What It's Like to Be the Woman at a Pickup Artist Workshop

I first read The Game, the controversial bestseller exploring the culture of pickup artists (PUAs, for short), when I was 22 and I've remained fascinated ever since. The PUA lifestyle, which has a reputation for being misogynistic, manipulative, and devious, is devoted to forming strategies for picking up women. I'd heard the conversation openers in bars, and recognized that some of the methods had even worked on me. The idea of being vulnerable to them made me a little uncomfortable, and I wanted to know more, if only to be able to detect them when it was happening.

So when I heard that Neil Strauss, the author of The Game, helms a self-help program for pickup artists called Neil Strauss' Stylelife Academy, and that two friends of mine (Byron Seingalt and Jay Schultz) teach the weekend-long boot camps, I opted to tag along to see what I could glean from a workshop that claims to teach me how to hit on women like me.

Video via Stylelife Academy on YouTube

The first day of the bootcamp began in Jay's apartment in Los Angeles. A sofa and some chairs were haphazardly arranged into a circle in the living room, where Byron and Jay—known respectively in the pickup community as "Evolve" and "the Sneak"—were waiting for students to arrive.

Byron is bearded and handsome, in a masculine, vampirish sort of way. He studied genetics at Yale before coming to work for Strauss. His book on seduction, Attract and Seduce, offers a four-step system for "attracting beautiful, high-caliber women and becoming the most interesting guy in the room."

And then there's Jay. If Byron is a movie villain, Jay is the wacky sidekick. He's warm and easy to talk to; he keeps his wild, curly hair swept up into a gravity-defying ponytail. When he read The Game as a lonely teenager and began taking responsibility for how girls saw him instead of being resentful, he says his life changed.

Byron was in the middle of a rant about the alpha male, directed at no one in particular, when the students began shuffling in. First to arrive was Eric, a sweet-faced redhead with a mustache and an exaggerated Southern accent. Then came Tomas, a young-looking Hispanic guy, followed by two bald men, John and Paul, who arrived separately but both in burgundy button-ups. Paul was English. A salt-and-peppered fellow named Charles showed up not long after, and finally there was Alex, who had a red-blooded, clean-shaven Texan sort of vibe. I was struck by, on the whole, how reasonably attractive they were.

It felt like the first day of school, except instead of children fidgeting in their seats, it was grown men—and me. I could tell that my presence made them uncomfortable. Byron began by discussing the nature of seduction and how it applies to everything, whether or not we're paying attention. He doesn't believe in "naturals," he professed; he believes in people who are practiced.

The first principle to learn was to always be the exception, he said. He referenced a Chris Rock joke about how, when men talk to women, they're really saying, "How about some dick?" So women develop knee-jerk reactions to men who approach them—much the way we brush past petitioners on the street. The students' job was to be the guy who's not offering penis on a platter. Making people feel comfortable in conversation, he stressed, was the primary goal.

Byron and Jay gave some examples of conversation openers, all of them questions. There was the cashmere sweater one, which goes, "Hey, quick question! I've gotta get out of here in a second, but I was planning on getting my friend's little sister a cashmere sweater for her birthday, and she wears both smalls and mediums. If someone gave you a sweater, would you rather it be a little too small or a little too big?" In the coffee shop version, you stage a phone "conversation" within earshot of a girl, debating which to get, so it's natural to ask her about it.

They had the students pair off to practice saying openers to each other and then answering the questions—over and over again, all at the same time. The cacophony of pickup lines drowning each other out was absurd. Half the group was stiltedly reciting the lines, but a few were quite natural.

"It's like acting," I whispered to Byron. That's the whole point, he said. "You're always trying to put the best parts of yourself out there. That in itself is a show."

Each student was to aim to do four to ten "sets," or cold approaches, with real-life girls at a designated club that night. Before it began, I privately asked Byron and Jay about the perception that every guy who pursues pickup is after barrels of pussy.

Jay told me how, years ago, he desperately wanted to have a one-night stand. He finally got a girl home and then, once in the act, came almost immediately. That was a necessary step toward becoming more evolved, he explained, since only by experiencing his fantasy's awkward realities could he discover that he preferred sex when it was serial.

Though there will always be those with less savory goals, Byron and Jay said what many of their students are looking for is simply a larger selection. They may even want to fall in love or get married, but nobody should settle for the first person who comes along because the pool they're choosing from is small or nonexistent. And, while it's important to work on yourself personally, Byron said, practical experience is realistically the only way to break through that social hymen (my term). That's why guys come to Stylelife. Often, they're desperate.

