Coffee Shop Pickup

I've always feared picking up girls who work behind the counters in bars or coffee shops. Tonight I did some really short C+F on this girl behind the counter and got a nice IOI while she was making the coffee. Then I wussed out and wouldn't get her number because my sister always asked me to never hit on girls who are working. However, my pivot who was with me decided this was bullshit and went to get her number. It was an awesome story with her asking the HB for her number, her hesitating for a moment, at which point my friend says, "It's not for me, you know." The HB leaves her number and I'm supposed to call her tonight. I'll give it a shot. What do I have to lose?

The Game: The Movie

There were a few rumors circulating on the net about a movie of The Game (no, not the Michael Douglas version). I certainly hope they don't release one! Our entire community will be destroyed. The book did enough to open up the game to the world, but fortunately most people don't read books. People would be a lot more wary of players if they could see a 2-hour film on the subject at the local theater. Please, Style: no movie!

David DeAngelo is Scary Correct

I just started into the audio portion of David DeAngelo's material. I don't know how well his stuff works, but I am thoroughly amazed by what he is saying. He's speaking directly to my soul and, I would imagine, a whole lot of guys' souls. I've loaded a bunch of his audio into my new MP3 player and I'll be listening to it again and again at the gym. Please help me, David! I feel you have the potential of literally saving my life.

There's one thing he mentions calls "transition vulnerability" which is a scary concept that has been addressed by other PUAs. Mystery suggested in Style's "Annihilation Method" farewell session that there are only AFCs and PUAs. Anyone in the middle is really floating in water and very vulnerable. The techniques you learn and practice can really rock your world, and it can frighten you as well. When you're in this middle ground between chump and rockstar, you need to be awfully careful because of the awesome emotional power that may unload upon you. I'm there right now, and I'm scared. Some days are good and some days are really, really bad. As I type this, I'm terrified. One-itis is flaring up and all I want to do is crawl into a hole and hide from the world.

David D mentions that failure with women can be like a virus running on the internal computer system inside a guy's head. It affects everything else running and corrupts his system as a whole. He's absolutely right. Hell, I'm typing this at work because I can't think of anything else except gaming. I was in a meeting today thinking about what tracks I need to review, what books I need to read, and where I need to practice. I haven't even had a full success yet since I started down this path, but I can't stop thinking about it. This game can consume your life. Watch out!

The funny thing is that before the game, I never thought about this stuff. I would see a pretty girl, be scared, and run away. Or if I talked to a pretty girl, I'd say hi, nice to meet you, and then look away. Scared. Now I know to continue the conversation, demonstrate high value, build rapport, etc., but since I'm hyperaware of it, I'm nervous because I'm judging myself. Until I'm totally confident with women and no longer allow them to run my life (as they are right now--pathetic!), it's going to be rough. This blog is my only support network because others don't understand how difficult this bridge can be. Thank you for listening, blog. No one knows about you, but hopefully some day someone in my shoes will read this and see that they, too, can go from AFC to PUA. Screw the terms: they can become confident and conquer their inner fears.

Pickup is Life

As much as I am sad that I have to undergo so much training to "be all I can be," I am excited of the world it is opening. The people I model myself after are outgoing, sociable, and successful. They are picky about their mates and confident in their decisions. They know what they want, and they can get it.

As I type this in the morning, recovering from a nasty sickness, I wish I had a sweet girlfriend laying next to me, embracing me for my AFCness. Oh how sweet it would have been! I look over my past relationships and wonder why they all felt so unfulfilling, and I think the primary reason was that the girls never felt strong attraction to me in any of them. I was as nice as I could be, but it just never gained their attention.

In hindsight, I don't blame them for treating me badly, for I was not being the best I could be. I ponder if I would have made it as far as I have if I were not an AFC. Would I even be in the city I am today, or working the job I do? Would I be throwing so much time and money into self-improvement had I found a "good enough" girlfriend? I doubt it: as an AFC, I would be happy to have what I had.

I know that in a year or two, I will look back and be so incredibly happy that everything happened the way it did, but right now I am feeling incredibly lonely (emotionally). I wish I had a girl laying next to me and holding on to me, even if I knew she weren't the one for me. Kino is such a fundamentally human necessity that I think many of us go a little goofy when we don't have it. This is why I am starting into dancing soon, so I can touch plenty of girls at will.

If only the one-itis weren't keeping me awake at nights...

