Sunday, January 16, 2011

Gunwitch.

Pick-up artist "Gunwitch" shot a woman in the face at a party. 20-year-old Amber Tripp was in critical condition at time of last news reports.

This wasn't some dude who had a few PUA books in his apartment and posted on a forum the one time. He was in The Game, he sold courses, he had followers. Still has followers. Nor was this some unrelated incident; according to totally unreliable Internet sources, he was touching Tripp inappropriately and she fought back and that's when he shot her.

His official website has been taken down, but his page at Fast Seduction is still up. I don't really want to go through it in detail now though. I mean, I'm sure it's full of total howlers of misogyny and social ineptitude and just plain wrongness, but fuck, he shot someone. It's hard to nitpick "hey, don't talk to people like that" when he's got problems more on the scale of "hey, don't shoot people in the face like that." (He's also not much of a writer, to put it mildly. No wonder he sold audio lessons.)

PUA is, fundamentally, all about women as Other. You've got you and other men, who are people, with thinking and decision-making much like your own--and then you've got women. They're something else. You need a special method to interact with women because the methods you use for interacting with people won't apply here. There's a lot of "women all do this and are all like this" talk. Hell, sometimes it's not even negative. Saying "women are generally rational and have their own sex drives" can be, with enough twisting, just another way of putting "women" outside the Venn diagram of "people".

And seeing someone as unlike yourself, as unlike human beings, makes it a lot easier to pull the trigger. The frustration and resentment of not getting laid when you really want it--that's something I experience too, frankly, but I can temper it with "well, I know how he feels, because sometimes I feel that way myself." Take away that empathy and you just get pure rage that a not-exactly-person would hurt the feelings of a person.

It's horrible, but not entirely surprising, that sometimes that rage and dehumanization would turn to violence.

56 comments:

  1. If you have to have a disclaimer at the bottom of your seduction advice saying that it's a crime in some jurisdictions, you have a problem.

    Reading Gunwitch's advice, he seems to be two different people. One gives advice like "floss, be confident, be attractive, women like sex as much as men do, want someone who's attractive to you not a trophy wife, if she says no during sex making out with a hot person is still fun." The other gives advice like "keep asking for sex until she gives it to you, make the ho say no, when approaching women emulate Ted Bundy."

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  2. Unfortunately, I see the PUA as a response to the dehumanization that goes on on the flip side of the gender coin for years now. How is it any different, really, from the grocery-store mags that offer dating advice in the form of "When he wears/ says/ does this/ this/ or that, what he REALLY means is..." As ridiculous as it seems to many people here, there are women who live like that; who take Cosmo's tips on understanding men seriously. And they're a lot more common than a sane world should bear. I've known women of this type as friends, and had the extreme misfortune of dating a few as well.

    So what's an average man with maybe average-to-sub average looks supposed to do to attract women? Despite all the feel-good advice about "just being yourself" one geek can stand, women clearly aren't lining up around the block to go out on a date with a guy who goes to work and plays XBox on weekends (you know, activities that 99% of the single male population do, yet somehow gets left out of discussions about "attracting single men"). So they turn to crap like this, because loneliness sucks. It's just an escalation in the war of the sexes.

    Average women who expect nothing less than a walking, talking Harlequin-stereotype with the depth of Hemingway and the n-factor of Kurt Cobain... and will judge whether or not you are this person by which side of your plate you place lay napkin down on... suck. Average men who resort to sleazy lies, emotional manipulation, and psuedo-psychology just to get sex... suck.

    So the bigger question is: why do so many people suck, and what can we do to fix it?

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  3. Why would you want to date someone who sucks?

    If so many women refuse to date ordinary guys, why do so many relationships exist?

    And perhaps more pointedly, why is it a "war"? I'm almost smelling a metaphor that you'd have to "win against" a woman to date her, and that's pretty messed up?

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  4. Jesus titty fucking Christ, how many more Sodini-type incidents like this have to go down before people start to realize "Hmm, maybe this PUA stuff ISN'T so harmless"?

