how to be a fpua pt 2: origins of the beast

A few years ago, I read The Game by Neil Strauss . . . actually, I'm gonna back up. Way MORE than a few years ago, I was carrying on this on-off IMing friendship with a kid who was trying to, for lack of of my desire to euphemize, get all up in me. (We met on an early-years social networking site.) It was on-off because, although I really had no interest in even meeting him, once in a blue moon, he'd come out with a line or two that made me think he was worth chatting with. (And also because I was in school and my IM was always on.)

Being that he was young, male and average, one of his favorite topics of conversation was the girls he met and hit on and went out with and fucked, and the many clever ways he had of completing that sequence. And then, one day, it slipped out. A name. David DeAngelo.

He cited a few of DeAngelo's principles, and I was actually impressed. He seemed like someone who had a decent grip on those points of the female psyche that had always seemed obvious to ME but shrouded in mystery for most of the men I knew. (Unfortunately for the boy I was talking to, I instantly realized that about 80% of the less-boring/predictable things he'd said were derived from DeAngelo.)

He was so delighted by my interest in this - for he was clearly a passionate acolyte in the PUA faith - that he actually sent me the Double-Your-Dating e-books. I skimmed them - again, I'm a girl, most of the info wasn't news - and thought, "Good stuff; total duds can't hide behind it, but it might help some well-meaning nice guys become less shy and boring. I wonder how many guys read this. "

That question was answered just a few weeks later; another guy sent me a message on the same social networking site. He had a lot less "work" to do, being far more aesthetically pleasing than the first one. But his overt cockiness didn't jibe with his obvious interest in me. Something was up. And then, he negged me.

To his credit, he didn't try to deny having read DYD or having tried to use it on me. We ended up having an honest conversation, and all was well. (But, again. He was hot and not a complete idiot. That would have been enough to fuck him without any of the bells and whistles.)

So. Flash forward a few years, and I read something online about PUAs. It rings a bell. I see something about The Game and read an excerpt on Amazon. I find it well-written and engaging, so I get the book and quickly read that.

It is an awesome book. Neil Strauss is a terrific writer and he manages to handle the subject matter without the usual dose of latent misogyny. The principles in the book, while obviously geared to helping straight men get laid, could really be used in a variety of settings - a party where you don't know anyone, befriending someone you've just met, even a job interview. By women as well as by men. It's pretty much a more aggressive version of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People. (Which, btw, is also a great book, under all those cobwebs and parodies.)

I read the book. I lurked in a few online communities. I admired the craft of the PUA game, though I noted some errors and oversights within it. I felt horrified that, apparently, the ones getting the most action out there were Total Assholes and the Mindless Sluts who loved them. But mostly, I just wondered - how can a WOMAN do this?

How can a woman - who isn't a 10 or even a 9 - get hit on and laid by cool, desirable guys? How can a woman take control of her dating and sex life without feeling frozen, guilty or used? How can she thoroughly enjoy all the delights of being an independent woman in a modern society without turning to feminist rhetoric? (Not that I see anything wrong with feminism, per se; just that it sometimes becomes more about the "ism" than the "fem.")

So I started - slowly and cautiously - taking what I learned on test drives. To parties, bars, etc. (Not clubs. I get headaches if I attempt to do anything in there but dance my ass off, make out in utter silence and then vanish into the night.) As suspected, some of what the male PUAs teach are just the basic rules of successful non-gender-specific human interaction. Some of the lessons do require some tweaking to better fit female PUAs. And then, of course, I picked up a few lessons of my own.

I've made mistakes, of course. I've overshot and undershot and cared too much and didn't care enough, and all that jazz. I've spent evenings wishing I could talk to a particular guy and ending up alone; I've left potentially exciting encounters because some female good-girl neurosis kicked in; and I've felt like a dirty, ugly whore after things didn't end up the way I wanted them to. Sure, I've made mistakes. That's how I learned.

But, in the end, I had fun learning. And even more fun realizing that there is a whole lot of cool, fun, cute guys out there, who can fairly easily be "picked up" - that is, who can be induced to flirt with me, make out with me, fuck me, and make me thankful that I was born a woman. And it's not about who wins or loses; the way I play the game, everyone wins.

Unless I'm feeling a little bit evil that day :-D