I was once chatting to a guy in a bar when the subject of game arose in the conversation. When he learned that I work for PUA Training, he got so excited and started firing questions at me and asking me to demo. Normally, I am very happy to share what I’ve learned about women, relationships and game etc. and have no problem at all having fun with people when I’m out if we have a certain level of rapport. Life’s too short and I want to appreciate and enjoy every minute of it. In this instance, however, there was something about this guy’s line of questioning that put me off. I’ll give you an example…
His first question was how he could get a particular woman’s number. This woman was sitting at a table near us with her date. They were obviously a couple and looked, in fact, like they were quite in love. She hadn’t taken her eyes off her date all night and showed zero signs of interest in any other men, including the guy who was asking me the question. In case I had missed something, I asked him if he had received IOIs from her. No. Did she even look his way? No. Did he think she was unhappy in her relationship? No. Did he find her attractive? Not really. So I had to ask the question – WHY? You know, as a challenge!
He was deadly serious.
I’ve been asked similar questions by others over the past year. Sometimes I’ve answered them, but other times I’ve held back. I feel distinctly uncomfortable when it comes to game being used for the sake of massaging a person’s ego (often to the detriment of others) as opposed to enriching that person’s life as well as the lives of those he interacts with.
Let me make it absolutely clear at this point that I am no angel, nor do I claim to be one. There’s still something that holds me back, however, and I wonder what the general consensus is. What do YOU think?
Where do you guys draw the line when it comes to gaming… sometimes we do things we don’t take seriously purely for the sake of challenging ourselves and expanding our range of skills and experience. Isn’t it important that we take into consideration the consequences our actions have for other people, or would that simply be detrimental to our progress as PUAs, if not a sign of weakness?
Its always fun to get that little ego boost from pushing an interaction the direction you want to go, but, it seems almost evil to just play with people. Not to seem overly dramatic, but as you start to learn this stuff, and it has the effects on your life that it does… yeah, its a good question, anyone find yoursef abusing your power? I do get tempted to as well, not gonna lie. I believe in karma to a certain extent and that you reap what you sow. I don’t consider myself to be angelic either, but I don’t just play with anyone’s emotions for my own amusement. At least I don’t intend to.
I agree with you man.. I’ll share a story that happened to me recently. I was on my way home one morning when I saw this cute girl walking in front of me carrying bags from the super-market. I approached and received IOI’s. I found out that she just got back from holidays with her boyfriend and she went to do some shopping because her fridge was empty.. I loved the interaction and she did as well. At the end, we exchanged ‘facebook’ information! Yes, I got an ego boost. I saw this cute girl in the middle of the day in the street, she had a boyfriend, gave me IOI’s (when she carries two heavy bags on each hand and still manages to raise her hand to touch her hair.. that’s something!!) and she wanted to stay in touch!
The next day, I went online and looked for her profile. As her profile picture I saw a pic of her and her boyfriend looking so happy with each other! I know he must be really important to her to have him in her profile pic. And the truth is, he looked like a really nice guy who was happy as well! Do you know what I did? Nothing.. I didn’t add her as a friend. I knew that this guy was giving her something that made both of them happy.. Something that I wasn’t sure I wanted to give her at this point.. Why mess things up? There are plenty of single girls out there who might look hotter. There’s always someone hotter!
Because I’m not an angel either I will say this though! The only time I would try to blow someone out and outgame him was if I really cared about the girl and knew that I could give her something better than what the other guy’s giving to her. Period. If that’s the case then yes, I will try and outgame the other guy (but not by being mean or saying lies about him). In every other occassion, if she has a boyfriend I approach and use the social proof to get an adjacent set. Besides, you don’t have to sleep with every girl you approach.. You can make friends as well.. And maybe her boyfriend at the time is someone you can hang out with or help you with your business.
With great power comes great responsibility!
This is a very controversial topic. Dharam discussed this in another post a couple of weeks ago and I commented then so I will not repeat myself here. However, I did come to the conclusion that the only way that we can be ‘true to ourselves’ — not just as PUA’s, but as people — is to follow our own moral code.
My aim in any situation is to create the most positive outcome for all parties concerned. I don’t feel the need to manipulate people. I never break my own moral code — this would be inconsistent with what I believe. When you are in a situation don’t take the ‘easy’ way out; you will just be chasing shadows of yourself. Instead, reflect on what you really want to get out of life and be true to yourself.
