The Game - Neil Strauss

Every once in a while you come across a book, or a movie, or some other vastly influencing phenomenon, which shakes up your belief system and your outlook towards world, people and life. At times, in fact, the only kind of things which achieve that and you hear about, are spiritual in nature. But here I present a book as far away from spirituality as possible. It talks about manipulation of others, faking our identity and a lot of sex. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a book which gave me an insight into a world so vastly different from which I live in, so exciting and “happening” than my own boring life that I am tempted, like the author, to give up my day job and dive into it.

The sub-title, “Penetrating the secret society of pick-up artists” and the silhouettes of women on the title pretty much give away the theme. And while ability to charm a woman that one wants, anytime, any day, is a fantasy that all guys would have, I detest self-help books and was in no mood for any kind of pedagogy on how to improve my personality so girls would flock around me. However, the book is not about what a lot of people might believe it to be: a lesson on how to pick up girls. It is in fact an expose of the whole underground pick-up community.

Neil Strauss is given an assignment to write a proper book on the lines of a crude How-To-Lay-Girls-Guide. From that point he plunges into the pick-up cult, with the instinct of an author and the desperation of a single horny long-time-no-sex guy. Within two years, Style, Neil’s pickup alias, becomes the best pick-up artist there is.

But then, Neil, or Style if you prefer, had a mission and a job. He did not see pick-up as a be-all-end-all of his life. So he could draw lines and have control over his life unlike a lot of other people he met. And by drawing these lines he gives us a view into the pick-up society like an undercover journalist. True, Neil had become Style, but the Neil was never killed. In fact, Neil was the one who was really in control all the time. And it is Neil who wrote this fantastic book.

The book is extremely candid in its portrayal of everyone and everything. Being regarded as the best, and as someone who people actually looked up to in the community probably made it easier for Neil Strauss. But the credit for that too goes to the author. And the book traces the whole journey of Style from being a babe-repeller nerd to a master-Pick-up-Artist (mPUA) to being in love. The book talks about various characters that the author interacted with in this two year span from Tom Cruise and Britney Spears to other mPUAs and his students in The Game. It gives away the techniques used to pick-up girls, it gives the pickup lingo, it gives away the politicking in the community as it grew hundred-fold and it gives the hollowness that eventually hit Style in his quest for gaining the ability to lay girls at will. Neil Strauss writes about what is going on in his head at every single juncture. That makes a fantastically truthful autobiography for the reader.

The book is written amazingly. The colloquial nature of the book makes it even more appealing. The writer draws on some well placed quotes, his own high school poetry and the posts of the pick-up community members in their online chat-room. All of it is packaged brilliantly. At no point does the book become pedantic, or resentful or boring. This is how books ought to be written.

When I finished the book, the first thing I did was I googled some of the names in the book: Mystery, Tyler Durden, Ross Jefferies… and hell they all are for real. I ran into a gazillion pick-up sites. Looks like the whole pick-up thing is commoditized and commercialized beyond repair. That is what Neil himself realized and got out of the game.
In the end you learn a valuable lesson as a reader. Sure guys are sex-maniacs. And so what if such under-ground communities for pick-up training exist, they are really just fulfilling a market demand. The bottom line is how you present yourself that will make people, and girls, like you. You have to internalize a lot of things, because fake simply doesn’t work. That is a one page advice that you will find spread across the first half of the book. The rest of the book is simply about how messed up life can get if you take these things too seriously. Go ahead, read this book. It will teach as much about the contemporary life as a spiritual scripture might.