Sexy Beast: The Intimate Adventures of an Ugly Man

Speaking of things picking up, I’ve spent the last week reading a book called The Game. It is, after all, time to move on.

The Game is the story of how journalist Neil Strauss went from AFC to PUA, then found an LTR with an HB10.

AFC = Average Frustrated Chump

PUA = Pick-up Artist

LTR = Long-term Relationship

HB10 = Hot Babe with a high rating on the physical-appearance scale

As you can see, there is an awful lot of jargon in pick-up, and as you can see, much of it is excruciatingly embarrassing.

The story goes like this: after years of fearing rejection to the point of not even being able to talk to women without stammering and blushing, Strauss is commissioned to write a piece on America’s burgeoning pick-up community. Consequently he becomes immersed in this world; eventually he becomes addicted. In the course of his research, he meets all of the pick-up gurus—including (allegedly) the guy on whom Tom Cruise’s character in Magnolia is based. He learns all their tricks of the trade—their demonstrations of value, their false time constraints, their peacocking, their NLP tricks and traps—and basically he transforms himself into some kind of RoboStud—a bald, ripped, soulless, pre-progammed seduction machine.

The game in question—also branded by other PUAs as Real Social Dynamics—is basically an attempt to make a science out of seduction. Furthermore, naturally, it is an attempt to make a profit out of that science. The money-making aspect is important. This is not philanthropy, as many of the gurus attempt to imply. It’s business.

So I read the whole thing with a very jaded and cynical eye, but there was one paragraph which hooked me despite myself. It described a meeting Strauss had with a PUA called David X. Now David X was apparently one of the best in the business. No shitty stick in the world could protect this guy from a constant deluge of enthusiastic muff. And the bit that caught my eye was Strauss describing X as the ugliest PUA he’d ever met. He was ‘immense, balding, and toadlike’, with a rash of warts covering his giant face. It was at that point that I thought, ‘OK. Maybe I can give this game a go. Maybe it’s time I got Game.’

So. Apparently, the first thing I need is a name that is not my own. A seduction name. A pulling name. This is because, essentially, ‘the game’ is all about manipulation through deception. Strauss is told early on in his journey, ‘It’s not lying. It’s flirting.’ It’s something he repeats to himself every now and then, usually before he tells some great big horrible lie. ‘It’s not lying,’ he says. ‘It’s flirting.’ No, it’s not, Neil. It’s lying. And you know it.

Just as I know, of course, that I’m never going to be able to do this. Certainly not to the extent of the various characters in the book. Not to the extent whereby the attempted seduction of a woman becomes instinctive, an habitual reaction to seeing an HB in the street. (Ugh. If it’s any consolation, every time I use the abbreviation ‘HB’, a little bit of sick gets lodged in my windpipe.)

However, although it’s very easy to deride Strauss and his cohorts, there is definitely a lot I can learn from The Game. Most of it is fairly obvious stuff that only a moron wouldn’t already know, of course: look good, feel good, learn a little sleight of hand to impress strippers, shop assistants, and women in the media. But there’s some other stuff too, stuff about mastering routines and patterns—basically all the distinctly dodgy neuro-linguistic-programming stuff used by magicians, shysters, and conmen the world over. In seduction circles, however, we’re talking trance words, triangular gazing, the Yes Ladder, and so on. I could, if my conscience allows me, definitely benefit from using some of that.

But first, a name. Ideally, if the masters of ‘the game’ are anything to go by, it has to be something that makes you cringe every time you hear it. Neil Strauss, for example, became Style. Ugh. The guy who took him under his wing and guided him deep into the seduction community—Eric von Markovik—is Mystery. Ugh. Some of the other names of the main players in the community are: Vision, Papa, Herbal, Rasputin, the Matador of Love…You get the idea. I would like to say it’s one step up from McLovin’, but it’s really pretty much on a par.

So, a name, a name, let me think. What about Despair? No. Bulk? No. Cyst? No, no, no. Think, man. Positive. Romantic. Seductive. OK, what about the Labrador of Love? No? The Toreador of Trim? The Quim Master? Wait. I’ve got it. The Reverend Poon. OK, OK, I’m being foolish. But wait. I’m trying to establish a presence, both online and offline, so why not—it seems so obvious now—why not Presence? Seriously. I reckon I could get away with that. I can see it now…

HB10: So what’s your name, big fella?

Presence: Me? They call me Presence.

HB10: Wow. You’re making me horny.

Presence: Yep. That’s what I do.

OK, now, with the name in place, I need to start working on my game. Of course I’m already doing what I can to improve my physical appearance. The diet is already in full swing and going well, stomach cramps and bad breath aside. Plus, my coccyx is more or less back to normal, and not only have I dispensed with the haemorrhoid cushion, but I’ve even started running round the park which is just minutes from my flat. It’s actually more of a wheezing, lumbering stagger at the moment, but it counts, it’s physical exercise, and my muscles are working for the first time in years.