    --CoronerCountess

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  5. I met Gunwitch and while he was well-liked in The Community for his bluntness, he was also a big scary guy, moody, brooding, and armed in a meth-soaked impoverished area of the world. So I am going to reserve judgement on PUA's role in the shooting, since people have reported scenarios as varied as a domestic dispute and his firing in self-defense when she tried to rob him at knife-point. So far, he is the only one being charged, which is what I would expect in any case, but this smacks far more of alcohol n' drugs at a New Year's Party in Methville than George Sodini redux. One flaw I will point out in his system is that it requires being willing to turn on a dime and respect a woman's boundaries at her first firm "No" when nothing in your previous approach has indicated that you will do this, and you are going to terrorize a rather large proportion of women you engage on the way there. You can try to vibe your way to Teh Horny with someone as if she were a tuning fork, but that requires either being finely attuned to non-verbal communication such that most of the time your interactions will lead nowhere as you subconsciously detect indifference or trying to lead someone into intimacy until you reach a firm "No." I imagine it would work at the extremes of the spectrum for the very intellectual and the very earthy, and I can't imagine GW reading "Madame Bovary" for inspiration.

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  6. @ Holly: I don't. That's why (to my perception, anyway) there's so many sucky people out there. But as for other men, it's like I said in my earlier comment: loneliness sucks. So I can understand why men would pursue relationships even with women who aren't worth their time.

    That same answer applies to your question about why so many relationships exist. Though I would posit that the dehumanization on both sides contributes greatly to the serious lack of long-term relationships (something which, as a serial monogamist, I'm sure you'd disagree with me on... but whatever).

    And why describe dating as a war? Well, first of all there's the literary tradition of describing it as such. You know, it is a popular culture metaphor that can be traced back a few centuries. But I think you just provided your own answer why I could describe it as such: I merely threw out a counterpoint argument to try and describe an element of male behavior (one which I derided, as a matter of fact). And for doing so, you come down on me as being a woman hater? Excuse me, but you don't even know me.

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  7. @David

    Despite all the feel-good advice about "just being yourself" one geek can stand, women clearly aren't lining up around the block to go out on a date with a guy who goes to work and plays XBox on weekends (you know, activities that 99% of the single male population do, yet somehow gets left out of discussions about "attracting single men").

    And yet... they are. I work, and play PS3 (close enough to Xbox, I'd think), watch a huge amount of football, etc., and also am not possessed of great looks, a large dick, huge amounts of charisma, lots of money, a Ferrari, a stainless steel delicatessen, or any of the other conventional 'wow' factors that might attract women, and... I have a (long-term, as-close-to-permanent-as-one-can-call-such-things) partner. And so do most of my male friends in similar circumstances. And hell, I suspect I might even be able to get a date if I went looking for one. As would most of my male friends. So I don't know that your '99%' is very accurate.

    So they turn to crap like this, because loneliness sucks. It's just an escalation in the war of the sexes.

    Yes, loneliness sucks. And turning to slobbering stupidity like PUA -- or any other escalation of the 'war' between the sexes -- more or less guarantees you a permanent seat on the Loneliness Choo-Choo, or at best a shot at a woman who buys into the shit that Cosmo and/or PUA are selling. So you can endure loneliness for a while, or go all Flushy the Toilet Monster about it. Which strikes you as the better option?

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  8. The Fast Seduction forum doesn't mention the allegations against Gunwitch. Either it's been sanitized or no one cares.

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  9. The issue is getting plenty of play elsewhere, and Learn The Skills Corporation is definitely legally reachable for defamation should they comment on Gunny unfavorably if he is later exonerated. It's "good business practice" to not defame a former collaborator if you're a Massachusetts-based LLC, given the court system there. "Sanitized"=acting rationally, as anyone who has read Parker v. Learn The Skills Corporation (a case in which "Gunwitch" Reyes was also a defendant) would know.

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  10. The PUA community is quit big, so I wouldn't be to quick to judge it all from just one man.
    There are all kinds of people there, from guys who just want bragging right to people who want to learn how to not get shot down at first sight. Now personally I think there are a lot of people in the PUA community who should be told that women aren't a substitute for mental health therapy and that they should go see a shrink instead of trying to f-ck the pain away. But also there are people who just want to experience what is supposed to be part of a normal adult life.

