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 All The Right Moves
Writers do not usually have teeth that catch the sun as brilliantly as Neil Strauss's do. The teeth, along with the Lasik eye surgery, shaved head, defined goatee, tan and subtle extra inches on his boots all came to him on the orders of Mystery, the world's greatest seduction master, and Strauss's mentor when it came to writing his latest book, The Game , in which he penetrates the secret world of the modern pick-up artist, or PUA. The scar on his cheek is from Krav Maga, an Israeli self-defence class in which he failed to defend himself. It is, like surfing, a physical pursuit he took up in order to buff his puny body. He also did the Alexander Technique to improve his posture. When he helps other men now with their seduction art, he shows them where the top of their spine is (it's always higher than they think) so they can stand up straight and look like the alpha male in the room. They listen to him because, somewhere along the line, in writing about the secret society of pick-up artists, he became one of its most infamous members.
He welcomes me at the door wearing jeans, a black T-shirt and gold leather boots, a hangover from Mystery's insistence that his pupils always wear something that can be a conversation starter.
Strauss, now in his early thirties, has slept with hundreds of women, including a porn star in a bar who dragged him into the loo because she couldn't wait to have him. He pulled a woman's phone number while shopping for envelopes in the erotic environment of an office supply store, only to Google her and find she was the reigning Playboy Playmate of the Year. He got invited back to the hotel room of twin Goth burlesque dancers. He had on rotation a curvy Latina spitfire, a cool indie rock chick and Jessica 1 and Jessica 2, college students in a Miami hotel suite. And during a synthesis of his real job and new persona, he seduced Britney Spears during a Rolling Stone interview.
That he is very much an anti-hero is clear from the number of tricks and ruses he uses to bend women to his will. As pioneered by Mystery, he carried at all times a greatest hits packet of staged photos that he had 'just' had developed and which chronicled in one impressive roll his athleticism and daring (sky-diving), his tenderness (him with a puppy), and his close friendship with a celebrity. He used 'waking hypnosis' to lead girls up a 'Yes Ladder' ('Can I ask you a question' leads to 'Are you adventurous?' leads to 'Can you prove it?'). On Britney he used 'chick crack' - women's addiction to tarot, astrology, runes, word association games - things that most men are not interested in, but that he mastered in devotion to his cult. She didn't know this. All she knew was that they obviously shared a deep connection. He never used the cell phone number she gave him. By the time he met the love of his life, Lisa, he already had two huge manila envelopes of phone numbers, which he lovingly discarded in front of her the first night they spent together.
These are issues that aren't bothering the clientele of Saddle Ranch, an exceptionally unpleasant Sunset Strip bar where Mystery is sending out his students to practise their technique. On a mechanical bull a wasted woman in a denim mini is now flashing her knickers; there is sawdust on the floor, though you can hardly see that for the scrum of tipsy girls in halterneck tops slamming jelly shots. The women here are poorly made-up and lairy, but they are myriad. Which is the point for the PUAs in training: go not for the best but for the most. When we arrive, trembling men come up to Strauss, or rather the legend known as Style. They ask him where he got his infamous flashing-word T-shirt (a conversation starter). A man who looks like Andy Bell from Erasure is wearing a bowler hat and carrying a Dr Seuss lunchbox.
Finally, as final call is announced, Neil introduces me to Mystery, who has forgone the top hat for a ski cap.
'Hello Emma!' He fixes me with an unwavering stare and Clintonian double-palmed handshake. There is no one else in the room but he and I. And then, just as quickly, he drops my hand as if it were a bag of cold chips on the high street, and turns his back on me to speak to another girl. I am unanchored. I am bewildered. But mainly I want Mystery to pay attention to me.
'I wonder,' says Strauss, as we head back to the car, 'if that was accidental or on purpose. Whether he was negging you or not.'
There are groupies now for pick-up artists, which seems rather to be defeating the purpose. Indeed, it seems that Strauss got out in the nick of time. Now back in the game, Mystery's legend has travelled so far that two siliconed Latinas have made the journey from Miami to be picked up by him, both fighting for his attention. He takes the two of them home.
The only pick-up artist Strauss has ever met who was better than Mystery was Tom Cruise, who he interviewed for Rolling Stone. And though the actor's intensity was devoted not to seduction but to Scientology, Strauss felt they had a lot in common.
Would women, I ask, be able to work the equivalent to The Game?
'But you already have it!' says Neil. 'It's the cover of every woman's magazine, of Cosmo and Glamour: "Six tips to get a man". "Six tips to keep him faithful." It's already part of your culture.'
'You have this perception,' says Neil, 'that it won't work on someone classy. But many of these women were smart. As much as guys are dogs, most people's 10s were always someone they could have a conversation with.' There is a real tenderness to the chapters in The Game on falling in love with Lisa that leaves you thinking of Strauss's time in the cult as a literal manifestation of the Courtney Love lyric, 'I fake it so real I am beyond fake'. Every technique in the book will work if all you want is to sleep with women.
The Game, by Neil Strauss, is published by Canongate at £16.99
Excerpted From Observer Newspaper. |
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