p. 1

also by neil strauss the long hard road out of hell with marilyn manson the game the dirt with motley crue penetrating the secret society of pickup artists how to make love like a porn star with jenna jameson don t try this at home with dave navarro neil strauss reganbooks an imprint ofharpercollinspublishers

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p. 2

cover silhouettes are from the following fonts darrian s sexy silhouettes by © darrian http westwood.fortunecity.com/cerruti/445 subeve by © sub communications http www.subtitude.com norp icons 1 and norp icons 2 by © dj monkeyboy http www.djmonkeyboy.com the randall knife words and music by guy clark © 1983 emi april music inc and gsc music all rights controlled and administered by emi april music inc all rights reserved international copyright secured used by permission in order to protect the identity of some women and members of the community the names and identifying characteristics of a small number of incidental characters in this book have been changed and three minor characters are composites the game copyright © 2 0 0 5 by neil strauss all rights reserved printed in the united states of america no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews for information address harpercollins publishers inc 10 east 53rd street new york ny 10022 harpercollins books may be purchased for educational business or sales promotional use for information please write special markets department harpercollins publishers inc 10 east 53rd street new york ny 10022 first edition art direction and design by michelle ishay richard ljoenes cover design by richard ljoenes interior design by kris tobiassen richard ljoenes interior illustrations by bernard chang dedicated to the thousands of people i talked to in bars clubs malls airports grocery stores subways and elevators over the last two vears if you are reading this i want you to know that i wasn t running game on you i was being sincere really you were different printed on acid-free paper library of congress cataloging-in-publication data has been applied for isbn 0-06-055473-8 05 06 07 08 09 qwk 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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p. 3

i could not become anything neither bad nor good neither a scoundrel nor an honest man neither a hero nor an insect and now i am eking out my days in my corner taunting myself with the bitter and entirely useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot seriously become anything that only a fool can become something fyodor dostoevsky notes from underground

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p. 4

those who have read early drafts of this book have all asked the same questions is this true did it really happen are these guys for real thus i find it necessary to employ an old literary device the following is a true story it really happened men will deny it women will doubt it but i present it to you here naked vulnerable and disturbingly real i beg you for your forgiveness in advance don t hate the player hate the game.

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p. 5

contents step 1 step 7 select a target 1 step 2 extract to a seduction location 243 approach and open 13 step 3 step 8 pump buying temperature 265 demonstrate value 51 step 4 step 9 make a physical connection 319 disarm the obstacles 107 step 5 step 10 blast last-minute resistance 345 isolate the target 147 step 6 step 1 1 manage expectations 387 create an emotional connection 207 glossary 439 451 acknowledgements

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p. 6

step 1 select a target

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p. 7

meet mystery men weren t really the enemy they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill the house was a disaster doors were split and smashed off their hinges walls were dented in the shape of fists phones and flowerpots herbal was hiding in a hotel room scared for his life and mystery was collapsed on the living room carpet cry¬ ing he d been crying for two days straight this wasn t a normal kind of crying ordinary tears are understand¬ able but mystery was beyond understanding he was out of control for a week he d been vacillating between periods of extreme anger and violence and jags of fitful cathartic sobbing and now he was threatening to kill himself there were five of us living in the house herbal mystery papa play¬ boy and me boys and men came from every corner of the globe to shake our hands take photos with us learn from us be us they called me style it was a name i had earned we never used our real names only our aliases even our mansion like the others we had spawned everywhere from san francisco to sydney had a nickname it was project hollywood and project hollywood was in shambles the sofas and dozens of throw pillows lining the floor of the sunken living room were fetid and discolored with the sweat of men and the juices of women the white carpet had gone gray from the constant traffic of young perfumed humanity herded in off sunset boulevard every night cigarette butts and used condoms floated grimly in the jacuzzi and mys¬ tery s rampage during the last few days had left the rest of the place totaled and the residents petrified he was six foot five and hysterical i can t tell you what this feels like he choked out between sobs his whole body spasmed i don t know what i m going to do but it will not be rational betty friedan the feminine mystique