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  11. I'm personally surprised at how many single people I meet and how many are still actively looking or have given up looking - but that is Candice world of 40+ people and not in the USA.

    I don't see meet many people that follow this PUA silliness thank goodness! ..however, I have met people whose emotions are very fragile and who anger easily and lose control. SCARY big time! The poor girl - I will pray for her.

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  12. *sigh* I just posted on this as well, particularly on the 'battle of the sexes' angle that somehow, invariably, keeps coming up in every comment section ever on dating and relationships. The dehumanisation angle is so key, and so miserable. Wish I had anything more profound to say, but right now it all sort of boils down to, "Oy vey."

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  13. Pickup is attractive for people that have no success with women, because they can learn how to have success with women.

    Even Psychopath like gunwitch.

    But he was not aggressiv because he was into pickup.
    He was aggressiv because he was crazy and couldn´t deal with rejection from girls that realized that despite his learnd pickuptechnics.
    Just like Valerie Solanas wasn´t crazy bcause she was a feminist. She was crazy anyway.
    (Feminism may have some girls too, that are not good with men and hate them because of that)

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  14. I'm not a serial monogamist! I'm a parallel monogamist!

    Also, the fact that many people are lonely doesn't justify PUA tactics. It explains them, but doesn't make them ethical, sensible, or even effective. How many PUA follower dudes ever come to a place of satisfaction with their sex lives?

    ...Come to think of it, how come nobody in this game ever seems to get a girlfriend? You hear a lot of braggary about taking home 200 women, but none about "and that's how I met Jane and we have a great relationship." Either the philosophy is based on discarding lovers, which is going to keep you in a constant state of tension even if you're very attractive (because you're always looking and hence always at acute risk of rejection), or... it's easier to make up 200 discarded anonywomen than to claim you have a girlfriend who lives in Canada.

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  15. ^There's david wygant, but he's not really a true pick up artist-- his website is refreshingly free of misogyny, though

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  16. I know some self-styled PUAs in my local city who have girlfriends and are in poly or mono relationships, but none of them are the scary misogynist ones; they're mostly the ones who borrowed the confidence building exercises and eventually learned to discard the poor attitudes, thankfully. (One of my friends has become somewhat involved in the community; she teaches workshops, I think in an effort to combat some of the worse misinformation, and she's very aware of which guys are never going to be happy and never going to shed their resentment of women. One of them still, somehow, manages to think of promiscuous women as sluts even as he's trying to have sex with as many women as possible.)

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  17. (That's one of the things that really strikes me about PUA - if you're ever going to be happy, you're going to have to unlearn the bitterness that is imparted to you under the guise of 'this will make you happy'.)

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  18. Okay, wait wait wait.

    David said: So what's an average man with maybe average-to-sub average looks supposed to do to attract women? Despite all the feel-good advice about "just being yourself" one geek can stand, women clearly aren't lining up around the block to go out on a date with a guy who goes to work and plays XBox on weekends

    And Holly said: If so many women refuse to date ordinary guys, why do so many relationships exist?

    To which David replied, "...I can understand why men would pursue relationships even with women who aren't worth their time.
    That same answer applies to your question about why so many relationships exist."


    So...the "ordinary guys" who can't get relationships because women are too picky are actually getting relationships...and it's because the men are settling?

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  19. Oh, also: if you're only going to work and playing X-box, you're not single because you're a geek, you're single because women aren't in the habit of wandering into random people's houses looking for boyfriends.

    It reminds me of that old joke where some guy prays to God every week to win the lottery and it keeps not happening. The guy gets angry and asks why God has forsaken him so - why has God not granted his prayers? And God says, "Look, could at at least meet me halfway on this and buy a lottery ticket?"

    One more thing I feel the need to mention whenever men whine that "average" looking guys can't get women: PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT TASTES. I can't believe I even have to mention such an obvious fucking thing, but it seems that PUA types just can't seem to remember this.

    To most people, my boyfriend probably looks "average". I'm certain a fair number of women would actually find him flat-out hideous. But to me he looks like candy. I'm not "settling" and I didn't start finding him attractive "once I got to know him and realized he had a great personality". This is a boy I could've randomly seen on the street and wanted to fuck the shit out of because he is exactly my physical type.

    Even though he's just average.

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  20. Right, I'm seconding what Perverse Cowgirl said. I am currently incoherent with lust over a guy most people would find unattractive, but I happen to adore his white-boy afro and crap facial hair. I had a fuckbuddy relationship with a guy who's much more conventionally attractive that I didn't feel that surge of lust for at all. It's weird like that.

    You don't have to have a million people lusting after you; you just need to have one. Or, at most, about five.

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  21. @David:
    So what's an average man with maybe average-to-sub average looks supposed to do to attract women?

    Thank you for making your misogyny so obvious.

    When women exercise choice, they're being picky and bitchy, and there's no other possible reason for that strange species of human to have standards. Men of course react by being sleazy assholes, but it's not their fault now is it?

    Meanwhile, men are so magnanimous to try to rape even an average-looking woman! (Aside: men have "standards" also. Average women spend a great deal of their time being invisible in crowds. It can be crushing.) But since being an asshole is so hard, no wonder the vast majority of men die hopeless virgins! Oh, wait.

    Gee willickers gosh! Those poor men!

    </nuke-mode>

    [As a comment on another blog said not too long ago: silent support isn't support at all. Keep up the good fight, Holly.]

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  22. As a purely side comment since I have nothing to say someone else didn't already, the whole "X-box playing average-looking guy never ever ever gets laid without dehumanizing Game" stuff is like reading dispatches from another planet if you *are* a gamer girl.

    The vast majority of guys I know through gaming are either in a relationship, actually married, or have been in relationships and merely happen to be currently single. Of course, I, the other women who play, and the normal guys avoid dudes who act like women are another species just because it kinda ruins the fun of the game for the group. They're not avoided because they're average-looking and play (that's all of us), they're avoided because they're *assholes* in addition to being lonely. And they are very much the minority- though they probably don't think so because at this point they're the only people willing to talk to each other that much.

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  23. LabRat

    What you are saying is pretty much enforcing a sexual caste system. If a guy is permanently single, than that must be because he deserves it.

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  24. No, anon. If a guy is permanently single, that is because he hasn't made a romantic connection with another person.

    All Labrat is saying is that you're a lot less likely to make that connection if you're a bitter, alienated sexist.

    And this "sexual caste system" talk sounds a whole lot like advocating that no, every man ought to have equal access to the municipal pussy supply.

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  25. I didn't say a damn thing about what a guy "deserves" (sex and relationships are not handed out on a basis of who deserves it), I said the well-adjusted folk who can manage to treat each other like human beings don't want to hang out with the ones who can't or won't. That's why I made a point of noting the well-adjusted guys- some of whom are single- don't want to either. Sex didn't even enter into it except the simple observation that in the universe of gamers and gamer culture I inhabit, being able to have relationships with the opposite sex is normal, not unusual.

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  26. Previous anon- LabRat is saying that people tend to avoid a sexist jerk. It's not because he's perpetually single, it's because he's generally unpleasant to interact with.

    Alienating behavior leads to being permanently single, not a lack of previous relationships. I've never heard of anyone asking for a resume of relationship experience.

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  27. Second anon (seriously, people, use name/url, you don't have to enter a url and it's a lot easier)-- well, there are a few people who are interested in virgins or very inexperienced people, and conversely a few people who are interested in the experienced. Barring fetishes, though, people don't care that much.

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  28. @perversecowgirl:

    OMG YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES. ALL OF IT.

    That is all.

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  29. I agree with perversecowgirl and LabRat. Most of my IRL friends are male and the majority of them are in relationships (even though they are no "alpha-males" in any way. Shocking, isn't it?)

    "So what's an average man with maybe average-to-sub average looks supposed to do to attract women?"

    Well, it'S quite simple, really:
    Stop thinking of them as some kind of hive minded alien species. Think of them as people with their own wants and preferences.
    Don't try to mindread, just ask them if you want to know something.
    Women aren't trophies you get for pushing the right buttons so you can show them around to your buddies.

