Have you read The Game by Neil Strauss?  It’s credited with popularizing Pick Up Artists (PUAs).  Many men worldwide have had their eyes opened by this impressive book and revitalized their dating lives.  Your dating life should get a real boost from the guidelines and tips here, even if you’re pretty experienced in the dating scene.

Before looking at techniques, let me point out that there are really two different types of pick up artists.  The first kind of PUA works hard at it, memorizing specific scenarios or tales to tell their prospective companions.  These stories and routines are each intended to impress women and attract them to the PUA, and to ensure his success, he carefully crafts and polishes them.  If you’ve read The Game, you probably recognize Mystery as this kind of PUA. 

Strauss calls the approach used by the second type of pick up artist the “natural game.”   Success with women is achieved by putting his own natural charisma and personality into play.   This fellow will approach women confidently, and his conversation will be spontaneous, natural, hence the label.  And another example from The Game that exemplifies this style is “Juggler.”

There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach.  My preferred approach is “natural game,” but I’ve seen success achieved with both techniques. There’s a lot of work involved in memorizing all that material.  And think about it - which would you prefer, being liked by a woman because of a story you fabricated, or because of your own personality, who you really are?

Whichever technique you use, though, one of the most important pieces of advice I can offer is this: concentrate on the real you and your inner game.  The term “inner game” is used to describe the real you - who you are, your beliefs, and especially your own self-confidence.  This means that if you yourself feel unattractive, or shy, it’s likely you’re not going to approach a woman you find really attractive, regardless of the routines, tips and stories you’ve made up and memorized.  The other side of the coin is this: if you’re confident in your ability to approach and talk with women, you’ll be able to approach any woman you want to - even the most attractive - and carry on a nice conversation without fear of being turned away.

A guideline I find very useful is this: take things easy.  Don’t expect to start at the top.  Concentrate on the basics - your self-confidence, your inner game - and as these things improve, you’ll find yourself with more women than you ever dreamed would be possible in your life!  When you find something in your path - an obstacle that keeps you from being successful - you must concentrate specifically on overcoming that obstacle.  Shyness was my obstacle.   I devised a challenge just for the purpose of overcoming my shyness: I had to stop and talk with 100 strangers a week.  You’ve got to figure out way of overcoming the obstacles you run into.

I think, though, that of all the advice I could give, one of the most important is also one of the simplest: be consistent. Once you’ve found (or developed) an approach that fits your particular personality, stay with it!  Too often, guys who want to be PUAs will spend all sorts of money buying all sorts of books and other instructional material, constantly jumping from one approach to another.  Then, without giving any of them a fair trial, they’ll complain that none work.  The fact is, though, that dating success was available to these guys if they’d simply stuck with a single approach and gave it an honest trial. 

So that’s my final advice for you - stick with the style that feels best to you.

If you liked this article and you want to learn some more PUA tips and routines, check out Pick Up Artist Tips and How to Pick Up Women.