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p. 8

4 he reached up from the floor and punched the stained red upholstery of the sofa as the siren-wail of his despondency grew louder filling the room with the sound of a grown male who has lost every characteristic that separates man from infant from animal he wore a gold silk robe that was several sizes too small exposing his scabbed knees the ends of the sash just barely met to form a knot and the curtains of the robe hung half a foot apart revealing a pale hairless chest and below it saggy gray calvin klein boxer shorts the only other item of clothing on his trembling body was a winter cap pulled tight over his skull it was june in los angeles this living thing he was speaking again it s so pointless he turned and looked at me through wet red eyes it s tic tac toe there s no way you can win so the best thing to do is not to play it there was no one else in the house i would have to deal with this he needed to be sedated before he snapped out of tears and back into anger each cycle of emotions grew worse and this time i was afraid he d do some¬ thing that couldn t be undone i couldn t let mystery die on my watch he was more than just a friend he was a mentor he d changed my life as he had the lives of thousands of others just like me i needed to get him valium xanax vicodin anything i grabbed my phone book and scanned the pages for people most likely to have pills people like guys in rock bands women who d just had plastic surgery former child actors but everyone i called wasn t home didn t have any drugs or claimed not to have any drugs because they didn t want to share there was only one person left to call the woman who had triggered mystery s downward spiral she was a party girl she must have something katya a petite russian blonde with a smurfette voice and the energy of a pomeranian puppy was at the front door in ten minutes with a xanax and a worried look on her face do not come in i warned her he ll probably kill you not that she didn t entirely deserve it of course or so i thought at the time i gave mystery the pill and a glass of water and waited until the sobs slowed to a sniffle then i helped him into a pair of black boots jeans and a gray t-shirt he was docile now like a big baby i m taking you to get some help i told him i walked him outside to my old rusty corvette and stuffed him into the 5 tiny front seat every now and then i d see a tremor of anger flash across his face or tears roll out of his eyes i hoped he d remain calm long enough for me to help him i want to learn martial arts he said docilely so when i want to kill someone i can do something about it i stepped on the accelerator our destination was the hollywood mental health center on vine street it was an ugly slab of concrete surrounded day and night by home¬ less men who screamed at lampposts transvestites who lived out of shop¬ ping carts and other remaindered human beings who set up camp where free social services could be found mystery i realized was one of them he just happened to have charisma and talent which drew others to him and prevented him from ever being left alone in the world he possessed two traits i d noticed in nearly every rock star i d ever interviewed a crazy driven gleam in his eyes and an absolute inability to do anything for himself i brought him into the lobby signed him in and together we waited for a turn with one of the counselors he sat in a cheap black plastic chair star¬ ing catatonically at the institutional blue walls an hour passed he began to fidget two hours passed his brow furrowed his face clouded three hours passed the tears started four hours passed he bolted out of his chair and ran out of the wait¬ ing room and through the front door of the building he walked briskly like a man who knew where he was going although project hollywood was three miles away i chased him across the street and caught up to him outside a mini-mall i took his arm and turned him around baby talking him back into the waiting room five minutes ten minutes twenty minutes thirty he was up and out again i ran after him two social workers stood uselessly in the lobby stop him i yelled we can t one of them said he s left the premises so you re just going to let a suicidal man walk out of here i couldn t waste time arguing just have a therapist ready to see him if i get him back here i ran out the door and looked to my right he wasn t there i looked

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p. 9

7 6 left nothing i ran north to fountain avenue spotted him around the cor¬ ner and dragged him back again when we arrived the social workers led him down a long dark hallway and into a claustrophobic cubicle with a sheet-vinyl floor the therapist sat behind a desk running a finger through a black tangle in her hair she was a slim asian woman in her late twenties with high cheekbones dark red lip¬ stick and a pinstriped pantsuit mystery slumped in a chair across from her so how are you feeling today she asked forcing a smile i m feeling mystery said like there s no point to anything he burst into tears i m listening she said scrawling a note on her pad the case was probably already closed for her so i m removing myself from the gene pool he sobbed she looked at him with feigned sympathy as he continued to her he was just one of a dozen nutjobs she saw a day all she needed to figure out was whether he required medication or institutionalization i can t go on mystery went on it s futile with a rote gesture she reached into a drawer pulled out a small pack¬ age of tissues and handed it to him as mystery reached for the package he looked up and met her eyes for the first time he froze and stared at her silently she was surprisingly cute for a clinic like this a flicker of animation flashed across mystery s face then died if i had met you in another time and another place he said crumpling a tissue in his hands things would have been different his body normally proud and erect curved like soggy macaroni in his chair he stared glumly at the floor as he spoke i know exactly what to say and what to do to make you attracted to me he continued it s all in my head every rule every step every word i just can t do it right now she nodded mechanically you should see me when i m not like this he continued slowly snif¬ fling i ve dated some of the most beautiful women in the world another place another time and i would have made you mine yes she said patronizing him i m sure you would have she didn t know how could she but this sobbing giant with the crumpled tissue in his hands was the greatest pickup artist in the world that was not a matter of opinion but fact i d met scores of the self proclaimed best in the previous two years and mystery could out-game them all it was his hobby his passion his calling there was only one person alive who could possibly compete with him and that man was sitting in front of her also from a formless lump of nerd mystery had molded me into a superstar together we had ruled the world of seduction we had pulled off spectacular pickups before the disbe¬ lieving eyes of our students and disciples in los angeles new york mon¬ treal london melbourne belgrade odessa and beyond and now we were in a madhouse.