    Sounds complicated?
    Yupp, social interactions aren't a cakewalk! Deal with it.

    Stop blaming your looks and start acting like a decent human being and your on the right path.

    (Delurking the first time. I've been reading your blog for a while, Holly, and I love it! I always learn something new ♥ I might have a bit of an e-crush on you ;D )

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  30. One problem is that generic women's range of behaviors in rejecting men are open, explicit, uniform, uncoded and easily noticeable (like the "girl code" glance between members of a group before they leave en masse to "get more drinks" while holding full glasses) while gestures of encouragement and acceptance are subtle, not explicit, non-uniform, unique to the individual and generally not as noticeable. There are good reasons for this, some of which start with men, but pretending it doesn't exist--and that women in the aggregate initiate romantic contact when they ARE interested--is a less than helpful response. Most men also don't have the ego flexibility to approach 50-100 women a month while working on their self- and outer-image, which is what it takes.

    One of the irritating factors is that PUA seems to be running out one of its generational cycles as Mystery, Tyler Durden, etc have kids and settle down a bit and a "looser" less-coherent group of MRAs (Eivind Berge, etc.) are proclaiming the "End of Pick-Up" and an age of purifying violence against women.

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  31. Eurosabra - God I could stand to go an entire day without being told what women are like. Especially when to me it all sounds like "and women all have green skin and they only eat anthracite coal" for all it has in common with me or anyone I know.

    The whole paradigm of women setting up little card tables where men line up with resumes is just so foreign to my idea of the social experience. The atmosphere I meet people in is where people are just going around talking to people, you know? People mostly start out in groups and then occasionally a pair splits off conversationally or physically, but men don't "approach" women as such. So the whole concept of women providing encouragement or rejection to suitors doesn't begin to fit my social paradigm.

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  32. That's because we move in different social circles, I assure you that Ivy League alumni nightclub evenings are much different than kinky poly gatherings, for starters. And the diversity of tastes there seems much more restrained, by social convention, for starters. There is an aggregate female behavior within most social circles and it is discernible and it is reasonable for men to draw conclusions based on it.

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  33. Oh, so I just don't move in the social circle where women eat anthracite coal.

    But in fact, I've just about never witnessed it. I don't spend my whole life in a kink bubble. I go out to normal-people bars and social events, I went to normal-people schools, I work with normal people. And I just don't see the card tables. I think the norm of human behavior--not the feminist ideal, the actual norm--is for groups of both genders to get together socially and some of those people to pair off within the group and go off together.

    Or... fuck, sometimes people just strike up a conversation and talk to each other and they get to flirting, you know? It's not this delicate pre-ordained dance.

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  34. I've never been to a kinky or poly anything in my entire life- which has been pretty damn conventional- and I'm finding this description of "aggregate female behavior" as alien as Holly is.

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  35. "That's because we move in different social circles, I assure you that Ivy League alumni nightclub evenings are much different than kinky poly gatherings, for starters. "

    Last time we had this discussion, you started by talking about universal female behavior, and then dialed that back to upper-middle-class white women...age 20 to 25...in major American cities...well, DC and LA...who frequent certain clubs where you used to hang out. Maybe next you'll say it only applies to women named Jennifer.

    But it turns out you have a good reason for ignoring women who aren't white, thin, wealthy clubgoers: dark-skinned people are scary!

    What's really sad is that if you just had a very specific physical "type"--thin and white--this wouldn't be offensive or stupid, but it would undermine your claim not to be highly picky, so you turn to racism. I suppose this is the dating analogue to being an illiterate meth addict in Merced, California and thinking you can't get a job because of the damn Mexicans.

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  36. I'm a Jerusalem-born Israeli, so my very existence is viewed as arrogant entitlement by millions of people, some of whom have done their best to see me erased, and I have been subjected to brutal violence and survived it, so I have a certain degree of coarseness, and a tendency to treat my experience as universal with no apology. I don't know where you got the charge of racism, but I really don't care, because I am pretty much insensitive to shame. I can't locate any coherent message in what you posted, other than that once again I started by making a broad statement about female behavior, and dialed it back, and that that represents a certain blindness by rendering certain women invisible, at least discursively, and the crowd I run with is pretty racially diverse.

