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 The New Charm School
Mystery—a maestro of the pickup artist scene—has cracked the code of getting a woman to yes, yes, yes. But can his choreographed come-ons really give men what they want?
In late-'50s Los Angeles, lore has it that if a man craved a cocktail of gin and nooky, he directed his limo driver to a mansion on Londonderry Place off the Sunset Strip. Under its cathedral ceiling, he'd find Frank Sinatra reprising one of his recent hits as Dean Martin charmed one dame after another into his bedroom, where the good liquor was kept with the between-the-sheets secrets. This was a few years after a young entrepreneur named Hugh Hefner launched the magazine that was to make him the alpha of Hollywood Romeos—before sex for the sake of sex and celebrity for the sake of celebrity had been imagined by most Americans.
Hefner, of course, built the country's most famous sex palace, fairly wresting the word grotto from the vocabulary of geologists. But the alpha is now ancient—the Playboy Mansion will soon host Hefner's eightieth-birthday party—and his successor may well be a man called Mystery, who has attracted the hero worship of thousands of sexually unfulfilled males worldwide. His den?
Mystery's renown was spawned by a development the Rat Pack never could have imagined: the Internet. The cultish success of Ross Jeffries' 1992 book, How to Get the Women You Desire Into Bed, gave rise to hundreds of free Internet newsgroups and message boards carrying advice and diaries posted by self-described pickup artists. (Jeffries is said to be the model for the Tom Cruise character in Magnolia who adapted neurolinguistic programming—embedding suggestive language in regular conversation—to arouse women.) Mystery is a luminary of the virtual pickup world (known as the “community”), whose hundreds of acolytes disseminate his mythology—he was a friendless virgin a decade ago who now counts the Penthouse Pet of the Millennium on his lengthy been-there, done-that list—as well as the Method he developed to jettison his celibacy. Mystery's students also attend his boot camp-style seduction seminars—including former New York Times rock critic Neil Strauss. Whether his role in the community is a genuine one or an endeavor of undercover journalism (pun intended) may be revealed in his account of the pickup demimonde that will be published this spring by Regan Books.
PRACTICE MAKES PICKUP
Mystery has invited me to Los Angeles to sit in on one of his boot camps, making me the first female outsider ever to do so. When I arrive at Londonderry Place, I know I'm at the right address from the stretch limo parked in the driveway and the condom wrappers scattered on the street. Answering the door is a pale and neck-craningly tall vision of Don Juan de Marco, lips framed by a soul patch, hazel eyes smudged with eyeliner, nails varnished black. Mystery releases his dark hair from a ponytail, smiles politely, and introduces himself as Erik. Behind him a slate fireplace soars up the wall near a sunken pit filled with gold and silver pillows.
The house, known as Project Hollywood, is the flagship of several emerging franchises, Mystery explains, including Projects New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, London, and Sydney. He steers me past the bacheloresque Ikea breakfast set in the kitchen, past the Jacuzzi that flows into a kidney-shape pool, past the peaked tent that's been pitched on the landscaped patio—“private enough to have sex outside.” He takes my hand and leads me inside to his granite bathroom, where a triangle representing wealth, health, and relationships is scrawled on the mirror in grease pencil, a configuration cribbed, he says, from Kabbalah. Then we move into his walk-in closet, featuring a milliner's array of Seuss-like top hats over a rack of latex pants and Victorian coats, which he wears out “peacocking” to clubs. His bedroom, with its king-size bed facing a private balcony, is deluxe compared with the twin mattresses in closets that rent to former students who run their own pickup chat sites. The housemates' online posts, signed with tags such as Papa and Sickboy, are written partly in code—“getting IOIs off a two-set in A1” translates to “receiving indicators of interest from two women upon approach”—a language in which I am about to receive the equivalent of a 72-hour Berlitz class. Sitting in the living room are four eager and fairly attractive PUAs (pickup artists), each of whom has spent a substantial amount of money to shed his status as an AFC (average frustrated chump): a local writer-producer divorcé nicknamed Madbad; an accountant from Omaha called Hawaii; TheGame, a businessman from Phoenix; and a techie originally from Calcutta named Das. As their guru settles at the messy coffee table that serves as his lectern, the men fall silent.
What the typical AFC does wrong, Mystery begins, is to hit on a woman by telegraphing sex and trying to get her into bed as quickly as possible. The Mystery Method compresses the nine stages of courtship—three stages of attraction, three of comfort building, and three of seduction—into seven hours (that can progress over an evening or several days). “Every love story that has ever been told goes through these nine phases,” Mystery asserts. (He is evasive when asked how he developed this scheme—“Experiment and study,” he says, citing influences as diverse as Socrates and scientists who research the mating patterns of grouses.) During each phase, the PUA lays hours of practiced routines upon his target to get her to eventually want sex. And while sex may be the desired outcome, this multilayered process opens the possibility of a long-term sexual relationship, not just a one-night stand. Three of the students announce that they couldn't care less about a relationship, but Das is looking for a life partner, and when pressed even the threesome-obsessed Madbad says he would trade all the casual sex the Method promises for one night with the ex-wife who broke his heart.