Fear of Settling

I realized today when driving home from work that one of my main motivations for studying pickup and seduction is not to sleep with lots of women, but to become the best person I can be. Above all other things, I fear settling for the wrong woman (and her settling for me, the wrong man!). I know plenty of men out there who are getting engaged and married, and I know plenty of girls who are with the wrong guys, but they continue to stay in these pointless relationships because of their emotional attachments even though they may intellectually realize that these mates are not appropriate!

I know I would become victim of this had I not joined the community. I want to know when I pick my bride that she is the best match for me, and I want her to know that I can easily go out and find a younger, hotter, more exciting girl so that she never takes me for granted or regards me with contempt. In all of my previous relationships, I was always so happy to be with a girl that I didn't really care that we weren't good for each other, and I thought that I was just lucky to be with someone attractive. How pathetic was that?

In that respect, I'm increasingly happy that I had one-itis for this girl and was forced to play this game. By the time you see the new Van Wilder on May 1, he's going to be a different man.

If only I could find a way to cure these damn headaches...

NLP Healing

I'm suffering from crazy headaches, as I have for the past few years. They get a lot worse under stress and I am running out of options. I've tried neuromuscular dentistry, acupuncture, lifestyle changes, tension supression systems (nightguards), and lots of medication, but nothing works. CT scans are reporting that my sinuses are perfectly normal, which rules out damage to the sinuses, and sinus medication to fight sinusitis fails.

I think it is possible that the cause of the headaches is psychological in origin, and this is why I am going down the path of hypnosis and NLP. I don't know if it will work, but I figure it's worth a shot. At this point I will try anything.

Feminism Failed

I was sent an interesting article on the failure of feminism.

I believe one of the major reasons so many American men are wusses today is because of feminism. We were taught from the beginning to be nothing but gentlemen to women and treat them like queens, but they never liked it! All women want to be treated well, but if you treat them too well too early in a relationship or treat them too well all the time, they will never respect you. Feminism violates the laws of the world. Hell, even in most primate societies, the male never feeds the female; even when she is lumbering around with children in her belly, she still must find her own food. The male will, at most, defend her. Women want to be taken care of but I think most men went overboard!

Feminism failed because neither men nor women want it!

Lazy Sunday

I am reading David DeAngelo's eBook, Double Your Dating, right now and will be practicing as soon as I finish. The rest of this post has nothing to do with pickup, but you should see this hilarious video clip made by Saturday Night Live about two white guys going to see the Chronicles of Narnia in New York. It's called Lazy Sunday.

Book: How to Pick Up Girls

As I'm digging myself deeply into the list of recommended books in The Game, I am piling up a stack of paper that needs to be digested. I'm going to start taking offlines notes in a binder with appropriately tagged chapters, but I am also intending to briefly review books I am reading and then report my successes on this blog. The funny thing I've noticed so far is that there is a lot of conflicting material out there (some books say "buy her a drink!" while PUAs say "never supplicate!"; some books say "compliment her" while DeAngelo says "tease the hell out of her"). After you've become really successful at dating correctly, it doesn't really matter what you say because you have built yourself into a fun and confident person.

Anyway, I'm reading Eric Weber's classic How To Pick Up Girls, originally written in 1970 and referenced right at the end of The Game. Weber's book is considered the first true book on the subject and claims over 3 million copies in print in however many languages. Weber successfully picked up his wife by blocking her passage in a bar, saying "You're way too pretty to let get away." She said "Do you think?" and they have essentially been together ever since.

The book claims it will turn you into a truely confident and outgoing person who others are naturally drawn towards. This is noble because I don't trust any book saying only "We're going to turn you into a dating machine!" (mentioned in another book on my list)

So how does it do? It contains the necessary material to successfully open girls but I would not say it succeeds teaching you how to pick up girls. Most chapters are filled with openers and reminders about the theory of this all. The book contains clippings from the "Fabulous Fifty", a set of beautiful women who provide their insights on pickup. Where do they like getting picked up? Everywhere. When do they like getting picked up? Anytime. What type of approaches creep them out? They all disagree (some like C+F, some like flat out honesty, etc.)

