Rules of the Game

by Neil Strauss

  Conversely, women faced massive risks when it came to casual sex. In the generations before reliable birth control, a married woman could be left with a pregnancy and potential revenge from her husband. If she was unmarried, then she could be doomed to a life of spinsterhood. “These enormous risks were offset by no great reward. Her chances of conceiving were just as great if she remained faithful to one partner, and her chances of losing the child without a husband’s help were greater. Therefore, women who accepted casual sex left fewer rather than more descendants, and modern women are likely to be equipped with suspicion of casual sex.”

  Ridley points to interesting studies that further support his theories on promiscuity, citing research estimating that 75 percent of gay men in San Francisco have had more than one hundred partners (25 percent have had more than one thousand), while in contrast most lesbians have had fewer than ten partners in their lifetime.

  WHY MEN AND WOMEN CHEAT

  One interesting conclusion suggested by Ridley’s book is that human beings are naturally monogamous, but they’re also naturally adulterous.

  Though Ridley says that women are less inclined toward casual sex, that doesn’t mean they aren’t promiscuous. But their promiscuity often has a purpose. For examples, Ridley looks to the animal kingdom—specifically to the phenomenon of adultery among colonial birds.

  Like many human beings, female colonial birds divide men into two different categories: lovers and providers. “When a female mates with an attractive male, he works less hard and she works harder at bringing up the young,” Ridley writes. “It is as if he feels that he has done her a favor by providing superior genes and therefore expects her to repay him with harder work around the nest. This, of course, increases her incentive to find a mediocre but hardworking husband and cuckold him by having an affair with a superstud next door.”

  Ridley closes his discussion of this topic with a crude summary of the hunter-gatherer rules that he claims still exist deep in the minds of women: “It began with a woman who married the best unmarried hunter in the tribe and had an affair with the best married hunter, thus ensuring her children a rich supply of meat. It continues with a rich tycoon’s wife bearing a baby that grows up to resemble her beefy bodyguard. Men are to be exploited as providers of parental care, wealth, and genes.”

  WHY MEN LIKE PORN MORE THAN WOMEN

  One of Ridley’s more interesting asides concerns studies on male and female arousal.

  Men are generally aroused by visual images; hence the success of pornography and Maxim. But what is the equivalent of pornography for women? His answer: romance novels, which have hardly varied for decades.

  What turns women on in romance novels, however, isn’t their descriptions of dashing men or lurid sex. Sex in romance novels, he explains, “is described mainly through the heroine’s emotional reaction to what is done to her—particularly the tactile things—and not to any detailed description of the man’s body.”

  The point is that women are aroused through emotional reactions, and the key to these are words and touch. So to become a master seducer, you must become a master of language and the female body.

  According to another study of heterosexual men and women, men are more aroused by group sex, while women are more aroused by heterosexual couples. Yet both heterosexual women and men are aroused by lesbian scenes, while neither is aroused by male homosexual scenes. So if you’re one of those men who thinks that sending a woman a close-up naked picture of his abs or his genitalia is going to turn her on, think again.

  WHY THE STYLELIFE CHALLENGE?

  The Red Queen explains how our mating choices are the result of evolutionary and biological pressures exerted over thousands of years, providing scientific proof for the social improvement strategies discussed, such as dressing sharp, demonstrating value, raising social status, displaying personality, and projecting confidence.

  Even the idea that your friends will give you a hard time as you improve is cited in this book as a normal evolutionary result of your success: Males want to destroy competitors, even the ones they secretly want to emulate.

  And, finally, if you want to improve your confidence, Ridley says you’re doing the right thing by going out and working to craft the perfect approach.

  “We measure our own relative desirability from others’ reactions to us,” he writes. “Repeated rejection causes us to lower our sights; an unbroken string of successful seductions encourages us to aim a little higher.”

  MIDPOINT COACHING SESSION

  Pull up a seat and let’s talk about life.

  Here’s the secret of success: What you get out of something is equal to what you put into it.

  Why am I telling you this now?

  Well, as a wise website once told me, “People don’t fail. They just stop trying.”

  The midway point is a dangerous time in most regimens, and I want to make sure you’re not going to bail out on the brink of a breakthrough.

  Maybe you’re doing just fine and anxious to press forward. But if you’re anything like the majority of past Challengers, you’re beating yourself up mentally before and during the field assignments.

  Over what? Why are you giving these strangers power over you?

  They are walking sources of feedback—there to give you insight about yourself and teach you how to do better next time. They’re not even judging you nearly as much as you’re judging yourself over this.

  If I’d gotten discouraged by all the rejection letters I’d received (not to mention by the incoherent prose of my first stories), I wouldn’t be writing today.

