I got started with pick up artist techniques when I chanced upon the book ‘The Game Neil Strauss’ off the local bookstore when I was 19 years old. I had just broken up with my ex girlfriend I was reeling in victimization. It was as if I picked up the bible. I was hooked on the idea that you could do something about your chances with women. I was hooked on the idea that as long as you did certain things, you could get a girl in bed. It's like a formula to sex. I would then go on to spend all the free time I had in the military reading up one pick up artist's book after another.
Apps Dating Experts Recommend if You're Chronically Single
Whether it's your outdated pickup techniques or simply a lack of options in your immediate circle, using a dating app might be the key to ridding you of your eternal singledom. Here are some of the dating apps that have always worked for us:
| Site | Our Experience | Our Rating | Free Trial Link |
|---|---|---|---|
Best Casual Encounter Site  | Experience Highlights
| 9 | Try AFF For Free |
Great If You're Handsome  | Tinder Highlights
| 8 | Try Tinder |
2nd Best For Most Guys  | Experience Highlights
| 8 | Try Passion |
I remembered that I "negged" a girl and she laughed, it was exhilarating at first. Girls are actually finally finding me funny now! If a girl is laughing meant she was interested in you right? Well, she stopped texting me on the phone in a few days later. Months passed, I still wasn’t getting kisses or sex or anything of that sort, however, I felt more empowered socially.
I eventually got desperate and emptied half my savings as a 19 years old and hired a dating coach that promised a "Singaporean method" to pick up, and finally get the girl. Eventually, after a lot more trial and error, I got my first taste of success. I started dating more girls and slept with some of them. Eventually, after repeated success after a year or so, it was "proof" that these pick up artist techniques and theories worked.
Okay, after years of doing this all over the world, I'm going to let you in on a couple of secrets. There's a lot of marketing and fluff in the dating advice industry, let me break it down for you.
Useful Pick Up Artist Techniques
For the absolute beginners, by having a structure of lines, techniques to go out and apply. It can be immensely useful. There is a place for PUA techniques in 2022. They also offer structure and give you a set of conditions and variables for you to work with.
Here are the concepts I find useful:
- Understanding female psychology, how to attract women
- Understanding push pull
- Understanding how to cold approach
- Understanding how conversations work
- Understanding how to tease
- Understanding what to do on dates
- Understanding how to get laid (and making her feel comfortable with it)
In some of these articles, I give line by line scripts and canned routines that you can use. If you have canned routines, lines and actually take action and go out, it beats staying at home and doing nothing.
The Difference Between Relying on Canned Lines and being a 'Natural'
Some times, you get clients that are hardcore pick-up artist techniques. They are usually obsessed about mass approaching or about 'game'. I'm not disregarding that approaching women isn't a skillet to get down or that you should not be technical in how you approach dating as a skillset. There are certain concepts: frame that is extremely useful to understand where you are at in any interaction.
It's better to focus on the long run game. It also saddens me when some clients aren't taking the holistic approach.
It’s the manner most hardcore pick up artists approach their dating life. I haven’t met a hardcore pick up artist that is actually cool. The way the treat going out with peers is purely from a pickup lens. ‘Let’s meet at 11 pm outside the club.’ No catching up, no chilling out, no real human connection. This cycle repeats week in week and out. Hey, unconditional friendships are important and they determine a lot of your emotional sanity and social success.
PUAs tend to come from a ‘value leech’ standpoint. They desire to get into clubs for free and aren’t willing to pay for entry. They use underhanded tactics to get in for free. Even when I had no money, I’ll try to get into clubs by paying or through a legitimate manner, like a guest-list or getting to know the club promoter. I didn’t like sneaking around. It also doesn't cast a good light socially.
I run a business, as an entrepreneur, I believe in the price paid for value creation. The club created value in exchange for money, so I have no problems paying for it. Your beliefs are going to largely influenced by the people you surround yourself with. If you're always hanging out with cheap people, you're going to devolve into a poor mindset.
