One involves discreetly undermining a woman's self-esteem by paying her a backhanded compliment in the hope that she will hang around to seek your approval. Rafael Behr in The Observer wrote, "Some of the recommended techniques are sinister. Instead of models in bikinis lounging by the Project Hollywood pool all day, we had pimply teenagers, bespectacled businessmen, tubby students, lonely millionaires, struggling actors, frustrated taxi drivers, and computer programmers-lots of computer programmers." The reviewer remarked that "The sell is that, with the special techniques they learn from Mystery and other gurus, the ubergeeky can often give a convincing simulation of being a regular human being, even if, like one sarger in this book, they are in fact near-sociopaths." Neil Strauss was quoted in a review by Steven Poole in The Guardian as saying, "A side effect of sarging (socializing with the intent of finding and seducing a woman) is that it can lower one's opinion of the opposite sex", though the reviewer noted, "And yet, as he has described it, the inverse is true: a low opinion of the opposite sex is a prerequisite for sarging." Strauss was also quoted as saying, "The point was women the result was men. Strauss mentions his experiments with sleeping habits, personal grooming tips, and encounters with celebrities such as Scott Baio, Tom Cruise, Andy Dick, Paris Hilton, Courtney Love, Dennis Rodman, and Britney Spears. By the end of his story, Strauss concludes that a life of nothing but picking up women is "for losers", and he advocates incorporating pickup artist methods into a more balanced life. He details how rivalries and animosity between members of the community lead to Project Hollywood's collapse and documents the start of "Real Social Dynamics" led by Tyler Durden and Papa. Strauss tells the story of his success, the spreading of the romantic community itself, and his life at "Project Hollywood", a high-end mansion and a lifestyle plan shared by Strauss, Mystery, Playboy, Papa, Tyler Durden, Herbal, and other members of the seduction community.
He also uses "false time constraints" (a reason that the conversation could end very soon) to put the woman of interest in a situation where she must convince the man she is interesting, discusses how to very slowly increase the amount of physical contact, and more. He offers further guidelines for the process of seduction, which include preparing things to say before going out and telling groups of women surreptitiously impressive stories. Strauss advocates various methods, mostly from the point of view of heterosexual men. A good deal of the book focuses on how to obtain the elusive upper hand, or just hand, in a relationship. He befriends many of the pickup artists, particularly Mystery. The book then narrates the journey of how Strauss goes through the stages of becoming a pickup artist (a description of the members of the community) and gains the pseudonym "Style". Strauss learns habits that, as he sees it, are often basic-and should have been taught to him by society in the first place. The bootcamp consists of Strauss and other participants approaching women, and then Mystery and his counterpart, Sinn, giving them corrective advice on their behaviors, body language, and what to say. As he becomes more and more involved in the romantic community, Strauss attends a bootcamp conducted by a man identified only as "Mystery". Intrigued by the subculture, he starts participating in the online discussion groups, mainly out of frustration with his own romantic life.
Strauss stumbles across the community while working on an article. The follow-up book, Rules of the Game, relies more on the how-to side of seduction and dating. Despite the reputation that The Game has gained as an exposé on the seduction community, it was primarily written as an autobiographical work. In its original published hardcover format, the book was covered in black leather and bookmarked with red satin, similar to some printings of the Bible.
The book was featured on The New York Times Bestseller List for two months after its release in September 2005, reaching prominence again in 2007 during the broadcast of the VH1 television series The Pickup Artist, which was hosted by Mystery, Strauss's mentor in the book. The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (also known as The Game: Undercover in the Secret Society of Pickup Artists) is a non-fiction book written by investigative reporter Neil Strauss as a chronicle of his journey and encounters in the seduction community.
The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships