Every now and then I tell someone that my job is to help geeks find love. Often, that’s when they ask me, “What, like the Pick-Up Artist?”
What? No!
The Pick-Up Artist is a TV series that has had two seasons, thus far, on VH1. The concept behind the show is that Mystery, a “seduction artist,” teaches “the art of the pick-up” to a group of (geeky) guys who are looking for love. I started watching the show because the commercials promised geeks and makeovers, which are always fun. I also wanted to see what Bizzaro world thought giant fuzzy hats and enormous runic necklaces were alluring. (Never did figure that one out.) Soon, however, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth.
Many of the guys on the show, at their root, are looking for a relationship. For a girlfriend. The “art of seduction” has nothing to do with forming a relationship, or learning how to communicate with someone.
I guess you could say that it’s the contestants’ fault for signing up for the show in the first place, but these are guys who are historically bad with women, and looking for someone – anyone – to tell them what to do.
So, let’s see what they learn:
The main idea behind Mystery’s method - called, big surprise, the “Mystery Method” - is that these guys, who inherently approach women with low self-esteem, need to level the playing field, as it were. Not a bad idea; confidence is a turn-on.
However, how Mystery achieves a level playing field, more often than not, is through a trick he might have learned from a playground bully: build yourself up by tearing others down.
One of the most important concepts contestants have to master is the “neg,” a sort of backhanded complimenting designed to make their target more eager to get approval. They also use prepackaged “funny stories” to open conversations, and specific techniques designed to subconsciously make their targets more receptive.
Many of the techniques are derived from tricks that people in sales and similar professions have used for years. (I think I spotted some when I had to buy a car recently.) It’s just as cold, just as calculated. And as these guys get results, they get put in a feedback loop, telling them that cold and calculated is the way to go.
If you’re at the point where you’re willing to try Mystery’s methods, you already typically have problems communicating with women. Instead of focusing on the humanity of all involved, the Mystery Method perpetuates the concept of women as an “other,” an alien being that must be “handled” instead of understood. And if you spend enough time insulting and manipulating a foreign being, it’s soon easy to think of them as something “less” than yourself.
If all you’re interested in is heartless sex, than sure, the Mystery Method might be something fun, a party trick to break out from time to time. But the contestants – and the people that the Mystery Method targets – tend to be good guys who just want a meaningful relationship. The Mystery Method will only bring them further away from their goal.
As for Mystery himself – I see him as an embittered guy who couldn’t relate meaningfully with other women. Now he’s latched onto a 90′s fashion sensibility – probably what was popular when he first started out - and surrounds himself with men in a little Lost Boys setup. He doesn’t really like women, but he chases after girls because he feels powerful, like he’s gotten one over on them, if he succeeds.
Women who are more than their self-esteem issues see through dramatics and backhanded compliments. And, incidentally, those are the kind of women worth pursuing.
So if you’re looking for love, fellow geeks, look for ways to relate, get closer. Leave the cold pseudoscience of the Mystery Method at home.
About j
The only other people who wear that hat is Pamela Anderson and Jamiroquai…
He’s a dick teaching others to be dicks. VH1 has become such a horrible channel.
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Reminds me of that Rollins Band song “Liar”.
If you pick your target right, it is sadly easy to emotionally tear someone down to the point that they think they need you. I mean, think about all the abused wives who won’t leave their husbands.
Beyond being just plain evil, as you said it is not a path to fulfillment. Do you really want to stay long term with a woman you broke? How are you going to feel when that moment of introspection comes and you look back and see the path of destruction in your wake?
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I’m rather glad that show hasn’t made it EU-side yet. I’d probably have ended up watching it *looks sheepish*
But the guy sounds like an asshole. I think I’d rather stick with the low self-esteem and nerves around people rather then being a dick to other people.
No point fucking up someone elses happiness for your own :-/
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Oh come on, just take a look at what network it’s on and just ask yourself, “Really?”
I dunno how much success j. has had picking up women or forming relationships with them, but I can say for a fact that her advice is dead wrong. The neg is money. It’s not about “tearing down someone’s self-esteem so far they think they need you,” as one commenter suggested. It’s a realization of basic human nature, the need to be liked, and applying it to a dating scenario. The neg is the worm on the hook, and more often than not it’s successful in getting a woman’s attention and getting her to engage with you. Once that’s happened, then different techniques apply. I’ve seen many people go crazy with the neg, but once the bait has been taken you have to back off it.
