joined the community, I had been afraid of failing in front of women. Now I was afraid of failing in front of men.
    And the pressure ran both ways: I also began to develop unreasonable expectations of myself. If I was at an Italian restaurant and there was an alluring woman five tables away, I felt like a failure if I didn’t sarge her. If Iwas walking to the dry cleaners and an aspiring actress-model-waitress passed by, I felt like a hypocrite if I didn’t open her. And where simply talking to a stranger was enough to elate me in my AFC days, now I needed to have her in my bed within a week.
    Though I knew my new mindset was seriously warped, I felt more ethical in many ways as a PUA than I had been as an AFC. Part of learning game was not just memorizing openers and phone game and rapport-building tactics, but learning how to be honest with a woman about what I expected from her and what she could expect from me. It was no longer necessary to deceive a woman by telling her I wanted a relationship when I just wanted to get laid; by pretending to be her friend when I only wanted to get in her pants; by letting her think we were in a monogamous relationship when I was seeing other women.
    I had finally internalized the idea that women don’t always want relationships. In fact, once unleashed, a woman’s physical needs are often more ravenous than a man’s. It’s just that there are certain barriers and programming walls to be overcome in order for her to feel comfortable enough to surrender to them. I got good at the game because I understood that the goal of the PUA was simply not to trigger a woman’s shutdown or flight responses.
    [As I write this, I look up and, I swear to God, there is a girl on top of me. She has blonde hair and a sleeveless undershirt with a black bra underneath. She is smiling at me. I am inside her.
    She is biting her lower lip as she rubs her clit against my pelvic bone. I can hear her gasping. She is supporting herself with one hand on my thigh and the other lightly resting on the top of the computer.
    “You know it turns me on when you click the typewriter,” she just said. “Can I put you in my mouth for a minute?”
    So fuck the stereotypical image of the writer. This is the new one. I can get work done and play at the same time. It reminds me of sometlkhing Steve P. said, about alwyas being in your own reality. Everyone is jus a guest in it. So if it’s my work tiem, and you want tohave sex with me, well,e welcome to my reality.
    I think she’s about to come. Sh e is coming allksd;Good for her.] 6
    So every part of the pickup is designed simply to anticipate and disarm objections—at least, when we’re talking about solid game as opposed to fool’s mate.
    The opener, for example, is casual. It is not perceived as a pickup attempt. You are just being a friendly stranger when you walk up and ask her and her friends, “My neighbor just bought two dogs, and she wants to name them after an eighties or nineties pop duo. Do you have any ideas?”
    When you start talking to a group of people, their first concern is, “Are we going to be stuck with this guy all night? How do we get rid of him?”
    So you give yourself a false time constraint. “I can only stay for a minute,” you tell them as you join their group, “because I need to get back to my friends.”
    As you interact, you pay attention to the people who seem most likely to shut you out—the jealous men, the overprotective friends. You make them feel good about themselves as you challenge, tease, and neg the target. If she interrupts you, for example, say, “Wow. Is she always like that? How do you deal with her?” If she looks shocked, you reel her back in with a light compliment. This is what I call push-pull—keeping her guessing by pushing her away and then quickly pulling her in closer.
    After they’re finished giving opinions on names for the dogs (Milli and Vanilli, Hall and Oates, Dre and Snoop—I’ve heard them all), then you demonstrate value. You give the girls the best friends test or teach them something about their body language or analyze their handwriting. Then you pretend like you have to get back to your friends.
    Now they don’t want you to leave. You are in. You’ve shown them that you’re the most interesting, fun person in the room. This is the hook point: You can now relax and enjoy their company. You can listen to them, find out about their lives, and make a real