  But I learned from every paragraph, every mistake, every critique, every success.

  So guess what?

  This is a challenge. That means it’s going to be challenging.

  Not difficult, just challenging—to the bad habits that never worked for you in the first place.

  You’ve been offered an olive branch to fix yourself.

  Are you going to take it and run with it, or are you going to just stand there and hit yourself over the head with it?

  Every single person I know who’s dazzlingly successful with women worked hard to get where he is. Whether he admits it now or not, he’s overcome amazing obstacles—the biggest of which has been himself.

  All the frustrations (as well as the highs) you’re experiencing as you complete these assignments, we’ve all experienced. And what separates the ones who succeed from the ones who don’t is their commitment to themselves, to the game, and to getting in the field and playing their best.

  One of the most frustrating things about the game is that it requires effort. No matter how much status you may have at work or in school, you don’t have more status than that jaw-dropping woman who’s dressed to kill and turning every head as she glides through the club. No one does. Not the rock star. Not the billionaire. She can have her pick of the litter. And she can pick you. But it’s going to take commitment.

  Every time you don’t approach, every time you don’t try, every time you give up on something, every time you just go through the motions, every time you talk yourself out of a new or uncomfortable experience, the only person who loses is you.

  To quote Wayne Gretzky on hockey: “You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take.”

  It’s time to take that shot.

  MISSION 1: Cold Reading

  Today you’re going to learn one of the quickest ways to distinguish yourself from other men. Using this technique, you can very quickly enter the minds of strangers and tell them things even their best friends may not know.

  Your assignment: Turn to your Day 15 Briefing and read the primer on cold reading.

  MISSION 2: See a Psychic [Optional]

  Your mission: Go to a psychic and get a reading.

  If you have a portable audio recorder, ask to record the session.

  The only reason this is optional is because it costs money, typically from five to forty dollars—don’t pay more.
However, I strongly recommend it for all Challengers.

  Most communities have a few storefronts, New Age bookstores, and street fairs where psychic readers can be found. If you don’t know where to find a local palm reader, tarot reader, or other fortune-teller, check the guide to local events you read on bookstore day, or go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) and search “psychic mediums.” If you still can’t find one, as a last resort call the American Association of Professional Psychics at 1-800-815-8117 (or, internationally 1-561-207-2391) and buy a ten-minute reading by phone.

  Warning: Though most psychics are trustworthy, some are not. So don’t give out financial, credit card, or personal identifying information. In addition, you shouldn’t pay more than the initially quoted fee; if they ask for money after the reading to warn you of an impending event, don’t fall for it. Thank them for their time and leave.

  MISSION 3: Rate Your Reading

  The following task is for all Challengers, whether or not you’ve gone to a psychic. (If you haven’t, for reasons of money or time, go to www.stylelife.com/challenge. Input the date, time, and location of your birth, and get your astrological chart. Read the information as if you’re getting your fortune told.)

  Spend a few minutes analyzing the information you received during your psychic session, based on the cold-reading article you read today. Ask yourself the following questions:

  Did you feel the reading was good or bad? Why?

  Did you feel the reader was performing a generic routine or genuinely connecting with you? Why?

  Did you feel the reader understood you less or more than some of your friends? Why?

  Do you believe the reader had extra sensory powers? Why or why not?

  Would you visit the reader again? Why or why not?

  Take a moment to reflect on these answers and what they tell you about the characteristics of a good or bad cold reading. If there were any lines or phrases from the psychic reading that particularly resonated with you, write them down in the space below:

  Consider using these lines and phrases when performing your own cold readings.

  By Neil Strauss, Don Diego Garcia,

  and Thomas Scott McKenzie

  Most Challengers fit a certain personality profile, known as the Explorer, and chances are that you’re one of them. If so, the following analysis may apply to you:

  Explorers acknowledge that they have a few personality flaws, but they’re usually able to compensate for them with their ability to keep up appearances. This is because, beneath the surface, they have an incredible amount of personal potential just waiting to be tapped. They try to seek variety in their encounters and feel like a caged tiger when too many rules are forced on them.

  Explorers have a tendency to be a little hard on themselves sometimes but find solace in positive encouragement. At the same time, they take pride in their independence and don’t just blindly accept the opinions of others. That doesn’t mean, however, that they don’t have a part of them that wants —and perhaps even needs —to be liked by those around them.

  As Explorers grow a little older, they develop more secrets. And though they continue to work on themselves and make progress, they sometimes look back and wonder if they’ve made all the right decisions in life. A few of their dreams remain achievable in the near future, while a couple of others are a bit fanciful.

