Book SummaryThe Game, by Neil Strauss

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Game

Throughout his life, author and journalist Neil Strauss had always felt self-conscious and awkward around the opposite sex—which led to rejection, creating a vicious cycle. Neil assumed that it took natural charisma and confidence to pick up women, and that he simply didn’t have it.

Then, in the early 2000s, when Neil was in his early 30s, he got the opportunity to write a book modeled after The How-to-Lay-Girls Guide, a guide to picking up women that had been circulating in an online community of men who exchanged tips and advice in the art of seduction.

When Neil plunged into the seduction community’s online world of websites and message boards, he discovered an entire subculture. Members of the community wrote posts sharing strategies, divulging details of their exploits, or asking for advice—and, in the real world, men in cities around the world gathered weekly to share techniques and then go to clubs together to put the tactics to use.

In The Game, Neil chronicles the two years he 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.

Neil Meets Mystery

The seduction community’s leaders were a handful of PUAs who were considered gurus. Each guru taught disciples his distinct set of rules and techniques—including psychology, magic tricks, and hypnosis—to seduce women.

Neil 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, who had just started offering workshops for PUAs-in-training.

The workshop consisted of three nights of lessons and in-the-field practice in bars and clubs. As students practiced the techniques, Mystery and his wing (aka wingman) critiqued and coached them.

Neil somewhat stumbled through pickups during the workshop, but Mystery saw huge potential in Neil as a PUA.

The Mystery Method

When Mystery was 21 and still a virgin, he began studying how women reacted when he hit on them. Over 10 years, Mystery pieced together the principles of social interaction and the patterns of male-female dynamics, which he called the Mystery Method.

The Mystery Method was designed to be a subtle, indirect approach. If Mystery’s technique was executed correctly, a woman wouldn’t know that she was being hit on, but she would want to be.

The keys to the Mystery Method were:

• Make yourself seem like the most fun and interesting person in the room.
• Confuse your target (the woman you’re trying to hit on) with negs, which are backhanded compliments or vague insults.
• Use gimmicks, such as magic tricks and ESP tests, to impress and intrigue her.
• Maintain a push-pull balance, in order to keep her engaged and wanting more. For example, if your conversation with a woman is going well and you show that you’re interested in her, then look around the club for a moment, as if you’re distracted or looking for someone else.
• Never be the aggressor. For example, lead the woman into offering her phone number—but never explicitly ask for it.

Ross Jeffries: Guru and Seduction Hypnotist

The next guru that Neil met was Ross Jeffries, who was considered the godfather of the seduction community since he’d introduced Speed Seduction in 1988.

Jeffries’s Speed Seduction method was based on a technique called neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), which blended psychology and hypnosis. NLP was based on the concept that words, movements, and suggestions could tap into a person’s subconscious to affect her thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Using NLP, a PUA would steer his conversations with a woman toward the subjects of attraction and arousal. Then, he would use questions and suggestions to connect those feelings of attraction with a physical sensation, in order to make the woman subconsciously associate the PUA with those feelings and sensations.

During Jeffries’s first meeting with Neil, Jeffries demonstrated NLP on their waitress. First, he asked the waitress what she felt physically when she was really attracted to someone, and she said that she got butterflies in her stomach.

Then, he suggested that, as she got more attracted to someone, her butterflies probably rose higher and made her blush. As he said this, Jeffries put his hand near his stomach, palm up, and raised it toward his chest.

The motion created an association between the gesture and the feeling of attraction and blushing. Throughout the rest of the conversation, every time Jeffries raised his hand from his stomach to his chest, the waitress blushed.

Neil Hones His Skills

Just a month after Neil entered the seduction community, Mystery asked him to be his wing in Mystery’s upcoming workshops. Neil accepted, and Mystery dubbed him with his pickup alias: Style.

Style had just six weeks before the next workshop, so he started training rigorously to improve his game. He read books on a range of related subjects, including body language, social dynamics, NLP, magic, and mind-reading.

Style also worked on his appearance and presentation:

• He corrected his gestures and posture to make himself appear more confident.
• He took singing and speech lessons to make his fast, muffled speech slower and clearer.
• He wore bright clothing and flashy accessories—including fake piercings, feather boas, and light-up necklaces—based on Mystery’s theory that eye-grabbing garments attracted women.

Style constantly went out sarging (hitting on women) with other men in the community so that he could study their sarging techniques in order to emulate them.

Style began to discover that confidence was a critical part of the game: PUAs needed it to complete successful pickups, and they gained it from their successes. Many newcomers to the community had spent...

The Game Summary Chapter 1: Neil Discovers the Seduction Community

Neil Strauss, a journalist and the author of The Game, 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.

Despite years of failure, Neil still wanted to date and have sex with women—he just couldn’t figure out how. Neil assumed that it took natural charisma and confidence to pick up women, and that he simply didn’t have it.

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 Guide, 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...

The Game Summary Chapter 2: Neil’s Introduction to Sarging

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 joined the community; naturally, Neil had to sign up.

