In my last post, I was discussing how I feel it is important to study material based upon its practicality and not on whether it’s the lastest trend in the community, whether you’re studing seduction / pick-up artist techniques / dating tips or anything else.
See, when some new method or school comes out, there’s always a section that discredits all of the other schools (their competition) that came before it. At the same time, a lot of those same authors acknowledge that the method they’re bashing did in fact work! “Now it worked, but…” and then they go into way that functional method is bad and needs to be abandoned.
I study this stuff for my own results, my own self-improvement. Frankly, I don’t care where I am getting the information or inspiration. If it works and helps me improve myself, then I am all for it – even if the method is “unpopular” or “outdated” by community standards.
Let’s look at some of the trends in this area of self-improvement, from the dawn of the “seduction community”:
1991 until about 2000: Speed Seduction (by Ross Jeffries) was the only game in town. Ross studied NLP and hypnosis and developed a method using “conversational hypnosis”. The idea was to put women into a trance state through conversation and then use various tools and techniques to activate her process for getting extremely turned on and attracted to you.
The marketing for Speed Seduction was very crude and explicit and basically implied that you would use these methods covertly and women would end up being wildly attracted to you even if they originally weren’t. The majority of the sales letters were designed to appeal to men that feel they have been burned by women and want to reclaim their pride and glory.
Pros: The method gives men a way to talk to women that speaks to women on a deep level. Offensive as the sales letters were to women, this method did inspire men (even embittered men who were very angry at women) to become better communicators with women. Speed Seduction is great when you are with a woman and the environment is quiet and after she’s “hooked” enough to participate in a slightly-better-than-superficial discussion with you. Began originally as a Speed Seduction student and has mentioned that he uses Speed Seduction in the later stages of his own method.
Speed Seduction also has inner-game material integrated into the overall method, so this helps men improve themselves beyond just learning material.
Cons: I believe that Speed Seduction is a very viable method for seducing women, but it has its limitations: it is talk-focused, so if you can’t speak freely or be heard well, you will have limited ability to use this material. This is why Speed Seduction advocates picking up women in coffee shops, supermarkets, in quiet lounges and on the street.
Also, the original marketing of Speed Seduction branded Speed Seduction terribly. From a marketing standpoint, I believe that Ross wrote those sales letters to appeal to the men who needed his advice the most, even though Ross’s method itself advocates being a “good Jedi”.
Still Speed Seduction does not place any emphasis on improving the man’s lifestyle or personality. If anything the original marketing created an atmosphere that the men were perfect and the world was wrong, which I think was a disservice to many men.
Around 1998, the Usenet newsgroup “alt.seduction.fast” (originally started by Ross Jeffries) was bustling with students discussing Ross’s method. Among them was Eben Pagan (David Deangelo) and Erik von Markovik (Mystery). Contrary to what is listed in The Game, this is around the time that Neil Strauss (Style) joined the community as well.
From 2000 to 2006: The seduction community began learning from other figures that came up. Ex-Speed Seduction students struck out on their own ventures and left the material of Speed Seduction completely behind. This was the first major community overhaul – students began abandoning NLP-based seduction for methods designed for more upbeat environments such as parties, clubs, bars, etc. Sure, a guy could get laid by talking to a girl in a coffee house, but he wanted the hot girl he saw at the club last night.
This shift in focus created a rift among members of the seduction community… Now it wasn’t about just “getting laid”. It was about social acrobatics and showmanship. The Speed Seduction followers criticized the new routine-based methods for being shallow and superficial. The new routine-school methods criticized Speed Seduction for being awkward and creepy.
Both methods still advocated being covert and under-the-radar in their methods. It was still as if using these methods was like picking a girl’s pocket or tricking some high-value princess into sleeping with some low value troll. At the same time, the new methods revealed ways to use powerful psychological techniques to compel women to chase the man. This was a preferred alternative to having deeper discussions with a woman about her inner world and what truly turns her on (Speed Seduction’s primary focus in building attraction and connection with the woman). To many, it was also more ego-gratifying.
Pros: Guys could now study material to navigate popular social environments for younger audiences: bars, clubs, concerts, parties, etc. They could also compel women to chase them instead of having to pour their energy into turning the woman on. Plus, isolation was not a requirement – a PUA (Pick-up Artist) could pick-up the woman he was interested in and use all of the people in his environment to the advantage of meeting his intended outcome.
Also, there was now a focus on the man’s overall lifestyle choices and identity, as well as personality development.
Cons: The focus shifted to more superficial ways to connect with women. Speed Seduction taught men ways to understand women on a deeper level and ways to connect with women. Pick-up Artist routine-based schools did not have that focus. Instead, the focus became how to push psychological buttons that would compel the woman to chase the man.
