"Dating is for tools" -Neil Strauss' "The Game": classic or dud?

'The Game': Come Here Often?

By ALEXANDRA JACOBS
Published: September 11, 2005

Remember ''The Rules?'' Published a decade ago, this maddening primer for ''capturing the heart of Mr. Right'' had sensible, liberated women the world over suddenly refusing to return their suitors' phone calls, carefully applying lip gloss before a jog and vowing to become Creatures Like No Other.

Men widely scoffed at such a formulaic, manipulative approach to romance. Yet courtesy of Neil Strauss, a former arts reporter for The New York Times, we now have conclusive proof that men are capable of even more elaborate and foolish tactics for victory on the battlefield of love. Strauss left the Old Gray Lady to ghostwrite the memoir of a young blond one (porn star Jenna Jameson). Flush with the Jameson book's success, he has produced a graphic account of his two-year immersion in an underground community of devoted -- nay, obsessive -- Don Juans, unrepentantly packaged to resemble a Bible, with a black fake leather cover, gold-edged pages and a red bookmark.

Though a foretaste of this material appeared in the Sunday Styles section of The Times last year, most of it is not suitable for a family newspaper. Diminutive and balding, Strauss proclaims himself constitutionally timid around the opposite sex (''when I look down at my pale, slouched body,'' he writes, ''I wonder why any woman would want to sleep next to it, let alone embrace it''), but he is not shy about exposing his escapades in print, including threesomes and the occasional bout of impotence.

The author's life-changing adventure begins -- where else? -- on the Internet, after an editor contacts him about compiling a handy how-to book from the ''lay guide,'' a set of informal pickup strategies circulating online. Strauss is wary of the project -- as a fan of James Joyce, he complains, ''I want to write literature, not give advice to horny adolescents'' -- but gamely plunges onto the Web, where he meets a nerdishly priapic community exchanging advice of astonishing breadth and sophistication. Mulling the limitations of his own love life, he signs up for a workshop, with the tremulous anticipation of an ordinary guy hoping to improve himself, rather than that of an undercover journalist.

Heeding the advice of his new gurus, Strauss shaves his head, gets Lasik eye surgery, whitens his teeth and spruces up his wardrobe, a process called ''peacocking'' -- not that different, really, from the Rules girls' admonishments to grow one's hair long and lose that last five pounds. Next, he learns a set of behavior modifications that draws in equal measure from 1970's hypno-psychology and Dungeons and Dragons: learning how to approach women, or ''targets,'' preferably ''S.H.B.'s'' (super hot babes) with maneuvers that include ''negging'' (mild insults), ''push-pull'' (contradictory statements and actions) and ''kino'' (light touching). Throw in some magic tricks and your ''A.F.C.'' (average frustrated chump) becomes a ''M.P.U.A.'' (master pickup artist) with ''M.L.T.R.'' (multiple long-term relationships, or a harem). There is no dating; ''dating is for tools.'' The cyber-Casanovas adopt nicknames like Mystery or Extramask and post detailed field reports of their conquests -- real gentlemen.

Strauss (soon a k a ''Style,'' because ''nobody wants to sleep with a writer'') rapidly graduates from student of trysting techniques to master, venerated by geeks around the globe as he gorges on female flesh, making up for lost time. Early in the book, he quotes pathetically from a poem he wrote in 11th grade called ''Sexual Frustration.'' (''A scoreless night fosters hostility. / A scoreless weekend breeds animosity'' are some of the tamer lines.) Halfway through, he's writing about intercourse -- ohmigod! -- while he's having it, with typos retained for ''authenticity'' -- a sort of snog blog. ''You know it turns me on when you click the typewriter,'' breathes his partner. This reader did not feel quite so fortunate.

Style and his new friends travel in clusters, a milder form of wilding. Eventually, some of them move into a large Sunset Strip house once owned by members of the Rat Pack (what a sad comedown), dubbing it Project Hollywood (''our church of the spread legs''), whereupon his story becomes a bedraggled, only-in-Los Angeles account of decadence, infighting and mental breakdown. In the meantime there are entertaining walk-ons from Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Courtney Love, all of whom get ''seduced,'' in different ways, by the ''game.'' After failing to ''close'' immediately with a guitarist from Love's band, whom he respects as an actual person, the author finally grasps the limitations of his new pastime -- it's all so hollow, man. Meanwhile, a girl in his former harem stupid enough to fall for him weeps on his shoulder, while he silently dismisses her as ''all holes: ears to listen to me, a mouth to talk at me and a vagina to squeeze orgasms out of me.'' Strauss toggles awkwardly between this kind of misogyny and limp bids at self-awareness -- opening each chapter with a quotation from feminist thinkers like Catharine MacKinnon and the hip-hop trio Salt-n-Pepa.

