See this is the problem with the knee-jerk reactions to a quick skimming of PUA material - the main takeaway is that these guys are telling people to lie about who they are in order to get women into bed and then leave those women before they find out who the guy really is. I’m sure there’s plenty of dudes who are doing just that, but the world has always been full of douchebags who just want one-night stands and big “notch counts”.
The reality is that what they are talking about is a bunch of theories about what women in particular settings will be attracted to and a bunch of testing of those theories by going out and trying them. A lot of it is BS and a lot of it only works in very specific situations, but some of it is reasonable and accurate. You don’t need to break down the self-esteem of a girl with low self-esteem. You don’t need to stand out from the crowd when you’re on a one-on-one date. And you aren’t going to have a real relationship if you can’t be yourself and still be attractive. So if your “real self” isn’t attractive, you need to take a look at what the guys who are attractive do differently and internalize the parts of that which fit with who you are. The way you act on a first date is different from the way you act with your buddies, which is different from how you act with your family. If the way you act early in a relationship is preventing you from getting to late in a relationship, change it.
You had me until the last half of that last sentence. It is, indeed, about taking control of an interpersonal interaction and guiding the relationship. Specifically, guiding it towards your genitals. If you don’t naturally understand how to do that in a way that works, then you need help from people who have broken it down and jargonized it in a way that helps you learn. However, the idea that once you’ve gotten the sex you want the girl packed into a cab is simply a default assumption that all guys are douchebags. When I really like a girl I try to push the romantic involvement as long as she seems interested in doing so. The difference is that I don’t want to sleep with girls I won’t want to spend the next day hanging out with. If there are guys who don’t feel that way, then their douchebaggery has nothing to do with whether or not they studied pick up.
All this really means is that you have to be able to read more than just the words she is saying. But that’s true of any interaction - if you only look at the definitions of words and not at the history of the interaction and the body language that accompanies the words, you aren’t getting the whole picture. And it is as true in the opposite direction - someone can be saying “maybe” but meaning “no” at least as often as they are saying “not really” but meaning “if you play your cards right” (though I will say that a flat “no” really is a no unless there’s some obvious sarcasm involved).
Most of the PUA advice involves nothing of the sort - it involves how to be interesting, how to listen to what she’s really trying to tell you, and how to build a connection with her. If you do those things by lying about who you are, you are an ass, but just because you are telling the truth doesn’t mean you are automatically telling it in a way that works. Hence the “ok” lying quoted above.
Yes, negs attack a girl’s self-esteem, but like I said, negs are rarely used and mainly exist to show a girl that you think you are worth as much as she is or more. “Negs” are something guys do to each other all the time, so I don’t really see why the big issue is made about it.
Yes, it is a fun read, and if you actually read it to the end, his conclusion is that a revolving door of different women in your bed is not the road to happiness, one woman who challenges you and excites you is the real “end game”.
