The Game
The author and his friends become preoccupied with perfecting their techniques in seducing women, until an unexpected meeting with a female guitarist makes him question his lifestyle.
Stats for nerds
37recommend
75mentions
63people
2007–2026years
56% recommend36% neutral8% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- RSD was one of the few "big" ones. Most of the others seems to have been single-person enterprises focused around a single coach. They ran a large message board and a had a bunch of coaches before it blew up.
The crazy thing is RSD has resurfaced since I wrote that comment and they don't seem to have learned a thing since their last implosion (I was on their mailing list briefly around 15 years ago, until I realised how creepy a lot of their material was, and clearly I didn't manage to get off it, as I got an e-mail about their relaunch)
I'd recommend picking up Neil Strauss' "The Game" - it gives a first hand account of how Strauss embedded himself in that scene in general and RSD in particular, and it's bizarre. Strauss' actually started his own PUA business after the success of that book.
I'd also recommend "Nine Ball: Confessions of an Angst-Ridden Maniac Who Decided to Get Laid or Die Trying" by Jeff Allen. Jeff Allen was one of the RSD coaches that was described in The Game, so it's very much biased. But if you take it as the slightly self-delusional autobiography it is, it's quite fascinating.
- If you're getting friendzoned, then you need to be more assertive. By the 2nd or 3rd date, you should be escalating to physical touch (try accidentally brushing your hand against her side, touching her wrist, etc but if the girl jolts away then that's a sign that you're being too aggressive. If she starts touching you back, then you're doing something right). Read The Game by Neil Strauss (although take it with a grain of salt).
Also consider moving to a location where the supply/demand economics are much better (I'm going to assume you live in the Bay Area). In places like NYC, I've heard that women will actually approach you.
- Find interesting books. What are you watching on Netflix? There's cookbooks, history books, drama, entertainment, erotica, whatever it is you enjoy watching.
I personally enjoy Robert Greene's books. It's an entertaining mix of education and history. My sister had a Big Book of Murder. Macabre, but interesting. There's stuff like The Game, Neil Strauss. There's The Manga Guide to Databases. Educational junk books are a good place to start.
- Because it only involves 1 part of your being: the thinking mind.
Social skills involves the other parts such as connecting to people, doing / acting on some stuff, speaking, sometimes lying or pushing people away.
As an anecdata I was a total nerd before with 0 social skills and no one wanted to talk to me, but by studying a bit of personal development you can get the basics and understand the subtext of most interactions, which is actually the most important: "what do other people want from the interaction ?".
Now I can know go talk to a lot of people. I can travel alone, go to clubs / bars alone and talk to people and (before i had a gf) pick up chicks by myself, which 90% people wouldn't. It's still draining but because I learnt to have fun with these settings (I found my vibe), the cost of not going is higher than going.
It's possible to improve a lot if you will you can read stuff. I recommend:
- https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-... to know the various ways people speak.
- 48 laws of power (a must)
- The Game by neil strauss (it's more seduction-oriented but it's mostly about someone who was a nerd journalist and became one of the most famous womanizer ever. Super fun to read if you don't wanna take it at 1rst debree)
There are many other if you guys are interested
- (No idea whether you'll read this, but...)
> I know you're trying to come at this from a "things could be worse" perspective
Nope, not really, I get that it matters, and how it matters.
I have two related points:
1) It matters, but it definitely doesn't matter to the magnitude that you think it does, right now - it's just one of many factors that matter. Yep, you've lost this one, so rely on your other good areas and if it helps your mindset, find some others to optimise instead. (Like, lose weight, or get ripped, get a better tan, etc.)
2) More importantly, though, your response to losing your hair is self-sabotaging: by taking it so badly, and so obviously losing confidence as a result, you're massively exacerbating the effect. Your response to your hair-loss is what is causing "...pretty much social suicide" - not the hair loss itself.
One day, I suspect you'll come through how you're currently feeling (with or without therapy?) and you'll probably have forgotten this exchange, but you'll see I'm right. But given the fickle nature of confidence, I totally get that you can't believe that right now.
PS read The Game [0] - not for the PUA nonsense, but for Neil Strauss' account of losing his hair, and how his mentality changed about it over time.
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(Also, as an aside, I really like your concept of 'pretty privilege'. My GF is a lot more attractive, and also a lot more immediately engaging, than me; it's been enlightening to watch how different her experience of the world is, to mine.)
- This has always been the case; it's just that the internet has facilitated dissemination of this knowledge very rapidly.
Read "The Game" by Neil Strauss and the whole alt.seduction.fast thing - this was happening in the early/mid/late 90s long before the advent of online dating.
This is old knowledge coming to surface. Nothing has fundamentally changed in the behavior/logic of men or women.