On the subject of not having a tactic, that’s just asinine. Successful people have tactics for all social situations: parties, job interviews, and the meat market…they are all the same. What’s wrong with having pre-packaged funny stories to use as icebreakers? That’s classic public speaking and persuasive advice! Do you think politicians give spontaneous, different speeches every time they speak? Not in the slightest, they give stump speeches hundreds of times throughout a campaign with pre-packaged talking points and even audience interactions.
Women are interested in confident, witty, good-looking, talented men. If you’re not a Tom Brady/Oscar Wilde mashup you better get your game face on, make a plan, and use tactics to overcome your weaknesses. In the end, it *is* about getting closer and relating, but no woman will ever let you do that if you don’t interest her in the first place.
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I have pretty much come to the same conclusion. I went into the show hoping to learn what to do to meet women. I am the kind of guy that would be a contestant on that show. After marathoning the two seasons, I realized that this was not going to get me the result I wanted. I want a relationship, while the goal of these challenges was to get laid as fast as possible. I couldn’t figure out a way to get the method Mystery teaches to work in a long term way. Yeah, it may get the attention of the girl in question, but after you have her attention, what then? How do you manage to get her to stick around if you have built what little relationship you have on fake stories and backhanded compliments? I am just glad I learned that from watching the show, instead of paying the thousands of dollars the guy charges for his workshops.
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There are a lot of negatives to the pick-up artist community, but I think you don’t really fully appreciate it. Let me recommend “The Game” by Neil Strauss – it openly discusses all of the bad things you say, but comes to a very different conclusion. You can watch a pretty good interview with him on The View here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0omMTu9Ax8
The importance of it, for me, is to give tools to unsocial geeks who *don’t even know where to begin*. Having those tools gives them confidence. Also, if you ever meet anyone in the community, most of them outgrow the pre-canned material – it acts more as “social training wheels” than anything else.
As for women being made out to be alien “others” – they *already are* for most of these guys. If anything, I think pick-up techniques make them more in tune with the humanity of everyone around them.
By the way, I think you exaggerate the importance of “negs” (I hate that term, by the way). It’s more a form of flirtation, and you’d only use them briefly, and only on women who out of the gate assume all guys are hitting on them. The ideal purpose is merely to make them laugh and feel more comfortable with you talking to them. I don’t really see a problem with that.
@Propagandroid – I respectfully disagree.
While I believe in putting one’s best face forward (as you would in a job interview, for example), I don’t think anyone should literally need “bait” to get someone’s attention. And since attraction is based on any combination of things, from pheromones to intellectual stimulation, I distrust anyone who claims to know all the tips and tricks, especially using pseudoscience to do so. And while I am aware that politicians use prepackaged talking points… well, I wouldn’t necessarily be proud to compare myself to politicians. 
Incidentally, while the attributes you listed are attractive, most women I know can discern between confidence and bravado, off-the-cuff wit and canned jokes, an interesting face and a freaking feather boa.
@Free Reticle – I freely admit I’m not an expert on the pick-up artist community – I’m basing most of this on the TV show, which I’m sure is not fully representative. However, my basic point is that many of these guys don’t really want to be “pick-up artists,” with meaningless hookups – and if they do, that’s their business. If you’re going to learn to approach women, why not learn something that you don’t need to “outgrow”? I’ve grown up with male friends (more than female ones, often), I’ve watched them overcome severe social awkwardness and find love, and I don’t recall one cheesy party trick in the bunch.
I’m going to have to call a nonsense on this one. Okay, I’ve never seen the show, and probably never will, it absolutely looks ridiculous.
But some of the advice the pickup community gives is -rather- helpful in getting girls/overcoming social anxieties.
The first and probably most important lesson they teach is that one woman isn’t important. Dating is a numbers game, and you shouldn’t fixate on someone. When you being a ‘player’, flirting with multiple women, you are being the opposite of a ‘stalker’ who fixates on one. Are you more likely to find a successful relationship meeting many people or just fixating on one (Or two, or three)? More than likely after the first ‘proposition’, an acquintence isn’t likely to be receptive to being romantic to any others.
As for the contention with negs, well, that’s just playful stuff. It’s not deliberated calculated attacks. A neg is like when you make fun of your friend, “Oh, you’re such a doofus.” It’s to show comraderie and equality. You can’t have a good relationship if you are portraying the woman as some kind of untouchable goddess. Ok, I know some women like that, but more than likely, most will just be freaked out. Many guys who need this advice tend not to act like this around women at all, they treat women differently than their male friends. Women, just like your idiot friend who lives with his mom and acts snarky when he hasn’t had enough caffine, sometimes need to be put in their place.