  If you found yourself nodding and agreeing at any point, you have just discovered the power of cold reading. In short, the art of cold reading is making a truism sound like a revelation. Cold refers to the fact that the person knows nothing about you. And reading refers to when your experiences, thoughts, desires, and future events are told to you as though they were lifted from the pages of a book.

  And they were. The script above is based on a classic reading, which has been passed on through generations of fortune-tellers.

  History

  In 1948, psychologist B. R. Forer gave a personality test to his students. Regardless of how they answered, Forer gave everyone the exact same personality profile afterward. He then asked the students to evaluate the accuracy of the profile. A score of 5 meant that the recipient felt the profile was excellent.

  The class average turned out to be 4.26. So all these unique, individual human beings were told the exact same thing, yet they felt the words fit them almost entirely accurately. The conclusion: People tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as being completely relevant to themselves. Furthermore, people usually accept claims about themselves in proportion to their desire that the claims be accurate.

  These principles help explain why palm readers make a living, why people devour horoscopes in the paper every day, and why psychic hotlines exist.

  Cold Reading and Attraction

  If everyone’s favorite subject is himself or herself, imagine the excitement they must feel when they meet a stranger who seems to know them almost as well as they know themselves.

  So it’s no surprise that cold reading occupies a central place in the art of attraction. Here are just a few of its uses:

  The cold-reading opener: Making an intelligent observation or sharing an intuition about a woman can be an effective way to spark her curiosity, and prompt her to stop and talk to you. Phrases like “I have an intuition that…,” “Something tells me that…,” or “I just noticed that…” are good ways to preface your observation.

  The cold-reading hook: Sometimes it’s necessary in an interaction to demonstrate that you stand out from the tools who usually come on to her. If you say something incredibly insightful and perceptive about her early in the conversation, she may begin to realize that she’s met someone rare and special.

  The cold-reading amplifier: Yesterday you learned the rings routine, one of many tests, games, and demos at your disposal for showing higher value. A knowledge of cold reading is essential to turn these demonstrations from mildly amusing ways of killing time to emotionally connecting experiences.

  Ethics

  Keep it positive.

  Never predict anything negative in the future or anything that will cause harm. When pointing out a personality flaw, even if it’s accurate, present it in a reassuring way.

  Don’t tell her, “You’re really insecure.” Instead, say, “You may not be the most confident person in the room, but deep down you know your own value.”

  Never use cold-reading scripts in a callous, manipulative way—especially as a scam to con women into believing that they share an intense, metaphysical connection with you. Instead, use cold reading as a legitimate conversation starter, connection builder, or way to demonstrate your unique knowledge of human behavior.

  Finally, cold reading is a secret art that’s traditionally passed from teacher to student. Do not use the term cold reading with the women and groups you approach, and do not share this information.

  Vehicles, Props, and Systems

  A cold reading can consist of just a line or two of insight about the person you’re talking to, or it can fuel a half-hour-long demonstration of value.

  A prop, classification system, or something specific to anchor your cold reading will give you the credibility, authority, and pretext you need to make your reading as long as you want. In general, save readings that last more than a few minutes for quiet environments and one-on-one moments after the hook point.

  Any number of props exist to give authority to cold readings. These range from well-known tools like tarot cards, rune stones, and the book of I Ching to more esoteric forms of divination like scrying (crystals) and cubomancy (dice). If you don’t want to carry around these items, there are many systems that require nothing but knowledge, including palm reading, numerology, astrology, and the rings routine you learned yesterday.

  When meeting women in bars and clubs, you can also springboard into cold reading based on something that’s normally part of the interaction or environment. For example, after shaking a woman’s hand, you might begin cold reading based on the strength and
grip of her handshake. You can even assess her personality based on the cocktail she’s drinking, the position of the straw in her glass, or the way she’s worn down the tip of her lipstick.

  Psychological personality profiles and their accompanying jargon are one of the best ways to give your reading an increased air of authority and expertise. One such system is the social-styles model, which places people into one of four categories depending on their assertiveness and responsiveness. Here are the broad strokes of how it works:

  To evaluate her assertiveness, ask if she’s the kind of person who asks her friends what they want to do when they go out or tells them what the plan is. To figure out her responsiveness, ask if she’s the kind of person who tells people when she’s upset or keeps it to herself.

  Based on her answers, you can create a cold reading based on the social-styles personality type she falls into:

  If she makes plans by asking for opinions and keeps her emotions to herself, then she’s an analytical.

  If she makes plans by telling her friends what she’s doing and keeps her emotions to herself, she’s a driver.

  If she makes plans by asking and shares her emotions, she’s an amiable.

  If she makes plans by telling and shares her emotions, she’s an expressive.