The line is drawn as soon as we cross our own moral threshold. You can claim that these thresholds are socially conditioned; however, when it comes to direct self actualization I think that you will find you have more moral beliefs (constraints) than you might think.
There is a difference between gaming and ‘playing’ with peoples emotions. Don’t game for the conquest; game for the love of interaction and of people in general. It’s time we all learnt to give something back.
Hope you had a good weekend guys,
JonDoe.
You could look at this from so many angles really.
If you can pull someone away from a relationship, is that relationship really worth preserving?
Well, probably still is worth preserving. But I’m interested in this thought… if you had a couple who were absolutely made for each other, as close as you can get to the idea of soul mates, the most pure expression of love ever to have graced our simple human lives… could an MPUA split them and get the girl?
I think probably, given enough time/resources. I have no romantic illusions that there is one out there for each of us, whom we are destined to be with. We meet people, and with a bit of luck then to a large degree we will get on with each other. But its a matter of degree really. We might find someone who we’re happy to be with for the rest of our lives, but its does not come anywhere near to the love a couple feel for each other who break up after a few weeks.
Its very, very hard to judge it really. There’s no way to quantify it besides our own gut feelings, our own natural way of measuring relationships, based on how WE feel THEY feel. Which is always gonna be a bit shaky in accuracy.
Before I started game, if I fancied a girl who had a boyfriend, i would think her fair game, unless the bf was a personal friend of mine. After all, it was a fair contest between me and him… and she chose of her free will who she would like to be with.
So does gaming make it unfair? We seem to have a natural feeling that to attract a girl out of a good relationship using game is a little dodgy, morally speaking. But isn’t she making her own choice? After all the things we do to build attraction, isn’t it her own choice to risk her relationship for something else?
Or are we somehow bypassing her free will? Or if you don’t like the term free will, with all its metaphysical implications, then aren’t we bypassing their higher level, rational thinking and appealing straight to their primal sexual intincts? Does this make it unfair for her, because she cannot resist her instincts?
One could argue no, because instincts are not something we ‘resist’. We are just as much our instincts as we are our higher level rational thinking, so whatever the level their decision is made at, it is still THEIR decision. But let me counter that with this… imagine instead of all the pua techniques and stuff, someone taught you to be able to just hypnotise immediately girls to be your willing sex slaves. Naturally most would feel this to be a morally corrupt abuse of power. But you could say that just as a Master PUA exercises himself just such that he appeals direct to their instincts, the hypnotist appeals to their subconscious. Its a murky area.
It seems a bit melodramatic to pronounce that game erases the free will of the girl involved, but then why do we feel like we’re being unfair if we break up a relationship? If we only sympathise for the boy, thats fair enough. He’s just lost the love of his life. But why sympathise for the girl? She made her own choice, to be with you. Unless you feel deep down that you lied to her. If youre a natural gamer then surely you didnt… all the attraction you’ve built is from YOU. So do you still feel a bit guilty?
I’m assuming from all this of course that your intentions are noble. If your going to just pull her out of an amazing relationship for a shag or two, then leave, but you made her think it would be for something more, then the guilt might be stemming from that. But thats just plain lying. Anyone can do that, pua or not.
I realise that instead of answers I’ve probably made more questions here than were in the original post, but ah well, thats the nature of these things. Hope I stimulated a few thoughts anyway.
Gabriel
P.S. to Marina, patiently awaiting that free bootcamp ;)
I always liked how Mystery compared pickup to the martial arts. Most people practice pickup to be good at attracting women, usually women of their choice. Martial artists, in their purest sense, and please forgive me for any oversimplifications or inaccuracies here, do not practice the martial arts so they can go out and kick anyone’s ass. The first thing kids learn in a Karate class is that you do NOT use what you are taught to harm people. It is actually a means to an end- the improvement of your life. A feeling of security, improved discipline, better health, etc. Perhaps even more importantly, most martial artists – and artists in general – would practice their art simply for the sake of perfecting it.
Pickup should be the same. You do it to improve your life, not to be able to break up relationships and hurt people.
After you have spent years studying exotic asian martial arts a man named Pai Mei might eventually teach you the “Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.” But you will never, ever use it. You know it for the sake of perfecting the art, not for any truly practical reasons. A master of pickup would be able to approach a married couple out for their anniversary dinner and seduce the wife, turning her into a nice on-the-side piece. He knows it because he wants to perfect the art of pickup, not so he can go out and do it.
