This is in response to a question posted by Israeli Hi-Tech Guy in my new Open Thread: So, are you a sort of Israeli PUA? How viable is that lifestyle here?
No, I do not consider myself a Pick-Up Artist for these reasons:
First, in contrast to other parts of the world, picking up girls in Israel is ridiculously easy. In America, it takes a lot of effort to get a girl’s telephone number. In Israel, I’ve found that I can simply walk up to a girl, start talking about anything, and far more likely than not, when I ask her out she’ll be willing to give me her number. That doesn’t mean Israeli girls are easier – it just means that they don’t think giving out their numbers is as big a deal as American girls think it is. To an Israeli girl, agreeing to a date implies little more than acceptance of a free meal, so the difficulty comes much later.
Second, I’m not sure I like what the concept of Pick-Up artistry implies, which sometimes seems to be that the girls being picked up have no say in the matter. Maybe there is some technique that works like that, but in my life, all the girls I meet are adults who are able to make their own adult decisions about agreeing to date me and/or to sleep with me. I don’t think of myself as taking advantage of girls; I think of myself as giving girls an opportunity to do what they mostly want to do anyway (not necessarily with me, just in general because they’re biologically eager for it as much as we are), and I never try to convince a girl to sleep with me if she’s not interested. It’s not worth my time or my effort.
Third, I have watched some pickup videos online and I am amazed at the skill of some of these guys, but it’s definitely not art. Maybe it’s art in the sense that “performance art” is art, but I don’t consider that valid. Similarly, I have a certain routine down for what to do once I get a girl into my apartment: the exact music to play, the exact lights to have turned on, the exact place to stand on the balcony and things to say, the exact movie to watch and the exact time in it to start making out with her. It has nothing to do with the pickup, which already happened long ago, and nothing to do with art.
That being said, I do like the term “game” and consider myself to be… whatever the term is for a guy who uses game. Game has a better connotation to me because that’s what it feels like, and because of the gam root in Greek, which means marriage (in the sense of mating). I stumbled upon game quite accidentally and it changed my life in many ways.
As to the viability of being a Pick-Up Artist or using game as a lifestyle in Israel, I think it’s more than viable in Tel Aviv. This city is packed full and overflowing of girls who want to be seduced, whether it’s in the context of a short-term relationship, a one night stand or something more serious that lasts much longer. In all of these situations, the principles of game apply: I’m in a long-term relationship now and I continue gaming her with all sorts of little game techniques just like I did on our first two dates, before we’d slept together. And I use the exact same game techniques when I meet other girls.
You might like these related posts:
- Girl Profile: BK I met BK online. She was born in eastern Europe,...
- How to find an Israeli girl’s number Girls: Would You Fudge Your ‘Number’ to Be More Attractive...
- Femininity I had one of these great conversations yesterday that stays...
- Game in The Weekly Standard It seems that I’ve read about a hundred people’s comments...
- Girl Profile: SK I met SK online. She is a few years older...
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I know where you’re coming from. I get referred to as a PUA by some bloggers, and I even managed to land my blog on SeductionList (a directory for high-traffic pickup blogs), but I eschew the label too for two reasons:
1) It’s nerdy and pretentious. From what I recall, the seduction community adopted the term “pick-up artist” to differentiate themselves from plain-old players, who they think are abusive towards women or some crap like that. Please.
2) It doesn’t describe me. I don’t troll bars for four hours a night, five days a week looking to score. I passed through the “try to get laid as much as humanly possible” stage while I was still in college. I’m still out there trying to pick up girls, but it’s not my primary focus in life.
I use “gamist”. “Gamer” is sometimes used, but its fallen out of favor as of late.
Damn, I gots to get me to Tel Aviv.
Oh, and good to see you blogging again, dude.
It’s nerdy and pretentious.
Yes, exactly. Why create a term just to turn around and create an obnoxious abbreviation? We live in a hyper-abbreviated and hyper-euphemized age.
It doesn’t describe me. I don’t troll bars for four hours a night, five days a week looking to score.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that too. For medical reasons I actually don’t drink alcohol except on rare occasions, and never have more than one drink except on Purim (even at the Pesach seder, which calls for four cups of wine on an empty stomach, I drink grape juice), so the whole bar thing is not a factor in my life. Of course there is “day game” and I do think I’ve learned quite a bit from guys like Krauser, but to me “day game” is hardly more complex than being outgoing even though I’m an introvert.