This also rubs off in their ‘game’ as well. They are usually gamey, overtly aggressive and dependent on gimmicks. The type of game that only works on low quality women, and rarely works on quality women. The difference between crappy game and good game is how grounded, calm-looking your interactions are.
Note: I don't label myself as a pick up artist. I'm just a guy that is able to talk to strangers if I find them attractive. That's it. I don't do so because of the possibility of ridiculous expectations that come along with the community. I don't identify or hate to perceived as a player or pick up artist. I'm just an average guy that rationally figured out how to get more choice and control in my dating life.
The Dating Apps Most Recommended By Dating Experts That Work
Once you learn a little game you can really put it to work online. If you haven't had a great time using dating apps to this point it's probably because you're using the wrong ones.
Most guys online are totally clueless so someone who knows a thing or two can do really well. There are a couple of apps that dating experts have been recommending to regular guys that will work for you:
| Site | Our Experience | Our Rating | Free Trial Link |
|---|---|---|---|
Best Casual Encounter Site | Experience Highlights
| 9 | Try AFF For Free |
Great If You're Handsome | Tinder Highlights
| 8 | Try Tinder |
2nd Best For Most Guys | Experience Highlights
| 8 | Try Passion |
The Difference Between People who Get Results and People that Don't
I get many different kinds of clients coming to me attempting to better their dating life. Some have even taken programs from mainstream big names companies overseas. Some request for only a specific area of coaching. Some disregard theory. Some are committed and some are not.
Here's my take on clients that eventually get results. They are humble enough to put in the work and learn all aspects of social dynamics.
I recently had a client go out cold approaching almost every single day. He's only a month old into the program and he has gone out on two dates. That's a good outcome, considering he's completely new and he's tackling the cold market. On the other hand, I have clients that don't come for classes or are inconsistent in making this a priority in their life. To get good, you need to stretch yourself. It's no different for me either. I had to stretch myself to grow the business. I had to stretch myself in school to get the grades I desired.
Getting good at dating as a skillset is also getting good at your emotions. In the long run, it's pretty exhausting if always you're trying to say something in order to be smart or witty. This is where vulnerability comes it. There are no more smart or witty things to say, just actions to take. This requires you to be good at pushing through despite feeling the fear of rejection. Trust me, no amount of money, achievements or good looks is going help with the fear of rejection. This is why it's difficult. This is why it's also a life long process or getting good at emotions.
This is why most people don't do it.
Can You Only Rely on Pick Up Artist Techniques?
Eventually, you'll need to learn how to connect emotionally with women and pursue them from a standpoint of sexual confidence. You just need to combine them with getting other areas of your life down such as self esteem and personal boundaries. Instead of relying on techniques and lines: faking high value... be high value.
It's not uncommon to see people from the pick up artist community swearing by the game, going out six to seven times a week, dedicating a huge portion of their life to the pick up lifestyle. I was partly guilty of this. The potential glory that comes from women and the respect from the men is definitely alluring. Which young male in his 20s doesn't desire hot women and respect from men?
It was a metric of success that I measured myself for years. If I wasn't off being social, I was off chasing some girl. Either that, I NEED be travelling to some new country to explore the world, in the name of 'self development'. In the pick up artist community, it's not uncommon for men to discuss their sex lives in solely quantified manner. "I've slept with 13 girls so far, how about you?".
The quantification of one's sexual conquests is an aimless one. One could had slept with 13 fat girls that you weren't even interested in, and one could have slept with a model. Who would have been the better man? Who would have had the better 'Game'? You're only as good as the quality of women you date, not the number of girls you date.
Be High Value, Not Fake High Value
There's nothing inherently wrong and bad about learning how to approach an attractive stranger. However, it's a whole different issue when you're identifying yourself as a pick up artist.
You adopting a separate identity (a pick up artist) in order to be cool, be liked or to attract women is in signalling to yourself that as a human being, you're not worthy of affection nor attention from the opposite sex. Secondly, need to constantly ‘demonstrate higher value’ or ‘neg her’ signal that you perceive yourself as someone who is inferior to her. Someone with true confidence doesn’t need to go about consistently demonstrating higher value and/or actively look for derogatory insults to bring her 'value' down.