The book does regularly remind you of some of the basic laws of pickup that you really need to believe and follow. Such examples:

• All girls want to get picked up, even if they have a boyfriend (this is a confirmed tenet of seduction: everyone wants to be seduced)
• As a guy, you're going to have to make opportunities for yourself. (exceptions: incredibly high social proof or perceived value, such as being Steve Jobs walking into a party in San Francisco or being a super hot or ripped guy who girls are drooling after)
• Want to meet more women? Meet more people. This one is very true and I find myself failing this in recent history. I have been spending so much time focusing on women that I forgot I should be chatting up men just as much. I do like talking to men, but men can't get my juices flowing. So I've noticed myself avoiding hanging out with only guys or talking to guys at bars because I would only want to focus on the women. I will try harder to abide by this law because I have seen it work in action as well as reported by Style in the Game. (lead the men and the women will follow you) It does reinforce the point that you want to be perceived as a cool, confident, and fun guy, and this will naturally make you more appealing to women.
• All humans like to be touched by other humans. Read: kino! Touch her softly on her cheek, or brush her shoulder after you feel her hair. This is a fundamental rule of pickup and boy does it work!
• Next time you move in on a girl, think to yourself, "I'm doing her a favor. I'm about to bring a little excitement and drama and romance into her life."
  

While the book lays out a ton of opening routines and nuggets of wisdom like above, it fails at outlining overall strategies for the pickup itself once you are engaged. PUAs train to demonstrate high value by telling stories (me) or performing tricks (Mystery), and this is essential in your pickup routine. My major problem is no longer opening up women: I can usually generate some opening line or find a way to get their attention, but I consciously find myself running out of things to say during the conversation to the point where I choke up and decide to bail out. Unless a girl is really interested in your stories or initial material, she will probably want to get back with her friends or the party. So get her number!

Unfortunately this is a big problem for most RAFCs: the confidence to ask for a number without fear of rejection. I admit that I have never asked for a girl's number during a pickup routine thus far, even when it was obvious the girl was interested (kino, IOIs, etc.). I am always worried I will say "so can I call you sometime?" and they will say "ugg I have a boyfriend" or flat out, "eh, I'd prefer not." Or perhaps the worst possible flavor: the fake number. All girls have fake numbers they use on guys, and while confidence is boosted when you get a number, it is typically destroyed when you find out she faked you.

So while this book does provide a lot of important common sense reminders for the reader to enjoy, it doesn't provide any material for the follow-through (read: close). Follow-through is most important in pickup, "just like in life, ha ha ha." (Kate Hepburn, The Aviator) Without any follow-through material most guys who severely lack self-confidence (me) are going to freeze up after the conversation runs stale.

The book is good overall, but if you want some seriously insightful material, remember the basics (even the ones I have listed above) and save yourself the $15.

Power

My father and my cousin are both womanizers (well, my dad was, but he's old and married now). For the longest time I didn't want to be like them because they both cheated on their wives, but unfortunately I was so anti-womanizing that I ended up on the furthest other side of the spectrum, the low AFC. While I was a great guy as an AFC (I still am a great guy), most girls are genetically bound against AFCs, so I had essentially screwed myself in honor of some ancient code of chivalry that probably never existed. This is why my blog is called Chivalry Lost: because I am cleansing myself of these horrible traits.

Back to my dad and his cousin: I've realized that using the technologies of this game, most notably the powers of self-hypnosis, I can become more powerful than either of them (they were naturals). My cousin is still incredibly good at his own game, but I think I could achieve even more. Me! My ex-girlfriends wouldn't even believe it.

I'm excited! This week I am reading more David DeAngelo. Sarging this weekend, baby!

Let's Get It Started

The time has come. I've been talking a lot about sarging, I've been detailing some of my initial sarges, and I've been postulating the mysteries of myself on this blog for months now. I've also been ranting about the source of my one-itis (unfortunately like the song goes, there is "always something there to remind me" given our social network connections).

Now is the time to get serious in the New Year. I'm finishing up Eric Weber's classic "How To Pick Up Girls" book this week and will write a short review, and then I'm diving straight into thte documentation and media of my first dating guru, David DeAngelo. I've got his eBook on Double Your Dating and I'm also getting his video series on the same subject. I'm in regular contact with people in the Seattle Lair, and I'm also talking to a PUA on the east coast who went from lay-less to five girls/week within six months of practice. I'm also contemplating trying the Mystery Method live seminar in a few months, as well as autosuggestion/NLP with Steve P.

I'm going to start hitting up the gym around eight times/week to bulk up, I am healing from my rhinoplasty (and it looks good), and I should have my new Corvette within a few weeks.