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  37. I have a certain degree of coarseness, and a tendency to treat my experience as universal with no apology.

    Even though every time somebody points out that your world and most especially your worldview are extremely small and insular you dial it back and admit your world consists entirely of young wealthy clubbers in a very narrow social elite. You're theoretically aware it's your world and not the world and occasionally admit as much, but it doesn't stop you from coming back here and lecturing us about "universal female behavior" over and over and OVER again as though it actually WERE universal.

    You shouldn't need to apologize for this behavior because you're Israeli, you should cut it the fuck out because even you tacitly admit you're wrong.

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  38. Okay, if you're "insensitive to shame," and are going to go around with your "coarseness" with "no apology," then just get out, because I have nothing to say to a flat declaration that you don't care about being a decent human being.

    Well, except that PUA doesn't work, so even if you're an amoral baby-eating sociopath (or for some reason think it's glamorous to claim you are), you're still not gonna get laid.

    Jesus Christ, I'm Jewish too. I've got family in Israel. Yes, we were and in some ways are a beleaguered people. I don't recall that coming with a "get out of racism" free card, much less sexism.

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  39. Except that you keep dragging me back in by trashing PUA, and I think mainly you want to do it by engineering a situation where there is no right of reply. I do think people want to tar PUA with the brush of the severely disturbed, and I do have a very, very bad personal history with being a new immigrant in inner-city schools in the USA, which causes intemperate remarks about nerd personal safety. I don't particularly care whether PUA works "like magic" but rather whether it provides me with a workable social script, and so far it has. You might want to check out Feministe for a parallel discussion on how much Gunwitch "owes" to PUA and Thomas MacAulay Millar's rather dubious declaration that he understands PUA.

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  40. Not every mention of PUA is personally directed at you, much less forcing you to reply.

    There's a right of reply! I'm looking at the "delete this comment?" button right now and I'm not pushing it. What you don't have is the right to be agreed with.

    Your social script's working reallll well right now. Boy do you know how to change a woman's mind about you.

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  41. Well, you brought up Gunwitch, and I'm probably the only one of your commenters who met the man personally, although it was several years ago, and I suppose if he's coherent enough to remember me he might want me as a character witness, if this were the sort of trial where that might be relevant, which I doubt he is, and which I doubt it is.

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  42. I didn't know you'd met him. I'm kind of horrified by that actually. (And by the fact that you're not.)

    So if you were called as a character witness, would you testify?

    God that would be the worst kind of hilarious. "Your honor, I can attest that this man would never shoot a woman, unless she was denying him sex or something horrible like that!"

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  43. He seemed to be your average blue-collar, ripped, big scary guy who was somewhat confused by people's fear of him, and who (at least back then) was making an effort to soften his self-presentation. And Klamath Falls is a hard area, with a lot of marginal people. Not everybody has the self-awareness to stop carrying because of mental instability, and certainly no one was going to intervene :-( just because he was poor, unhappy, and unstable with guns. And frankly, unless it goes to intent (which I think it won't, because of the alleged 15 minute pause erasing any ambiguity about his intent) I don't think I'd be called as a witness, and, anyway, we are talking about a 15-minute meeting YEARS ago. Now, do I think he should be committed for care rather than jailed? Yes, I do.

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  44. What mental illness do you think the guy has that should get him care instead of jail, that you can diagnose from a fifteen minute meeting years ago?

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  45. Perhaps that PUA is a form of mental illness?

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  46. God dammit. And every time the average intelligence of commenters on this blog goes up, Eurosabra has to show up to parade his hardships in front of everybody and bring it all right back down into "CrazyBullshitistan", the shitty neighborhood where he lives and doesn't shower.

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  47. Drew --

    It's okay. You can admit your manlove for Eurosabra. No one will judge you. much

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  48. Most men also don't have the ego flexibility to approach 50-100 women a month while working on their self- and outer-image, which is what it takes.
    I realize Holly said she'd rather hear less from Eurosabra than more, but . . . what it takes to do what? 100 women a month?

