The Natural: How to Effortlessly Attract the Women You Want (3 page)

We spent the next two and a half years together. The relationship went about as well as you might imagine: I was both very needy and very inexperienced. During that whole time I had this nagging feeling that I was stuck in the relationship because it was the only one I could get. And even though I was thankful for the chance to be with a girl, somehow it seemed like I was missing out on something. Eventually, we began arguing and things deteriorated until we broke up.

Back to square one for me. Only now I was twenty-three years old, suddenly single, and still living at home with my mother. Out of sheer desperation, and not knowing what to do with my life, I began working on myself—just trying to improve, to do whatever it took to not be so bad at life. I wanted to be so much more than I had been to that point.

I started by writing down all my problems, all the ways in which I wanted to be better; and then I made up a plan for addressing each one. For my shyness, for example, I decided to do a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course in Seville, Spain. It forced me, as I hoped it would when I first read the prospectus, to be the center of attention and stand up in front of a class of people for an hour at a time. In my first class, I was so nervous that my voice was shaking. By the last one I was pretty good. Much of getting over shyness, and even fear, in approaching women relies on desensitization. That course really helped me a lot.

I also started reading two self-improvement books a week. I studied neurolinguistic programming (NLP), which is a branch of psychology that uses different techniques such as the artful use of language and visualization to influence not only one’s own subconscious mind but the subconscious minds of others. I also studied mainstream psychology, hypnosis, Buddhism, and other self-development approaches. I didn’t anticipate the effect this would have, but it made me calmer and more composed, generally happier and more contented. Buddhism and hypnosis made my focus of attention internal.

My fashion also needed fixing, and I spent a period of about two years trying to figure out what worked best for me in terms of my style. I went from wearing baggy jeans, Nike tops, and dirty running shoes to well-fitting, stylish designer clothes that I bought at discount outlets. At first, I made mistakes and bought terrible items (the fake Versace polo shirt with a huge logo, the Zegna suit that was two sizes too big), but over time I refined my style and learned a lot about labels, design, fit, and fabrics—and where to shop for the best bargains.

I still wasn’t dating, but I was getting ready. And soon enough, fate would accidentally step into the picture.

I was sitting at a Starbucks with my cousin and confidant, Alistair, listening to music on my iPod, when I noticed a bunch of dorky-looking guys my age sitting nearby. They were listening intently to what another guy at their table was telling them. They looked like they were taking a class.

Intrigued, I pulled out my earbuds and leaned over to try to eavesdrop. From what I could hear, it sounded like they were taking notes about how to pick up chicks.

“Hey, you! Over there!” the guy who was doing the talking suddenly shouted out in my direction. “You better not be taping me!”

Alistair and I quickly explained that my iPod wasn’t a tape recorder, and with that his face softened and he invited us over to his table. That’s when I first learned about the world of the pickup artist, or PUA. He explained that he was a PUA coach and that the guys with him were his students. I was intrigued. He told me to go out and buy a book called
The Game
by some American guy named Neil Strauss. He said I should read it, and if I liked what I read, I might want to give him a call and sign up for his class.

From looking at the guys who were with him, though, I didn’t really buy into the idea that they could have any success with women—they just plain looked too dorky. Even my teenaged cousin and I were a lot hipper and cooler than they were, which isn’t saying a lot.

Nevertheless, I asked young Alistair to run over to the nearby Borders bookstore to check out the book. An hour later, he called me from the store. “Hey, Rich! I’ve found it! It’s great!” he said excitedly. “It’s by a journalist who infiltrated this underground society of pickup artists.” He said it wasn’t so great in terms of offering actual tips and techniques, but he liked what he read. I said, “Buy it!”

I read the entire book that night—cover to cover—in one sitting. I never signed up for a class, but I did spend the next six months devouring everything I could get my hands on (via the Internet) about the guys who were featured in the book. Guys like Mystery and David DeAngelo. I diligently studied the subject on my own, learning the techniques, memorizing the lines. Eventually, I decided to start trying it out for myself. After successfully pulling off ten small “approaches” (starting brief conversations with a new woman), I felt I was finally beginning to get the hang of it.

Shortly after studying
The Game
, I went to Singapore on vacation. I was visiting my ex-girlfriend, whom I still had feelings for but was no longer in love with. She did, however, have a colleague I was attracted to. I was there for a month and bumped into this girl a few times. She had been educated at Oxford, and I loved her Liz Hurley accent. One night, when we were in a bar and she was sitting next to me, I put a small amount of my “learning” to use.

She put her hand on my leg, so I put
my
hand on
her
leg. She started rubbing my leg, so I reciprocated. She took my hand, so I leaned in and kissed her.

I would have been happy with just a kiss, this being only the second girl I’d kissed in my entire life! However, she escalated things further. “Let’s go,” she said, leading me outside to a cab and back to my hotel. Truth be told, she did all the work. In the hotel room, she took her clothes off, lay back, and made my job as easy as it could possibly be. I was finally getting somewhere!

My confidence was already boosted from all the pickup artist theory now stored in my head. I felt I had a secret weapon I could deploy with devastating results. And why not? It had a 100 percent success rate so far. Other guys didn’t know this stuff. They were idiots! I was going to clean up! Okay, so she was the one who said, “Let’s go,” who got us in a cab and took us back to a hotel; and she was a friend of a friend, rather than a cold approach—but hey! I’d gotten the result, and now I was determined to get even better at dealing with women.

A few months later I moved out of my mother’s place and into an apartment in a cool part of London that I shared with a couple of other young roommates. I picked the location specifically for meeting women, going out, and being sociable. I didn’t know anyone—not even my roommates—so I knew I’d be forced to get out there and meet people.

Being new to the neighborhood, I had no immediate social circle to connect with or to hang out with, so I eventually linked up with some local pickup artists via online forums, and I started to tag along with them when they went out on the town. When we first went out I gave them the same kind of respect I’d given to the master pickup artists described in
The Game
. I thought that anyone who had spent years working on something would be very good at it. However, I quickly found out that most of these guys could talk a good talk and walk a cool walk, but they didn’t seem to have a clue about how to take things much further than getting a girl’s phone number or a first dance or a kiss.

I’d watch one of those guys approach, and see the girls look at each other with a “Help me!” face, or I’d see them simply smile politely and then shake their heads and say, “What was up with that guy?” after he turned his back. To me, it was kind of sad, and I knew that I wanted more.

Luckily, I had some other role models that I could admire (on video and audio at least), but I still began to question the full potential of all the touted strategies. If these guys had taken years of focused effort just to get where they were—which wasn’t far, in my book—maybe I’d never be able to become what I really wanted to be, which was a genuinely successful seducer who knew how to attract and handle beautiful women.

Quite frankly, I wasn’t interested in just scoring “bragging rights” about quick little victories such as getting a good-looking girl’s phone number or a quick kiss on the dance floor.

I wanted more. I wanted to be the coolest guy in the room, the guy that gets the girl
and
also has of bunch of cool friends and a social life. Bottom line: I wanted it all. I wanted to be the real deal.

Needless to say, I had to reevaluate my motives and my expectations. I realized pretty quickly that my goal should be to “game” not like a typical pickup artist but like a “natural”—someone who exudes the qualities a woman would naturally be attracted to … someone who doesn’t need tricks and gimmicks or lies to make women fall for him.

Over the next few weeks, I met more of the same kind of guys—pickup artist wannabes who hadn’t yet mastered the game. Most of them I didn’t really want to hang out with, but I did meet two, Eugene and Conor, who were cooler than the others, and I tried to go out to as many bars and clubs with them as I could. At this point, unless I’d gone to a particular club or bar more than thirty times—which is a lot!—I still felt fairly uncomfortable with the environment.

Little by little, however, I was beginning to overcome my fear of talking to women, and a couple of times I even had some nice conversations, thanks to my inherent introvert skill of being a good listener. Eventually, with the help of Conor as my “wingman,” or social accomplice, I was able to get a few phone numbers in various clubs, but nothing came of them.

For example, one girl I was sure I’d meet for a date—after we’d had a great conversation, I took her number and we arranged to meet the next week at a salsa club—texted me to say she’d hurt her ankle at the gym. After that, I tried to meet her a few times, but it never happened; she always had an excuse. My education and practice in attracting women continued.

The next big realization happened several weeks later, when I was at a club with Conor. He approached two very attractive Swedish girls and seemed to settle in on one. I waited a short while and then joined them. Conor was totally focused on his girl, but I wasn’t having much luck with her friend. After sitting on the arm of her chair for
a full hour
, talking to her, and then finally finding a way to sit down next to her, I felt like I was getting absolutely nowhere.

I was getting no touching from her, and didn’t know what the hell I should do. My previous one-night stand in Singapore had happened only because the girl had touched my leg first; I’d just matched her moves with a few of my own. Frustrated now, I said to myself, “Fuck it,” put my arm around the Swedish girl, and went in for the kiss. Lo and behold, it worked; she was into it!

Now I know I probably could have made that move after thirty seconds rather than waiting a whole hour, and I probably could have moved on from the kiss to something more, but the point is that taking the initiative shifted something in my mind. I realized that women like men to lead; asking a woman if she wants to kiss, or waiting ages to do it, is just unattractive. In this case I didn’t have the knowledge I have now, so I could have been rejected when I went for it—but if you don’t try, you won’t ever find out what you might have missed. (I should note here that lunging in suddenly for a kiss is a terrible thing to do. When you read the later chapters in this book, you’ll learn the way to do it smoothly.)

The next milestone happened one night when I was at a trendy dance club. The friend I was with identified a hot girl. She was tall, blond, and thin, with blue eyes—just my type. I went over and sat down next to her and started chatting away. After some teasing banter to challenge her, I lightly touched her leg and arm, and she reciprocated. I went for the kiss after about five minutes. Then I led her around the club: “Let’s go get a drink” became “Let’s dance,” which then became “Let’s sit down.” We got quite hot and heavy on the sidelines, and then I just got up, took her hand, and said, “Let’s go.” She walked with me, asking only, “Where?” I said, “Somewhere else,” and led her out of the club and over to my place.

An hour later we were in bed and getting it on. She left early in the morning to get back home, and I was buzzing. My god! I’d finally scored with an attractive girl—a perfect stranger—and within a matter of hours had persuaded her that I was good enough for her to sleep with. I was on my way.

In the days, weeks, and months that followed, I worked furiously on my game. Now that I’d gotten a little taste of success, I was a man on a mission: to get as good at the pickup game as humanly possible. Night after night I went out and put into practice everything that I’d learned. Lots of what I tried didn’t work. But every now and again I’d come up with a new twist on an old technique, and when it worked I’d incorporate it into my skill set. As my game evolved, I became very, very good—a natural, or so it appeared. So good, in fact, that it was upsetting the people I used to go out with. While my wingmen would be prowling the club for their first approach, I’d be making out with a girl in the corner of the club. I moved on to sleeping with strippers. Then came models and actresses. All the while my confidence and skill grew.