Who is Style the PUA? How did author Neil Strauss get this name<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Style the PUA was the alternate identity of Neil Strauss. Strauss was given the name Style in the PUA community once he joined and began researching, meeting gurus, and forming his own methods. Find out how Style’s PUA nickname helped him dive into his alternate identity and the PUA world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Neil Strauss, aka Style, a journalist and the author of The Game<\/em>, always struggled with women. Since he was a teenager, he felt self-conscious and awkward around the opposite sex, which led to rejection, creating a vicious cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite years of failure, Neil still wanted to date and have sex with women\u2014he just couldn\u2019t figure out how. Neil assumed that it took natural charisma and confidence to pick up women, and that he simply didn\u2019t have it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, in the early 2000s, when Neil was in his early 30s, he got a call from a book editor who wanted him to write a book modeled after The How-to-Lay-Girls<\/em> Guide<\/em>, a manual for picking up women. The guide sourced advice from dozens of pickup artists (PUAs), and it had been circulating in an online community of men who exchanged tips and advice in the art of seduction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Neil took the assignment and began a two-year journey, during which he became a member\u2014and then a guru\u2014in the world of PUAs and wannabes. This book chronicles the two years Neil spent in the seduction community, the characters he met there, and their various hijinks. Along the way, he exposes readers to many of the methods that pickup artists (PUAs) use, as well as the history and context of this underground community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Neil plunged into the seduction community\u2019s online world of websites and message boards, he discovered an entire subculture. People used aliases\u2014Neil\u2019s would become Style the PUA\u2014and they used a jargon that included terms such as: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Neil Strauss, or Style, quickly learned about these terms. Members of the community wrote posts sharing strategies, divulging details of their exploits, or asking for advice.<\/strong> Beyond the virtual world, men in cities around the world gathered weekly to share techniques and then go to clubs together to put the tactics to use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The community\u2019s leaders were a handful of PUAs who had reached guru status, each of whom taught disciples his distinct set of rules and principles of the pickup game. The gurus used a combination of psychology, magic tricks, and hypnosis to seduce women. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Neil decided he wanted to meet all the gurus, and he planned to integrate techniques from each. The first guru he met was a Canadian magician named Mystery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mystery was a celebrated PUA who had written more than 3,000 posts on the community message boards. Mystery started offering workshops for PUAs-in-training shortly after Neil Strauss aka Style joined the community; naturally, Neil had to sign up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For $500, attendees would get a four-night basic training that included: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mystery was only the second guru to offer workshops\u2014the first was Ross Jeffries<\/a>, a pickup pioneer who we\u2019ll talk about shortly. However, while Jeffries led seminars, Mystery was the first to bring trainees into clubs for real-time coaching. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Neil was investigating the community for his book assignment, he also earnestly wanted to learn from the PUAs. He hoped that this could signal the end of his struggles with women. However, Neil was also embarrassed to admit that he was so bad with women that he was now paying for advice from self-proclaimed experts. So, Style the pickup artist was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neil had been frequenting bars and clubs, practicing his craft with other men from the community. Between his practice and his posts to the online message boards, Neil was quickly moving up in the seduction community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When Sin\u2014Mystery\u2019s wing from his workshop\u2014decided to leave the community to join the Air Force, Mystery wanted Neil to step in and wing his upcoming workshops.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Neil was so eager to take the opportunity that he agreed, even though the next scheduled workshop conflicted with a trip he\u2019d planned to visit Belgrade to see his old friend, Marko. Neil refused to miss out on this chance to apprentice with a guru, so he convinced Mystery to hold his next workshop in Belgrade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But if Neil was going to wing the workshop, he\u2019d need an alias\u2014nearly everyone in the seduction community had one. Mystery dubbed him Style the pickup artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It had only been a month since Style\u2019s pickup education began while attending<\/em> Mystery\u2019s workshop\u2014and soon he\u2019d be helping Mystery lead<\/em> a workshop.<\/strong> Style as a PUA began training rigorously to improve his game in the six weeks before the next workshop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Style read books on a range of related subjects, including: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Based on what he read, Style also: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Style the pickup artist went out constantly with Grimble, his wing Twotimer, and Jeffries. Style studied their sarging techniques, and he tried to emulate them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One day, Style nervously approached a woman in Office Depot. Following the prescribed routine, he negged her, showed her an ESP trick, and made up a false time constraint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Style asked the woman how they could continue their conversation, and, to his surprise, she offered her phone number and email address. PUAs never give their phone numbers and never ask for a woman\u2019s number directly\u2014they must get the woman to offer her number. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The woman had claimed to be a model, so when Style got home, he looked her up online. He discovered that he\u2019d just scored the Playmate of the Year\u2019s phone number. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Style was thrilled, he felt unworthy. He\u2019d learned the strategies, but hadn\u2019t yet built the confidence to back them up. <\/strong>He never called. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With his article on the seduction community and his new assignment to interview Tom Cruise, Neil was reclaiming some of his old life\u2014but he was keeping one foot firmly planted in the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Neil couldn\u2019t have gotten a better assignment: Tom Cruise was a model for the seduction community. He was effortlessly confident\u2014a quintessential AMOG. In fact, most of the men in the community studied Cruise\u2019s characters to improve their body language. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the film Magnolia<\/em>, Cruise even played Frank T.J. Mackey, a seduction guru that Ross Jeffries claims to have inspired. However, Cruise told Neil that his character was not inspired by anyone in particular; rather, Cruise and the director, Paul Thomas Anderson, had developed Mackey\u2019s character. (Shortform note: In the movie, Mackey instructs his seduction students to \u201crespect the cock\u201d and \u201ctame the cunt,\u201d while a banner that says \u201cSeduce and Destroy\u201d hangs behind him.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cruise lamented that a guru like the fictional Mackey could seduce men into thinking that seduction tactics are the best way to approach women and initiate relationships.<\/strong> To Neil, it felt reminiscent of how Dustin had warned him about the corruption of the seduction lifestyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neil stayed silent, but, internally, he pushed back against the attack on his community. Neil didn\u2019t see anything wrong with learning the game; how was learning the game of seduction any different from studying and practicing other skills, such as writing or driving a car?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, Neil was getting tired of regurgitating the same lines for every pickup. He wanted to be authentic<\/a> and he wanted that to be enough to attract women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Neil talked to Cruise, he found Cruise to be centered, grounded, and comfortable with who he was. Cruise also encouraged Neil to embrace himself. Cruise was inadvertently helping Neil gain the inner game\u2014confidence and self-worth\u2014that he\u2019d been missing.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n For Style\u2019s birthday, his friends in the community threw him a party at a Hollywood club. Between friends, PUAs, and former lovers, about 300 people showed up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Style the PUA dominated the club all night. People were constantly pulling him aside to talk to him, and women were handing him their phone numbers\u2014and he hadn\u2019t recited a single line of game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Style realized that he\u2019d been too myopic: He and the other sargers had been focusing on mastering the game simply to pick up women at clubs. But, the real purpose of the game was in creating a lifestyle that was interesting, exciting, and fulfilling. Men with that lifestyle exuded confidence and vibrancy that naturally attracted women.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Style was ready to graduate from sarging and build this lifestyle. He decided it was time for him and Mystery to create Project Hollywood<\/a>, the seduction headquarters Mystery had described when he came out of the hospital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Style left the community, he met with one last guru, named Eric Weber. While Ross Jeffries earned the title of godfather of the seduction community in the 1980s, Weber had laid the foundation for future PUAs with his 1970 book, How to Pick Up Girls<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Weber had since gotten married, had kids, and left the game. Style sought his advice on how to get out of the community. Style as a PUA was over the lifestyle of actually being a pickup artists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Weber told Style that the primary tool to get out of the community was confidence. Weber warned that men who don\u2019t attain that inner confidence become obsessed with the game, in a futile attempt to fill their psychological holes. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, men who developed enough confidence and self-worth no longer needed validation from women\u2014although, Weber admitted, even he still had moments of self-doubt<\/a> and feelings of inadequacy every now and then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During Style\u2019s two years in the pickup world, he had: <\/p>\n\n\n\n The game had helped Style recognize the assets that he already possessed, which built his inner confidence. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Like Weber\u2014and everyone\u2014Style would probably have moments of self-doubt. However, he would always know that he had within him the traits and abilities that he previously believed were out of his reach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: In the years after this book’s publication, Neil was treated for sex addiction<\/a>, among other mental and emotional conditions. While in rehab for this addiction, a doctor told him that his years in the seduction game had deeply ingrained his dysfunctional behaviors.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Seduction Community<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Style Becomes a Full PUA<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Honing His Skills<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Improving His Game <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Success Reveals Style\u2019s Inner Doubt<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Style the PUA: Creating a Lifestyle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Style Shifts His Focus to Inner Game<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Game Is About Lifestyle<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Style Exits the Community<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Style Leaves With Everything He\u2019d Come With\u2014Plus Confidence<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n