But he does come to perceive one curious thing about the P.U.A.'s: They seem far more interested in spending time with fellow P.U.A.'s, amassing, refining and discussing the game, than actually getting to know women. Call them S.L.B.'s (scared little boys). It's a phenomenon familiar from the 1996 movie ''Swingers'' or the more recent hit ''The 40-Year-Old Virgin'' -- both male-buddy flicks in the guise of romantic comedies. ''The Game,'' though, is real life, and it's far more frightening than funny.

Alexandra Jacobs is an editor at The New York Observer

- It is riveting, but more for the sheer weirdness of the guys involved than any dating tips revealed. Strauss does this sort of wide-eyed naive thing where he learns about all the sketchy schools that have contributed to the current theories of the "pick-up masters," including neuro linguistic programming (a controversial branch of psychotherapy) and handwriting analysis, etc.

- The book straddles a weird line between narrative and instruction. Although it's set up as a chronicle of his adventures, he knows his readers are coming to it looking for the grand secret, so it's filled with verbatim dating advice from his "gurus" -- and much of this stuff is ludicrous beyond belief.

- No one thus far in the book (I'm at page 90-something) seems to be able to pick apart what actually works and what doesn't. There's this sort of master-worship thing going on -- of the guy who's bagged the most women -- that reeks of blind faith, leading to some really bad pick-up ideas. He carries a bag with a piece of lint (which you are supposed to surreptiously put on a girl's clothes and then remove, initiating conversation) and a glowing necklace for wearing in nightclubs, for Christ's fucking sakes. But what really seems to work for these guys are (1) their pure assertiveness and confidence and (2) lines that ease awkward moments (say, getting a phone number) like "I have to leave, but I'd like to continue this conversation."

I am pretty fascinated by this stuff, but mostly in a voyeuristic kind of way. It is neat to see what goes through other people's heads about women. I am certainly not expecting the magical line, and I am certainly not going to get it.

Weird. I wonder if this ever worked on anybody.

I will also have to post his poem -- that gut-wrenching poem -- on here when I get home. It's weird that the woman from the Observer (Alexandra Jacobs) criticizes him for the poem because it's a hugely self-deprecating moment in the book.

their pure assertiveness and confidence

This is a huge part, which inevitably comes from embracing failure (rather than being repulsed by it.) The confidence described in the book seems to spring from success, which inevitably followed the willingness to fail miserably on multiple occasions.

but I'm currently single, so wtf do I know?

The only reason you go out,

The only objective in mind,

A glimpse of a familiar pair,

Of legs on a busy street or

A squeeze from a female who

You can only call your friend.

A scoreless night fosters hostility

A scoreless weekend breeds animosity

Through red eyes all the world is seen

Angry at friends and family for no

Reason that they can perceive.

Only you know why you are so mad.

There is the 'just friends' one who you've

Known for so long, who respects you

So much that you can't do what you want.

And she no longer bothers to put on her

False personality and flirt because she thinks

You like her for who she is when what you

Liked about her was her flirtatiousness.

When your own hand becomes your best lover,

When your life-giving fertilizer is wasted

In a Kleenex and flushed down the toilet

You wonder when you are going to stop

Thinking about what could have happened

That night when you almost got somewhere.

There is the coy one who smiles

And looks like she wants to meet you,

But you can't work up the nerve to talk.

So instead she will become one of yoru nighttime

Fantasies, where you could have but didn't.

Your hand will be substituted for her.

When you neglect work and meaningful activities

When you neglect the ones who really love you,

For a shot at a target that you rarely hit.

Does everyone get lucky with women but you,

Or do females just not want it as bad as you do?

Worst sex euphemism ever.

Weird. I wonder if this ever worked on anybody.

It probably works on technogoths.

i love mystery!

http://www.maxsilvestri.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/magic_mystery.jpg

so he's kinda steampunk, eh?

COME ON RIDE THE MYSTERY TRAIN! CHOO CHOO!

http://www.shortfilmtexas.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/mystery.jpg

jamiroquai?

basically this reinforces the idea that girls are attracted to douchebags

I love the glasses he puts on his various hats

basically this reinforces the idea that girls douchey chicks in L.A. are attracted to douchebags

oh wait i mean shoryuken, the upper cut bullshit

wrong thread, i need to go home

called a slightly crepey friend out on negging last night and he basically admitted it ugggh god

Oh joy.

And if you want the full bullshittery...

"I want to write literature, not give advice to horny adolescents."