Canned and practiced speech? Now come on, this is one of the standbys of geekdom. Few DMs get by without preplanning. Video games are an exercise in canned text and scenerios. Most social people have ‘stories’ that come to be famous time after time over telling. Where do you think these stories come from? They’re preplanned social tools! Truely good stuff is not off the cuff, it’s preplanned. Do you think Letterman and Conan go up there with nothing?
Fact is, these are time honored principles and moves pretty much every successful male has either managed to learn or stumble upon. The idea of ‘tactics’ to get women are as old as men and women themselves.
It’s true, pickup games don’t tell you at all how to deal with relationships, and they’re fairly useless for that. Good ‘tactics’ can help you get a girl, you’ll need to know more than that to keep her. But since we’re presuming a certain compatibility here (Geeks typically have a lot in common), the initial step to just..getting a girl to acknowledge you romantically is very important.
..I say I’m rather strongly opinioned on this, as these techniques helped me to find my girl, and we get along spectacularly
No offense, but I’ve discovered that advice from women for men to get women…err..is enlightening, but not effective.
The Pickup Artist is a strange entity. If you read Neil Straus’s The Game, you will see that Mystery is really crazy and probably should not be giving advice to anyone. That said I thoroughlt reccomend the book, and think that Neil’s transformation into Style is educational and inspirational for those with some history of girl trouble in the past.
Onto MM. If you are allready a nice guy and know how to talk to people you don’t need it. All Mystery does is put a bunch of terms out there and create craziness. However, it DOES work. That is if you are going for vapid barflys, which can be fun and an interesting challenge.
But let’s assume you are after something more. Here is MM works broken down into the bare basics. Mystery has goodness knows how many rules when it boils down to three simple principles. 1. Women want to be hit on. Sure it is true that they dress up for other girls, but the score is kept in attention from guys. Consequently you are doing her a favor by giving her the chance to have attention from someone as wonderful as yourself. You are a great guy right? If the answer is no, then this is your problem with life, fix it and the girl thing will fall into place. 2. Be FUN. Flirt be witty, tell stories, make jokes, ask interesting questions. Have fun, if you are having fun chances are she is to. She knows you are hitting on her, so relax, show some personality and there is nothing more you can do. 3. This is easy. Go out have fun meet women, repeat as necessary. The only thing stopping you is fear. But you shouldn’t be afraid because you are just out having fun with people who want to have fun with you.
That is the essence of internet pickup when it comes to forming quality relationships. There is more when it comes to more intense stuff, I can summarize that on reddit if people want. E and J would probably kill me if talked about it here.
What a joke thses so called pick up artists are…these wankers would be hard pressed to to pick up loose change if it fell out of their pockets…trouble is these clowns are taking even bigger clowns in and taking their money…only a woman who is a complete idiot would be taken in by the ridiculous antics of these tossers.
Do I sense some bitter jealousy here?
I bet that everyone (well, almost) of those guys get laid more often than every guy here who “complains” about the show.
(And please don’t tell me you don’t want to get laid).
@Jack – I can’t speak as a man. But I can speak as a woman who has worked with hundreds of single male clients. I haven’t had many who said “I wanna get laid.” They are all looking for a relationship, looking for love, looking for a woman to have children with. They’re not looking to rack up more sexual partners.
Oh, and before you say, “they wouldn’t tell you because you’re a woman,” I’ve written profiles for men on fetish sites looking for additional submissives. I’ve written a profile for a guy who was married but had permission to have a girlfriend on the side. But to say that all guys are out looking to get laid more is painting with quite a wide brush.
if you can’t get a woman to talk to you, how are you supposed to “relate, get closer”?
“And as these guys get results, they get put in a feedback loop, telling them that cold and calculated is the way to go.” Are you suggesting they continue what got them no results?
@Vash – If you can’t get a woman to talk to you, you’re trying to talk to the wrong women. No matter who you are or what you look like, as long as you bathe regularly, there are people out there who want to talk to you.
As far as the feedback loop, pickup artists target the kind of women who are susceptible to their tricks. These aren’t necessarily the kind of women you want to date long term or marry. (They may be one day, but who knows when that will be.) If you’re into short term relationships with people who aren’t emotionally stable, by all means, use the pickup artist routine. It’ll get “good results.”
I still think it’s easy for us to say, “these aren’t women you want! just keep trying!” when we haven’t been alone all our lives like these guys.
You’re right, we can never fully put ourselves in another person’s shoes. But we can use our experiences – and in the case of J & me, the experiences of our hundreds of clients – to predict behaviors that are more likely to succeed in the way the person wants to succeed.