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It appears you missed the point of the books, which is that by going out and acting confident and whatnot, you will eventually become confident, and that will bring about a personal transformation that will make you more desirable to others. I wonder what the result would have been if you had done this without this idea of it being a work assignment constantly in your head. Totally agree with you about the silly hats tho. The whole 'peacock' thing is just lost on me.

The point of the books isn't confidence, the point is how to use psychological tricks to sleep with women. No wonder the writer was freaked out by the end.

You were so right about Peacocking in NYC. When I first saw your outfit i said to myself "wow, i know this looks ridiculous but I wouldn't look twice if I saw that on the street in New York".

I often wonder in NYC bars in I need to style my hair with black light responsive paint just to not blend in with the crowd. Very entertaining read, Caitlin, I'm glad you stuck it out even if it was generally as awkward and terrible as you seemed to expect.

Isn't this kind of a pointless experiment? Young, attractive women do not need pick-up strategies. "Hi, my name's X, wanna fuck?" should work better than 50% of the time for her.

@BM. I think you missed the point of this entirely. This was FASCINATING. The whole pick-up artist culture, at least as i've seen it on tv, is insane. and mysognist. She was hilarious and brave to try and make it work for women; and very honest in how it made her feel. Well done for science!

"Negging" doesn't work for women.

What a stupid experiment. All of the insights about picking up women from The Game were gleaned by men working on picking up women. Of course it feels weird and doesn't work when a woman uses it. Would be a lot weirder if it did work.

I'm using "what are your thoughts on the banjo" tonight...maybe not so much the "man hands" bit.

Negging doesn't work for ANYBODY who is inept at gauging boundaries and reading people.

@MK why shouldn't it work for women?

@am: B/c The Game is designed to work on responses *to males* that are "hard-wired" into women. If women want a game-plan for picking up other women (or men, for that matter), some woman or group of women should do the actual work (hypothesis - experiment - confirm hypothesis- practice) the PUA weirdos did to learn how men should pick up women. Make sense?

i think EVERYONE is missing the point of this, which is that it is ridiculous and funny. really. or maybe that isn't the point? author, I'D fuck you. and by fuck you, i mean punch you in the nose.

ahahahahahah i can't believe all the people stanning for puas. its ridiculous. they've got aspie level unawareness of sarcasm. and for real talk about not getting what's going on. "of course ur deconstruction of gender roles didn't work MEN ARE FROM MARS WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS"

this was a funny and insightful article though not really telling anyone whose dated anything new. Women play a different game. I'd love to see an article about a really self confident woman taking these rules and making them work.hard.

Women already have game. Its called makeup and Cosmo.

I laughed. I cried. I wanted to dedicate my next child to you.

@MK: women are "hard-wired" to respond to pseudonyms and abuse? is that why "Mystery" and "Style" have an entire acronym describing a lady's "last minute" desire NOT to get banged by dudes wearing fuzzy orange top hats? I'm choking on my own sarcasm quotes.

Great article. Ms. MacRae I think drives right into the heart of what is wrong with these "pick-up" methods. I read that material and the only truly good advide from that B.S. is to "be interesting." Yet they miss the point completely. A man should "be interesting" by developing and interesting life. How about getting an education, creating art, a business, or helping others. Hilarious article. I actually had the same reation. Having that game material even in my head made going out and meeting the opposite sex a strange experience when at one time, pre game infection it was just fun.

Well to be frank, the even if u do not like the book, the whole deal seems to working for men who have used these materials, so WHAT THE HEELL ARE YOU TRYING TO PROVE HERE. Every thing turned out great for the both the guy who slept with the girl and the girl who met the guy she wanted to sleep with.

This is HILARIOUS. As a woman who finds these tactics joke-worthy and obvious, I've always wanted to do this for laughs, but suspected I'd find about the same results. Great job. Also, I am ultra-jealous of your belt.

It turns out that if you are a woman and you want another woman the game is a bit different. There is typically no "bitch shield" to overcome and flattery/wit will get you everywhere. As for the effectiveness of the material, it is unparalleled for men. We are all little machines (generally)that follow a certain sequence of button pushing to get the desired product. That's what the material teaches. And your hang up over the terms (i.e. LMR) is silly, this was written for men by men that systematically approached the problem like any good researcher would. The acronyms were common problems that needed to be overcome, so they addressed it and found solutions. At any point in the pick-up process the woman has the option to leave. It is never suggested that she be forced to do anything. Women have inherent responses to specific behavior (as do men) and this material simply exploits that.

I understand Ms. MacRae's intent was to entertain rather than inform, but insinuating that Neil Strauss's book is the beginning and end of Pick-Up is like saying Metallica is the beginning and end of metal. Just not accurate at all.

"ahahahahahah i can't believe all the people stanning for puas." Uh, what? Are those supposed to be words?

This is the bravest, best thing I've read in quite awhile. I WANT ME SOME CASH.

You are adorable. I would be your wingwoman any time.