I've got everything I need to get started down this path, and this week is when I begin my intensive training. I will continue to post as I go, although I will keep the minutiae of my notes in my carbon notebook. Wish me luck! There are six girls waiting for me to sleep with them before May 1, so I've got some work to do.

CSI: Miami (Episode #84, The Score)

I watched my first episode of CSI this past week with my cousin, who is a huge fan of the show. The episode opened in a club with three men at the top of the stairs staring down upon the women. The middle man said "OK men, pick your targets". At this point I thought that this show might be about pickup, but maybe they were just murderers or something. The two guys with the main guy chose the women they wanted, and they proceed down to talk to them. Student #1 pulls out lint from his pocket and pulls it off the girl's dress, using a classic routine listed in The Game. Then he runs ESP (1-10) on her and proceeds to seduce her. The second student fails with a neg hit on a 7 ("nice hair... those are extensions, right?"), but then he succeeds with another girl using a female opinion question.

Soon afterward student #1 is found dead, and the CSI folks try to find out "who done it." The episode involves a lot of terminology from the community, including "#closes", "neg hit," and bags of lint handed out at seminars. It even refers to student #2 as "The Magician" as his alias, clearly referencing Mystery, although of course Mystery was not a student.

The girl targeted by #1 turns out to be a reporter who was doing research on pickup artists in a vain attempt to protect women from their standard routines. She feels pickup objectifies women and turns men into monsters. I have to disagree: the purpose of pickup isn't to sleep with lots of women, it's to build your self-confidence and get the women you want. She thinks pickup was turning her brother into a machine, but he felt it was making him a better man.

The purpose of my post here is two-fold: to discuss the value of pickup in relation to this story and also to discuss the size of the community's exposure.

For the first point, I again must declare that pickup is not intended to break as many women's hearts as possible, although some men do choose to do this as revenge on the fairer sex for years of abuse. Most guys in the game are really nice men who just want sweet girlfriends, but they have had countless bad experiences in the past and are sick of women treating them with near apathy. Men are plagued by our need for sex as well as companionship, just as much as women really, but we don't advertise that normally. And a large number of men who happened to get off on the wrong foot need help getting back on track. Pickup does this, and it makes confidence-deprived men a lot stronger internally. Like in the Tao of Steve, the purpose of the philosophy isn't to get lots of chicks, but to be the best person you can be. It seems women don't understand that.

The more alarming aspect of this show is how much extra exposure the community gets as a result of being on a popular show. I asked around to see if other PUAs had encountered resistance from women who are aware of the game, but as it turns out, only maybe 1 in 10 have ever heard of the game, and those rare exceptions usually had heard about it second or third hand. There is a difference between reading about a game in an article and undergoing months if not years of training in playing the game. So fortunately, I don't think too many women are aware that there are entire seminars of aspiring pickup artists out there.

Double fortunately for me, most men here in Seattle are wusses when it comes to women anyway, and I've seen first hand that alpha male'ing the shit out of women here works wonders. There is no short line of women who would happily sleep with men here who have some balls. Perhaps it's the rain that makes men so weak in Seattle?

Either way, it's good for me having to train in such a shithole. When my time here is over, I can move on to bigger and better things in cities with more attractive and higher quality women.

I'm excited to start into the game this month because it's something that I need to do. I want to find a solid girlfriend who understands me and treats me well, but I also want to have the confidence knowing I can get almost any girl I choose. Remember that women treat men like stock symbols, and the higher your stock price rises, the more they will want to buy you. It is a shame that I have had to put off my other business projects to study pickup exclusively, but I know that in the long run it will be worth it.

But we shall see. Welcome to 2006, Van Wilder!

New Year Resolutions

I'm not too much a fan of the New Year resolutions, primarily because I always forget them and never live up to them. This year I am writing them down and posting them to my bathroom mirror so I always see them. What are my resolutions? I want to continue to build a better body, I want to study the art of seduction and perfect my game over the next six months, but most of all, I just want to be happy. That seems to be my biggest problem: finding happiness. I thought I might find happiness in business-related projects, but I have not. I thought I would find happiness in women, but so far I continue to prove myself a failure (to my credit, I am trying). My great failure with my catalyst only reinforces this deficiency.

