Tuesday, December 29, 2009
1:32 PM
I haven't been posting much lately. In my defense, I am working on a post to end all posts! It will be epic so make sure you have a least a good chunk of time your hands before embarking on the reading. But I figured, why not post something in between?
So a few years ago, I bought a book. It's black and leather-bound, has an embossed title and gold around the edges of its pages, and also comes with a red bookmark string that's attached at one end to the spine.
Sound familiar?
No, it's not the bible. But I don't think it's a purely coincidental fact that Neil Strauss' The Game bears such a strikingly similar resemblance - as far as construction/design - to the holy writ. I remember it being paraded around as a sort of "Bible," for guys on how to act at a club or a bar so that you could maximize your chances of hooking up. And I remember being so intrigued by this idea (there was a point in time where I couldn't turn a corner without running into some poor shmuck rambling about this book) that I picked up a copy for myself.
Now, let me get one thing straight - this is not a book you read in plain sight at the student center (a.k.a. Deutsch Centre for us Queen's folk). That was the first thing that piqued my interest - it seemed to be a book that everyone (or every guy) was reading, but it wasn't a book you would ever read in plain sight or put on your "favorite book" list on facebook. It was like something that everyone had read but no one would admit to be reading. Of course, when I began perusing it for myself, I quickly realized why - and it turned out to be one of the saddest reading experiences of my life. And this is why...
A few years before Neil Strauss even published his "Bible," I once knew of someone who embodied everything The Game would eventually come to be. He was a kid who went to our school named Jesse. Grant knew him personally. I knew him a little through Grant, but more through the fact that I knew several girls who eventually wound up in his "clutches" to use a cliched term.
Let me get another thing straight - I hated Jesse. Not him as a person, but everything he stood for. At the same time, though, I was almost forced to admire just how absolutely
slick he was at doing what he did: and that was picking up girls. Jesse could get any girl he wanted. And I mean, literally, ANY girl he wanted. He was just that good. In fact, he once dated a friend of mine and broke up with her. She ranted about him for months, telling me about how she realized what a sleazebag he was. And this friend of mine was a good girl. She really was. And I guess that was when I first learned to resent Jesse - kind of on behalf of this girl. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out yet a few months later that he had managed to convince her to give him another chance and they started going out again! And this would happen with another friend of mine. And as I would learn from Grant, the same thing would happen with countless more.
Like I said, Jesse was just that good. He was SO good, in fact, that he managed to make guys like him too. I talked to Christian about this once - about how sometimes, a sleazy guy could push the right buttons with a girl, but other GUYS - genuinely nice guys - would always recognize just how much of a creep he was. Not so with Jesse. He was the kind of guy who could steal your girlfriend and then make you feel like he was doing you a favor.
In a lot of ways, to fall victim to Jesse's charms was proof that you were human and operated within the norms of society. He recognized that deep down, we all have certain buttons that could be pushed, and he was so good at exploiting that that you always found that Jesse was telling you exactly what you wanted to hear. The only people I've ever known who were immune to Jesse's charms were people who were socially underdeveloped in a lot of ways. And I don't mean socially underdeveloped in the way that I'm socially underdeveloped, I mean in a way where they simply didn't see/operate with other people in the way everyone else in society did. I am socially underdeveloped only to the extent that it takes me a lot longer to learn the ropes... but even I eventually learn to settle into what is prescribed as a "social norm".
So that was Jesse. And when I read The Game a few years later, it basically felt like I was reading about Jesse. I didn't fully realize this until Grant drew my attention to the fact that he didn't need to read The Game because he had hung around Jesse for so much of his life (Grant, fortunately, did not become the next Neil Strauss). But that's what The Game was: a guide to how and why women behave and how you were supposed to use this to your advantage.