For $500, attendees would get a four-night basic training that included:

• Lectures on Mystery’s principles and techniques
• Field training in bars and clubs, as the trainees were coached through putting Mystery’s strategies to practice
• Debriefing after each night’s outing

Mystery was only the second guru to offer workshops—the first was Ross Jeffries, a pickup pioneer who we’ll talk about shortly. However, while Jeffries led seminars, Mystery was the first to bring trainees into clubs for real-time coaching.

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.

The Mystery Method

From an early age, Mystery had wanted to be a famous magician. He spent his...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on Everyday Pickup Strategies

While most people don’t become students of seduction, many have heard general advice that overlaps with PUA strategies.

What are some rules of the game that you’ve heard (for example, be coy)? Which have you abided by, if any?

The Game Summary Chapter 3: Neil Hones His Skills

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.

When Sin—Mystery’s wing from his workshop—decided to leave the community to join the Air Force, Mystery wanted Neil to step in and wing his upcoming workshops.

Neil was so eager to take the opportunity that he agreed, even though the next scheduled workshop conflicted with a trip he’d 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.

But if Neil was going to wing the workshop, he’d need an alias—nearly everyone in the seduction community had one. Mystery dubbed him Style.

Improving His Game

It had only been a month since Style’s pickup education began while attending Mystery’s workshop—and soon he’d be helping Mystery lead a workshop. Style began training rigorously to improve his game in the six weeks before the next workshop.

Style read books on a range of related subjects, including:

• Social...

The Game Summary Chapter 4: Style Meets the Gurus

Mystery had another workshop coming up in two months, in Miami. Style set a goal to meet all the top pickup artists (PUAs) before then.

The seduction community had several pickup gurus, each pedaling a different seduction strategy. For example, Ross Jeffries’s Speed Seduction was based on subliminal messaging through sequences of scripted lines, while David DeAngelo’s Double Your Dating strategy used a hybrid of arrogance and humor, called cocky funny.

The gurus competed for disciples, discrediting each other in the process. However, most men in the seduction community didn’t want to commit to just one guru—like Style, they wanted to pick up as many strategies from as many sources as they could.

Juggler: Be Bold

The first PUA Style contacted was Juggler.

Juggler advocated tactics that were bold and unorthodox. For example, he told his students to get over their fear of picking up women by calling random numbers from the phone book and asking for movie recommendations, or by convincing a homeless person to give them a quarter. Juggler also encouraged PUAs-in-training to make their pickups more challenging by telling women that they worked as garbage men or...

Shortform Exercise: Compare Pickup Techniques

Pickup tactics range from arrogant humor to hypnosis, and the effectiveness of each one depends on the conviction of the person using it.

Which of the strategies sounds most effective? Why?

The Game Summary Chapter 5: Style Gets Too Deep in the Game

By the time Mystery’s Miami workshop approached, Style was far beyond merely observing the community for his writing assignment—he was a full-fledged member and well-respected pickup artist (PUA).

Style’s relationships with the other men now existed in the real world, not just on message boards. He had forged friendships with some of the men, and they went out sarging together regularly. Other men in the community constantly called and emailed, looking for advice and asking to be Style’s wing.

At the same time, the community was growing. Local seduction communities were popping up and flourishing around the world.

Style was enjoying his new powers—especially after so many years of feeling completely inadequate around women. But Style’s motivation for picking up women was no longer for sex or romance as much as it was to impress the other sargers and PUAs.

Style Polishes His Pickup Game

Despite—or possibly because of—Style’s success in Belgrade and his status in the community, he felt tremendous pressure to prove himself at the next workshop in Miami. As it turned out, his months of preparation, meetings with gurus, and hypnosis training paid off.

Mystery,...

The Game Summary Chapter 6: A New Generation Emerges in the Pickup Community

While Style’s life balance was far off-kilter, all the time and energy he’d dedicated to the game hadn’t been in vain.

Through Style’s constant sarging, his performances in Mystery’s workshops, and the field reports and tips he shared on the online message boards, he’d inadvertently become a guru. While Mystery was recovering from his mental breakdown, his absence further cemented Style’s position as a top pickup artist.

The community was expanding rapidly with young members—some still in high school—who wanted to emulate the master pickup artists (PUAs). The new members wanted not only seduction technique, but also day-to-day advice, such as where to apply to college. Many of the young, new sargers that were constantly joining the community looked up to Style and studied his posts.

Style’s Status as Top PUA

A year after joining the community, Style had become a true master of the game. He’d internalized the techniques, developed his own routines—which many members now used, word for word—and slept with countless women.

One post on the message board had even named Style the best PUA. The post lauded Style’s subtlety and powers of manipulation,...

The Game Summary Chapter 7: Style Shifts From Learning Game to Creating a Lifestyle

With his article on the seduction community and his new assignment to interview Tom Cruise, Neil was reclaiming some of his old life—but he was keeping one foot firmly planted in the community.

