They called me Utah. I was a PUA (pick up artist), and a damn good one, too.
I completed the 5 by 5 (Google “PUA 5 by 5” to find out what that is), and at one time was considered by many to be one of the best pick up artists in the state of Utah. Over the course of several years, I studied every piece of material relating to the pick-up arts that I could find, honing my skills to the point of surgical precision.
- *Arrive at the club around 10:30pm.
- *Open the first set (group of people) you see with the jealous girlfriend opener or the classic “who lies more: men or women?”
- *Get them laughing to build social proof in the venue, without hitting on anyone.
- *Discreetly scan the venue for another set with a possible target, preferably a 9 or a 10.
- *After 10 to 15 minutes, roll off to an adjacent set, preferably one with a target who has seen you being social with the other group.
- *Open the set indirectly, while ignoring the target in order to lower her ego and raise your value relative to hers.
- *Use a false time constraint to lower the group’s defenses. (“I can only stay for a minute…”)
- *Demonstrate value to the set with an interesting story or gambit.
- * Disqualify yourself as a potential love interest to the target, while periodically giving her playful back-handed compliments (not insults) in order to disarm the friends and build sexual tension with one you want.
- *Find out the dynamics of the group while conveying active disinterest towards the target in order to convey non-neediness and build attraction.
- *Once the target shows three indicators of interest, which always happens, it’s game on…
For years, this was my game. And my game was tight.
Using covert pick-up tactics that I learned from the masters, I discovered that I could systematically trigger a woman’s natural attraction switches in order to seduce the kind of women that most men only had the courage to admire from afar.
In the beginning, and for the first couple years, it was absolutely beautiful, not to mention a ton of fun. Being able to walk into any club and leave with an attractive woman gave me unshakable confidence with the opposite sex the likes of which I had never had before. Knowing that I could replace any woman that I lost in a matter of hours unfortunately also gave me an ego the size of which I had never had before either, and more often caused me to take many of the quality women I met for granted.
At first, even that didn’t really bother me that much, as being called an arrogant jerk became a badge of honor, and there were an endless supply of women, each one seemingly just as good as the other. Over time, this mindset and the thrill of being able to do what most other guys could only dream of doing became extremely addictive. Eventually, the pick-up arts became like a drug, and, as is the case with all drugs, it became a part of me and eventually consumed me.
What started as a way to attract women at bars and clubs in order to satisfy my sexual urges, became part of my everyday life. Trips to the grocery store turned into scavenger hunts for potential targets. House parties became feeding grounds for my ego. Even innocent little flirts at the gas pump didn’t stay innocent little flirts for long. I had developed a superpower. And I wasn’t afraid to use it.
After a while, however, a strange thing started to happen. What was at one time a fun and exhilarating test of my skills slowly became empty and hollow. Gaming girls became a chore rather than a challenge, and all the names and faces seemed to run together in an innocuous mélange of beauty and boredom.
That is, until she came along…
We met on Tinder, as most people seem to do these days, and, as always, my game was as tight as a drum. Ten years my junior, she was a cute little sweetheart with a playful smile and big brown eyes that sparkled like moonlight glistening off two deep pools of liquid amber. Her soft brown hair flowed like a river of satin on both sides of her cherubic face that seemed to glow with the innocence and vitality of unfettered youth.
Upon viewing her profile, I noticed that one of her pictures was of her kissing a fish, and I immediately thought of the perfect opener. “You do know that it’s frogs, not fish, that are supposed to turn into a prince when you kiss them, right?” (I wanted to add a “ribbit” at the end, but I figured that might be a bit too forward, so I left it out.) She replied with a clever little comment about how she didn’t want to get warts, so she was going to stick with fish, and the dance began.
Unlike other girls that I had met online and off, she was different. She knew how to play the game, but without really playing any games. She was playful and innocent, yet had a seductive edge that made her all the more alluring. After a week of playful banter over text message, we met up for brunch at a local hot spot and right from the get-go, the sparks were flying.
Knowing that this could actually be something real, I tried not to run any game on her, because there seemed to be no need for any of it. By then, however, it had become such a part of who I was that it was almost an unconscious act, like breathing or blinking.
