A date with the pick-up king
Neil Strauss’s tale of transformation from geek to ladies’
man was a bestseller. Now he wants to share more secrets.
By Michael Park
He has been voted the world's greatest pick-up artist three
years in a row, but as the clock ticks 10, 15, 20 minutes
past our arranged meeting time, I am beginning to think that
Neil Strauss has stood me up. The American author of three
best-selling books about how to pick up women has neither
called nor texted me to offer an explanation. It is 25 minutes
after we are supposed to meet before my phone rings.
One of his people is on the line apologising and saying Strauss
will be another 10 minutes. A quarter-hour later, the small,
bald, goateed Lothario dressed in black jeans, a worn blue
jumper and a cream leather jacket strolls into the New York
restaurant where we are to meet. It is hardly the way to make
a great first impression and at first it is difficult to believe
that this man, with his soft handshake and dainty stride,
could be such a hit with women. Still less, that he is the
originator of hundreds of new regional, web-based groups,
called lairs, where men exchange stories and strategies for
meeting and sleeping with women.
However, as we talk over pasta about his now much-copied
and admired techniques for sarging (the word used by self-described
pick-up artists for chatting up women) and about how, in less
than three years, he has become a sought-after teacher of
these techniques, some of the qualities that have helped him
succeed become apparent. Neil Strauss is unquestionably a
smart, nice guy, softly spoken and nowhere near as macho as
he appears in photographs - all of which makes some of the
chauvinistic advice he peddles and the decision to write his
latest book all the more unfathomable.
advertisementHis philosophy is simple. "There are very
few guys who don't want to do better with women," he
says. "And there are few guys who couldn't benefit from
a piece of knowledge." Hence Strauss's new book, The
Rules Of The Game.
The two-part tome - part one is an instruction manual on
how to get a date in 30 days or less, part two is a diary
of some of Strauss's ugly encounters with beautiful women
- follows his best-selling account of his two years living
with, learning from and using the techniques of a global,
underground community of male PUA's (pick-up artists). The
Game, his first book on the subject, revealed how Strauss
was initially asked just to re-write a wordy internet document
that detailed tips and techniques for picking up women, but
soon found himself totally immersed in the "seduction
community" to the point where he ended up renting a mansion
in Los Angeles with six other PUAs, adopted a new name and
style, changed his look and his entire wardrobe, and slept
with countless women.
How many women exactly, I ask.
"One thing I've learnt is to be a gentleman so I would
never say," he tells me. "It would be cheap and
lame for me to talk about that." He will say that before
he started learning from these egotistical gigolos, he had
practically zero success with women. His hit ratio was miserable.
"It went from just horribly pathetic, to 90% certain
I'll get the phone number and 85% that something physical
will happen," he claims.
He also reveals that rather than being put off by these men
who were dedicating themselves solely to perfecting a technique
to seduce women, he was full of admiration and respect for
them. (There are no excuses for the fact that their techniques
are simply about getting women into bed, or that they offer
no advice on how to have, or sustain, a relationship, nor
even what to do when you get a woman into bed.) "I was
in awe of these people," he says. "They had the
magic key that would fix all the problems that had plagued
me my whole life."
Strauss believed he would be a better person if he slept
with more women. So he starting hanging out with as many pick-up
artists as he could find and doing exactly what they told
him. This included learning magic tricks and handwriting analysis,
wearing distinctive items of clothing, and using scripted
"routines" to talk to women without appearing threatening.
Some of the other methods seem bizarre and rude. He suggests
a technique known as "negging", whereby when talking
to a woman you say something negative to her to demonstrate
a supposed lack of interest. (Example: "Nice nails. Are
they real?") And, in his latest book, he tells the reader
to throw a party and invite women he fancies. Then, "to
deepen your connection with the woman you're interested in
... have her stay and help you clean up".
Strauss insists it all works. "I did it over and over
and over again and it worked for me," he says. "I
just collected all the knowledge that was out there and cobbled
it together with new ideas that I came up with to sort of
figure out everything that empirically worked not just for
me, but for guys that I taught."
Before discovering the jargon-laden world of PUAs, HBs (hot
babes) and AFCs (average frustrated chumps), Strauss says
he was "a different human being entirely", and that
he planned to write a book called Diary Of A Sexual Neurotic.
"It would have been my story about being a frustrated
guy who constantly thought about sex but couldn't get laid,"
he says.
Strauss, 39, grew up in Chicago then went to a predominantly
female college in upstate New York specifically to meet women.
But despite a 70:30 female to male ratio, "and a quarter
of the guys being gay", he failed to sleep with one woman
in the two years he was there. "But I never gave up trying,"
he says.
He transferred to a New York university after spending a
summer in the city doing work experience at a small music
magazine. It was then he decided he wanted to be a writer.
And it was here, in his early 20s, that he eventually lost
his virginity, to a waitress named Laura.
"I was so excited to get laid that I dated her for a
couple of years because I didn't know when it was going to
happen again," he says.
After leaving university, he stayed in New York writing about
music for a couple of local weekly magazines. Soon both Rolling
Stone magazine and the New York Times asked him to write for
them, which in turn led to ghostwriting books for rock musicians
and a porn star.