As I read The Game (I confess, I didn't finish it and I still haven't but I got through a good 85-90%), I realized 2 things. The first thing was ugly. The second... even uglier. The first thing I realized was that Neil Strauss was right. Jesse was living proof of this. He illuminated a lot of truths about how we interact socially and why certain gestures, words, and behaviors were always bound to elicit the same responses (good and bad). I remember reading about being the "Alpha Male of the Group" and how you need to make yourself look better than every other male in the immediate vicinity and that putting them down was fair game. I remember reading about how teasing (a.k.a. "negging") was important because if you complimented a girl, you've put her in the "driver's seat". I remember reading about all sorts of things that someone like Jesse seemed, innately, to understand. And I remember feeling disgusted by the fact that THIS was how society operated... that traditional symbols of good character like dependability, compassion, chivalry, and kindness had become warped, contorted, and branded as "boring"; and in their place, "negging," slickness, flash, and style rose to prominence as being cool, sexy, and exciting.
When I put it this way, it all sounds quite over the top and some of you might be saying "That's not how our society works!" But actually, I think if you really look at the fundamental "rules" of social interaction, I think you'll find that it's more true than you realize. They find their way into almost everything we do, even if it's only on a micro-scale. I remember talking to some friends years ago when MSN was still in vogue and someone mentioned how you shouldn't message someone as soon as they come online because it makes you look like you were sitting there waiting for them to sign on just so you could talk to them. And even if that wasn't the case, you waited 5 minutes anyway just to "show" that you were "doing something else and only just realized that they had signed on". I'm willing to bet that every one of you did this. I also remembered thinking, "What's wrong with messaging someone as soon as they sign on, even if it DOES make you seem eager to talk to them? Maybe I AM eager to talk to them." But no no no, you can't do that... you don't want to make it seem like you WANTED to talk to them, god forbid. You had to make it seem like talking to them was just no skin off your back. You had to play it cool; like they were no big deal... even if you would have cried yourself to sleep that night if they didn't respond.
So that's the first thing. And yeah, it's ugly. But you know what's uglier? This second thing. I was HORRIFIED - actually and honestly horrified - to find out that instead of reading The Game and saying, "Wow, we are a bunch of fucked up and disgusting creatures," guys were saying, "Wow, now I know how I should act around women!" Instead of being a social commentary that could be used as a jumping off point for rectifying these flaws in our society, guys were actually buying into Neil Strauss' philosophy! I remember some of my friends - kind, solid guys with good hearts - reading The Game and thinking that the book was a signal to them that they had to change; that they had to start ignoring women and become the Alpha Male of their Groups; that they had to start treating women like they (women) weren't important because that's how you could be "successful" at "the game".
WHAT?!
No! That's wrong! Completely and utterly backwards! And I'll tell you why. I mean, we know the most obvious reasons why this is wrong: it objectifies women. The Game is one of the most patriarchal, misogynistic pieces of literature I have ever read. In fact, it is probably THE worst piece of anti-feminist literature I have ever read because not only does it reduce women to "prizes," it actually ventures to assert that that is what women WANT.
But I'll tell you the other, more latent, reason behind why The Game is terrible. Guys who learn the rules of The Game rarely ever end up being happy. And this is something that many guys don't realize when they buy into its philosophy. The Game only promises you sex; it says nothing about love, happiness, or fulfillment. And it wouldn't be so bad if only guys who wanted sex read The Game. The problem is that a lot of guys who read The Game and hail it as their Bible... are, deep-down, simply lonely and tired of being single. And the most ironic thing is that in order to play The Game, you MUST be single; everything The Game is about revolves around staying single so you can practice and perfect your "craft" that is being a really good pick-up artist. It's not ABOUT finding a girlfriend and yet, so many guys read it because deep-down, having someone to love is all they really want.
This has been a long post. It's all I really have to say about Neil Strauss. My next post is probably, originally, going to sound incredibly contradictory, but trust me, it isn't. In fact, it is, in a lot of ways, an antithesis of Neil Strauss' philosophy. Maybe I should write a book. Oh wait...
