Reframing thanks to The Game

As a certified reading junkie, my mission in life is to provide myself with a continuous stream of reading material. I’m always on the lookout for the next book I need to inhale (“next” being somewhat figurative because if the stack of books in my reading queue number less than six,I make an emergency trip to the second-hand bookstore) because god forbid I even come close to running out of literary crack. Any time I discover a new-to-me authour I get slightly obsessive about having to read anything they ever wrote. Which is how I came to read “The Game” by Neil Strauss and am now questioning every single thing any man has ever said to me as a come-on in the last 25 years.

First, a little about Neil…he’s the guy who wrote the definitive Motley Crue memoir “The Dirt” (and hell yes, they were the dirtiest, nastiest musical degenerates who ever lived and how any of them are still alive is beyond me…still LOVE them though) and also wrote “Emergency” which took my already rampant paranoia about surviving a natural disaster/societal breakdown/zombie apocalypse to an entirely new level. On the other hand, I now know how to evade security cameras, turn a credit card into a knife and why terrorism works (the short answer, according to the book: “Saying “Please get off my lawn” is a much less effective deterrent than, for example, aiming a shotgun at a trespasser and saying, “Get off my lawn or I’ll blow your fucking brains out”. And then doing it. No one will set a toe on your lawn again”…scary as hell, but true). 

“The Game” is about pick-up artists. And not just the douchey pseudo-player that sidles up to you in a bar and starts spewing a cheesy line that has females rolling their eyes before he’s even ended his first sentence…I’m talking about a whole society of guys that have elevated picking up women to a successful art form. They use illusion, hypnosis, social proof, indicators, marketing ploys and every psychological trick known to mankind…they literally have seduction down to a science. They share their knowledge on forums and in workshops. They have their own language (eg anti-slut defense, sarging, peacock, newbie mission, phase-shift). These guys are a community of Horndog-Jedi and they are gaming the shit out of unsuspecting women everywhere. The whole thing is utterly fascinating and a little horrifying all at once.

The funny part? That men can and will form an entire community devoted to studying every angle, every trick, every social, analytical and psychological indicator/response, every scrap of information that will help them succeed in getting in a woman’s pants. And women? Don’t have to do ANY of this shit. No games required. Fundamental proof that the opposite sex? Really is opposite.

And thanks to this book? I will never quite look at a come-on quite the same way again. And my shit test? Just got WAY more difficult.