Pick-Up Artists Still Working “The Game”

A relationship columnist for the Staten Island Advance profiles a pick-up artist code-named “Affection,” clearly a man schooled in the techniques described in Neil Strauss’s The Game. (And while Gawker points out that Strauss’s book isn’t mentioned in the Advance article, his alter-ego “Style” is described as a “pick-up guru.”)

If you’ve read The Game you’re not going to be surprised by anything in the story (besides the writer’s claim that having multiple girlfriends, all of whom are aware of the other, is somehow “utterly, utterly abhorrent”). If you haven’t, it’s worth a read for the same reason that Strauss’s book is: It’s a reminder that the techniques of these pick-up artists, no matter how effective, turn their practitioners into twats; also, the techniques, however “abhorrent,” work—but upon that realization, the reader is granted a reprieve from guilt about not practicing them. The pick-up techniques seem like great skills to have… and then never use.

The Game, which I finished recently at the recommendation of a Dethroner reader, is a great yarn, but hardly a manual for pick-up artists. It’s a glimpse into the world of min-maxing powernerds who have turned the art of seduction into a numbers game. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but as an enticement into the world of the pick-up artist it’s hardly the most seductive tract.

A night in the life of a pick-up artist [SILive]
Affection’s Instructor Bio Page [ProjectManhattanPUA.com]