Here is a catch-22: if you need to constantly demonstrate yourself as someone superior, then subtley demonstrates you are inferior.
Thirdly, as much as pick up artist techniques has helped me in my earlier days. Our emotional life is not one to be studied or to researched like a mathematical equation where quality, meaning and significance of social interactions are traded for objectified metrics such as hook close ratios.
In the short run, solely relying on techniques may seem to work, but in the long run, you’ll find out that you’re the same low self-esteem person that relied on those lines and theories to get you started. Entering the pick up artist community, I went through the whole mystery method thing. You may have had some success in the short run. However, it it works not because of those lines or behaviours. However, rather, those lines or behaviours allowed you to hit on a girl openly for the first time in your life.
There's a brilliant article done up by The Rawness. He talks about about codependency, narcissism, self loathing issues, childhood dynamics with parents and how all of them intertwine with the pick up artist persona.
Here's an insightful quote from the article:
"Or you decide to learn as many manipulation techniques as humanly possible by reading a ton of strategy books like those of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and Robert Greene. What this all boils down to is one thing: fear of rejection and trying to protect one’s ego by mastering the outcome in your head beforehand."
However, there are many misconstrued ideas and techniques. This is especially so for Eastern settings such as Singapore, Taiwan.
Here are two:
- ‘You Need to Isolate Her’
It's not uncommon for pick up artist guys to say ‘you got to isolate and distract their friends whilst being in the nightclub.’ I don’t agree with this.
Firstly, on a technical level, your intentions will bleed through and women you are approaching are going to get defensive. Secondly, if you’re in Asian culture, she’s going to get worried about her friends (and her friends are going get worried about her) when she gets separated from her.
- ‘You Can’t Go Direct. Expressing yourself directly only Works if You’re Tall and Good Looking.’
I disagree. You can express yourself directly regardless of looks or height. In fact, you might even come off as more polarizing if you’re not exactly that good looking or tall, and you’re willing to be authentic and direct.
However, I believe that you're a little bit more advanced, it's better to go indirect.
I also recommend a basic reading of the book The Game, and a couple others such as Models by Mark Manson and No More Mr Nice guy by Robert Glover. They offer opposing arguments on using techniques or relying on 'authenticity'. I believe the answer is somewhere in between. You need both style and structure for you to succeed. You need both technical details and overarching philosophy.
The Place for Pick Up Artist Techniques in 2022
The best idea that the PUA community introduced was the idea of self-reliance. It's some an idea to be taken to the grave with. Instead giving up and saying 'love' is 100% reliant on luck. You're taking it in your own hands and going out to experiment. There is a reason why the pick up artist community is much smaller in Asian cultures compared to Westernized cultures. The ideas that come along the PUA community isn't exactly traditional Asian values oriented. I just believe it can taken out of context many a times.
In hindsight, I passed up tons of dating opportunities because deep down I still felt I wasn't good enough. I was still not going for women that I'm genuinely attracted to and second guessing my interactions with women that I was actually attracted to who were giving me obvious signs.
I couldn't be physically intimate with a girl, without executing on a pick up artist technique to touch her. I figured because pursuing a girl I am genuinely sexually or emotionally attracted to, it rubs against my emotional maps of rejection and abandonment. It's not a sure win anymore compared to going for girls that I was less invested in: I didn't have to face the sting of being rejected.
Here are the real issues: social acceptance, the fear of abandonment and our emotional maps. These are the real issues that guys getting into this dating advice thing should confronting and look into in the long run.
Here are some question to ask yourself today:
- Are you using techniques and lines as a supplement or replacement to your identity?
- Are you actively working on your issues: your insecurities?
These questions can be difficult questions to ask. They can lead back to past traumatic experiences: emotional abuse, physical abuse, financial difficulties or strict religious upbringing. It took me years to confront some of them. However, it's worth the pursuit. Pick up artist techniques are the only training wheels. I assume you want to be cycling the real ones.
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