Why I Hate South Beach/Miami

Living in Florida all my life, I am very familiar with the state.  Some places are great, some places are okay, and some places are just downright awful.  One of those downright awful places is Miami.  

I've been to Miami, primarily South Beach, four times within the last two years and I'm never going back.  All four times I went down there were related to pickup, whether it was a seminar or a bootcamp.  All four times were completely miserable from the minute I got there to the minute I left, and the only thing good about Miami is the road that leads out of it.  

The irony is Miami is the one place most people think of when they think of Florida, yet when you go there it's nothing like the rest of the state.  Instead it's like being in Southern California, but worse.  

First thing you will notice when you get to South Beach is how abysmal the traffic and parking is.  Granted, I think New York City is actually worse in this regard, but at least there you don't have to drive even if you live a relative close distance outside the city.  In South Beach, there is no public transit, or at least no reliable public transit.  Thankfully we have Uber, or else you would have to drive everywhere even if you've flown in from out of town.  Taxis are unreliable and the drivers are dickheads.  

Second, the people.  The people in South Beach are some of the worst people on the planet.  They're rude, they're vulgar, and it's like they go out of your way to make your experience an awful one.  Not just the general public there, but even those working in customer service.  Everyone talks about how rude New Yorkers are, but at least there's SOME justification for their rudeness.  In New York City, just about everyone there is on a time crunch.  These are super serious people making a huge living in the financial capital of the world, so everyone is trying to be efficient and not waste any time.  Therefore, there's zero to no tolerance for those who get to the front of the line and still don't know what they want to order while fifty people are waiting behind them.  Even so, people are friendly if you do ask for directions and there are places where customer service is top notch.  It's actually way worse in Miami, let alone the fact that it's supposed to be a world-class vacation spot, so shouldn't the customer service be at least a tad bit better?  Even places like Panera Bread suck down there.  

Third, everything is a ripoff there, from parking to food to hotels to alcohol.  Beer costs no less than eight bucks, water is sold at a premium, you're SUPER lucky to find a parking space you don't have to pay out the ass for (unless you just park in the Washington/Collins garage, which is mandatory if you plan on staying there for a while), and you get what you pay for when it comes to hotels.  If you want to stay in a decent place, you better be willing to pay at least $500 a night or else you're going to have to settle for a dump.  Even AirBnB hosts charge out the wazoo there.  

Fourth is just the overall atmosphere.  South Beach is for the super rich and super good-looking, glamorized in rap videos by Lil Jon.  People there party and snort coke for a living, like 24/7.  Even if I was super rich and good-looking, I would never visit there again, let alone live there.  Pickup companies love to hold bootcamps there though, and they wonder why most of their students feel miserable from the experience.

My Best Seductions Required Little To No Effort On My Part (And Why Pickup Is BULLSHIT!)

I'm really surprised that Penn & Teller never did an episode of the Bullshit show about the pickup community.  After all, they covered things such as aliens, ghosts, organic food, astrology, and even went after the self-help industry as well as network marketing/MLM companies.  The closest they ever came to an episode knocking the pickup community was the season 2 episode "The Business of Love", which bashed dating advice and modern dating customs in general.  I heard that they even tried to get Ross Jeffries on the show but he declined.  I would have loved to have seen an episode where Penn & Teller mock pickup by saying some stupid canned lines to the women they usually have on the set, and then have the camera crew go around interviewing local lairs and showing a live recording of a bootcamp.  I heard there were so many episode ideas that they were considering for the Bullshit show but had to handpick a few.  Hopefully Penn & Teller will bring the show back someday, even though now it might be unlikely they would create an episode on pickup since it's a dying industry.