At the bar later, I watched the students nervously shifting their weight back and forth, sneaking glances at nearby girls. You could practically see their mothers waiting around the corner to scoop them up and rock them. I felt the urge to give them all hugs.

Video via Stylelife Academy on YouTube

The next morning, we heard about everyone's experiences. Overall, it was uncomfortable, but a couple of the guys managed to enjoy themselves. Paul seemed to have the most luck.

Byron began discussing ways of adding value—like being able to give sincere compliments that aren't looks-based, and knowing about a variety of things. "The more you know," he lectured, "the more conversations you're capable of being a part of."

And then I heard the word I was most anticipating: negging. A neg is an insult wrapped in a compliment, and is perhaps the best known, most hated element of the PUA world. Negging, Byron and Jay told us, falls under what the seduction community calls "active disinterest"—basically anything that could potentially plant a seed of doubt in a girl's mind about whether you like her. Things like teasing and leaving the conversation hanging also work, or saying, "You're amazing! You'd be great for my friend."

Active disinterest, they explained, is designed to deactivate a girl's automatic reaction to a pattern (an assumed offering of dick), so she can respond to the person, creating room for a real connection. Jay reiterated, "It's still real, whether or not we think about it."

I mean, he's right. In my dating life, I make fun of guys, call them out on things, and make comments which, if I'm being honest, are subconsciously intended to make them feel just a teensy bit insecure. I essentially practice a version of active disinterest just inherently. So why exactly, I wondered, is it taboo to try to learn something that comes naturally to so many?

Jay told me he thought everyone should try to get to a place where they don't decide they like someone before they know her, or because she's hot. That way, it's appropriate to plant seeds of doubt, because they're real.

He and Byron added that people should avoid referring to human beings as "obstacles," stop rating women with numbers, and ditch the term "friend zone"—anything that implies a woman's only value is sexual. This wasn't at all what I'd expected to hear in a pickup workshop.

I got to know some of the guys better at the club that night. Charles, the salt-and-pepper-y one, told me, "I'm not here to hook up with a bunch of chicks. It's more about improving my social skills and bedside manner with my patients." Charles is a chiropractor who's nice-looking if you like Michael Keaton (and I do), but he seemed uncomfortable whenever he spoke. It detracted from his attractiveness, but I had hope.

The other guys had similarly fascinating stories: Eric had studied meditation in India and joined Stylelife when he returned because he hoped to attract more women. He wanted to find someone he's compatible with, rather than settling for the first girl who's interested in him. Paul, who was stylish and conventionally good-looking, told me, "It's easier for me to talk to the chief executives of the top 500 companies in the UK than it is to talk to those two girls over there," gesturing to two mildly attractive women across the bar. I learned that he'd set a goal to do 1,000 approaches in two years, and write online "field reports," as they're called, about all of them.

Video via Stylelife Academy on YouTube

On the last day of the workshop, the guys seemed more comfortable, their body language relaxed. But we had yet to address a crucial moment: the kiss. Making the first kiss memorable was important, but if she rejects it, Byron said, don't act weird or get angry. Take responsibility. You read the moment wrong. He suggested saying, "You're awesome. I just felt like I had to do that." It might make her decide to kiss you after all, but mainly it's a nice thing to do. And, worst-case scenario, he noted, you end up with a cool friend.

Especially for the world of pickup, in which the most talked-about programs recently are the horrifically misogynistic ones headed by men like Roosh V and Julien Blanc, who've been banned from multiple countries, a lot of this seemed kind of revolutionary. They're saying women can also make good… friends? Even after they don't want to sleep with you?

Jay hit on health, grooming, fashion, and various ways of increasing your perceived external value. He told the students to think of four words that described how they wanted to be seen by women. I studied their faces, trying to guess their answers as Jay played the Jeopardy theme.

They selected words like protector, honest, kind, and secure. A few guys threw out smooth and exciting, but on the whole it was really… nice. Paul, who wanted to be powerful, charismatic, and exhilarating, was the only exception.

During the goodbye dinner, Paul quietly told me he'd met two women the night before and slept with both of them in his hotel room. He showed me a picture of the three of them in bed. I laughed.

I finally talked to Tomas, who'd been quiet with me throughout the weekend. "Everything they're teaching is stuff I've learned in my social evolutionary classes," he told me, referring to his psychology degree, "but learning the principles and applying them are two completely different things." Tomas was reluctant to read The Game at first. He's not interested in sleeping with random women at all. He joined Stylelife because, again, he wanted enough options to find the right person one day.

Yeah, I thought to myself, I guess I want that too.

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