The biggest problem, of course, is finding happiness in myself! This is why I think inner gaming is going to be the most important aspect of the game I will learn this year. There is nothing more attractive than a completely confident man who is incredibly happy with himself, and my big problem is that I simply am not happy with myself, no matter where I go. I don't know where I will find happiness to cure this problem, but I know it is out there somewhere. Perhaps my lack of happiness is due directly to my poor abilities with women? If so, then sarging will be the best thing for me. I also know that I'm not particularly excellent at anything except maybe computers. Every other activity I have ever done was always temporary: I was never excellent at soccer, swimming, or playing the guitar. Why? I never put enough time into any of them because I have problems maintaining focus on anything. I think if I become really good at sarging and working out, that will be something I can be proud of, and once I am a master at the game, I can move onto bigger and better things.

I remember the taste of happiness, though, and it did have to do with sarging. When I was back at my college on a recruiting trip a few months ago, and I was on fire with women and everyone else too, I felt alive for the first time in years. I want to find a way to be like that all the time.

Rhinoplasty: Day 6

My bandages are not yet off from my nose, but I am loving my new look. My eyes are so much more prominent as are my lips. I think this was money well spent! $3,000 for Lasik and $8,000 for a nosejob. Next on the list of vanity upgrades: braces for $7,000 (well worth it since it's functional too), and of in 2010, hair cloning and transplantation. I had amazing hair one day, but it all started falling out when I was in college. Right now I'm sporting the Bruce Willis look.

Off to Rio de Janeiro tomorrow! (hopefully) Brazilian women are the most beautiful in the world.

Camaraderie

I had a great talk today on IM with a friend of mine from college. I asked him flat out if he was happy, and he flat out responded "nope." Both of us went to a great university, and both of us are going to be very wealthy some day (he already is, considering the size of his trust fund). We're both really smart and have worked really hard to get to where we are today. Yet, despite all these great attributes, we are both completely depressed all of the time because of women. We see girls around us that would make great girlfriends, and we see movies of chumps like ourselves falling for these fantastic women. Yet these stories never happen to us. And each month we grow more and more bitter.

Neither of us wants to be players: we just want to have girls who love us for who we are and would be loyal to us. No matter how hard we try to find these girls, we simply fail to attract them. Then of course we are fucked once we get a lot of money because then the girls will only want us for our money. So, in short, we're screwed.

This is why I am playing the game and entering the community: to attract girls by my actions and words, not by my props and net value. I would be the happiest man on the planet to land a girl and be a total AFC with her, and she would be totally loyal to me in return. I just fear I won't be able to find a relationship like that. My catalyst could have been that girl, but she has fallen for another guy who is actually quite similar to me but, of course, better looking and therefore more confident and holding higher perceived value. Fuck 'em all.

Rhinplasty: Day 1

The majority of the pain has passed now and I am simply cleaning my bandages. I've queued up the first two seasons of Chappelle's Show on my DVD player so I've got plenty of entertainment. I only hope this was a worthwhile investment. $8,000 is a hell of a lot of money for making my nose nicer, but if it works well enough then it's worth my time. The real key to rhinoplasty is not to suddenly make women more attractive, but to boost your own self-image. You have to understand that America is a cosmetic society, so if you want to play the game, you've gotta play by the rules. The greatest rule is to have highest confidence in yourself, but unfortunately the best way to have such high confidence is to feel great about your appearance as well as your own abilities.

I entered the game knowing I was pretty confident with myself and friends, but I've always felt completely worthless around women. When I have a girlfriend I'm usually on top of the world, but whenever I go for a few months (or years) without a lady friend, I start losing my confidence again.

This is all good though: the recent near-successes I've had give me confidence that I will have the guts to call myself a pickup artist by the end of 2006.

Rhinplasty: Day 0

My surgery was completed around twelve hours ago as of this writing. I feel incredibly drowsy and my eyes are blood shot, but other than the bruising, the bleeding, and the pain, I feel great. I can't wait to see how my new nose looks in a week! This is the second step of improving my physical appearance in 2006 (the first being the orthotic for fixing my bad bite and TMD). I've got ongoing weightlifting through 2007, and I'm also looking to get braces this year as well to fix my teeth. And I've got a dermatologist appointment to learn to make my skin smooth and clean.

I'll let you know how the rhinoplasty goes. I'm very optimistic right now, and anything to improve my outer game is a great bonus. As always, inner game is the most important element of pickup, but I'm dividing and conquering so we'll see where this leads.

My real study of pickup and practice starts in just under a month. 2006 should be a great year.