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p. 10

9 meet style i am far from attractive my nose is too large for my face and while not hooked has a bump in the ridge though i am not bald to say that my hair is thinning would be an understatement there are just wispy rogaineenhanced growths covering the top of my head like tumbleweeds in my opinion my eyes are small and beady though they do have a lively glimmer which is doomed to remain my secret because no one can see it behind my glasses i have indentations on either side of my forehead which i like and believe add character to my face though i ve never actually been compli¬ mented on them i am shorter than i d like to be and so skinny that i look malnourished to most people no matter how much i eat when i look down at my pale slouched body i wonder why any woman would want to sleep next to it let alone embrace it so for me meeting girls takes work i m not the kind of guy women giggle over at a bar or want to take home when they re feeling drunk and crazy i can t offer them a piece of my fame and bragging rights like a rock star or cocaine and a mansion like so many other men in los an¬ geles all i have is my mind and nobody can see that you may notice that i haven t mentioned my personality this is be¬ cause my personality has completely changed or to put it more accurately i completely changed my personality i invented style my alter ego and in the course of two years style became more popular than i ever was especially with women it was never my intention to change my personality or walk through the world under an assumed identity in fact i was happy with myself and my life that is until an innocent phone call it always starts with an innocent phone call led me on a journey into one of the oddest and most exciting un¬ derground communities that in more than a dozen years of journalism i have ever come across the call was from jeremie ruby-strauss no relation a book editor who had stumbled across a document on the internet called the layguide short for the how-to-lay-girls guide compressed into 150 siz¬ zling pages he said was the collected wisdom of dozens of pickup artists who have been exchanging their knowledge in newsgroups for nearly a de¬ cade secretly working to turn the art of seduction into an exact science the information needed to be rewritten and organized into a coherent how-to book and he thought i was the man to do it i wasn t so sure i want to write literature not give advice to horny ado¬ lescents but of course i told him it wouldn t hurt to take a look at it the moment i started reading my life changed more than any other book or document be it the bible crime and punishment or the joy of cooking the layguide opened my eyes and not necessarily because of the information in it but because of the path it sent me hurtling down when i look back on my teenage years i have one major regret and it has nothing to do with not studying hard enough not being nice to my mother or crashing my father s car into a public bus it is simply that i didn t fool around with enough girls i am a deep man i reread james joyce s ulysses every three years for fun i consider myself reasonably intu¬ itive i am at the core a good person and i try to avoid hurting others but i can t seem to evolve to the next state of being because i spend far too much time thinking about women and i know i m not alone when i first met hugh hefner he was seventy-three he had slept with over a thousand of the most beautiful women in the world by his own account but all he wanted to talk about were his three girlfriends mandy brandy and sandy and how thanks to viagra he could keep them all satisfied though his money probably satis¬ fied them enough if he ever wanted to sleep with somebody else he said the rule was that they d all do it together so what i gathered from the con¬ versation was that here was a guy who s had all the sex he wanted his whole life and at seventy-three he s still chasing tail when does it stop if hugh hefner isn t over it yet when am i going to be if the layguide had never crossed my path i like most men would never have evolved in my thinking about the opposite sex in fact i probably started off worse than most men in my preteen years there were no games of doctor no girls who charged a dollar to look up their skirts no tickling classmates in places i wasn t supposed to touch i spent most of teenage life grounded so when my sole adolescent sexual opportunity arose a drunken freshman girl called and offered me a blow job i was forced to decline or else suffer my mother s wrath in college i began to find myself the things i was interested

