The Game

The Game is like a seat right next to Neil Strauss on his rollercoaster ride through the pickup community, where he gets hooked, successful, lost, wins and fails, until he finds his true self again.

Of course the blink said social situations can be manipulated to help you seduce women. However, that shouldn’t be your takeaway.

What’s worth remembering is that social dynamics can be manipulated altogether. That means not only can you turn the tables when you’re the shy guy amongst a flock of beautiful women, but also among men.

Whether people think you’re dorky, smart, a loser, musclehead, or an ass, you can take those assumptions and use them to your advantage.

It reminded me how Barney always talked his way out of things on How I Met Your Mother and of a Cambodian kid’s story my girlfriend told me. It goes like this:

A wolf and a fox spot a turtle on their way, and instantly pin it to the ground. The turtle then overhears their discussion. “Let’s eat it! But we have to break the shell first.”

The turtle wasn’t quick on her feet, but in her mind, and said: “Ha! You’ll never break my shell. And even if you did, don’t you know without my shell I’m fast as lightning? Good luck catching me then!”

The fox whispered to the wolf: “Let’s throw it into a fire then!”. Again the turtle responded: “Oh yes, please throw me into a fire. It’s my element and it makes me stronger than you could ever imagine!”

“Hmm, maybe we should throw it in the lake instead?” the wolf wondered. Cunningly, the turtle said: “Water? Oh no, that’s the worst, I’ll die in water, please don’t throw me in the lake!”

Instantly the fox and the wolf grabbed the turtle and tossed it into the lake. The turtle swam and circled around before sticking its head out of the water and calling out to the two predators: “Thanks guys! I was saved by 2 idiots!” And thus the turtle swam away.

The turtle manipulated the social dynamics of the situation and used its presumed role of the scared, honest victim to “win” the discussion and save her life.

Wherever you go, people will make assumptions about you, just like you do yourself. Good ones and bad ones. Either way, you should use them to your advantage.

After Project Hollywood, an experiment where Neil tried to live together with 3 other pickup gurus, failed, Neil started to come to grips why pickup wasn’t sustainable. As a result of their teaching and workshops, all of these lonely, anti-social, horny men found themselves among more lonely, anti-social, horny men, instead of women.…