Style Shifts His Focus to Inner Game

Neil couldn’t have gotten a better assignment: Tom Cruise was a model for the seduction community. He was effortlessly confident—a quintessential AMOG. In fact, most of the men in the community studied Cruise’s characters to improve their body language.

In the film Magnolia, 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’s character. (Shortform note: In the movie, Mackey instructs his seduction students to “respect the cock” and “tame the cunt,” while a banner that says “Seduce and Destroy” hangs behind him.)

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. To Neil, it felt reminiscent of how Dustin had...

The Game Summary Chapter 8: Style Launches Project Hollywood

After Papa, Mystery, and Style signed the lease on the Project Hollywood mansion, they posted on Mystery’s Lounge that they were looking for roommates to fill the remaining two rooms. The response was overwhelming.

They ended up bringing in three eager pickup artists (PUAs):

1. Herbal, a 22-year-old from Austin who had made a small fortune in a gambling scheme.
2. Playboy, a party promoter who had quit his job at a New York dance company in order to come to Project Hollywood. Playboy worked for Real Social Dynamics to pay his rent.
3. Xaneus, a college student from Colorado who was willing to do whatever it took to live at Project Hollywood—so he slept in a tent in the backyard, worked as an intern for Real Social Dynamics, and paid for utilities and housecleaning.

The roommates laid out the ground rules for the house:

• Herbal was responsible for finances.
• Papa was in charge of social events.
• Guests couldn’t stay in the house for more than a month without approval from all the roommates.
• Ten percent of profits from any seminars held in the living room had to go to the house fund.
• **No one was allowed to sarge a woman that another PUA invited to...

Shortform Exercise: Draw Parallels From the Seduction Community

The benefits and drawbacks that Style experienced and witnessed in the pickup world aren’t unique to the seduction community.

What is one way you could be more effective in your life—personal or professional—by using seduction tactics and principles of social interactions?

The Game Summary Chapter 9: Project Hollywood Gets Two Female Housemates

Amidst growing problems in Project Hollywood, two new roommates moved in—both of them female.

One was Courtney Love. Love still had Style’s phone number from when he’d interviewed her for Rolling Stone and had subsequently spent the following three days in her apartment. Love texted Style one night, telling him that she was overwhelmed with bills and the task of keeping her life in order without a manager. She asked Style if she could stay at Project Hollywood for a little while.

Love made herself right at home in the house. Love was a messy house guest—she left open jars of peanut butter and jelly scattered around the kitchen, with sticky smears streaking the counters—but she quickly endeared herself to everyone in Project Hollywood.

The other new roommate would also become well-liked among many of the housemates, but she would also lead to the breakup of the original Project Hollywood housemates. Her name was Katya.

Mystery and Katya

Mystery met Katya—a chipper Russian woman in her early 20s—during a workshop. A couple days later, Mystery invited her to come by the mansion to hang out. Within a couple weeks, Katya and her dog had moved into...

The Game Summary Chapter 10: Project Hollywood Strains Relationships

Many men in the community had allowed seduction to consume their lives. As a result, they had nothing else—family relationships, outside friendships, professional success—to cushion their self-esteem, so rejection from women rocked their whole world.

A pickup artist (PUA) is only a PUA if he successfully picks up women, which means that his entire value within the community is based on how women respond to him. Of course, basing your self-worth on another person is inherently risky because, no matter how good your technique, you can’t control how she’ll react.

Many men in the community developed a hard shell of misogyny to protect their egos when women rejected them.

Additionally, the act of sarging turned human interaction into a game, which inevitably objectified women:

• PUAs referred to women as targets.
• PUAs constantly referred to women based on their attractiveness on a scale of one to 10. For example, they’d call a hot babe (HB) who rated as an eight simply HB8.
• PUAs sized women up to determine the best approach and tactics, just as a basketball point guard would size up a defender.

Finally, PUAs almost surely slept with their share of women...

The Game Summary Chapter 11: Style Leaves Project Hollywood

The very concept of Project Hollywood—as a place for men who dedicated their lives to chasing women to coexist peacefully—had been flawed all along. It was overly optimistic to assume that they wouldn’t fight over women, their competing businesses (Mystery’s Mystery Method and Papa and Tyler Durden’s Real Social Dynamics), or their egos.

Seduction techniques taught men to be alpha males to attract women. Most of these men had spent their lives being pushed around by other alpha males, so when they started to embody alpha traits themselves, it could be intoxicating. Many members of the community became so focused on flexing their alpha strength that they sabotaged their friendships in the process.

The cracks had started to show almost immediately, and, by now, the residents of Project Hollywood were split by fault lines.

Mystery’s Antics Come to a Head

Style, Papa, Xaneus, and Playboy called a house meeting with Mystery and Herbal to resolve their issues. It appeared that someone had to move out:

• Herbal didn’t want to live there without Katya.
• Mystery didn’t want to live there with Katya.
• Papa didn’t want to live there with Mystery, because he was...