Just briefly, I want to summarize my best seductions and why Neil Strauss and other 'gurus' would discredit them.  My best seductions were mainly through dancing.  Because I'm a relatively good dancer, having been involved with the latin dance scene for the past four years, many girls find that attractive.  I don't even have to say a word; I can just ease into a makeout and go from there if I can tell the girl is into me.  But guess what Neil Strauss, the "greatest pickup artist in the world", told me personally?  That dancing with a girl doesn't count as physical escalation (or 'kino' escalation as they like to call it).  How does it not count?  If a girl dances with me, it's by choice; it's not like it's a forced arrangement.  Plus, the majority of girls I dance with are complete strangers.  Granted, there are girls who just like dancing and have no interest in most of the guys she dances with, but I can certainly escalate much faster through dancing, especially through more seductive dances like bachata or kizomba, with very little effort on my part than I can if I throw out some shitty-ass canned lines and magic tricks/bar cons like Neil and other gurus in the community tell you you're supposed to do.  Nevertheless, I was an ignorant motherfucker at the time and believed what the guys with the credibility to their names said.  In other words, straight up drinking the kool-aid.  It really set me back and make me shoot myself in the foot many times with all the garbage theory thrown out there, like how you shouldn't make out with a girl on the dance floor, or you need to build attraction before you can escalate and if she backs off from your physical advances then you somehow didn't build enough attraction, or if she flakes on you than you screwed something up in the interaction, never taking into account where the girl is coming from.  

The irony is that the pickup industry likes to point out a lot of myths with conventional wisdom, yet they create a lot of myths of their own.  The first myth is that women are far more into a guy's personality than they are with his looks, lifestyle, etc.  Yes, a good personality does help, but that's true with both genders.  The pickup industry however leads you to believe that women are some completely different alien race that have crazy psychic powers yet can be fooled into becoming attracted to a guy if he just has the perfect body language and he says the most intriguing and funny things, even if he is obese and lives with his parents.  That leads into the second myth, how a guy's attraction for a woman is like a light switch, in that a guy will automatically be attracted to a girl just by looking at her, and a girl's attraction for a guy is like a volume knob, meaning that a girl's attraction builds if the guy does all the right things, passes her shit tests, etc.  Again, this is really stupid.  First off, if this were really the case, online dating would be pretty much useless since there's not real way to express yourself on those sites and the best way to convey yourself is through your pictures.  While women do get more emotional over certain things, at the end of the day they are not much different at all from men; women are attracted to hot guys as much as men are attracted to hot girls.  Of course there's other factors for a guy such as how much money he makes or what his social status is, and his ability to lead is taken into consideration as well.

One of the biggest fallacies of pickup is how they tell you to be the buyer; not the seller, but at the same time they suggest going up to every girl in the venue and 'plow' through interactions and 'burn them to the ground', even if the girl is clearly not interested from the getgo.  Some examples even include talking to a totally non-receptive girl for seven minutes or more for the mere chance that she'll cave and then fuck you after.  Pickup also focuses mainly on talking your way into a girl's pants.  RSD has mixed views on this seeing that they're rooted in traditional pickup, but most other companies believe you have to build attraction by telling intriguing stories and being cocky/funny, etc.  I personally am not a big talker.  Never have been, and I get annoyed by people who talk for ten minutes on a point that they could have summed up in 10 seconds, which makes me think I would fit in better in New York City.  Talking over loud music at a club is especially annoying.  I realize now that a lot of pickup advice comes from guys who don't go to a lot of clubs often but might go to a couple just to say they go to clubs, and the ones who do go aren't successful.  Girls are not in clubs to have a 'nice' conversation and to listen to some random dude's intriguing stories.

More on this later.  

