Warning: Rant (By Neil Strauss AKA Style)

A few months ago, I mentioned that I was going to write an angry post. I’ve been trying to hold it in, but can’t anymore. Here’s the deal:

The seduction community is dead.

It has been replaced by the seduction industry.

And this has not been a good thing for men.

When I first discovered this world, there was very little happening commercially–mostly just Ross Jeffries doing seminars. Eventually, Mystery invented the concept of the seduction workshop and David DeAngelo brought modern Internet marketing into the subculture. But most of the other “gurus” weren’t in the game for financial reasons. They were there to share their knowledge. And overall, this shared body of knowledge was something that almost every PUA–whether rivals or not, commercial or not–regularly added to.

But things have splintered now, largely due to the intense competition for the AFC dollar. Though there were inklings of this happening at the end of the Game, if there has been any negative impact of the success of the book, it has been the explosion of cheap marketing and unqualified instructors. Where the experts once sat around and discussed newer and better techniques for approaching and attracting women, they now sit around and discuss better ways to manipulate the men who want to learn this.

It’s become confusing for guys getting into the game now, as opposed to when it was centralized, because there are so many search-optimized websites and forums with a commercial agenda feeding them completely contradictory information and false claims.

Although this has been going on for a while, I’m writing this now because I’ve been getting an increasing number of emails from guys saying they spent all this money on a seminar or a workshop and they had a bad experience and now they’re bitter and angry about the game. They often end up becoming “trolls” and starting “hater” websites instead of continuing down the path of self-improvement.

So no matter what teacher or course or product you choose, be aware of the following ways in which the seduction industry is hurting men:

1. By the Blind Leading the Blind: Many guys take one workshop or seminar, memorize the principles, then start a company regurgitating them to others with perhaps a couple minor nuances. The problem is that learning the game is different than applying it. Make sure whoever is teaching you has mastered the skills themselves (and made substantial progress with their own personal development) before teaching them.

2. By Creating False Distinctions as Marketing Tools: It never ceases to amaze me when a guy comes up and says, “I only do direct game,” then proceeds to tell me he’s still a virgin. Any company or person who tells you to only do direct game or indirect game or fill-in-the-blank game fails to understand the bedrock principles on which the game rests. Simply put, you can do direct game if the woman you’re approaching is already attracted to you or if your status in the room is higher than hers. You do indirect game if she’s not yet attracted or her status is higher. Same goes for people who try to teach only day game or night game, or sarging a particular ethnicity or nationality. Any differences are relatively minor, and easy to adapt to once one has an overall understanding of the general principles of human nature and sexual selection.

3. By Naturals Teaching Unnaturals: It’s easy for students to admire a super-good-looking guy who was always great with women. But often (though not always), what appears to work for these guys is not going to work for a guy who’s been struggling with women all his life. What often happens in these workshops is a sort of peer pressure exerted on the student to do what the teacher thinks is the “cool” thing to do, even if it doesn’t produce results for the student. Many of them are simply teaching the same “common sense” clichés that have been around forever; don’t work for the average guy; and made me, before I discovered the community, feel like success with women was a hopeless project.

4. By a Deliberate Misunderstanding of the Principles: Largely as a result of the VH1 show the Pickup Artist, it’s become easy for both attack marketers and a student’s cynical friends to confuse Mystery with the message, and dismiss it all as “dressing up like an idiot in a feather boa and doing magic tricks for girls.” As any of you who’ve read Rules of the Game know, there is no advice for anyone to peacock or do magic. THE POWER OF THE GAME IS IN THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN NATURE AND THE SUBTLETIES OF SOCIAL INTERACTION AND DECISION-MAKING. And if a guy is substituting one form of neediness (supplicating on a date) for another (doing tricks or wearing things to impress someone), they’re missing the point: which is to stand out in a unique, compelling, non-needy way instead of being like every other boring guy. To succeed, you need to come from a place of curiosity, positivity, and enjoyment of life.

5. By People who Want a Cult Following: Many men get into the game not necessarily to meet women, but to feel socially accepted. And once they start to get praise and followers, it becomes a drug addiction. The problem is that one doesn’t grow by acquiring sycophants, but by hanging around with those who are better than oneself and learning from them. This also happens with many female coaches with no understanding of their own attraction process, who simply like basking in the attention of men and then taking their money. So beware of PUAs more interested in collecting “likes” on their Facebook page and putting down their competitors than the real-world success of their students.

6. By Pretending as if Women Somehow Want a “Different” Type of Game Every Year: My favorite marketing ruse is when guys say one style is out of date and another is newer. As anyone who’s read The Art of Seduction knows, the same patterns that were true in great historical romances continue to work today. Human nature doesn’t evolve that quickly. And even though the specific words and lines one uses may change or need to be refreshed, the principles by which they work will always be true: for you, your children, your grandchildren. The knowledge and techniques can improve from year to year, but they’re not going to just change.

7. By Getting Obsessed with Scene Politics Instead of One’s Own Self-Improvement: Which I’m on the verge of doing with this email, so going to end this list now with the following thought…

The original purpose of the Game and Rules of the Game was to help guys like myself, who felt like they were always sitting on the sidelines, watching everyone else have all the fun and success with women. And maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, there was a hope that this would lead to a positive men’s self-improvement movement. But without good resources and trustworthy teachers, that dream will not come true.

(NOTE: This story was originally posted by Neil Strauss @ http://www.neilstrauss.com/neil-strauss/warning-rant/)