And if someone with that skill were to go put it into use, he would no longer be using pickup to improve his life- he’s doing it soley for the ego boost. I firmly believe that using the art of pickup as a way to massage your ego is in the end harming your ability to attract women and, more importantly, preventing you from being as happy as you can be.
Personally, I have one golden rule I never intentionally break- don’t hurt anyone. There is never a reason for that. You don’t NEED to hurt people to get better. Note that an important corollary to this is- do not lie.
It’s almost impossible to hurt someone by approaching. Comfort building will only cause problems if you use the girl’s trust against her, in which case it’s no longer comfort building- it’s being a douche. The same for seduction- lying to get into her pants isn’t getting better at seduction, it’s lying to get into her pants.
Becoming a PUA has gives great power, but Beckster warned that with this comes great responsibility. It’s true.
We gain these unimaginable skills that 99.99% of people in the real world wouldn’t even BELIEVE could actually happen – on my BootCamp I kiss-closed a girl who (I didn’t know this at the time) was in a relationship or maybe married?? Not something I’m proud of but the onus was on her, not me. We can do CRAZY stuff like that and have no real interest in the girl.
However when we control ourselves with our PUA abilities and use them selectively, we will ultimately be more scrupulous. We won’t lead on girls we’re not actually interested in. We won’t get into relationships and then stay with the girl for the sake of it, simply because we’re not confident in our ability to go out and get another girl.
Being a PUA helps girls to see you as you really are. Sure there’s some fun tricks of the trade that can provide an instant, massive value-adding attraction boost but you also learn to portray who you truly are. As David DeAngelo says, you don’t have to be someone you’re NOT and go buy her expensive presents and take her to expensive restaurants. If that’s not you but that’s the only way you know how to get girls then you’re not being genuine anyway.
In addition, we have the power to positively impact many more people’s lives. Being able to approach a group of girls on the street and make them laugh or give a girl a breathtaking experience in a club can literally makes their week.
I was out on Saturday night with a PUA friend and at one point we were sat watching a guy and girl interacting, and I have to say that it was cringe worthy, entertaining and interesting all at the same time. We couldn’t hear what was being said, but the body language said it all. At first he was doing well, stood side on, she was fully facing him, she was laughing at pretty much everything he said, over the top laughter I might add. He started a bit of kino by putting his arm around her shoulder for a second but it was obvious that it was forced (to me anyway). But she replied by touching his chest the next time she laughed. She was very into him and It couldn’t have been anymore ‘on’ at that point, but he wasn’t escalating, I knew what he should to do, my friend knew what the poor guy should do, but it just wasn’t happening… then, disaster, his friends turned up, they were both taller than him and I watched on in horror as the AMOGing onslaught began. They patted his shoulder, gripped his chops like he was a child, laughed with each other at his expense, stood there confidently and left. They weren’t interested in hooking up with the girl, all they wanted to do was fuck with their friend, and it had obviously had the desired effect, I could see his whole physiology had sped up, moving a lot more frantically, talking faster, everything now screamed panic.
In my own mind, I’m almost ashamed to admit that, I considered going over and putting him out of his misery, the girl was fairly hot too and clearly warmed up, and this guy just didn’t know what the next step was. If he did know then he sure as hell should have taken it 10 minutes earlier at least.
I resolved to stay put and carry on watching to see what happened, luckily another of his friends came over and gave him a bit of a better rep than the last two, and after that she started responding well again, you can’t beat a good bit of social proof. Whether or not he got anywhere after that I don’t know because I ended up in set at this point (good n-close btw :-D), but it made me realise how selfish the majority of other guys out there are, they simply don’t want you to have something that they’ve not got, and in most cases can’t get, and that’s why I now refuse to game with any of my AFC friends around, it would be an easier task to game on my own wearing a loin cloth and war paint on a cold winter night.
Ultimately in my heart of hearts I know that I wouldn’t have gone over and blown him out, simply because it’s against my nature. Had I come into the game from a different angle I might have, but in the past few months it has become very apparent to me that women are in no short supply, I’m not in this to feed my ego, I’m in it to become a better person, and approaching a set like this ‘just for a challenge’ would be very far removed from my goal. Can I get an amen on that?