My RSD Bootcamp Experience

I figured I would get this out there while it's fresh on my mind.  In the five years I've been involved in pickup, I've gone on three bootcamps.  One was with Stylelife and the two others were with Real Social Dynamics.  I may talk about the Stylelife bootcamp, but right now all I'm going to say is it's mainly like any typical PUA bootcamp where the instructors give you an opener to use and then tell you to use a line or "DHV" on all the girls you open.  The instructors don't get laid, at least not with the girls that they cold approach in bars and clubs, but they're really good at convincing you that they successfully do every week.  It really doesn't matter at this point because Stylelife, like much of the rest of the pickup industry, is going the way of the dodo.  I want to focus on RSD for two reasons though.  Number one is because I went on both bootcamps relatively recently (first one in October 2015 and second in February 2016).  Second and most importantly, RSD is not your typical run-of-the-mill pickup company; they were the first pickup company to make it to the mainstream, they've become the #1 frontrunner and flagship company of the pickup industry for many years, they have the most number of followers and a very strong YouTube presence, and unlike just about every other company in the industry, they have evolved with the times past running routines and gimmicks and placed much of their focus on natural game and inner game/self help.  Also, an RSD instructor gets laid FAR more often than any typical PUA guru, so they do at least practice what they preach.  With all that said, when you pay $2,000-$3,000 for an RSD bootcamp, you're definitely going to get one badass bootcamp that just totally blows the competition out of the water and you'll go from "chode to champ" in only 3 to 5 days, right?  Well not quite...

First of all, before I get into talking about my bootcamp experience, I just want to say that I'm not here to bash any of the instructors.  They all do their jobs well and everyone has a different bootcamp experience.  I'll even still watch the occasional RSD video on YouTube because, while some of their advice might still be ingrained into old school pickup or typical self-help advice, they still put out good content from time to time.

Just a little bit of background too, I first heard about RSD like most people - by reading The Game.  I wonder if Neil Strauss realized that he heavily promoted RSD in his book when he was trying to condemn it and its founder Owen Cook aka Tyler Durden.  I first took interest in it myself when I watched Julien's free tour video titled "Rejections and the Harsh Truth of Pickup", and I got hooked from there.  However, it wasn't until I got really sick of the canned routine shit and all the drama that happened with Stylelife that I decided to check out RSD more.  Luckly I knew a guy who lived locally that used to be a bootcamp assistant for Brad and he let me borrow a bunch of his DVDs, including Foundations and The Blueprint.  It all definitely changed my perspective on pickup and meeting women in general after being exposed to canned routine game for so long, and the product I really got a lot out of was Ozzie's book The Physical Game, which I still think has a lot of great stuff in it even to this day.  It wasn't long before I went to my first RSD live event, which was Alex's free tour and Hot Seat in October 2014 (one of his last).  I thought just going and attending that was a real transformational experience, and it clearly changed the way I viewed pickup and how I went about doing pickup in general.  If I got that much out of doing a hot seat, I was sure to get a lot out of a bootcamp.  However, due to obvious financial reasons, it would be another year before I would attend a bootcamp.

In early 2015, I started following Todd a lot.  I liked his videos because he said a lot of stuff I could really relate to, even if much of it was ingrained into old school pickup as he was one of the original residents of Project Hollywood.  Therefore, it was only natural that I would choose him as my bootcamp instructor (on top of enrolling in Valentine University and buying 3 Girls a Day), and what better place to do it than New York City - a place I've never been to but always wanted to go to for many reasons, super hot women being one of them.

I'll try to remember as much as I can.  Basically the bootcamp followed the free tour.  I was instructed to meet outside this hotel in a relatively quiet area of midtown.  Todd arrived with his assistants as well as Madison, who was an up-and-coming instructor at the time.  Instead of three bootcamp students, there were six of us and it was both Todd and Madison conducting the bootcamp.  I didn't really know who Madison was at the time and I never saw any of his videos, but I was about to find out.  So basically the bootcamp started out with the instructors briefing us with what to expect, and their whole mantra was "The first rule of bootcamp is to do whatever the fuck your instructor tells you to do".  So that means if your bootcamp instructor tells you to approach and open a set with some big ass alpha dude making out with some hot chick, or some bitchy-ass looking girls ready to tell you to fuck off as soon as you approach, you better do it or else...

So after briefing, they had us all jump into an Uber to drive over to the venue, which I forgot the name but it was some little crowded dive bar in the Chelsea/Meat Packing District area.  It's a good thing I'm somewhat used to such venues, being someone who used to hang out in the SoHo/Hyde Park area of Tampa all the time, so I can't imagine how this would have been had I gone in as a complete newbie.  Once we got in, Todd started telling each of us which groups to approach.  I got really lucky that the first girl I approached was into me and I was dancing with her like crazy, but I didn't find her very attractive and I felt I could do better, but unfortunately things went downhill from there.  Madison told me to do some crazy ass shit I didn't want to do because only a creep/weirdo would do it, so he made me do pushups in the middle of the bar, sending a message that he will embarrass the fuck out of you if you don't do what he says.  There came a point where right there and then I almost wanted to say fuck it and leave, but I didn't want to be a deserter and plus I paid good money to be there, so I hung in there.

