From Pickup Artist to Pariah (2016) | Hacker News Reader

From Pickup Artist to Pariah (2016)

thecut.com

33 pointsTomte19 comments

I feel for the guy, to be honest. I've been in a good relationship for years now, but I know that bitterness and resentment. If I'd made the mistake of broadcasting my honest thoughts during that time and somebody linked them to me, it would not be pretty.

Bitterness and resentment when one out of dozens of dates leaves you on read? This guy has problems that he brought to the "game". How can a person be anything but gracious to and happy for people that they are dating?

And a reminder, the first rule of Fuck Club is you don't talk about Fuck Club. He dragged his dates and that's antisocial. It creates problems in the community

So the ideal is to adopt an "abundance mentality", right? One where you're so confident and successful that you really don't care if any individual reaction doesn't go your way. It takes a loooong time to get there if you're starting from a point of having dealt with rejection (whether explicit or imagined) for years.

I don't know if everybody's experience is the same, but I was a virgin well past the normal age and every attempt to get into the romantic game crashed and burned for one reason or another. Sure, the first few times can be explained away with truisms and platitudes, but after a while, the thought that you're just broken, undesirable, unlovable starts nagging at you. Every time that some girl dances with you then disappears without giving you her number, when that OKCupid date doesn't get a followup, it's all reinforcing that thought that there's just something wrong with you. Even when you do start seeing success, that thought, that fragment of your self-image, it stays with you. Shedding that part of your identity can be rough transition, and that's if you're aware of it and trying to move past it. Otherwise it just colors all of your future interactions.

You seem like you understand the internal native of your feelings. The guy in article does not.

The proper response is, "I feel terrible that she's not texting me back. But, it's not, in fact, terrible. I can handle it. I'd rather she did text me back, but there's no rule that says people have to be interested in me. I may very well meet someone soon that is interested in me as much as I am in them. I had better do something today to try and meet them instead of sulking."

The guy in the article is more like, "How dare she not text me. She's not even good enough for me. She's old and not that hot."

One lesson to draw from this story is how it is easy to fail to stay anonymous despite what a normal person may think is a good amount of caution.

>Even as Jared tried to build a following in the manosphere, he hid Holistic Game from his friends and customers, with the exception of Jacob. Then, last August, someone — it’s still not clear who — created “Jared and Jacob Said,” which meticulously built the case that the guys behind Holistic Game were Jacob and Jared from Waking Life and then proceeded to lay out the men’s most offensive social-media musings. (Most of the comments were Jared’s; Jacob participated in the podcast but didn’t write any of the tweets or blog posts.)

It's amazing the way people are unwilling to engage with honesty these days. The story about Trey was very sad to me because it showed that even a quintessential Asheville type couldn't get the people to put away the pitchforks. It really doesn't bode well for the country that communities that are "accepting", like Asheville, are unwilling to forgive. Compare to the people calling for forgiveness (after due process and punishment) of Dylann Roof, a hateful mass murderer.

It's all about tolerance and acceptance until it isn't. I understand why people are mad at the guy, but the black-and-white worldviews are on both sides of the polarized divide. Conflating his actions with rape is disingenuous at best, at least from the information presented here, where all the sex was consensual. The way this has progressed is symptomatic of a bigger problem in our society right now. I have no answers, though, since it is nearly impossible to have a discussion with either extreme, at least in my view.

In reality, I don't think there's a polarized divide. The guy's worldview was kind of messed up, a simulacrum of the misogynistic community, which he developed because of his own ok insecurities and the encouragement the misogynists give when you parrot their creed. Most people don't agree with that stuff. But most people don't call for the shunning of the guy. It's more the outrage that surprised me, because Asheville is usually peaceful. But the double standards are strong. You don't see them picketing Bikram yoga centers in spite of the apparent rapey-ness of the founder, who gets franchise money from each center.

Someone who has been systematically deceitful is going to have a harder job persuading people he is repentant and has reformed than, say, someone who has been selfish or greedy (note that I am not alluding to Roof.) Currently, there is an article about Lance Armstrong, who has the same problem.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15274840

Oh, I totally agree, you want sincerity. But ruling out the possibility of reconciliation beforehand is what smells foul to me.

Women wear makeup to simulate beauty and men act "alpha" to simulate success. If we accept one we should be willing to accept the other. The undercurrent of bitterness and negativity prevalent in the online pickup community is a consequence of the fact that most of these men lived most of their lives with little sexual success and harboring an idealistic view of women. When the bubble breaks they're prone to going too far the other way.

some

> Women wear makeup to simulate beauty and

some

> men act "alpha" to simulate success. [...] we should be willing to accept

that different people do different things.

What's your point?

Most women wear makeup and if men knew acting a certain way would increase their chances with women, most would probably do it. Do we really need to add caveats for every special case in every situation?

From what I remember from this "Game" stuff is that it was rather for self development in the first place. And yes, then it's a power tool that comes with great responsability.

Rating girls and writing those stories online has very little to do with the spirit of the original book, which was about having a good time in a respectful manner, really. In other words: this guy got what he deserved.

I mean don't those words mean the same thing?

Ha - I was gonna say "...Is Not That Long of a Trip"

It's as if the angry mob, the paragon of innocence, never talked behind someone's back... /sarcasm

This is the most hilarious thing posted to HN in a while

don't be an asshole.

don't cargo cult confidence.

there. done.

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