The Game: Penetrating The Secret Society Of Pick Up Artists

Well, it’s been talked about for years, my friends, but 0-hour is soon upon us.  As you all know (and if you don’t, you’re going to find out right now), Neil Strauss — also known as Style, the most powerful of the Jedi — has been writing a book for the past couple of years about his experiences in this underground seduction community of ours, and on September 6th this book will be released to the masses.

Not only that, but on September 1st, Primetime Live will be running a special on Neil, his book, and the community on ABC.  I understand the full hour of the show will be devoted to Neil and the community, and will feature people like Mystery and MINE’99 (who apparently claims he can get any guy laid, but whatever).  You’ll also probably see the Cliff’s List seminar on there since Primetime Live filmed that seminar.  I hear the guys from Pick-Up 101 in San Francisco will be featured briefly too, though who knows what makes the final edit.

Since Primetime Live is based on ABC, you can definitely expect a "pro-feminist/anti-men" stance where they try to show both sides of the story (the benefit of learning pick-up vs. how women "really" respond to it) while missing the whole point of what this community tries to teach entirely.  The fact is that most women will respond to the tactics we use, but if someone comes up to the right after we use them with a camera and asks "Would you sleep with that guy," the answer would always be "No!" simply because the girl doesn’t want to look like a slut on national TV.

As for the book, I personally cannot wait to read it, mostly because I was present for a great deal of what is documented in it.  I’ve known for a long time now that Niel is undoubtedly one of the biggest success stories of the community and one of its most skilled seducers, so to get this inside look at his failures, setbacks, success, and ultimate triumph in achieving his goal will be really eye opening for me.  And for those of you who love the community drama, there probably won’t be any shortage of that in the book too.  Here’s the Amazon.com summary of the book:

Reviewed by Amy Sohn
I never dated Neil Strauss, but I dated guys
like him. Like many New York women, I have always gone for balding,
pale guys because they’re grateful and good in bed. But a few years
ago, a distraught Strauss decided he was a loser with women and set
about transforming himself into the world’s greatest pick-up artist. The Game
is his long, often tedious but hilarious account of how he did it.

This
ugly-duckling tale will affect different readers in different ways,
depending on their degree of cynicism: some will be awed by Strauss’s
ménage-à-trois snowball scene, while others will suspect it was cribbed
from a third-rate porno Strauss watched in his pre-macking days.When
his story begins Strauss is, well, a Neil: an unconfident,
self-described AFC (average frustrated chump). He is also, it should be
noted, a well-known rock critic who penned porn star Jenna Jameson’s
autobiography, leaving one wondering just how pathetic women really
found him.

After paying $500 to join a workshop for aspiring PUAs
(pick-up artists) led by a magician named Mystery at Hollywood’s
Roosevelt Hotel, Strauss becomes addicted to pick-up technique. He
trains with several PUA gurus, including Ross Jeffries, a hypnotist
rumored to be the basis for the Tom Cruise character in Magnolia.
With his brains and dedication, Strauss renames himself Style and soon
becomes a master of the game—able to get sex from beautiful women who
once would have run the other way.But The Game doesn’t get
really interesting until Strauss deviates from his NC-17 Horatio Alger
story and tells what happens when he moves into a Sunset Strip mansion
with a group of other PUAs. He starts to see the misogyny of the sport
and realizes that most of its leaders had miserable childhoods. The AFC
who became a PUA to understand women ultimately becomes an expert on
men.

As Strauss grows restless to talk about things other than number
closes and phase shifts (the book’s glossary is a juicy read of its
own), the mansion loses its appeal and he reluctantly grows up. When he
meets a tough-talking band mate of Courtney Love’s named Lisa and they
bond over music, we can guess where the narrative is headed. In the
book’s final pages, he dumps onto his bed all the phone numbers he’s
collected and tells Lisa, "I’ve spent two years meeting every girl in
L.A. And out of them all, I chose you," which is like telling your
mother-in-law that the Thanksgiving dinner you had last year at
Applebee’s was nothing compared to the one she just prepared. But for
some reason, Lisa doesn’t flee. I can only hope that in the inevitable
2007 movie version, starring Jack Black and Kate Hudson, Lisa throws
the numbers in his face and leaves him for a guy who knows how to pay a
girl a compliment.

Amy Sohn is the author of My Old Man, which was just released in paperback by Simon & Schuster, and she writes the "Mating" column for New York magazine.

Note that the "2007 movie version" is a bit of a joke.  There very well may be a movie about this book (I believe it’s already been optioned) but I don’t think there are any plans for it right now.

Regardless, The Game is going to be a fantastic read.  For those of you who don’t know Neil’s work, he also wrote the biographies for Motley Cru, Marilyn Manson, Jenna Jameson, and Dave Navaro.  This is the first book Neil has written that’s fully about him, so it’s a bit of a departure from his previous works, but that should make it all the more interesting.

I highly recommend you preorder your copy of The Game now so that when the 6th rolls around, it’ll be waiting for you in your mailbox.

You can get your own copy of The Game here.