Basically what RSD instructors like to do on their programs is have their students spam approach every girl in the club, and instead of just leave if the girl doesn't show any sign of interest, they make you 'plow' through until the girl just gets up and leaves or until she just finally caves and starts showing interest.  I hear some instructors even force you to go as far as only leaving if the girl threatens to get the bouncer or physical violence, even if it means following the girl if she gets up and leaves.  Their advice is still ingrained into old school pickup when it comes to how a girl reacts, making you think that the girl is simply rejecting your approach rather than her just not being interested in you based on your looks or style.  It really fucks with your head because they make it seem like you have control over every single situation and that you just have to push past a girl's "bitch shield" and a girl will only be attracted to you if you're "in state" and "in total congruence".

I'm not going to go into too much detail for the rest of the Todd/Madison bootcamp because much of it was pretty much the same.  We spam approached girls in popular bars and clubs AND out on the street, something I struggle with and for good reason; it's just unnatural and downright creepy.  I don't know about you, but I don't like being approached on the street, so why would some chick?  There was one part of the second night of the bootcamp though where one of the guys got with this pretty hot girl and Todd thought it would be the perfect opportunity to distract her not as hot friend, who I ended up making out with.  Me and the other student pulled them to this 24 hour diner, but they were with one of their other friends who hooked up with these two other guys.  I didn't care to go all the way and I'm glad that I didn't because I wasn't really attracted to the girl I was supposed to be with.

Overall, the first bootcamp was OK.  It was cool to hang out with Todd in person and all that jazz, but I definitely do not believe it was worth $2,000.  I think a properly run bootcamp should be tailored to the student's interests and strengths rather than just trolling places that are popular but not so exclusive that you can't get in.  But I couldn't be quick to judge because I was already set to do the Miami Model Season 5-Day bootcamp, one that I hear that's so badass that only alumni students can go on it, so it was like I had unfinished business.  I heard Tyler himself was involved with this bootcamp and so were several other instructors.  I was in for a real treat, and this would DEFINITELY be the bootcamp experience I've been waiting for.  Right?

First, let me just come out and say it - I LOATHE Miami Beach.  It is one of the most god awful places in existence and is only one step above being a third world dump.  Everything there sucks.  The parking, the people, the hotels, the traffic, the customer service, the price of everything especially alcohol...the beaches are pretty nice, but even that gets ruined whenever they have these major parties where no one bothers to pick up after themselves.  But some how, some way, it's one place I visited FOUR times in the last two years - all pickup related.  However, every minute I spend there, be it a day, a few days, or heaven forbid a week, is complete misery and hell.  With that said, I did vow that this would be the very last time I would ever visit South Beach, and I certainly would be going out with a bang since I would be there for five days.

I booked at a shitty hostel where I had to share the room with some douchebags because you have to pay a ton of money to get standard quality in South Beach.  Usually I don't make a big deal out of where I'm staying because I usually only go there to sleep, but the experience in South Beach is so bad that even sleeping is painful.  Most of the week, I was not well rested, I didn't eat the best of foods, and the only exercise I got was from walking a bunch.  Anyways, this five day bootcamp was the same week as the RSD Winter Summit, where I got to meet all the instructors in person.  They were running the Model Season bootcamp a little differently this year where instead of switching off instructors, you stick with the same one throughout the entire program, so I chose Max since I thought he was the coolest.  At the time, I was doing the Good Looking Loser approach anxiety program, so I felt like I was much more prepared for this bootcamp and I knew what to expect.  Max was definitely a cool guy, but blurted out the same mantra of state control and how a girl turns you down only because you weren't in congruence or some BS like that.  I won't go into too much detail with this bootcamp because much of it was the same - spam approach every girl you see and plow through the interactions.  The major difference was the two extra days we had, we did day game out at Lincoln Road Mall, where we would embarrass ourselves trying to hit on these model girls who could barely even speak english only to be blown out in the worst ways possible.  I'm surprised from this experience I wasn't physically assaulted.  In fact, I'm surprised in the five years I've done pickup that I was never physically assaulted, even though there were times I felt like I deserved it.  The last night of the bootcamp was pretty much a bust.  Imagine every RSD instructor as well as all the bootcamp students and a ton of guys attending summit all meeting at Nikki Beach on a Sunday night trolling the place.