Dex
The outcome is this. You either get the girl and split them up or you evolve as a PUA.
You need to ask yourself the question, is it worth gaining some knowledge to break up a couple? Or should I let it be to preserve the thing that they have.
Usually I wouldn’t go for it but since I’m always thinking that life is too short to ignore tiny things I probably would have done it with some consideration. We all know this is a stupid choice since you will probably end up hirting someone or getting beat up!
My advice to you is that if it doesn’t feel nessecary to approach a woman and unless you have calculated the outcome with simple eye-vision to a risk that is profitable for yourself you shouldn’t do it. (This is a dessission I’m making infront of my computer so the weight of this answer isn’t as greatly as when you are at the time and place).
Spolier: Noone is perfect therefore you should do what you can to be your best self. If that requires approaching the gall, why not. If you feel you should stay away, then do it!
Just do not have second doubts about it, it will ruin you.
I agree with most of the comments above. What I will add is a situation Ive been in a few times in the last X months.
Ive met a girl through a friend. And Ive started to be the Fun guy. Started to move into Comfort and found out relatively innocently ;) that she is in a relationship. So have toned down the escalation and not gone into Seducer. Better to have her as a friend and meet her friends. IMO
I’ll also add that I know of at least 2 girls in relationships that are really crappy and that with a little effort I could probably steer them away at this time. But I won’t do it. Sure I probably get less K or F’s but I go home happy I havent ruined some AFC Ive never met. Remember we have all been the AFC at one point.
Dexterity.
Maybe not easy to do, but why not help the poor guy. Teach him something hes doing wrong. Share the power.
I think Spiderman summed it up best – “with great power comes great responsibility”.
Obviously, what you choose to do with that is a matter of personal opinion, as there is no true right or wrong in the world.
I’m with Dexterity on this, though you never will know if that guy could have had even more success later in the night if you’d blown him out of that set. Hypothetical situation: if you get into a fight with someone you hate, and end up breaking his leg out of spite, it would generally be seen as a bad thing. On the other hand, if all healthy men were suddenly conscripted to the front lines of war the following week, your actions would mean that guy would live a long and healthy life.
So really, because we can’t predict the future with any certainty, we can only make the decisions that are best in line with our values and experience at any given time.
If you want to get to a really deep and spiritual level of things, my opinion is that the only constants in the universe are chaos and change, so to truely be living in accordance with the nature of all things in creation, you would have to act as though those constants were more important than any beliefs we hold to be true, and act as an agent of chaos for the continuation of those constants.
I m sorry I m gonna be a lil bit of a turn off but this is my opinion: (please excuse the bad spelling and grammar)
I think we are all luring ourself if we think one minute what we are doing is moral.
What we basicaly do is get into somebody s mind and manipulate. This is what the best of you guys do. The naturals. But the beginers are not far from going strait into the girls mind either as structure and pick up lines can help to go softly into more subtle things.
This is by no means a personal judgment. I do the same, the girls do the same, the whole romance thing worldwide is based on manipulation. And is therefore moraly crooked. Saying “yes but they like it so much that they give themselves to our manipulative arms” won t save us from imorality.
Now the good bit: You guys pua have, I believe, invented a new twist in the history of morality. By using explicitly manipulative behaviours you stop lying to yourself. Or have a chance to. But dont fall back on thinking what we do is moral. It s not and will never be, for me again. I think the only way out of the dilema is to make it a “true lie”. Then it becomes a… game between two people who understand the rules. Hopefully.
To not do something because of consequences is very limited. I believe you should be able to get any girl you want regardless of her bf or not. I always believed that. But when I meet a couple in person, its like I cant do it.
To attract a girl that you want even though she has a relationship is great because both people are revieving what they want, the fact is that what ever he is doing isnt good enough to be thought of.
But it all depends on the feeling, if it doesnt feel right to expand your energy onto a girls consciousness that is already preoccupied, then dont do it.
If it feels good then do it. If it feels good then it is pure. If the 2 new people are in enjoyment, then I say let it continue. The people that suposedly “lost” their mate because of that should be a good enough person to attract another well fit mate. If they arent good enough to attract or replace the mate then they need a working on.
If you are not doing something because of consequences then you are not living fully, but the thing must feel good or it isnt worth it.
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