First, though, they have studying to do. “You need to get good at about 300 set pieces if you want to pull this off,” Mystery tells his protégés, adding that one should never say anything to a woman “who counts” that he hasn't rehearsed on at least two dozen less compelling women, like a comedian sharpening his jokes before a big show. “You can't do that by talking only to hotties. You have to socialize yourself by talking to the UGs [ugly ones],” he says.
The routine begins with an opening parry directed at a group of women, or, just as often, women and men, to gain an “in.” Mystery likes to flash his black nails and admit that he gets mistaken for a devil worshiper. Once he has their attention, the PUA “demonstrates a higher value” to the group surrounding his target—either by doing a magic trick or playing one of the memory games Mystery teaches the class. Then he turns to his potential conquest and drops a “neg,” a negative comment or veiled insult. “What have you got going for you besides your looks?” he might ask. Or simply, “I don't think I like you.” The idea is that beautiful women—HBs (hot babes)—are used to every man they meet flattering them and buying them drinks to get them into bed. What they never experience is a man ignoring them, dismissing them, criticizing them—at least not until later. (Lack of interest also disarms the HB's friends, who are used to running interference.) Mystery claims that this tactic works because it forces a woman to pitch herself as a conquest instead of just deflecting the pick-me moves men have used since the dawn of courtship.
Only after the HB shows interest should the PUA signal his attraction. At this point he leads her away from the group to begin the comfort-building stage. The routines range from dodging questions about current employment by talking about childhood dreams (“I wanted to be an astronaut”) to demonstrating vulnerability. As Mystery's charges sit rapt, he spins a 20-minute narrative about the time his baby niece fell down the stairs and broke her jaw and how he rushed her to the hospital in his arms. His eyes tear up and he takes a giant, spluttering breath before whispering, “I just love her so much.” Abruptly, he straightens up and resumes his usual confident tone. “And then you phase-shift into C3,” the final stage of comfort building. “It's total chick crack.”
Mystery uses the Method on every woman he tries to bed. “I save the story about my dad dying for the ones I really care about.” (He claims his father died several months ago though he won't say how.) “That's for when I get you into C2,” he says, throwing me a flirtatious look. I try to hold his gaze to show that I can handle his game, but I'm immediately aware that I'm cooperating with a performance for the class and look down at my notebook. Mystery turns his back on me and continues the lesson.
Throughout it, Mystery uses body language and touch in a Skinner-esque behavioral system of reward and punishment. He'll gently touch a woman on her wrist or cheek or take her hands as he is talking. If she doesn't reciprocate, he'll turn away and “freeze her out.” When he reengages, he'll touch her again. Her discomfort during the freeze-out will be greater than her unease at the original touch and she'll welcome the second attempt. “Airlines define comfort as a lack of discomfort,” he likes to say. “I'm just slowly eliminating her discomfort.” This reward and punishment can carry a man into his eventual push for sex. “The freeze-out is one of the best ways to eliminate LMR,” Mystery says, or “last-minute resistance.” He licks his lips, rubs his hands together, and cackles as his students erupt into lascivious peals.
But Mystery wants me to know he's not a dog. “Seriously,” he says, hushing the room, “I'm a romantic. I fall in love all the time. The sexual thing isn't enough. There was a time that's all I was doing it for, but now I'd rather spoon with a girl all night than have sex.”
Madbad's eyes widen in awe. “I'd just like to have the choice,” he says.
A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
Mystery's life has been one long search for validation, for visibility, for control. Erik von Markovik grew up in a Toronto suburb, a lisping, gangly kid who charted snaking detours to school to avoid the bullies. “I was the outcast of outcasts,” he says. “I made those Columbine kids look cool.” Puberty struck late; virginity seemed a terminal affliction. At 16 he quit school to sulk in his parents' basement and practice his magic tricks, which offered him his only hope at an intriguing identity. (His PUA moniker refers to the shouts of “Hey, Mystery Man!” during his teen isolation.) It was at a David Copperfield show that von Markovik found life-directing inspiration. “Magic became my magnificent obsession,” he says, allowing (or conjuring) a stream of tears to roll down his cheeks.