At the end of the day, an RSD bootcamp isn't much different from any typical PUA bootcamp.  Sure, they don't make you recite any canned openers or routines/gimmicks to go up to use on the hottest girls in some exclusive nightclub like LIV in Miami, but spam approaching a bunch of girls in the venue and out on the street isn't much different.  It's especially bad when the venues that they choose to run bootcamp at are venues heavily frequented by many PUAs, like Delano or Lincoln Road Mall in Miami.  At this point, I say it's not worth it, but everybody's bootcamp experience is different.  There was one guy who got laid every night on bootcamp, but he was an extremely good-looking European guy who was already getting laid a lot prior to the bootcamp.  Not sure why he wanted to blow $3,000, but whatever.  I really think a bootcamp should be tailored to the student's strengths and interests; not to his weaknesses or what's mainstream and popular.  Neil Strauss himself at his conference I attended in 2014 flat out told me in front of the audience there that just meeting girls who want to do latin dancing is lame and I should be doing bar cons instead to reach out to more women.  Fuck that.  I can't say for sure, but I imagine that if I requested we went to a latin dance social on bootcamp, they'd do everything but with the excuse that I need to get out of my comfort zone, another BS mantra of the pickup community.  Okay, I can understand getting out of your comfort zone by leaving your bedroom at least every once in a while, but forcing yourself to endure venues you don't even enjoy with people who don't even get along with?

Ok, I've rambled a lot on the subject and I'm sure I will ramble even more on another day at another time.  For now, I'm going to go out and do something I really enjoy - attending a latin dance social.

My Experiences In Pickup: David DeAngelo

What's the best way to start this series than at the beginning with the one source that got me started with the Pickup Community - David DeAngelo and Double Your Dating.

I already talked about how I was introduced to David DeAngelo and ultimately the Pickup Community via intriguing link on OkCupid.  I downloaded the ebook Double Your Dating and I was completely amazed by what I read.  Now here was someone who I felt wouldn't hold back and was telling the honest to God truth as to why I haven't been successful with women in the past.  Most poeple, particularly friends and family, would give the typical advice and think that I was doing everything right in being a nice guy who will eventually get the girl, but of course that never panned out.  It was because of reading Double Your Dating that I just miraculously discovered and decided that "sagas" were a waste of time.  A saga is another name for a crazy obsession/crush over a single girl for a long period of time, or what the PUA Community likes to refer to as "oneitis".

Not only did I follow the advice from Double Your Dating, but I also subscribed to the emails David sent out on a daily basis.  It was a lot of the same advice from the book but reemphasized.  Basically the jist of the advice was women were mainly attracted to personality moreso than looks or wealth, insecurity and neediness kill your chances with women, and being cocky and funny was key.  Cocky & Funny was David DeAngelo's signature dating strategy, if that's what you'd like to call it.  He further emphasized on this in his second ebook called Attraction Isn't A Choice, which talked about how women are attracted to jerks moreso than nice guys even though nice guys are clearly a better choice.  From there I got a couple of CD's from his monthly interview series, where he interviews guys like Dr. Paul and talk about subjects like the psychology of women and perseverance through dating challenges as well as strategies for online dating.

