This story changed my life. A month ago, I was an Average Frustrated Chump: average-looking, average body, somewhat the worse for wear after 15 years as a desk jockey. My social life revolved around work – parties, openings, events, hello darling. The women I met talked to me about business, not because I was a charming rogue. Since university, my rule had been, “don’t go looking for women, just let it happen naturally.” Well, it hadn’t happened naturally for too long. But one little book changed all that: “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists” by Neil Strauss.
A month after reading this bestselling expose of an international network of pickup artists (PUAs in the jargon) and putting its strategies into action in the bars around Central, I am a new man. I’m more confident, self-aware, stylish and more entertaining, possibly because I have a better understanding of psychology. I’ve met beautiful women to whom I never would have had the nerve to speak before, discussed tactics with Hong Kong’s own PUAs and I have a sexy new girlfriend. I’ve traveled from chump to happiness in four intense weeks.
Before I started, I thought “The Game” was bull. In it, Strauss – once a chump journalist himself – reveals the psychological techniques, routines, chat-up patterns and carefully structured sequences that PUAs use to turn the fine art of seduction into a can’t-miss pseudo-science. In the process, Strauss (a.k.a Style) had not only written the book but had allegedly become the greatest PUA of all in just two years. But does it really work? And just how successful are Hong Kong’s own PUAs? I was commissioned to find out.
Prepare
Like Strauss before me, I started by becoming an apprentice of the “greatest pickup artist in the world,” Mystery (a.k.a Canadian Erik von Markovik, a one-time Dungeons & Dragons player who invented much of the jargon and tactics used by PUAs worldwide). While Strauss hung out with the man in person, I learned the Mystery Method through his Online Apprenticeship Program (www.mysterymethod.com): “A way of meeting, attracting and seducing beautiful women inside their peer groups.”
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I devoured Mystery’s program and chose a pseudonym, HKMaverick, which I used to contact other local and international PUAs in internet chat rooms – the lifeblood of the PUA network, where they exchange tips, offer advice and boast about their conquests. One forum alone has about 30 PUAs and wannabes based in Hong Kong. Many PUAs work in pairs, acting as “wingmen” (partners in crime) for each other. “The Game” became my bible – heck, it even looks a bit like one. I learned that every pickup has three basic components: attract, comfort and seduce. I knew the three-second rule: Approach a woman within three seconds; any longer betrays a lack of confidence. I had a routine worked out for meeting and entertaining small groups of people, and I had learned by heart a method for extracting the target from her friends. I had practiced a few “negs” (playful negative comments used to lower a woman’s self-esteem slightly and show you’re not that interested). I had put together my “peacock outfit” – making myself stand out from the crowd with flashy clothes and a talk-piece or two (in my case, a loud shirt, blue sunglasses and two skull thumb rings). I was ready for a night of “sarging,” or going out to try to pick up women, something I hadn’t attempted for a long time.