He spent six months with Marilyn Manson working on the goth
star's autobiography before going on the road with Mötley
Crüe to help write their tell-all tome, The Dirt. Through
the band he met former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Dave
Navarro and co-wrote Navarro's sex'n'drugs story, Don't Try
This At Home.
Navarro had a relationship with porn star Jenna Jameson and
introduced her to Strauss. Strauss then collaborated with
Jameson on the best-seller How To Make Love Like A Porn Star.
All these books garnered great reviews and impressive sales.
But, despite being surrounded by groupies and women who jumped
into bed when anyone shouted "action", by the time
he had finished working with Jameson (but before he got involved
in The Game) Strauss says he could count the number of women
he had slept with "on the fingers of one hand".
The way he dressed and the chat-up lines he was using were,
he believes, holding him back. "I looked schlubby,"
he explains. "I had a bald spot with hair kind of messy,
and messy facial hair." He also dressed in clothes that
were either too big for him or that his dad might have worn
to the office: rock and roll he was not. Before his transformation
into Style, he was an ordinary, geeky guy walking among rock
gods.
But then came the suggestion to rewrite the online How To
Lay Girls Guide and his introduction to men who gave themselves
names such as Mystery, Sin, Papa and Playboy and a two-year,
hedonistic adventure down the rabbit hole. "It was like
the clouds opening up and the voice of God saying, There is
an answer'," he says.
But by changing his speech patterns, his physical appearance,
his friends and constantly making up stories and lies to tell
to women ("It's not lying, it's flirting," he says),
I wonder if he ever felt he was a fake.
"I did reinvent myself," he says. "But it
turns out that a reinvention was the step I needed to take
to make an evolution. If you met me at the height of doing
the game, I would have been a different guy. But if I met
that guy now, I wouldn't really like that guy. That guy did
great with women, but I don't think when I was at my best,
I totally knew who I was."
Why? "Because I was so consumed by the apparatus of
the pick-up," he reveals. "I never left the house
without being wired for the magic tricks I was going to perform,
without having all the tools and props I needed. And if I
were in this bar, I couldn't talk to you five minutes without
approaching a set a group of women, going in, doing my thing
and getting a number. It's a very needy thing. And that needy
energy would have made me unlikeable."
After two years of living this life, Strauss had had enough.
"The in-fighting and the madness, I was done with it,"
he says. "I was exhausted because all these guys who
had just learnt how to be alpha males were now battling each
other for supremacy. It was complete anarchy."
Strauss reveals that while the aim had been to meet and sleep
with women, there were now just large groups of men hanging
around playing mind and power games, sleeping with each other's
girlfriends and having mental breakdowns.
So why has he chosen to remain in the game? Strauss is a
good writer, able to tell great stories and get his subjects
to reveal intimate details about their extraordinary lives.
But he has always moved on from one successful, but troubled,
subject to the next. Why, after writing a legitimate book
about a previously unexplored subculture, has he not left
this world behind?
"I ask myself that all the time," he says. And
then he falls silent for a long time - apparently searching
for an answer. "That I want to see the end and I don't
think it's over yet", is all he finally offers as a reason
for writing the two new books on the subject and starting
a website that charges people more than £40 a month
to learn even more supposed secrets of the game. Personally,
I can't help wondering whether pressure from his publishers
for a money-making sequel to The Game had more to do with
it than Strauss will admit. That, and the fact that for a
guy who used to be a geek, continuing to be hailed as a guru
must be very satisfying - both from an emotional and financial
standpoint.
But there are several ideas in Strauss's new book that some
people may find ridiculous, offensive, selfish or conceited
and I challenge him on one in particular. Number seven in
the list of 11 commandments for picking up women is: "Don't
buy her a drink. You shouldn't have to pay for her attention."
"Of course you're allowed to sometimes buy a woman a
drink," he says. "But most times when men buy women
a drink it's as an excuse to get to talk to them. Any guy
that has status or value or any guy that has some sense of
self-worth doesn't have to pay people for their time in order
to talk to them. You should be intrinsically interesting enough
without having to buy them off."
When I suggest it might be seen as a generous gesture or
a simpler icebreaker than some of his contrived openers, he
backs off a little. "These aren't rules, they are only
guidelines," he concedes. "To me if the system works
or doesn't work, it's not that important to me because it
worked for me and now other guys can try it out for themselves."
Strauss then reveals that his own days of practising what
he preaches are over, since he has recently begun his third
serious, monogamous relationship in the last four years. "It
just started a month ago," he says. "I'm so f***ing
happy. I think anyone knows that when you have a true emotional
connection with somebody, the sex is about 100 times better
and you are so fulfilled."
So how did this renowned smooth-talker meet the new love
of his life? He pauses. Then, with a small, embarrassed laugh,
he replies: "We met through MySpace."
The Rules Of The Game is published by Canongate, £16.99.
Neil Strauss will be reading from the book at Waterstones,
Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, January 15 at 6.30pm. Tickets
can be purchased from Waterstones, 0141 332 9105
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