Later, I took interest in David DeAngelo's DVD series, which covered multiple subjects like body language, cocky comedy, meeting women in clubs and bars, inner game, and even the advanced dating program.  I was hooked, but I didn't have the money to buy all of them outright.  I started with a few at a time.  The first once I checked out was the Cocky Comedy DVDs.  Basically this DVD series, like the rest of David D's DVD series, are filmed seminars focusing on specific topics.  David will do a presentation and then have several guest speakers come up and talk.  This is how I got introduced to many of the guys involved in the community including guys like Mystery and Sean Stephenson.  I was really drawn in to Sean Stephenson, who gives some of the best motivational talks and I even went on to read a couple of his books after.  There were guys advertising bootcamps and coaching etc., most of which didn't exist by the time I watched the DVDs since most of them were filmed in the mid 2000's.  Since I didn't know better and since I was really bought in by the marketing, I just had to have more and more and more, thinking as long as I soak up all the information, I will overcome all the obstacles standing in my way to have the best relationship/sex life ever.

There were some other pickup gurus that I got into either as a result of watching one of David D's programs or through one of the other gurus, like using the network to my advantage.  As I started getting into these other guru's, my interest in David DeAngelo started to significantly wane.  However, I was following a new found philosophy and knew I couldn't turn back.  The problem was by the time I got into David D's material, he was already facing retirement.  He only came out with one new product since then, which was Becoming Mr. Right.  After that, he officially retired the David DeAngelo name and became Eben Pagan and started talking about finance and entrepreneurship instead of dating and sex.  I never met David D in person, and from what I understand I'm glad that's the case; I heard he isn't very nice in person and has been rude to followers of his.  I think he even blocked me from his Eben Pagan Facebook page when I mentioned David DeAngelo in the comments on one of the posts.

Looking back, I feel like an idiot for falling for a lot of the marketing.  I spent hundreds of dollars on David D material.  However, a common thing I'm going to bring up over and over again is I cannot bash anything without experiencing it first.  Besides, getting into David D's material was what I started to see as the first step in the right direction, but I would later continue to walk through the marketing and BS.

Join me next time as I talk about the Secret Spartan Society (SSS), a local group in Tampa that I partook in based on my interest in David DeAngelo and pickup.

Why Did I Get Involved With Pickup In The First Place?

In this segment of my talks about my involvement of the Pickup Community, I will talk about how I originally got into pickup and why.

From my understanding, pickup has been going on for a while.  It started out with Ross Jeffries, who developed a system based off of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) called Speed Seduction back in the 90's.  Then in the late 90's and early 2000's, we had Erik Von Markovik aka Mystery, who developed his own set of routines and seduction tactics based on years of trial and error in the field.  Back then, the Pickup Community was nothing more than just a handful of guys posting on some messageboard.  However, one of the guys who came about the Pickup Community was Neil Strauss, who back then was mainly known for his articles in Rolling Stone magazine and his autobiographies for Marilyn Manson and Jenna Jameson.  Neil Strauss got involved with the Pickup Community back in the early 2000's, which led to him writing the book The Game, the book that brought to light the entire Pickup Community and paved the way for the once small Pickup Community to develop into what would become the massive Pickup Industry, leading rise to many Pick-up Artists (PUAs) that peaked sometime between 2005 and 2009.

Despite all this, I had absolutely no knowledge of the Pickup Community until 2011, right after I graduated from grad school at the University of Central Florida (UCF).  No one I knew talked about it or even knew anything about it; it was one of those things that was very underground despite becoming mainstream - something very surprising considering that I was on a very large and very active campus.  I discovered pickup on accident.  It was February 2011, things in my life weren't going all that great, and that included my dating life.  I was online searching on OkCupid when all of the sudden I saw a link that said "Nice guys do finish last.  Click here to find out why!".  I was skeptical at first, but it did make me curious so I went to check it out.  The link led me to a video of a guy who went by the name David DeAngelo.  He talked about his ebook Double Your Dating and why you should get it.  I've bought books on dating beforehand, including a Dating For Dummies book, but what really stood out was he was the first guy to mention that he at one time sucked really bad with women but he was about to share how he got really good to the point where he was dating all the hottest women he could ever hope for.  That's what I wanted and that's what drew me in!  I went ahead and paid for the ebook.  I wanted to see if it really did go beyond common sense and traditional dating advice and tell me something I didn't already know.  Sure enough, it did.  Not only that, but it pointed out EXACTLY everything I was doing wrong, from being way too nice to being a pushover to being insecure and needy, etc.  The book kicked my ass, as I would say, and I couldn't wait to get more.  The rest is history.