Since most of the women I was dating at the time never really interested me all that much, most dates that I went on only lasted for about an hour or two at most before I end up getting either horny or bored (one usually coinciding with the other). Things were different with this girl, however, and once brunch was over, I didn’t want to part ways with her, even though I knew the separation would only be temporary.
Instead of just doing brunch, which in and of itself was unusual for me (usually the first date was coffee, if that) we ended up spending the entire day together. Glowing with the thrill of burgeoning love, we decided to explore the city together, while also exploring each other, as well — not physically mind you, but emotionally, which for me was a refreshing change of pace.
By the end of the night, we even ended up visiting our old childhood homes and reminiscing about our most cherished childhood moments. Although it was left unsaid, we both knew that this had the potential of being something amazing.
Over the next few weeks, it was clear to everyone who saw us together that we were falling in love. At one point, I even told my grandmother that I thought I had found the woman I was going to marry, which for me was like saying that I had won the lottery.
In the back of my mind, however, a question lingered that for the life of me I couldn’t get rid of no matter how hard I tried – a question that filled me with apprehension and unease:
Was what we had real or had I unconsciously manufactured it using PUA tactics?
I didn’t know.
And the fear that this beautiful thing wasn’t real consumed me like the plague.
Once that fear took hold of me, I began to test her to see if her feelings for me were real by doing things that were almost the exact opposite of what I had been taught in pick-up. Instead of just letting things happen naturally and behaving the way I normally would, I did things like deliberately acting needy or distant in order to see how it would affect the way she responded to me. Anything she did that didn’t perfectly match up with how I was trained a woman should act with a man she truly wanted was taken as fuel for the fire of my suspicions.
From that point on, nothing she said or did went unanalyzed. Every word she spoke, every gesture she made, absolutely everything went under the proverbial magnifying glass. And any misstep, no matter how slight, was another log on the fire burning inside my brain.
One night, my suspicions erupted in a conflagration of wild accusations when she did something seemingly innocuous that I took out of context and turned into the proof that I had been searching for (that probably didn’t even exist). Burned by the fire in my words, she immediately broke up with me and although I begged her to reconsider, she was adamant that we were done… at least for a week.
Although we have tried to rekindle the flame since then, in the end scorched earth doesn’t burn. Once the damage had been done, there was no going back. Somethings once lost are lost forever and can never be found again.
Now, while I would like to say that I learned my lesson from what happened with that beautiful girl what seems like a lifetime ago, unfortunately, that’s not the truth. Earlier this year, I had a similar encounter with another young girl who, in an ironic twist of fate, bore a striking resemblance to the first girl both visually and in temperament.
Even though I could tell that she adored me and wanted me to be her boyfriend, instead of just living in the moment and doing what I would naturally do, I played it according to the rules of the game, while keeping tabs on another girl that I liked at the same time, just in case things didn’t work out with the first one.
Full disclosure: the side girl was also a way to instill a bit of jealousy in the first girl in order to get her to want me more. One of the unfortunate truths that I learned from pick-up is that nothing attracts a woman and gets her to try harder to get you more than knowing that another woman wants you and is also vying for your affections. Shake your head all you want, it’s the truth. And it works like gangbusters… to build attraction.
Attraction, however, is only part of the game. In the end, trust and comfort is far more important, especially to women. And while having two women at the same time does build mountains of attraction in both women, it also kills trust and comfort like a knife to the throat.
That being the case, I’ll bet you can guess what ended up happening in that particular situation. (In all honesty, I could’ve saved it if I really wanted to, but I’ve learned that once the damage has been done, it’s a lot easier just to move on than it is to try to fix what’s already been broken.)
Want to know the ironic part about all of this?
Back when I was in high school and college, before I had ever even heard of the pick-up arts, I had no problem attracting beautiful women into my life. Two of my girlfriends had even done some modeling. Now that I think about it, it wasn’t until I learned the pick-up arts that I started screwing up with the women that I really wanted.
After all is said and done, and the ashes have settled, I now realize that in order to undo the damage that has been done from my years of studying the pick-up arts all I really have to do is the one thing that most pick-up artists say is the biggest mistake that a guy can make…
Just be myself and do what comes naturally… with a little bit of game thrown in once in a while just to keep things interesting.