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  49. Well, I read The Game and its follow-up, The 30-Day Challenge, and I'm not sure Neil Straus's sctick is totally about women as Other. The 30-Day challenge asks the reader to take a new step every day, starting with "Start a conversation with three people," moving on to "Start a conversation with three women," and so on, with an emphasis on projecting confidence in social situations. To tell you the truth, I never got past Day One, but it seems like pretty decent advice for socially retarded people such as myself. And I think it could possibly be of some use to women, people who just want to make more friends, etc.

    This is off-topic, but I came across your blog because of the Twisty stuff. I'm like you in that I don't agree with anything on that site but find it endlessly fascinating.

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  50. (Heh heh, of course, starting a conversation with three people is totally different than starting a conversation with three women. I just meant that he asked the reader to go from general friendliness to focusing on females, from what I remember.)

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  51. Eurosabra, you sound very "beep-boop" person.
    Have you been diagnosed with Aspergers? 'Cause I knew a couple-a guys on this one forum, who always described social interactions with women as entirely befuddling things, and they wanted to know exactly what code to plug in to the formula to get a cute female to sleep with them.
    Turns out they were both professionally diagnosed with Aspergers.

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  52. I haven't been diagnosed with Asperger's, although I have massive depression and a few Asperger-like traits which are mainly a function of the depression, and I have taught myself to notice social cues very well. I can detect women's attraction to other men very easily, and to me sometimes. I have a normal number of friends and normal social interactions with friends of both sexes, and have always been a fairly decent extrovert, just one marked a bit by physical disability. Oddly, I have a high verbal intelligence and speak 4 languages with native (not near-native) fluency, which might be Aspie obsessiveness applied to language.

    Unfortunately, I don't really have any hobbies in life anymore due to the economic crisis and I don't really give a shit about anything besides getting laid. I don't care about the "code" cuz I've seen that the code is "be good-looking and rich", and "Game" has worked well enough for me when in a situation of "pure desire", where I was trading sex for sex's sake with someone interested in same. Oddly enough, I have dated a few female Aspies, and that and the above require explicit consent on the scale of the Antioch Code and resisting temptations to play God, so my actual sex life has involved the opposite of everything people here ascribe to me: explicit verbal consent, constant awareness of boundaries (and asking for every escalation of touch, not least because of physical disability, i.e. arthritis, fibromyalgia, my kyphosis, etc.)

    Women aren't confusing at all, it's just that only 1 in 300 to 1 in 500 are attracted to the Non-gaming Eurosabra, and 1 in 50 with Game. Playing conventional masculinity to the hilt to date a female Aspie might make me eligible for the Worst Person in the World Award, but competent adults have the right to genuinely consent to anything legal, right?

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  53. The more I hear about "1 in 300" or "1 in 50," the more I realize--shit, I'd be hard-pressed to find 50 people in rapid succession that I wanted to sleep with. I would rather be single than be with some random person. Maybe this is just a symptom of my essential femaleness, but I have absolutely no desire to be with a man, just any man.

    As for "competent adults," the fact that it's a right doesn't make it right. I don't think you should go to jail, I just think you're icky.

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  54. Yeah, I could find 50 women to be interested in during the course of a given weekend at Whole Foods. Frankly, I suppose the idea of approaching 300 women seems horribly intrusive, but in the course of a year, you can easily have a 15 min conversation (and ask out) one attractive stranger a day. And "icky" is mainly because I explicitly state a lot of things about my attitudes here that aren't actually a part of my interactions with my partners, and there is a ton of dark side PUA I don't do.

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  55. Oh God, I get sick of PUA guys claiming their social problems are entirely due to not knowing the magical trick to getting women to sleep with you.

    Also, being autistic is no excuse for being a jerkface. I get confusion on how to interact with people and how to indicate sexual interest without being creepy, but it's not that hard! I swear! I'm autistic and getting laid is fairly easy, provided that:

    a) you are attracted to people around you
    b) they are also attracted to you
    c) you are nice & respectful of them & people in general,
    and d) you don't seem dangerous or creepy

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