Five years later, I know now not to trust such shoddy advice and marketing.  However, back then I was not only ignorant, but I was desperate and thus extremely vulnerable to anyone marketing pickup material to me.  I never questioned the validity of the guys marketing it; if I was drawn in by the marketing, that was enough to make me shout "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!".  Why was this?  Well, not only did I never date in high school, but I never dated the entire time I was in college either.  There's two major reasons for this.  1) I wasn't the highly social type and was much more interested in other things, mainly academics and sports I was involved in, and 2) I had very unrealistic expectations.  There would be one or two girls that would come along every year that I would crush and obsess over, believing she's the one and I absolutely MUST get with this girl in order for my life to be complete or else I will be sad and desperate forever.  As I was obsessing over said girl, I thought that no other girl could compare.  I even went as far as fantasizing about said girl and creating stories about where the end goal would be to get with said girl.  Looking back now, I realize how utterly pathetic that was, but the truth is that was the norm and that was reality for me, and it went on for many years.  It very well could have continued on had I not discovered the Pickup Community, so I give it credit for helping me get past that.  After all, the last girl I obsessed over, I was stuck on for a year and a half only for it to amount to absolutely nothing.  Looking back, none of the girls I obsessed over, crushed over, even wrote fantasy stories about, would have been a good match for me.  This is despite thinking at the time they were absolutely perfect and it would be impossible to find another girl or a better girl.  This is especially true with the very last girl I was stuck on, who still lives at home with her parents and wants to live with her family in her small town forever.  No problem with that; but that doesn't support my goals and aspirations at all.

So why was I so vulnerable to shady marketing tactics?  Because everyone around me, be it family members, friends, and society as a whole, made it clear that nothing you do in life is more important than your relationship/dating/sex life.  If you don't have that together, then you are a LOSER even though you are successful in many other aspects.  Throughout my life, I have been judged and ridiculed for not having a girlfriend, not ever being in a long-term relationship, not having an active sex life, etc.  It was like there was something wrong with me because all my friends were in relationships, even if they weren't with the best girls.  My mom was one of the worst offenders.  So overall, I really craved the validation.  I was open to any crazy, manipulative tactic to get any girl I wanted just so I wouldn't feel like a loser and so people would shut up.  The part that made me REALLY desperate was the fact that I just realized that I was already 26 years old, meaning that my 30's was coming up and I was afraid that if I didn't make an effort to get this part of my life handled, it will be too late.  Nothing else mattered.  The problem was, other than get a good job, I pretty much put the rest of my life on hold and made it the most important thing ever, but unfortunately following pickup advice did nothing but backfire.  With that said though, pickup advice did help me get out of my comfort zone and got me into doing stuff I didn't think possible, and I am thankful for that.

Stay tuned as I will go more in depth with the PUA's I was heavily involved in.  I will start by going in more in depth with the first PUA I followed religiously, David DeAngelo.

The Demise of StyleLife

Before reading this post, be sure to read my post from January 2015 Banned From StyleLife to get a basic backstory as to my involvement with this company and why I eventually left.

When I was banned from the Elite Forums at StyleLife and decided to not involve myself with the company anymore, things weren't going so hot over there.  Forum activity was at an all-time low, they hadn't come out with any new material for the past few years, they were offering about half the number of bootcamps in 2015 that they did in prior years, and whether they were going to have their annual world conference in Los Angeles that year was totally up in the air.  Had Neil Strauss not been involved with the company and have him and his legacy from The Game represent the site marketing, it would have gone out of business years ago with the likes of other PUA company websites.  Now however, it looked like Neil Strauss was interested in moving on from the PUA community for good.  His wife was about to have a baby, and he was in the midst of writing a book that would talk about how pickup really fucked up his mind.

