What the PUAs Gave Me

City life, birth and decay.

In 2008 after a tremendous heartbreak/breakup I found myself shell-shocked and back in Dad's basement. An old acquaintance rode with me to Caledonia Easter, and on the way started talking about this "success-with-women" stuff he was into.

Turns out it was "pickup". Seminars on how to become a pick-up artist. New stuff, a whole new underground field opening up.

I was skeptical but intrigued. Some of the things the guys were saying were insightful, even revelatory. About how attraction works. And some of the stuff -- about the common mistakes guys make in love and lust and relationships -- rang eerily, uncomfortably, and sometimes hilariously true.

Within a couple weeks I had listened through one of the more famous "success with women" teachers 20 hour programs twice and was beginning a third run. I couldn't get enough. The speaker was quirky and awkward at times, but he was human, funny, relatable, and clearly spoke from real depth of experience and thinking.

And up until quite recently, I continued to be a frequent eavesdropper on the world of "pickup" (and its increasingly mature, holistic and non-greasy offshoots and maturations [see David D]), finding what I could in it that worked for me, enjoying a young-men's take on personal development that so much of it is....

What hooked me so completely in those first few weeks was watching my understanding of that horrible breakup -- and other awkwardnesses and bumblings and heartbreaks -- turn inside out and backwards. I wasn't a screw-up, I had just screwed up. This was a technical issue, not a fundamental flaw in my being. I had been doing my gosh-darned best, but I had no frigging idea what I was doing.

Like this guy. Sort of...

Who had I learned about this from after all, this being a man with women, this being a sexual being, this attraction and flirting and being in relationship? TV and movies? (As Tyler puts it: "I know now! You're the one!") Love songs? ("I can't breathe without you / I'm literally dying here / wow my lips are turning blue / somebody call 911 cause I actually can't seem to live without you / this is like an anaphylactic issue or something.") My dad, close-lipped, terse and declamatory on such matters? My religious community, trying to reinvent the wheel and suffering major divorce rates? The teachings of the Baha'i Faith, noble, inspiring, lofty and admirable, but hard to comprehend through the cultural and moral remove from my daily experience? My girlfriends, just trying to figure out their own side of the puzzle? My mom, ebullient and with deep-hearted reflections to share, but still recovering from two marriages gone awry? My former stepfather, so twisted by his wounds that he self-justified doing emotional and physical violence to women??

Damn it!

I needed a hand, some technical knowledge from someone who had been where I was, and was somewhere much better now; someone who had learned this stuff from the inside out, a sensei or at least a senpai (senior student) or few.

Dapper dudes to the rescue!

And so it's been an incredible journey over the past three years and more, one I'm beginning to look back on: a phase is ending. Even though, aside from one fateful night in Trois-Pistoles, QC, I never really "did the pick-up thing" (the top guys reccomending going out as much as 7 nights a week to meet women, practice skills and SARGE!); and that in retrospect, for my moral and spiritual health, I'm glad I didn't; and that I still have a lot of room to grow in my social skills, mastery of masculine polarity, and savoir-faire vis-a-vis the fairer sex -- still, my encounter with pickup was a watershed moment.

Easter 2008: Dark, dark, dark. My self-esteem and my self-image in relationship to women, and had almost no capacity to simply make friends and have fun with people. These are essential factors in emotional and psychological and even physical health; research has shown all this, but I know it inside out. I was hiding from the world and almost the only social contact I got was with my family, which, more often than not, drove me absolutely bonkers.

Fast forward to August 2011: I'm a week short of a year living in a house with five roommates, and daily enjoy joking around and getting to know them. We share food, stories, music, chores and house decisions. Through their social circles, I've met a couple dozen new people, and have some good acquaintanceships and budding friendships there too. One of my roommates is my brother, and our friendship is one of the best I've ever had -- funny (deliriously so at times), frank, creative, intellectually stimulating.

I have friends and mentors and collaborators through the men's groups I've been working with (another three-year strong adventure there, and I could say many similar things about that experience as I've said for this one); a dozen and more great acquaintanceships and two budding friendships with funny, frank francophones through Budo Montreal; every few weeks I hang with a great gang of holistic health practitioners, and building friendships there; and I'm recently member of a six-member band, great musicians, Baha'is, and kind, funny people.... Et cetera.

And while I list these accomplishments and relationships with great pride, I don't pretend it's anything more than "normal" or "average" (those words have never tasted so sweet), and I know -- I feel it in my bones -- that there's still big room to grow in friendships, connection and social abundance.

But wait!

Last but not least, I also have had a two-year-plus relationship with a beautiful, loving, sweetheart of a woman. While rocky and tumultuous, this has been a source of growth, healing and delight for both of us. Even as we have recently shifted it away from a girlfriend-boyfriend model, and towards a chaste, supportive, loving friendship, it's become stronger and healthier than ever.

And that, my friends, is perhaps a little better than normal. :-)

A warehouse of wins.

If I had to pick one big win from this whole experience, it would be this:

God willing, and if I stay true (to myself, to righteousness, to the practice of love and truth), I will never have a "tremendous breakup" again. Can you imagine the relief, the confidence, the healing and gratitude? The sheer joy and freedom that brings??

In only three years!

The world of pickup and 'success with women' is fraught with ethical and moral peril, but in this tumultuous age, when religion seems dead and hypocrisy is the order of the day, there are good men there, doing their best to grow and develop and being HONEST, thank God. ("Be thou of the people of hellfire, but be not a hypocrite.")

I found within that world vital, life-giving tools and understandings; challenge, insight and self-knowledge; helping hands, inspiring stories and a lot of laughs.

For all that I am eternally grateful.

Thanks, PUAs!