Also, because making the most of what you’ve got is all important, tomorrow I’m going to have a haircut.

My main concern with The Game and the whole science of the pick-up thing is that a) it seems to be—pardon me if I exaggerate—but it seems to be practised—in the main—by total and utter, vile and contemptible morons, b) you’d have to be a sad and desperate, at least slightly misogynistic moron to even seriously consider it, and c) the only way this would work on any woman is if she happens to be a moron.

But what I don’t want to do is make any snap decisions. I’ve been a victim of prejudice too many times not to know that it sucks, so I’m determined not to be prejudiced against ‘the game’. I’ll try it first, then I’ll be prejudiced.

So what I need to do is actually start talking to women—in real life, I mean. No more of this virtual nonsense. The internet is dead. I need to force myself to talk to as many living, breathing, female strangers as possible in order that the pain of rejection no longer holds any fear for me. That’s what Style did at the beginning. It’s what all PUAs must go through. It is a rite of passage, an initiation, a baptism of fire. I need to get to the point whereby when I approach a woman and open my mouth to speak, my heart isn’t beating like bongos.

So I reckon I’ll be ready by the spring. I’ve marked it on my wall chart. In the first week of April, I’ll be ready to go ‘in-field’. I can’t go now because, frankly, I’m a mess. But the fact is, with just a few weeks’ concentrated dieting (bar the occasional lapse), and just a week of regular exercise, I’ve already lost almost a stone in weight. What this means is that if I manage to keep this up, I will no longer be severely obese come the spring. I’ll merely be obese. And if I continue at this rate, I will have reached my ideal weight by the end of the summer. At that point, however, I’ll have to do something to regulate my diet, otherwise by the time my thirty-second birthday rolls around, I will have completely disappeared.

Joking aside, however, I reckon I’ll have lost enough weight to have the confidence to talk to women in April. And not before. I’ve marked it on my wall chart because if I don’t give myself these hideous, terrifying goals, then I’ll just stop and turn back into a pork pie.

This gives me somewhere in the region of eight weeks to figure out what to say. Thankfully, this is where The Game comes into its own. Ask any PUA—Style, Mystery, Frank ‘Master of the Muffin’ Mackey—and they’ll all tell you, what you need is a stockpile of good ‘openers’. An opener is, as its name suggests, a way of starting a conversation when you approach a ‘target’, or ‘woman’. Which, of course, makes sense. It’s clearly really useful to have something funny or interesting to open with rather than just saying, ‘Hello, what’s your name? What do you do?’, which, on the handful of occasions I’ve attempted social congress, is pretty much all I’ve ever had at my disposal. Unfortunately, the openers recommended by Style et al often smack of either immense cheesiness or downright deception. One example is the very popular ‘Fighting Girls Opener’, created by Neil Strauss, which goes something like this:

PUA: Hey, did you guys see those chicks rumbling on the sidewalk?

Girls: Wh—[Cut them off before they speak.]

PUA: Yeah, there was a gaggle of girls fighting over this guy. I spoke to him when it was over. Turns out his name was Eros. That’s a deal-breaker name right there, Eros. So they were tugging on each other’s hair and suddenly one of the girls’ boobies pops out. Normally I’m well up for eyeing a ripe one, but this was a strangulated, desperate thing, a real saggy-baggy, National Geographic booby…

At which point, if you allow them to respond, you find you’re involved in actual conversation with a woman or women in whom you’re interested, the hardest part is over and you can take it from there. That is, unless phrases like ‘a ripe one’ and ‘saggy-baggy booby’ don’t repulse them utterly and they’re just standing there looking at you, open-mouthed, like you’ve just pooped on their lawn.

I can see, however, how this approach would work, particularly on really dull women, the kind in whom I have absolutely zero interest. So, with that in mind, I’ve devised a slightly darker, spicier version of the Fighting Girls Opener, something for the more discerning lady, which I intend to use when I’m in-field in April. My plan is to approach a saucy woman in the queue at Pret A Manger and say:

Hey, did you see those two old men in the street just now fighting over a dead cat? [Cut her off before she has the chance to call the police.] Yeah, it was wild, honeycow. They must have been in their eighties, and they both had hold of this cat. One had the head and the other was hanging on to the back legs, pulling at it really hard they were, like it was a Tug of War, until eventually, suddenly—SNAP!—the cat’s body just came apart and its guts went flying everywhere. It was like that scene in Trainspotting when Spud’s boozy diarrhoea sprayed all over his girlfriend’s parents at the breakfast table…[Glance down at her breadless sandwich suggestively.] Yeah, so think of a number between one and a thousand—make sure it’s seven.’

I don’t really see how that can fail, especially considering that by the time I get to use it, I will also be dressed to kill, having taken the advice of PUAs the world over, and peacocked myself to the max. ‘Peacocking’ is essentially dressing to get noticed. As Mystery says, ‘Try wearing at least one item of clothing curious-looking enough to get people’s attention.’ Mystery himself favours flying goggles. Some would say this makes him look like a gargantuan ass, but it does have the effect that women notice him and will therefore often approach him and make conversation. Even if it’s just to say, ‘What on earth have you got strapped to your forehead, you gargantuan ass?’, at least it’s a start, and all you need to do to turn that around is say, ‘But don’t you see? You’re attracted to me. You just came up and started talking to me. You see? By the way, did you see those two midgets in the street fighting over a turnip?…’ And you’re away.

Now, to find out a little more, a couple of hours ago I signed up to an online forum. This is basically a place for would-be pick-up artists to get together and compare notes. The forum features, as you might expect, some genuine knuckle-scraping neanderthals, and frankly, some bona fide bad eggs to boot. But then that’s probably true of most online communities. I decided to give them a chance to show me more than that and I started a thread entitled: ‘Any advice for a freaky-looking fat fella?’

This was my opener:

So, the thing is, I’m ugly. Really ugly. Thanks to a combination of a misshapen skull, bad hair, and eczema scars, I’m actually fairly freakish. Plus, I’m obese. I’m so ugly that drunken girls dare each other to kiss me, then run away screaming and laughing like they’ve just licked an iguana. Even so, simply because I don’t want to die alone, I have to put myself out there. So I still go to parties occasionally and suffer the stares, the stifled giggles, and the shifting away as I move close to converse. And once in a while I plunge myself into the icy humiliation of ‘the move’. And it never, ever works. So this is how I ended up reading The Game.

Now, even if I say so myself, I do have one thing on my side. That thing is that I am rather witty. I’m sharp, and funny, and bright. But, sadly, fine words butter no parsnips. If you’re a cross between the Elephant Man and Jabba the Hutt, you could have the pithiest bon mot this side of Cyrano de Bergerac cascading from your mouth and women are still going to recoil from you like you’re a giant cockroach.

I’ve been rejected in some pretty cold ways over the years. Women have laughed in my face openly when I’ve said hello. One woman told me she only went out with human beings. Another told me she’d be sick if she had to kiss me.

These words stick with you by the way. They become embedded in your heart like poison darts and float around in your system for the rest of your life.

So, seeking guidance, I read The Game. Then I came here. And what I’d like to know—bearing all of the above in mind—is what kind of advice you would give to a guy like me. And are there any openers you’d recommend for freaky-looking geezers like myself? I look forward to your responses with excitement and glee.

So, I have to say, while I am very impressed, on the whole, by the level of humanity which is coming across in the answers, I’m astonished at the amount of talk of hats. Fancy hats at that. I never knew the humble hat was such an integral part of seduction. For example, Gigabel suggests, ‘Hide your freaky head in a fancy hat’. I’m not entirely sure what he has in mind, but I’m imagining some kind of Panama. ‘Clothes are important,’ he continues, ‘and whatever you do, make sure you drop some weight. Eat healthy, do exercise, maybe even lap-banding…’ I had to look online to find out what lap-banding is. It’s not pleasant. In fact, I think I’ll stick to peas and bananas for now or, as Muff Daddy helpfully suggests, I’ll ‘loose’ a few pounds and find myself a blind girl (‘there are some scorching hot blind chicks out there!’).

That makes me laugh. Not just the ‘loosing’ of the pounds but the seeking of a blind girl. It’s almost as if he knew. Meanwhile, Whipcrack tells it like it is. ‘Get fit,’ he says simply. ‘No need to be fat and nasty.’

Then we have The Wizard, who thinks, along the same lines as Gigabel, that I might consider ‘bariatric surgery’, otherwise known as the gastric bypass. ‘You’d be surprised what loosing weight can do for your overall look,’ he continues. ‘You might also consider a stylish hat and some radical sunglasses…’

What is this obsession with ‘loosing weight’? I’m beginning to think maybe it’s not just lazy spelling. Maybe it’s something Americans do in the bathroom.

Hat alert! This one from Captain Shaft, for whom the solution is very simple: ‘Get some standard peacocking shit. Start with a wicked-awesome hat.’ OK, thanks, Captain Shaft.

Of course, not everyone can be a fountain of insight and charm. There is, for example, the inappropriately-named sweetdickwilly, whose response is both hilarious and highly, horribly disturbing.

‘When a girl says something like that either punch the bitch in the mouth or put gum in her hair and she will have to cut it like a lesbo and no guy will want her.’

Well, there’s always at least one proper psycho in every online community. This one is special though. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing this guy on the news one day. They’ll call him the Spearmint Killer.

Happily, the rest of the community was quick to pounce on him, making it very clear that Spearmint was on his own.