With this focus, ego-gratification became a focus in it of itself. Although this may or may not have been explicitly stated, Speed Seduction is somewhat like martial arts or Eastern thought, where the best Speed Seduction student would approach a place of “no ego”. With routine-based pick-up, students pursued every way possible to avoid having their egos bruised in any way. If anything, the bigger the ego to bruise, the more motivated the Pick-up Artist.
Neither Speed Seduction nor Pick-up Artist routine-based game put any responsibility on the man for the creation of circumstances that could bruise his ego. If a woman through a drink in your face, Speed Seduction would show you a way to use that to your advantage, without fighting it at all. With routine-based pick-up, you would it as “just another move on the chessboard”. Neither one of the methods would advocate a self-exploration that may reduce the number of drinks thrown in your face.
From 2006 to present: The period after “The Game” was released. Members of the seduction community flipped out when they heard that “The Game” was going to be released – no longer would the underground community of Pick-up Artists be a secret. No longer would their methods be covert and secret.
In response, marketers of seduction products realized they needed to market something new. This was for a few reasons:
For one, once The Game was released, pick-up instructors new that EVERYONE would be flocking to Mystery and Style to solve their dating woes. In fact, Style didn’t just promote himself in The Game, he also explicitly or implicitly bashed every other author/instructor within the community (except Juggler). As a result, other schools did not want to compete within the same paradigm as Style and Mystery.
For two, marketing products under the promise that the methods were under-the-radar would be a joke after the release of The Game. A method would need to be developed that taught men how to seduce without the need to be covert about it.
For three, instructors and authors of pick-up products saw the emergence of “social robots”. These were guys who studied pick-up products, learned all of the material in them, then went out into the world and spouted off the lines they read at every woman they could. For these guys, being social was more like a video game, where a certain cue merited a certain response – not because the “player” felt the response, but because he wanted to win “the game”. The experience was hollow for both the player and the woman, but the man would continue on as a Pick-up Artist since it was at least better than being lonely and a social pariah.
For these reasons, natural game was born. Yes, natural game was created as the “antidote” for these problems. And natural game, if taught as a compliment to the two major paradigms that came before it, would be an amazing piece to complete the puzzle. Unfortunately, natural game is taught more as a way to debunk Mystery Method and to promote basically going out and “being natural”.
Natural Method or being natural is an appealing idea to the seduction community because a prevailing question within the community was always, “Why is it that I have to work so hard studying this and meanwhile my college roommate never studied any of this and he gets tons of women?” Guys teaching a “natural method” will point at the methods that came before them as the reason why they have trouble. In other words, if you stop studying those previous methods, then you’ll improve.
Now, really, this is ridiculous. When they weren’t studying, these guys were playing World of Warcraft all day and felt that success with women was utterly hopeless. With a method to follow, these guys had a gameplan. They had things they could practice and improve in. They had training exercises for the building blocks of social skills.
Natural Method assumes you have these building blocks already and says that Mystery Method and other routine-based schools mess you up by undermining your own sense of confidence. There is a degree of truth to this – social robots are the example.
But natural game should not be taught as a replacement for the other schools. It should be taught after guys have a mastery over the materials taught in the other schools. Note that most of the natural game instructors these days used to be die-hard routine-based guys. They were never “natural” naturally.
Pros: Puts focus on the man himself, not on executing the method to get women. Acknowledges the man’s emotional state and personality. Puts a focus on the man’s inner game. Shifts focus from using techniques on women and onto self-improvement.
Cons: No real skill set to practice and improve in the social scene. With earlier methods, a man could practice different social building blocks and, soon enough, be able to smoothly navigate different social situations with his expertise. Natural game does not really give you anything to practice or build towards. As a result, natural game with no prior information or practice is simply a way to get a guy comfortable enough to go out into the world and blindly try things without any way of measuring progress.
So there you have it – my brief history of the seduction community’s major trends and paradigms over the past 18 years. Is a complete history? No – there’s lots of stuff that I didn’t touch upon simply because the post is super long as it is. The point that I am driving home is that I do not think it’s the wisest decision to listen to pick-up instructors when they say you should avoid some other method.
I advocate getting exposure to everyone of the major paradigms developed within this community and reap all of the helpful information within each. I believe that combining the best parts of all three methods will create the best method. Moreover, I believe the most important aspect is that you, the man who wants to improve himself, go through the material that’s out there and pick what is most inspirational and resonant with you, your personality and your approach to life… not some trend.
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Wow is very sexy
Wow is very sexy
Thanks Resim
Thanks Resim
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