His other magnificent obsession came at 21, when his first kiss was followed by the loss of his virginity to a girl he made disappear in a magic show. He was so impressed with this far more difficult trick that his new confidence led him to his next achievement—her best friend. Soon after he did a magic trick for some girls at a Toronto juice bar and scored his first pickup. It wasn't a direct sexual move; it was, he realized, a demonstration of his value, intriguing enough to a woman secure in a social group rather than sitting alone at a bar. He felt he had cracked a code.
As Mystery, he started disseminating his seduction tips online; his advice was so effective that his growing community began traveling to Toronto to watch him work. Mystery decided to take his act to L.A. To raise money, he rented a limo and charged aspiring pickup artists for seminars while driving from club to club. A reputation was made; a guru was born.
Tonight, while the nervous plebes don their peacocking gear for the fieldwork portion of the seminar, Mystery appears in a simple pin-striped suit. Our first stop is Saddle Ranch, a Western-theme bar, where Mystery sics his students on group after group of women. When he notices a flaw in technique, he interrupts and delivers encoded direction. (“Pause. Phase shift to A3,” he says, a reference to the third attraction stage.) TheGame holds his own with a couple of tourists until he runs out of material. Despite the attention he gets for the silk lei around his neck, Hawaii is shot down by women he negs too quickly. Madbad tries lamely to work a waitress with a small- talk routine. Das, clearly terrified by the spray tans and clamor, sits alone on the patio, tearing through a pack of Dunhills. I realize I haven't seen Mystery in a while when I hear sorority house screams over the blaring Bon Jovi. Surrounded by five women, Mystery is perched on a stool showing them a magic trick. By the time I cross the room he has a blond on one knee and is making out with her friend—two new phone numbers to input into his Sony Clié.
Next, Mystery leads his flock across the street to the bar at the Standard—the same crowd but with more expensive boob jobs and hipster ready-to-wear—where he is consumed with charming a statuesque brunet in a black tank top named Becky. After befriending her male companion and ignoring her for a few minutes, Mystery plays a memory game and finds out that what Becky has got going for her “more than her looks” is an interest in psychology.
“Really? Me too. You know, you made a pretty rotten first impression, but now that I know you a bit better I realize you're pretty amazing,” he says by rote, pocketing Becky's phone number within minutes.
Becky is stunning and engaging—no doubt the one in the room desired by every film producer or indie rock drummer who'd shelled out $12 per cocktail that night. In Mystery's presence they are AFCs, every one.
A HARDWIRED HABIT
While Mystery refuses to talk about the psychological underpinnings of his Method, several experts I consult testify to its soundness. Desmond Morris, the British zoologist and sexuality expert, admits that the Method is a shrewd compression of the phases of love. “One of the great mistakes men make is not playing all the stages of courtship,” he says. “It has to be done stage by stage if it's going to work.”
Cornell associate professor of human development Cynthia Hazan thinks the Method works on a deeper level than even Mystery knows. First of all, she says, “you knock [the woman] off balance” with the neg, so throughout the next phases “her judgment is impaired. She becomes focused on getting his attention and approval and getting back into the group.” From the point of view of evolutionary psychology, she adds, “it's really anxiety-provoking, and humans have a built-in aspect where when we're anxious we want to get closer to other people.”
The act of negging an attractive woman can even tamper with her brain chemistry, says Helen Fisher, the author of Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love. “When you fall in love with somebody, what's going on in the brain is an elevated activity of dopamine,” the main arousal chemical, and “the system that motivates you to win a reward,” she explains. “A woman who's a 9 or a 10 doesn't have to do any work to get a man, so the system usually isn't triggered and she doesn't feel romantic love. But when someone spurns her, that system will kick in and she'll feel attraction.”
We can't be blamed for our innate trigger systems, can we? But to be fooled by the crocodile tears of male "vulnerability"? Even here we're conditioned to respond, Hazan says. “Vulnerability draws us to people—it's clearly a hardwired characteristic. We have this spontaneous desire to nurture them, to alleviate their distress.”
And when the woman discovers she's been conned? Once people learn the truth, says Fisher, it often doesn't matter: “The thing is, once you've hooked somebody in, they'll be willing to ignore almost anything.”
During the final afternoon of the seminar, Mystery calls a coat check girl he'd spoken with for seven minutes during a Chicago boot camp and persuades her to leave her fiancé to fly out to Los Angeles for a week—the fruition of a phone flirtation he has carried on during breaks in the seminar. “This is it,” he tells the group over lunch, eyelids fluttering. “She's the one. I know it. I think I'm in love.” (Mystery e-mailed me a few weeks after my trip to tell me his coat check girl was moving out to L.A. and he was leaving his Project Hollywood lair for a new home with his new girlfriend. “She agrees this was the best pickup in the History of Mystery,” he wrote me.)
Excerpted from Elle Magazine. |
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