Sep 24 2007
VH1’s The Pick Up Artist: What the Average Person Still Doesn’t Get
There is nothing more bonding than successfully picking up girls together. It is the basis for a great friendship. Because afterward, when the girls are gone, you can finally give each other the high-five that you’ve been holding back since you met them. It is the sweetest high-five in the world. It’s not just the sound of skin hitting skin; it’s the sound of brotherhood.
-Neil Strauss, The Game
By THEBOSTONBACHELOR.COM / September 24, 2007
Asking a guy how often he cries is like asking a woman how often she masturbates; the answer you get will always be a severe underestimate.
Even still, many of you who have been following VH-1’s “The Pick Up Artist”—reality TV’s tale of 8 hopeless romantics trying to master the one area of life that’s forever eluded them—are probably befuddled at all the male tears being shed each week. After all, aren’t guys emotionally mechanical and closed off—especially in the presence of other men?
The answer is a bit more complicated than you think.
As Frankie and I discussed in last week’s interview, there is a big difference between male and female rapport. A woman can meet a random woman in a restroom and swap life stories within a matter of minutes. If a guy ever tried to do this, punches would be thrown. But that doesn’t mean that men are incapable of bonding and exchanging deep rapport.
The difference lies in the medium, not the message. Men bond through shared experiences rather than words. A guy will never ask a guy to come over for a cup of coffee and just talk; that shit don’t fly. Why waste time with that when a one-armed “man hug” is much more efficient?
So to give the ladies out there a better understanding of what constitutes male bonding, I’ve come up with a much simpler solution: The Male Bonding Index.
The Male Bonding Index (lower numbers = more bonding)
1. Going through war together.
2. Going through a socio-academic war (i.e. undergrad at an engineering school) together.
3. Going out and successfully picking up women together.
4. Surviving a plane crash in the Andes for 10 weeks.
5. Saving a fellow fireman from a Backdraft-esque fire.
6. Being stuck in a mine shaft for several days.
7. Getting into a fistfight with a rival entourage.
8. Taking a road trip.
9. Winning a professional sports championship.
10. Visiting a friend in the hospital.
13. Watching Stand by Me.
21. Attending a friend’s bachelor party.
29. Attending a friend’s wedding.
77. Playing in a band.
Now I had to disagree with Neil Strauss a little bit; there are a few experiences that are more bonding than picking up girls together—but not much. Because when you and your best buds head out to a bar on Saturday night with the intent of meeting women, there’s a certain vulnerability that’s impossible for you to mask. That’s when you have to put your ego, pride, and balls out on the rail for everyone to see. That’s when you know that even if you completely fuck up and the whole bar turns to laugh at you, your boys will still be there waiting for you with an extended drink in hand. For it’s not just the victories that forge lasting bonds, but the defeats as well. The sweet is never as sweet without the sour.
It’s this mutual journey from heartbreak to redemption—that long road out of hell—that the men on “The Pick Up Artist” to break down in tears. It’s the realization that it is possible to go from hating who you are to being able to look in the mirror without averting your eyes. It truly is much more than just about picking up girls.
It’s about taking control of your life, once and for all.
And it’s an experience that must be lived to be understood. You can’t explain those feelings of anxiety, loss, pain, love, and elation to someone who’s never fought in those trenches, who’s never reached those highs and lows. In fact, I’m better off once again letting the words of another author do the talking, this time those contained on the pages of Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam War masterpiece The Things They Carried:
“Try to tell them about it, they’ll just stare at you with those big round candy eyes. They won’t understand zip. It’s like trying to tell somebody what chocolate tastes like.”
“Or shit.”
I can’t put it more eloquently than that.
-The Boston Bachelor
The season finale of “The Pickup Artist” airs tonight on VH1 at 9 pm EDT.
“socio-academic war.”
High comedy,
v
The Boston Bachelor brings up a fascinating topic here. There’s an excellent book called “Self-Made Man” by Norah Vincent that discusses the camaraderie and friendship between males. She writes about her experience dressing up like a man and infiltrating the male world. Here’s a passage from her chapter on friendship where she joined an all male bowling league:
“…. A few lanes over, one of the guys was having a particularly hot game. I’d been oblivious to what was happening, mourning my own playing too much to watch anyone else. It was Jim’s turn, and I noticed that he wasn’t bowling. Instead he was sitting down in one of the laneside chairs, just waiting. Usually this happened when there was a problem with the lane: a stuck pin, or a mis-set rack. But the pins were fine. I kept watching him, wondering why he wasn’t stepping up to the line…”
“Then I noticed that all the other bowlers had sat down as well. Nobody was taking his turn. It was as if somebody had blown a whistle, only nobody had. Nobody had said anything. Everyone had just stopped and stepped back, like in a barracks when an officer enters the room.”
“Then I realized that there was one guy stepping up to the lane. It was the guy who was having the great game…. He’d have to throw three strikes in a row to earn a perfect score, and somehow everyone in that hall had felt the moment of grace descend and had bowed out accordingly. Everyone, of course, except me.”
“It was a beautiful moment, totally still and reverent, a bunch of guys instinctively paying their respects to the superior athleticism of another guy.”
