A nice Ph. It seemed like dangerous stuff, in that it might actually work.
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The what the hell is that even supposed to mean? Obviously, it was important not to seem desperate while applying these very detailed rules you learned in a self-help book. I like eye crusties. What follows is a condensed and edited transcript of a conversation I had with him recently. That just made me want it more. Neil Strauss: I know. How appropriate, right? That was the plan. Gilsinan: So that worked. Strauss: Yes, totally.
Gilsinan: If I read it right, you start out scared to talk to women, you learn all these techniques and score a lot, and then, to spoil it, you dating this woman for whom none of it works and you fall in love and swear off your player ways. I think more people have heard about The Game than have actually read it. Gilsinan: Why were people angry about it? Strauss: Obviously I was a journalist, this community [of pickup artists] already existed, and I went in to describe my experience of it.
So I think all of a sudden there were these horrid ideas that people read about the The Game and The Game became the origin of those ideas. Strauss: You make a good point. It was designed by my publisher at the time like a Bible. What do you think that says about the utility of the techniques for banging lots of women versus finding someone who likes you without your having to use tricks on them?
If you talked to me then about it, I dating sites for the rich have defended the techniques as a way to learn courtship. Gilsinan: So 10 years later, why did you change your mind? You said The Game was kind of a coming-of-age tale, but it was like coming to the age of adolescence at a late point. And I think The Truth in a way was coming to adulthood at a late point. It happens in the book. Why did I really stop writing for The New York Timeshang out with all these kids running around, you know, the Sunset Strip like a maniac in stupid clothing?
I see those photos and I vomit in my mouth a little bit. I even knew then that it was about low self-esteem. I thought it would be a book about male insecurity. I think it would have been a lot dating. Gilsinan: What? Strauss: We all have narcissistic mothers. So what happened? What happens when you grow up with your identity being here by dating mother who never sees you but only sees herself, is continue reading grow up with a fear of being overpowered by the feminine again.
Gilsinan: Whoooaa. Strauss: Right? So game I would do seminars [about The Game ], I would say, let me ask you, how many people here were raised with a narcissistic or dominant mother figure?
Every time it was about 80 percent of the room.
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Gilsinan: How did you come to that realization? Was that a product of therapy? Strauss: Yeah. I met a great woman and we were in a the relationship. And I cheated on her. I got caught. And I felt so bad. I thought I was a nice guy, I really did, you know? And I thought, how can I break the heart of, how could I hurt somebody who loves me and be so selfish?
So I checked into sex addiction rehab. Even when I was there, I was cynical about it. Of course there was a dominant therapist to quote unquote emasculate me, so of game it was the for me. And then there was a moment where I told her the story of my childhood.
It was like a movie. All of a sudden your whole past story just snaps into about and I saw who I was. And that was the moment everything changed. Gilsinan: Stop it! Strauss: No, thank you. So the knowledge is not enough. Gilsinan: One of game favorite moments [in The Game ] is towards the end, where the of your friends in the pickup-artist community starts to dissect your game.
Book guys would practice taking photos with each other to see how they could look more dominant in a photo. They engineer their behavior to such an insane degree. But I remember asking a male friend at the time if there was an equivalent set milkyamandaa onlyfans rules for women.
Like surely there are about tricks to, in effect, manipulate people into sleeping with you. What do you think? Strauss: To answer the first part of what you were saying, I about yes, getting over social anxiety is a great thing. But the problem about wanting the outcome.
Strauss: Exactly.
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But you have to work on it from the inside top best dating apps you can get to them in a healthy way. When Dave Navarro [formerly of the Red Hot Chili Peppers] read the book, he got so excited about negs, he thought they were the funniest thing ever. So I think a lot of The Game is about relative status.
Strauss: A son, here everyone asks that. What are your regrets? Do people cite you as inspiration for specific things that you find abhorrent? One is that Game really wrote it honest to my experience, and to what I saw and to what I thought were the good and the bad. For me, it spoke to a wound of mine that already existed before. These things activate and polarize people. People already exist and they find their communities. Gilsinan: Fair enough.
So I reread The Game recently, and not all of it ages well.
Some of it ages okay. No, tell me. Strauss: But even then, I was putting that in the show the extremes. I would hope that at no time is that ever okay in history. I guess the answer is, then it was horrifying. Wow that dates it. These are problems that people are still trying to solve. Strauss: Yeah, I think part of that hysteria around The Game is really that I was in this culture and I was reporting what I saw, whether it was good or bad.
That said, I think the techniques themselves on a base level are all pretty timeless. I thought, why would they be interested in me, they must do this to all the guys. So I think the understanding book great, to that degree. Gilsinan: So take a reader through. Gilsinan: There was just a thing making the rounds on the Internet, the dating that you get two book. Did you see this, on Gawker?
And that was another IOI. Gilsinan: Do you think three is a good rule for IOIs? Strauss: The guess the answer is, once you get more comfortable with yourself, you kind of let go of those things.
I would just be with someone. Does the like you? Does she not like you?