I use “gamist”. “Gamer” is sometimes used, but its fallen out of favor as of late.
Yeah… not that there’s anything wrong with video games, but I never got into them at all, so I don’t think I could refer to myself as a “gamer” and keep a straight face. “Gamist” sounds a little better, but it brings back the problem of the made-up words that sound pretentious, and also it sounds like someone who studies game instead of just using it to get an advantage in life.
Damn, I gots to get me to Tel Aviv.
I might have made it sound easier than it is. But it is pretty easy here, especially in the summer, since the girls already aren’t wearing any clothes anyway.
Oh, and good to see you blogging again, dude.
Thanks! I never really stopped, but I had to focus for a while on my revenue-generating projects.
Thanks for the reply. BTW, that’s not my blog.
Oops. I’ve removed the link.
IS the culture in Tel Aviv pretty sexually liberated then?
I understand Tel Aviv to have the most sexually liberated culture in the entire middle east, though for obvious reasons I’ve not traveled to other middle eastern countries. I’d say we’re not as liberated as Bangkok or Amsterdam and somewhat more liberated than New York or Miami.
i never get this shit, we dont we just call ourself cool guys?
OK, the “Battle of the Bods” post on Roissy made me think of this.
How would you rate Israeli girls from different backgrounds? You know, Ashkenazi vs Moroccan vs Yemeni, etc.
I’ve got my own opinion – kind of interested in seeing your analysis and how it compares to mine.
Like the new layout btw.
Nice piece. Just found the link in FB’s recent post on those LA PUA tools.
I do self-define myself as a pick up artist. For me “game” is the toolbox and “PUA” is a lifestyle choice that uses the toolbox, but you could make many other lifestyle choices that still use the same tools (e.g. gaming your wife). I believe adopting the PUA lifestyle is the fastest way to acquire game and it’s that skill set that I want. Eventually I’ll tire of pick up artistry and move on to another hobby, having internalised the skill set.
To split hairs further, I consider a PUA to be a guy who is actively going out to find, attract and seduce women. While the “artist” part of PUA implies a certain threshold of competence, being a PUA is mostly about your behaviours rather than the girls’ responses. Beyond being a PUA is being a Player. A player is a guy who sleeps with lots of different women. It’s the ultimate goal of most PUAs.
Not saying it’s right or wrong, but that’s how I use the terms. As I went further down the path of game I started to drop lots of the nerdy jargon. Somehow it just feels creepy to keep repeating shit like “HB9.5″ or “I forward-stacked from the opener”. Sometimes jargon helps with the economy of prose, other times it just betrays that the writer doesn’t get it.
Nice piece. Just found the link in FB’s recent post on those LA PUA tools.
Thanks!
I do self-define myself as a pick up artist. For me “game” is the toolbox and “PUA” is a lifestyle choice that uses the toolbox, but you could make many other lifestyle choices that still use the same tools (e.g. gaming your wife). I believe adopting the PUA lifestyle is the fastest way to acquire game and it’s that skill set that I want. Eventually I’ll tire of pick up artistry and move on to another hobby, having internalised the skill set.
To split hairs further, I consider a PUA to be a guy who is actively going out to find, attract and seduce women. While the “artist” part of PUA implies a certain threshold of competence, being a PUA is mostly about your behaviours rather than the girls’ responses. Beyond being a PUA is being a Player. A player is a guy who sleeps with lots of different women. It’s the ultimate goal of most PUAs.
I think that’s a pretty good way to put it.
Not saying it’s right or wrong, but that’s how I use the terms. As I went further down the path of game I started to drop lots of the nerdy jargon. Somehow it just feels creepy to keep repeating shit like “HB9.5″ or “I forward-stacked from the opener”. Sometimes jargon helps with the economy of prose, other times it just betrays that the writer doesn’t get it.
I find that many of us are recovering nerds, following a series of steps to denerdify ourselves, and the PUA jargon, even straight to the term “PUA,” smacks so much of Dungeons and Dragons / Star Trek / Magic: The Gathering / whatever style of invented jargon that it’s really important to reject it as jargon once the meanings are all understood. I casually use terms in my own head like LTR and LMR, but in conversation I’m pretty careful to talk around them, even at the risk of long and uncomfortable phrasing (eg, “girl I was seeing” or “girl I was fucking” to avoid “LTR” or “girlfriend,” and “she said we didn’t click” to avoid “LMR”), even while having the PUA terms right in my head.
{ 2 trackbacks }