My Time in the Seduction Community

I was 23 years old and had never had a real girlfriend or really even kissed a girl. Everything else in my life was all sewn up. I was wealthy, I was in a PhD program following my dreams, I even had a little bit of a social life. But I had absolutely no clue about girls. No clue how to get laid, how to get dates, even how to flirt. To the outside world I was a eunuch, but inside I intensely desired affection and love.

(By the way, I'm sure you've heard some girl-unfortunate guys tell you something like, "I'm just not looking for a girlfriend right now", or "I'm not really interested in a relationship right now", or something. It's bullshit. Everyone needs love and affection. Men say these things to save face because they're ashamed of being alone. You want to know who is the most passionate man, who has the most intensely smoldering desire? It's not the French rake, not the emo poet, not the guitarist, not the soldier. It's the geek who people don't even think of as a sexual man.)

It seemed like life was unfair, like I was being kept out of a secret community, the community of people who have significant others. I had noone I could talk to about these things. Certainly not my family, all awash in radical fundamentalist notions (no sex before marriage!). I only had a few friends I could talk to about this sort of thing, and it was a little awkward when I tried. Part of the problem was that I was in denial about the full magnitude of the problem.

For example, in undergraduate days I talked to one of my closest friends about my girl problems. At that time, I was living in the physics building's undergrad lounge. My friend basically suggested I should get an actual apartment. I laughed it off, saying "No way, girls dig rebels." Of course, the apartment wasn't really important; my current wonderful girlfriend, I met while living out of my office at grad school. The real issue was that I had a lot of inner flaws and wasn't really a sexworthy man. My friend wasn't right (if I had bought an apartment, I wouldn't have magically gotten a girlfriend), but he wasn't wrong either. Instead of whine about how life wasn't handing me a girlfriend on a silver platter, I needed to take a good hard look at myself and how to make myself a sexworthy man.

And, eventually, I did. But first, I took a long detour through the shady underground community of pickup artists. The Seduction Community.


INDUCTION INTO THE SEDUCTION COMMUNITY

One night, after a friend's party, I got a car ride home with a girl I had a crush on. She had recently broken up with her long-distance-relationship boyfriend. The conversation was very awkward as I was extremely in my head, contemplating the possibility of asking her out. Finally I did it, but in a really pathetic way, like: "Uhh... I could be your boyfriend... if you want.." Obviously I was turned down cold, but it was an important turning point. It was actually the first time I got up the nerve to ask a girl out, in my life, and I was 23. It snapped me out of my state of blissful denial, and made me realize that things were not right.

I turned to my most reliable, trustworthy mentor at the time: The Internet. For weeks I sealed myself away from the world and devoured the mind-altering literature of the seduction community, soaking up the code words, the techniques, the philosophy, of picking up girls. In retrospect, it was all extremely creepy, but in order to see that it, it was necessary for me to pass through it all and eventually rise above it. My father never taught me how to interact with women, and I had no luck asking friends, so I had to turn to the Internet and the Seduction Community as a father. In some sense, I was an orphan and the Community became my guardian.

But if the Community was a guardian, it was an abusive one, at least initially. The strange doctrines of the Community transformed me from an asexual guy with some close friends, into a sexual but rather creepy guy, without many close friends. This is a common phenomenon of Community induction: like being turned into a vampire, you become a monster before you evolve into a thing of beauty. You become worse before you become better.

It would be over six months before I would get any success, even before I would get my first kiss. But I had a desperate determination. The lover in me was awakened and I was furiously determined not to accept a lifetime of celibacy.

After about a month of clumsily practicing Pickup Art on my own, I made contact with other pickup artists in my city and was inducted into an Ohio-wide secret organization of seductors and seductors-in-training.


TIME IN THE SEDUCTION COMMUNITY

What, exactly, does a pickup artist do? He approaches girls and tries to seduce them. And that's what I did, over and over, going out to clubs and bars again and again.

I have to admit, I wasn't particularly successful. It took a good half year before I even got laid out of it. Eventually, I could get phone numbers and makeouts with ease. But I wasn't really getting much sex, much less finding the love and affection I wanted.

Neither was I very happy in the natural environment of the pickup artist, the nightclub. These days I love taking my girlfriend to nightclubs, but the dynamics then are totally different than when you're going alone (or with other pickup artists) to try and seduce strangers.

While I wasn't very successful in getting laid, I certainly had no shortage of adventure. Crazy adventures every night I went out. I gained a ton of life experience. I had actually never even drunk alcohol until I started going out. (Although, that's not to say I drank heavily when I did go out. Most nights spent hunting at nightclubs, I went totally sober) I had never done drugs. In a single word, I was: SHELTERED. So badly sheltered, looking back now I'm astonished at some of the world views I held pre-community.

Eventually, although I was still not very good, I was good enough to actually mentor the guys who were worse. I found that when I was mentoring someone, my own interactions went really well. Probably because girls could sense my leadership role.

Looking back now, I see that most of the "super secret seduction techniques" fall into one of two categories: obvious flirting tips every guy ought to know, and crap that doesn't work. The flirting tips are things every guy should learn from his dad or brother or some sort of father figure. The crap that doesn't work, is basically superstition. Don't get me wrong, you can still seduce girls with it, but it's no more effective than "Hi. I'm Glowing Face Man. What's your name?"

That said, the secret seduction techniques play a very important role. They give guys like me the little boost of confidence-- or, in my case, even just "hope"-- that they need in order to do what's really important, which is to GO TALK TO PEOPLE. The thing is, if a seduction guru had told me, "you just need to go spend hundreds of hours talking to people and especially to girls", I would've blown it off. But because it was part of a super-secret underground elite community, that gave me the excitement to go put in all that time. I would've had the same amounts of success if I just read basic flirting tips at a regular dating site and then just went and spent hundreds of hours talking to people, without all the seduction theory. In fact, I'd have had much more success because I would've been being my real self. When you're not your real self, everyone can tell.

I did get a lot of confidence and raw, reckless courage from my days as a pickup artist. While completely sober, I could go up to the hottest girl in the venue and start acting like she was my date. No hesitation. Lots of guys in the community complain about "approach anxiety", the fear of approaching a strange woman, but somehow I got over that very quickly and became absolutely fearless.

Maybe the flip-side of being so socially sheltered was that I had less social fear.


TRANSITIONING OUT OF THE SEDUCTION COMMUNITY

Several factors contributed toward my rising above the community. First, I eventually had a regular partner, which quickly annihilated the motivation to actually go out "hunting". Second, I had a healthy resurgence in interests outside of seduction (like mathematics, Japanese, public speaking, and writing this blog). Third, within the seduction community I migrated from the more creepy, deceptive schools of thought toward a much healthier school of thought, one which was much more focused on overall self-improvement and being genuine.

Those factors combined to turn me from "active pickup artist" into "inactive pickup artist", but the final departure came during my Japan trip in Summer 2008.

While I was in Japan, I was having tons of fun and adventures, but at the same time, I was feeling more lonely and horny than I'd ever felt before. I no longer had a regular partner, and in Tokyo there was so little privacy I could hardly even masturbate.

I had tried to run seduction in the Japanese clubs, and even got a couple makeout sessions, but under the influence of the above three factors, I was starting to see how fake and ineffective all the seduction theory really was.

I entered a period of intense meditation and inner reflection. I don't know whether being around all those Buddhist temples helped or not, but somehow I really started to see things more clearly. I decided I wanted to really commit to being more open and being my true self. I decided I wanted to stop focusing on getting a girlfriend and focus instead on being a boyfriend. There's an important distinction there, rather than trying to change the girls, I was trying to change myself and become a better man. At the core level, not just skin deep.

What's interesting is that once I made that mental shift, immediately I became much better at social interactions. Suddenly I found myself talking to people and within five minutes it was like we were lifelong friends. I had a kind of "aura" about me which let me speak directly past the shell of social smalltalk and talk directly to peoples' "higher selves". It felt almost like magic. Eventually it would wear off, but I'm still very interested in just what exactly happened. Was it just that I was spending literally all day every day (except for the inner reflection period) talking to people while I was in Japan? That could very well be it, but it feels like there was something beyond just that. Certainly I'd like to re-attain that level of communication, and keep it.


BAD HABITS FROM THE SEDUCTION COMMUNITY

I still have some bad habits from the seduction community. When I'm nervous in a social situation, I sometimes become extremely insincere, telling transparent tall tales to mask the real me, and acting immature (in Community terms, it's called being a "dancing monkey"). I'm more conscious of that now after it really upset my girlfriend one time, and hopefully I won't ever lapse back into dancing monkey mode.

I also tend to view other men through a seduction community lens, especially when they're interacting with my girlfriend. Because I spent a long time around seductors, I have a nagging mistrust of other men.

I've also been told by several women that I somehow had mannerisms which made them think I was extremely sexually experienced. When the truth is that, even after spending a couple years in the Seduction Community, I'm really not that experienced.

Seduction is not to be pursued lightly, for it can really alter a man in profound ways. But then again, change is good. But if I could go back in time and become a mentor for my past self, I would teach him much differently.


Since I began writing Glowing Face Man while I was still in the community, the articles here kind of provide a timeline illustrating the later half of this story. Generally, the earlier the article, the less sincere and genuine. Let's take a look at some of the articles I've written:


Deeply Immersed In The Seduction Community

The World's Greatest Website! (My very first article, not very genuine at all!)

Point Focusing (This article really makes me cringe. What was I thinking?! I've thought of deleting it or rewriting it from scratch, but I'll leave it up as a historic artifact)

Your Apologies? Sorry, No Thanks! (Pretty characteristic of a pickup artist, although I'll still stand by much of what I wrote there)


Migrating Toward A More Genuine School Of Seduction

Short Story: The Mirror (Note the last two sentences)

Book Review: The Power Of Now (This very new-agey, lovey-dovey, hippy book is actually extremely popular in the Seduction Community. It's one of the few "secret seduction technologies" which actually has real merit)

The Mirror Model Of Social Interaction (One of my few original contributions back to the Seduction Community)


Leaving The Seduction Community And Resolving To Be Totally Genuine

Meeting The Geisha (I get very symbolic and philosophical in the later half)

The Nimbus Quest: Introduction (I just re-read this and was shocked at how much truth I wrote here. I really need to get around to putting more energy into this project)

Western Pimps Vs. Asian Idols (Especially note the last paragraph)


Overall, my time in the Seduction Community gave me some very unique perspectives. It changed me and opened me to a whole world which I had been cruelly sheltered from. It was far from the optimal path to take, and indeed I paid a lot for taking it, and I would mentor myself differently if I could go back in time. But it was infinitely better than accepting a lifetime of loneliness and asexuality.

Now, I'm with an absolutely wonderful girlfriend. Did I use seduction techniques to win her? Of course not; but every day, we seduce each other anew with renewed passion and love. When we met, I wasn't even thinking of her as a potential mate; but the chemistry was so strong between us that things just happened naturally :)


Here are some other articles I wrote. Without looking at the dates on the articles, try to guess about what time I wrote them, based on how genuine they are :)
Getting The Girl: What Can We Learn From Indiana Jones?
Is Society Biased Against Smart People?
The Throw: Reactivity Vs. Responsiveness
Some Things I'm Ashamed Of
Self-Responsibility