“That guy stepped up to the line and threw his three strikes, one after the other, each one met by mounting applause, then silence and stillness again, then on the final strike, an eruption, and every single guy in that room, including me, surrounded that player and moved in to shake his hand… It was almost mystical, that telepathic intimacy and the communal joy that succeeded it, crystalline in its perfection. The moment said everything all at once about how tacitly attuned men are to each other, and how much of this women miss when they look from the outside in…”
That was a brilliant passage. Any chance Christina’s done with the book yet?
It reminds me of Bill Simmons describing the feeling of witnessing Papi’s walk-off homerun in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS:
Everything was leading to Ortiz’s game-winning homer in the 12th, which answered a 29-year question for me, “I wonder what it would have been like to see the Fisk home run in person?”
Well, I’ll tell you what happens. You scream in disbelief. You jump up and down. You slap hands with complete strangers. You smile like a proud dad as the team skips onto the field, some of them racing to home plate, some of them taking time to turn and point at the fans. You want the guy to take 20 minutes rounding the bases, just so you can milk the moment and remember everything about it. And when the hero jumps into the happy pile at home plate, you feel like you’re smack dab in the middle. Ortiz may as well have been jumping into 35,000 people.
Kristina read 1.5 chapters and gave it back to me: “I couldn’t get into it.”
None
“A guy will never ask a guy to come over for a cup of coffee and just talk; that shit don’t fly. ”
Its thoughts like that one that will make the Boston Batchelor a batchelor for life.
Have you ever actually tried to talk to your male friend about your troubles? Good friends dont need some sort of masculine buffer to talk to each other.
This blog and and the idea behind it (that women are some sort of enigma that you have to decipher by following a guy named ‘mystery’ and that you have to fake yourself into getting any sort of attention is whats wrong with most guys. Self esteem does wonders.
Thanks for your compliments.
You misunderstand the meaning of “that shit don’t fly” line. My closest friends are almost like family in that there’s a mutually-understood bond that doesn’t need to be explicitly drawn through weekly appointed neurotic small talk or couch psychobabble. We always time for serious conversation, but’s it’s done in terms of a bigger social context such as over drinks and dinner or at a bar, not a 3 hour leather couch Freudian session.
Also, I actually never wrote anything on this site positive or critical in regards to the specific tactics Mystery teaches on that show. But I will now.
I have no problem supporting what he’s doing out there, as he’s helping guys improve themselves and destroy their limiting beliefs. Unless you’re Hellen Keller, it’s impossible not to see how much more confident and socially comfortable all the guys were (with the possible exception of the 45 year old virgin) by the time they finished the show. I don’t agree with all of Mystery’s methodology, particularly his emphasis on canned routines, but you have to realize that the memorized lines are just training wheels given the amount of time he has to work with his “students.” The scripted “opinion openers” he employs are simply that; they “open” the conversation. Sure, you could tell each student the first week to go up to the girl and say “Hi, I like you.” But seeing how they lacked the self-esteem you mention (not to mention body language and other things), would that work?
Obviously not.
You need some success before you can obtain the necessary confidence and self-esteem to become a person who can naturally attract women. You can’t just say “go have high self-esteem” and magically solve the problem like that. It’s like telling a bad hitter “just hit the ball” as opposed to working on drills and mechanics.
If anything, the guys who are the most fake are the ones who try to mask their sexual attraction to a woman by playing everything hopelessly safe, trying to convince the woman to like him through expensive gifts and ass-kissing. From what I saw on the show, the girls in the bar and club were laughing along and having a good time just as much, if not more than the guys. If that gets some people’s panties in a twist, that’s their own psychological qualms to deal with.
The Boston Bachelor
I’d like to comment on the specific quote: “A guy will never ask a guy to come over for a cup of coffee and just talk; that shit don’t fly. ”
It’s true… There has to be an event surrounding the invitation to justify the meeting. For example, I could call up my friend and ask him to come over to watch a movie (the event). That shit would definitely fly. But I could never call my friend up just for the sole purpose of chatting for a few hours on the phone over nothing in particular (deep calls). That shit definitely don’t fly.
I’m not saying that male friends don’t share intimate moments with one another about their problems. It’s just done in a more subtle way compared to females. Sometimes all it takes is a look from my best friend to know exactly what he’s feeling and thinking. No words exchanged…
It’s hard to explain… I recommend you read Self Made Man to understand exactly what I’m getting at here. It’s a real page turner and offers a fascinating study of how males interact from a female perspective looking in.
As for Mystery’s methods. You could definitely see a change in the confidence and self esteem of several of the contestants as the show progressed. I don’t think anyone put on a fake personality in an attempt to attract girls. I have a feeling you didn’t even watch the show.
Endit,
v
V,
Your posting on that book was reminiscent of the Rhinososaurisis paper. Was it made?
Yeah…
I was actually just referring to your paper that you got an ‘F’ on because it began and ended with quotation marks, much like your first posting on this topic.
Thats a solid anecdote though Stretch.
Floor,
That was the paper I wrote for Frieurmuth Freshman year on Emperor Justinian. That assignment and topic were horrible kid… She deserved the F. I actually got and “F-” on it.
“You open quotes and don’t even end them!”
The joke was on her kid.
v
“Sometimes all it takes is a look”
Hahaha…
The most classic part of it is that the desk is an exact replica of the real thing…
Floor
nicely done! you definitely give us ladies something to think about!
I think the show opens up a lot of people’s eyes to how guys experience pick up, whereas before people may cast them off as “manipulative players” without much understanding. Good stuff. The list is pretty funny too.