When I was banned, I still had forum access but I just couldn't post, so I could at least see what was going on.  To my disappointment, nothing interesting really happened.  Once I was gone, it was back to business as usual.  People were still posting like social robots, the coaches were still giving out the same shoddy advice.  The only difference was the posts were less frequent.  Nothing really stood out other than this tool named Jack Sherwood on the site posting about how his new girlfriend found his copy of The Game and claimed that she's now "winning the game against him" and must game her even more just because she found out he manipulated her with pickup techniques.  I don't even have to comment on the ridiculousness of that...

I predicted that StyleLife wouldn't stay in business within the next five years if they didn't make necessary changes to their business.  Well, I got the five years part wrong.  It turns out it only took about a year for that to happen, and the decline in 2015 was rapid.  First of all, the forum posting became even less frequent than it already was.  Second, they were having trouble filling slots for the few bootcamps that they did schedule for the year.  I found it odd that they would go from having most of the slots open up until only a few days before some bootcamps only for them to be filled up, meaning that they probably got other people to fill those slots who were not paying students.  Third, there was no world conference in 2015.  If there was one, it certainly wasn't advertised let alone advertised well, no one talked about it, etc.  If they had a conference at all, it was probably a completely private event where they handpicked a couple of students to attend - if they had a conference at all.  Fourth, they went from writing some new articles and recycling others to completely recycling articles when they decided to post one at all.  Even their StyleLife Girl interviews, which they were holding every month, dwindled down to pretty much nothing.

You thought 2015 was bad, 2016 has been completely abysmal so far for StyleLife.  They had one bootcamp in LA in January (that no one went on I bet) and haven't had one since.  They went from recycling old articles and material to just flat out not posting anything at all.  I think they still have the calls but I wouldn't doubt that no one gets on them and I'm sure that's going to be axed soon as well.  Some people on the forum at the beginning of the year even complained that none of the videos worked, and I experienced the same problem when I wanted to watch the wing wing wing joke video just for laughs.  Now as of April 2016, forum activity is down to absolute zero.  There has been absolutely no activity on the Elite Forum for almost two months now, the longest the forum has ever gone without anyone posting.  Even their public forum, which I'm sure will stick around forever since it's through vbulletin and anyone can join and post on it, doesn't have much activity; just the once in a while sporadic comment, but there's no one moderating the board it looks like, which probably means if you try to register and a mod has to approve you, you'll be stuck in limbo forever.  Something tells me there probably won't be an annual conference again this year.

What happened?  Did the coaches, the people running the company, and Neil Strauss himself just give up?  They were in complete denial that the company was going under when they banned me, so now is this their way of saving face?  By just walking away, not telling anyone they're closing their doors, and just leaving their website up until the domain expires?  That's most likely the case.  They decided instead of restructuring their business to revive it, the coaches and people running the business decided to just walk off and play Dungeons & Dragons instead.  What about people who are still paying for a monthly membership?  Did they get rainchecks?  I still see they're still advertising memberships, still charging a ridiculous amount, and still using the same bullshit marketing tactics that PUA companies usually use.

At this point, StyleLife is pretty much dead.  It might be still alive and breathing, but it's basically a vegetable.  I don't think it's ever coming back especially since the entire pickup industry is going under.  Even Real Social Dynamics, the frontrunner of the pickup industry, is experiencing a decline.  It will only be a matter of years before the entire industry bottoms up.

I Am Leaving Pickup After Being Involved For Five Years

It has been over a year since I've updated this blog, and I think it's about damn time to update once again.  I've been so busy preoccupied with other things as well as lacking motivation that I just didn't have the willpower to blog, especially since I haven't really gotten settled into this blog after Xanga went down the tubes.

Anyways, I have a LOT to say about being involved in pickup since February 2011 and how and why I decided to all but abandon it in April 2016.  So much so that it will have to be split up into different categories and topics, such as my experience following a certain "guru" or company, where I was and where I'm at now, my bootcamp and seminar experiences, etc.  

There's one company I want to talk about first before I get into anything though...