Failed Pickup Artist Learns

Mark Manson shares a story about how trying pickup artist techniques backfired and led to genuine advice.

"I was trying to use some of the stuff I read in The Game. I started trying to do some coin magic tricks - just a total disaster. I was in a bar talking to these 3 girls, trying to do a magic trick. They were really into it and excited, but I kept messing it up. It got awkward.

At a certain point, they realized 'wait, you're just doing a thing to hit on us.' I tried to make a joke, it was super lame, and they started to roll their eyes and walk away. I said 'wait, I have another magic trick!'

One of the girls turned around, looked at me and said 'You know, you were kind of cute - you should just be yourself.' That was one of those first moments where I realized I should just use my personality as the baseline and iterate on stuff that already feels natural, instead of trying to be some weird dude from a book.

I can't believe I spent $10,000 and 2 years of my life studying all this stuff when I could have just walked up and been like 'hi, where are you from?' and gotten the exact same results."