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 School For Seduction
Men tired of being labeled the friend but never the boyfriend can turn to the "seduction community" for help.
A pretty blond passes by the group of single guys, but they ignore her as she stops to pour milk in her Styrofoam coffee cup.
The dozen men, in their 20s and 30s, are huddled at tables at the back of the St. Laurent Blvd. Cafe. Their attention is directed at the flamboyant 6-foot-5-inch "uber-trainer" from Toronto.
It's a Friday night in July, and each of the men has paid to spend three days following Mystery (Aka: Erik von Markovik), an illusionist by profession who's reputed to be one of Canada's authorities on attracting women.
Mystery is well known in what is loosely called the "seduction community" — an international group of mostly guys who exchange views and dating advice online. Think of it as an interactive "how-to" guide, a male version of women's dating books or magazines that vaunt "20 ways to get a man."
Beyond the garish online ads boasting "how to pick up strippers," the online forums off a place where contrasting seduction methods are debated, using jargon like "AFC" — for average frustrated chump — and "MLTRs" (multiple long-term relationships).
One popular place for these exchanges is an online mailing list of 3,000 run by a Montrealer.
Montreal is also the first Canadian city to follow London, San Francisco and other major cities in setting up clandestine "lairs", where guys discuss these topics in person. Lairs are invitation-only house meetings that also provide a support network for the men who attend them.
Because of social criticism attached to the notion of "picking up" women and paying for advice on how to meet them, the community remains furtive.
The Montreal lair would speak to a reporter only on condition that members' real names not be printed.
One member said he was tired of being labeled the friend but never the boyfriend. After years of intermittent girlfriends, he said, he now wanted what he never had in the past — dates with different women each week.
He said he hoped Mystery could teach him how to approach and speak to women he found attractive — a prospect that initially terrified him.
Mystery doesn't think twice about walking into a bar and chatting up a group of strangers. Often, the group notices him first.
Mystery has a silver stud below his lower lip and matching silver thumb rings beside black varnished nails. He wears a pair of silver goggles he purchased in Los Angeles above the black cowboy hat he got from Sydney, his black shirt comes from a trip to New York City. He constantly travels, performing and holding workshops on his method of "attraction."
His students have different uses for their skills. Some want a serious girlfriend, while others want to go out with several women simultaneously.
What they usually share is the experience of being hurt romantically — either by a former girlfriend or by a chronic failure to find a girlfriend.
One man, Jack, a Montrealer in his 30s, said he had no problem talking to a woman — only the usual topic of conversation was her problems. For years, he was the "therapist" but never the boyfriend.
That's when Jack fell into a depression and began doing research online.
He read about Mystery and other experts and joined the Montreal lair, where their ideas debated: "It was amazing to have all these brains focusing on one problem."
For Mystery, the problem can be rectified through better social skills.
He teaches the men to approach women in the same way he used to solicit restaurant patrons as a budding magician in the United States. Just walking over to a table and asking the diners if they wanted to see a show wasn't particularly lucrative, he recalled. He needed to approach them with pizzazz and he needed to do it quickly.
He applied the theory to Montreal on a cool summer night and changed the focus to meeting women. He took the guys out of the cafe and divided them into groups.
Three younger men followed him down Prince Author St. past bustling terraces and a crowd gathering in front of a street flamenco dancer.
"Is he a rock star?" passer-by Nicholas Tritsch asked after spotting Mystery and his entourage.
Mystery's theory is this: since attractive women rarely hang out alone, the students will have to approach "sets," or groups.
He tells them to be friendly and not to "hit on" a woman or focus on her in a way that would make her uncomfortable.
What's difficult, the guys said, is finding the confidence to initiate the conversation.
"You find confidence from competence," Mystery responded.
Before heading into a bar, Mystery waited for one last student who was busy talking with a "three-set" of two girls and a guy. Eventually, Terrence, a cute blond athlete in his 20s, returned.
"They loved me, but she's been with her boyfriend for four years," he said, shrugging in disappointment.
The entourage moved on.
Success is partly contingent on the venue, Mystery said.
To his chagrin, later in the night, the guys ended up at the jazz festival. Apart from the noise, which makes it difficult to chat, spectators walking form show to show are harder to approach than three girls seated at a cafe.
Besides, Mystery prefers the fashionable women who hang out on the Main.
"Look around, is there anyone worthy of me?" he asked.
Such cocky remarks reflect a contradiction in the community: however sympathetic the motive for joining a lair, or studying "seduction," many guys aren't sympathetic in the way they judge women.
Although Mystery stresses the importance of a good personality — he said, "All the girlfriends in my life have been my best friends" — he always approaches the best-looking women.
Many of the guys felt Mystery's greatest moment was on Saturday night, when he chatted up two stunning women who had initially ignored him.
After joining the lair, Jack's luck with women improved and he vowed to use his skills to date many of them. It was a way, he said, of making up for lost time.
Then he met a special one and realized that the others weren't so important after all. Eventually, the two broke up and Jack was heartbroken.
Indeed, even the most experienced lotharios can — and do — get hurt, Mystery said.
He calls the act of approaching women "a game" to dehumanize it, so the inexperienced men won't be devastated by rejection.
Even the experienced ones like Mystery have bad days where the approach doesn't work. And the challenge doesn't end after Mystery meets a woman he likes.
When he approached the two beautiful women on the Saturday, Mystery said his initial goal merely to "impress the guys."
But he ended up taking one woman's phone number and called her the next day, because he said he really liked her. Only problem: she works in Montreal, while Mystery has to fly off to give another workshop in London.
He said it's the only regret from his weekend here.
"Any woman I'm interested in having sex with, I'm interested in getting to know well," he said.
"The real reason we do this is so we can start a relationship."
Excerpted from The Montreal Gazette. |
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