Pick-Up Art

edited 25th Aug '12 2:26:09 PM by JosefBugman

^See? I didn't even think of that- I'm jealous of how much in synch you guys seem to be. I bought a couple books which cost me like 20$ each (which I could have downloaded from the internet) and everything else I read for free.

An action is not virtuous merely because it is unpleasant to do.

edited 25th Aug '12 2:26:18 PM by JosefBugman

Oh, yes, absolutely. The first I bought was Mario Luna's Sex Code (horrible title, isn't it? a girl recommended it to me, telling me she found it amazing: when I bought it, I was extremely skeptical and had no idea what I was getting into). It taught me why being a Doggedly Nice Guy doesn't work and gave me a big general view of everything known in the dating scene as of the time of the writing (I treat it more like an encyclopedia than a manual, since it focuses a lot more on the theory than on any parctical tips). Then I read The Game, and what I got from that was "don't make skirt-chasing the center of your life or it will fuck you up, so slow down with this shit" and also "those PUA guys are a little bit crazy, so take their word with a grain of salt". And that's about it. Anything I read after that that was specifically PUA was kind of redundant, so I focused more on general psychology. I did read another one, but while it might sell itself as a PUA book it's anything but, the same way The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli is anything but a manual on how to govern. In fact, I hink the author deliberately imitates Machiavelli's style here. Basically, it's about how you can turn anyone*

into a willing slave just by making them believe you have that one thing they want the most, and that you are open to giving it to them if they earn it. Usually it's in the form of "At LAST I have found the person that truly understands my genius and tolerates and in fact loves my whims and kinks and quirks!" or "At LAST I have found the person that can take charge of me and give me all the love and nurture and discipline I've been starving for" etc. as in "At LAST this person is the solution to all my problems". This book has taught me that A)If you show weakness or neediness, you will scare away the honest principled folk who won't trust themselves to treat you properly, and attract the people who, on the guise of helping you solve your problems (if only by listening to them) do not have your best interests at heart and B)You cannot expect to find the solution to your problems in other people: it's just not their role. You should solve your own problems yourself, and then go and meet other people as free equals. Then you will be free to give them your love and recieve theirs freely and without fear. and, in combination with Less Wrong which I discovered recently C)Don't get enthusiastic when you meet people and they are awesome: nobody is all that awesome, we are all deeply, systematically flawed idots. So just be nice to everybody, because their best is not that good, and their worst is kinda the default if nothing else intervenes.

edited 17th Sep '11 2:45:59 AM by JesusSaves

An action is not virtuous merely because it is unpleasant to do.

edited 25th Aug '12 2:26:37 PM by JosefBugman

In order not to be terrified of other people you have to build a base of experiences where people aren't terrifying. Acting terrifying of other people will make them act terrifying or ignore you at best. It's a vicious cycle. Thankfully I had one person break it for me. While that person also callously broke my heart, I'll never thank her enough for teaching me to love myself for who I am, and how to make others love me for being who I am. Sincce then, well, I've had much better luck with people, because I expected them to like me.

But if it hadn't been for those books I would never have tried to get close to her, and to this day I'd be...

An action is not virtuous merely because it is unpleasant to do.

How to Become Attracted to People Who Are Good For You? When seeing that article, I think one of the core roots of the unethical side of the PUA movement, is the decision that was made out of the observation that the kind of men women are attracted to are not necessarily the men that are good for them (of course, men have the same tragic problem): namely, to mold oneself after attractive men, rather than good men.

That usually entails making oneself ambiguous, addictive, unreliable. It means strategically withholding affection, and attention, and respect. Because that shit works, at least on the immature, the weak-willed, the lonely, and the vulnerable. Well, it works in that it gets people depending on you, malleable to doing what you want.

But that's not why we went into PUA in the first place, right? It wasn't about control. It was about obtaining genuine affection. About finding someone to go out with, and, more importantly, to come home to. Being adrift is a lot less frightening when we are adrift together.

And I get the feeling that PUA, used indiscriminately, can't get you that.

Now, conversely, what about the opposite direction? In Men & Dating: Why the Pick-Up Scene Gets it Wrong, these people argue that inner strength, a strong self esteem and sense of inherent value, is the foundation of substantial and durable success in finding a good partner and keeping them.

Some people keep insisting that PUA are unsalvageable, inherently misogynistic, and basically a Dark Art.

I would agree that it's dark, but not necessarily evil.

The thing is, women, like men, are flawed, irrational, vulnerable. More importantly, women and men are treated and conditioned by society in starkly different ways, which leads to horrible misunderstandings due to blindness to each others' circumstances. Studying these inherent and acquired flaws and these external contexts with an uncompromising, hard look at the reality of things, can help us avoid stepping on landmines, inadvertently using or manipulating others, and correctly noticing both mistakes and manipulations from others.

But maybe we should rethink the whole thing from the ground up? How about, instead of calling it "the art of picking people up", we call it, "the art of reaching out to others"? Hm, Reach-out Arts doesn't sound that bad, does it?

edited 6th Jun '15 3:38:21 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I'm pretty sure I've linked to this somewhere before, but I'll do it again: Scientific approach to causing someone to fall in love with you (and vice versa). I looked up the original research, it seems legit.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Why on earth did you revive this 4 year dead thread?

Who watches the watchmen?

Say no to necromancy.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick