The saturation of "Game" is now affecting my friends

Apr

The saturation of “Game” is now affecting my friends

Filed Under (DC) by on 16-04-2008

I don’t have “game”.

I once walked up to a girl in the men’s razors aisle at Target and said, “So, picking up a little something for yourself?”

She responded with a look that would have made your balls fall off.

Another time, while in Boston, I was chatting with the very hot friend of a friend. She obviously wanted to get in my pants because she was asking what my plans were that evening and if I wanted to go to a bar. I told her, “I’ve been known to a have a drink or two in my lifetime”.

I didn’t hit that.

Back in my day, we didn’t call the act of flirting “game”. We called it “let’s see who gets shot down first”, which is much tougher to say when you’re drunk than you realize. I didn’t tell women they reminded me of my adorable little sister and the only “3-second rule” I was aware of had to do with dropped food.

So it intrigues me to no end these days when I hear my single female friends tell me about being “gamed” by dudes who rehash all of the same techniques that have been around since the first caveman clubbed a woman over the head. (That works, by the way.) These techniques might be moderately successful and give men the courage to hit on chicks, but in their quest to come across as unique, they are instead becoming a cliché.

Just this past weekend, my friend MJ was “peacocked” or “targeted” or whatever it’s called by a man with a misguided obsession with the Flintstones. In an e-mail yesterday, MJ broke down for me every “Pick-Up Artist” move this guy made that she had already seen on VH1:

At a party, “this guy comes up to us and asked who would make a better boyfriend, Fred Flintstone or Barney Rubble. And since we’re nice girls, we’re not going to be completely rude, but really, you want to have a conversation about that?”

“It gets worse. He doesn’t even have his facts right about the Flintstones and claims that Fred works and Barney doesn’t. It’s simply ridiculous because we don’t want to argue about the freaking Flintstones. And i saw the Fred Flintstone line on that TV show.”

Either this guy owned stock in Flintstones vitamins or he needed a new TV show from which to steal. I hear Everybody Loves Raymond reruns are a veritable treasure trove of seduction techniques.

MJ’s night with the prick-up artist (see what I did there?) continued.

“So then he makes us guess his job. We said IT guy. He then brags about not even having a TV. Wrong crowd to think that impresses us.”

Being one of the world’s foremost TV junkie, MJ was at this point beyond annoyed.

“Then he goes, you look familiar. Do i look familiar? I go no. Then he goes, well you have a twin out there. She was really cool, I would have asked her out, but she had a boyfriend. I didn’t say anything to that.”

When “what’s your sign”-era attempts don’t work, you should always try sounding worldly.

“He then tried to convince us that he learned how to do massage therapy in Iraq.”

Maybe not.

I know I’m no expert at hitting on women. But the thing is, when I was interested in someone, I wouldn’t make it a game of making passes. I found that trying to hit on a woman was usually the best way not to go home with her. The trick, if there was one, was just to come across as a comfortable and confident man. That’s it.

I asked Roissy once if he felt like the “meat market” was being saturated by these self-professing “pick-up artists”.

He said, essentially, that yeah, it was, and that certain “routines”, like the “best friends test”, had become off limits due to its overuse.

I think MJ explained it perfectly:

“Obviously, you have issues if you are using lines like that. I don’t understand why this stupid approach is being encouraged. and it makes for REALLY awkward situations.”

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Comments

Baby Bien on 16 April, 2008 at 8:48 am #

Come here often…

MJ on 16 April, 2008 at 8:55 am #

i like your line at target. i don’t know why she didn’t go for it.

a couple of weeks ago HC and i were at a happy hour and we got the best friends line. i think he asked about our shampoo or something else odd like that. we didn’t know why he was talking to us, like not even knowing it as a pick up line.

Shannon on 16 April, 2008 at 9:05 am #

Well, if she was looking at men’s razors, she was probably married/living with a guy. You would have had better luck over by the condoms. And worse luck by the pregnancy tests.

I find the whole Game thing hilarious and sad. I don’t know which is more depressing: that guys really think women want to debate the Flintstones, or that some women actually DO want to debate the Flintstones.

Shannon’s last blog post..Crazy Sex-Starved Women!!!!

Bridal Bird on 16 April, 2008 at 9:07 am #

I eagerly await Saturday Night Live coming up with a proper skewering for “game” devotees to add to their chronology of idiots: Two Wild and Crazy Guys begets Night at the Roxbury Guys begets every shmoe who thinks that “the game” is some sort of Jedi mind trick that any woman worth having isn’t rolling her eyes at.

Bridal Bird’s last blog post..Life Is What Happens When You?re Busy Making Table Seating Plans

H on 16 April, 2008 at 9:31 am #

a few weeks ago a guy came up to my friend and asked her if she was smart. really, who does that? she told him she was doing a PhD so yes, she was smart.

Fort Knocks on 16 April, 2008 at 9:33 am #

I agree, guys should steer away from pick-up lines… unless you have a really good one, like “do I make you horny, baby?”

Huge Giambi Headache on 16 April, 2008 at 9:39 am #

I’m so far out of this world I thought you meant fantasy baseball by “game.” And I know chicks love talking about that.

The Maiden Metallurgist on 16 April, 2008 at 9:54 am #

Ugh, I have very low tolerance for these “Pick-Up Artist” type shenanigans. Boo losers, boo.

However, I totally have a double standard about this. This weekend a couple of friends were double teaming theses dudes at a beerfest, the first would walk up and say “I think I knowyou, can you take off your sunglasses?” Then she’d say “Oh, sorry…” when the other one would swoop in and say “But you’re stunning anyway.”

Cheesy pick up lines work much better on men than they do on the ladies.

The Maiden Metallurgist’s last blog post..Not Was I Was Expecting

Nickels on 16 April, 2008 at 9:57 am #

Maybe you could do a post about our experience at JRs? I am thinking there were a lot less lines, more of the “um, you are hot, wanna F*ck?” variety…

jo on 16 April, 2008 at 10:18 am #

While those comments are bad, at least they’re different. I mean, I still wouldn’t sleep with them, but they’d have my attention for all of 5 seconds.

jo’s last blog post..Do you like beer?

rs27 on 16 April, 2008 at 11:07 am #

Maiden Metallurgist’s friends were double teaming dudes? Blog post, please.

Tell your friend MJ that I have perfected the way to pick up women. Don’t talk to women at all. That will ensure going home alone everytime.

Thats what we’re going for, right? right?

rs27’s last blog post..Your Reputation’s So Golden

Diane Mandy on 16 April, 2008 at 11:12 am #

Wow. I’ve only been off the market 2 years, but feel like I’ve been out of it for 20.

Diane Mandy’s last blog post..Rolling, rolling, not rolling

roissy on 16 April, 2008 at 11:44 am #

excellent… the plan is in motion. these lame routines are red herrings to throw women off the scent. there is a whole new seduction underground using tactics no one’s heard of before. the science of seduction is advancing by leaps and bounds.

mwahaa… (twisting mustachio)

roissy’s last blog post..Dragon Attack

kerrie on 16 April, 2008 at 12:01 pm #

If an insecure guy finds confidence in a “script,” and uses that confidence in approaching girls he would normally be too intimdated to talk to, I’m all for it.

And, hey, did you see that fight outside?

Roosh on 16 April, 2008 at 12:44 pm #

The only crime these guys are doing is using bad source material. Power to them for trying.

Roosh’s last blog post..Fallout From The Perfect Woman Post

Collegegradrealworld on 16 April, 2008 at 12:52 pm #

As a newly single guy, I hope that someday, when I’m not living in the middle of boring New Jersey and working a ton, I can come up with something a little better than the Flintstones.

Collegegradrealworld’s last blog post..Mariah Carey Week… Or Makin’ the Girls Look Bad

Shannon on 16 April, 2008 at 12:52 pm #

I don’t mind when guys try to chat me up. They can even be cheesy if they want. When a guy persists after I’ve said I’m off the market/not interested, then I get cranky.

Shannon’s last blog post..Crazy Sex-Starved Women!!!!

homeimprovementninja on 16 April, 2008 at 1:15 pm #

After mocking these Game type pickup artists, I decided to give it a try. I had heard about peacocking, negging and openers, so I decided to try it out. I tied a dead peacock to my gold Mr T chains and approached some hotties. I did a combination of the “negs” and an opener.

“Hey…did you fat sluts see the fight outside?”

homeimprovementninja’s last blog post..Coming soon…

jordanbaker on 16 April, 2008 at 1:32 pm #

Absolute fact: any woman who sleeps with a guy who uses “game” on her would’ve slept with that guy regardless.

If anything, we go home with y’all IN SPITE OF your “game,” not because of it.

jordanbaker’s last blog post..Wrapper’s Delight?

irina on 16 April, 2008 at 1:54 pm #

ha, these people are chumps. i spent about a year trying to understand them, but now i have come to the realization that they’re just nerds who didn’t know how to get laid in high school. it doesn’t go much deeper than that.

roissy on 16 April, 2008 at 2:52 pm #

i’d say about 60% of the guys who try to learn game are nerds or former nerds. 30% are average guys who do OK with women but would like to do better.

and then there is the 10%… the naturals who know the score but see game, justifiably, as a way to catapult their success with women into the stratosphere… to give them complete choice in women and control over their love life.
heh.

roissy’s last blog post..Dragon Attack

E :) on 16 April, 2008 at 8:35 pm #

You obviously have some game because you have The Princess…

E :)’s last blog post..He’s a gonna be sleepin’ on the couch tonight…

English Guy on 17 April, 2008 at 8:19 am #

For sheer comic value I’ve always longed to witness the one where you take the ice out of a girl’s drink, throw it on the floor, stamp on it and say, “Now that the ice is broken, we can REALLY start talking”.
Not only are you pestering them, but you’re also fucking up their drink. That has to end badly.

rcr on 17 April, 2008 at 2:37 pm #

@HIN - ok, that one made me have to close my office door. I’m still laughing at the imagined scene.

I was explaining my lack of game to the girl I’m dating (always a good thing to do), and mentioned that the only pickup line I knew was “Did it hurt…. when you fell from heaven.” She responded with prolonged giggling and then admitted that it was so cheesy that it might have worked on her. So who knows.

Angelo De La Vega on 21 April, 2008 at 6:39 pm #

Sometimes I try these silly lines. Not because I believe they’ll actually work, it’s just an easy way to entertain myself.

I’ve never opened up with recycled material like the guy you mentioned above; I generally invent my own stupid setups after several drinks. This weekend in New York I started multiple conversations with “You have the best earrings in the entire lower east side.” I eventually tired of that line, so I switched to “I’ve told other women this before… but I know now that I didn’t really mean it. YOU, have the best earrings in the lower east side.” Probably some of the worst “pick-up” material ever attempted, but it kept me entertained throughout the evening.

HC on 24 April, 2008 at 5:48 pm #

I love you MJ!