Cute, but ultimately dishonest. You never set out with intention to close, or you would have closed ANY of the guys you talked to. I think you are more interested in being a jerk and saying "Look, I swear I'm not the jerk, it's these techniques". I teach these techniques to men. They transform and become the men you REALLY want to date. For the record the intent isn't to hustle girls into bed. The intent is to have men break through their fears around women and failure. LMR is about helping a girl say yes if she wants, but ultimately doesn't want to feel like she's a slut / she did something wrong. No technique in the world will trick a girl into sleeping with a guy she ultimately doesn't want to. You must think women are stupid. Women are brilliant. Only articles like this are stupid.

@ PUA - UH-OH, are you trying to neg her? I'm sure she's crushed.

@PAU - I'm sorry, you think the author of this piece - who is, clearly, a well-informed and articulate person, not to mention a woman herself - thinks women are stupid? Because she thinks that insulting women isn't the best way to get one of them into bed? Maybe she didn't want to "close" (also, ew, it's not a advertising account) because she thought it would be better to find romantic relationships with honesty and some sort of mutual attraction (so difficult, I know!).

@PUA - It seems to me that her point was that she stopped *wanting* to be able to close, since this all made her feel so disgusting. But as for what "LMR is about," I think that has more to do with the intent of the user. For some, it's to break through shyness, perhaps. For others, it's about a cheap lay. Also - I love the author's hat in this pic.

This was awesome! I would totally do you! I can't believe people could read this and then post their bitchings about how the insights weren't novel enough - its supposed to be quirky and funny you douchebags. Ps: I love your writing style. Please write more!!!

That commentary that girls don't need a technique... Guys wouldn't need one either, but they're looking for a minimum level of attractiveness in their mate. I'm not saying that there should be a PUA set of rules, but the whole point would be getting ridiculously hot guys that would ordinarily be out of your league.

Yeah, I fucking love you. And not to sound like your mom, but I'm so damn proud of you! MUAH!

Me again, forgot to say I adore the gold pants and where in the world did you find a chatch belt? (it's Lyndsay btw).

Not simply to make an off-topic comment, but the I Did It for Science features are probably my favorite part of this site. When I discovered this place, and those, I immediately read them all. So good. This one ranks up around the top for that amazing belt buckle. I know this isn't a request line, but I just found out about this stuff http://www.bodyslime.com/ It looks pretty grody to me, but I think it's the perfect subject for one of the I Did It for Science people to try out, and report back to us loyal readers. Either way, love the site, love the work, never stop being awesome all of you!

I'm so glad someone tried this. I really did wonder what would happen if a woman tried it. O_O: Yes! I'm tired of hearing how women could get laid anytime they want with no problem.... uhm, sure, if they had no standards whatsoever, they could. Exactly.

You're awesome. *g*

i do hope i get to use "forthwith" as a segue into banging sometime. also pua defenders: you're wrong. just saying.

@PUA. I was willing to give credence to the vast majority of your argument. I can accept that breaking down the process of courtship into a quantifiable methodology is helpful for individuals without the instincts for dating, and agree that the author of this article employed sloppy methodology and was not sufficiently committed to exploring this topic from anything approaching an objective point of view. However, I must strongly disagree with your statement that: 'No technique in the world will trick a girl into sleeping with a guy she ultimately doesn't want to.' While 'trick' may not necessarily be the most accurate term, individuals of both genders can most certainly be pressured, manipulated, and/or emotionally coerced into relinquishing more of their privacy than they are comfortable with. Your intentions in teaching these courtship techniques are admirable, but I think you would be remiss in not recognizing that the culture of the pick-up artist is ALSO attractive to those who are more comfortable thinking about women as acquisitions and ornaments.

I agree with O_O - the point is to "over-perform" - learn to do better than you have done in the past, learning what is essesntially social psychology. Not all tools in the toolbox are always going to work for your personality. People "neg" all the time, it's fun, it's a pillar of a lot of comedy - all PUAs have done is label it. If you do negging wrong, it's not funny - being unfunny is a turn-off. That's not news. A lot of the the social/evolotionary psych can also be applied to the workplace and friends. Be confident, be funny, don't be over-eager, don't be needy. The bottom line is that the basic PUA stuff works, and by successfully meeting strangers you get more out of life - be it friend, a wife, husband, more sex or whatever - it works. Yes it can be misused, but sorry, dating is a rough game sometimes.

"it was time to rock my normal, standoffish behavior and unwind." That's what girl game is all about. Standoffish behavior.

"Experiment: To determine the efficacy and adaptability of pop-culture hook-up guides." obviously that wasnt the purpose of so called "experiment"; the purpose was to discredit and show the ridiculeness of pua's concepts ; I suppose all the major thesis of the article were a-priori, and of course the major thesis is : pua technics (neg, lying, pretending to be someone else) are disgusting and misogynic;

Very fun article. Though, to be valid, you'd want to change cultures to where men dictate courtship to equate the contexts for male pua's here. Try SE Asia player... You'll get nill

"Rapetacular." I laughed so hard that I may just have peed a little!

apologies, the website erased my formatting - that was actually a well thought out comment, despite the verbal seizure it appears to be.