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p. 11

10 11 in the personality i d always been too shy to express the group of friends who would expand my mind with drugs and conversation in that order but i never became comfortable around women they intimidated me in four years of college i did not sleep with a single woman on campus after school i took a job at the new york times as a cultural reporter where i began to build confidence in myself and my opinions eventually i gained access to a privileged world where no rules applied i went on the road with marilyn manson and motley crue to write books with them in all that time with all those backstage passes i didn t get so much as a single kiss from anyone except tommy lee after that i pretty much gave up hope some guys had it other guys didn t i clearly didn t the problem wasn t that i d never been laid it was that the few times i did get lucky i d turn a one-night stand into a two-year stand because i didn t know when it was going to happen again the layguide had an acronym for people like me afc average frustrated chump i was an afc not like dustin i met dustin the year i graduated from college he was friends with a classmate of mine named marko a faux-aristocratic serbian who had been my companion in girllessness since nursery school thanks largely to his head which was shaped like a watermelon dustin wasn t any taller richer more famous or better looking than either of us but he did possess one quality we didn t he attracted women when marko first introduced me to him i was unimpressed he was short and swarthy with long curly brown hair and a cheesy button-down gigolo shirt with too many buttons undone that night we went to a chicago club called drink as we checked our coats dustin asked do you know if there are any dark corners in here i asked him what he needed dark corners for and he replied that they were good places to take girls i raised my eyebrows skeptically minutes af¬ ter entering the bar however he made eye contact with a shy-looking girl who was talking with a friend without a word dustin walked away the girl followed him straight to a dark corner when they finished kissing and groping they parted wordlessly without an obligatory exchange of phone numbers or even a sheepish see-you-later dustin repeated this seemingly miraculous feat four times that night a new world opened up before my eyes i grilled him for hours trying to determine what sort of magical powers he possessed dustin was what they call a natural he had lost his virginity at age eleven when the fifteen-year-old daughter of a neighbor used him as a sexual experiment and he had been fucking nonstop since one night i took him to a party on a boat anchored in new york s hudson river when a sultry brown-haired doe-eyed girl walked by he turned to me and said she s just your type i denied it and stared at the floor as usual i was afraid he d try to make me talk to her which he soon did when she walked past again he asked her do you know neil it was a stupid icebreaker but it didn t matter now that the ice was bro¬ ken i stammered out a few words until dustin took over and rescued me we met her and her boyfriend at a bar afterward they had just moved in to¬ gether her boyfriend was taking their dog for a walk after a few drinks he took the dog home leaving the girl paula with us dustin suggested going back to my place to cook a late-night snack so we walked to my tiny east village apartment and instead collapsed on the bed with dustin on one side of paula and me on the other when dustin started kissing her left cheek he signaled me to do the same on her right cheek then in synchronicity we moved down her body to her neck and her breasts though i was surprised by paula s quiet compliance for dustin this seemed to be business as usual he turned to me and asked if i had a condom i found one for him he pulled off her pants and moved into her while i continued lapping uselessly at her right breast that was dustin s gift his power giving women the fantasy they never thought they d experience afterward paula called me constantly she wanted to talk about the experience all the time to rationalize it because she couldn t believe what she had done that s how it always worked with dustin he got the girl i got the guilt i chalked this up to a simple difference of personality dustin had a natural charm and animal instinct that i just didn t or at least that s what i thought until i read the layguide and explored the newsgroups and web¬ sites it recommended what i discovered was an entire community filled with dustins men who claimed to have found the combination to unlock a woman s heart and legs along with thousands of others like myself try¬ ing to learn their secrets the difference was that these men had broken down their methods to a specific set of rules that anybody could apply and each self-proclaimed pickup artist had his own set of rules there was mystery a magician ross jeffries a hypnotist rick h a mil¬ lionaire entrepreneur david deangelo a real estate agent juggler a stand-

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p. 12

12 step 2 up comedian david x a construction worker and steve p a seductionist so powerful that women actually pay to learn how to give him better head put them on south beach in miami and any number of better-looking musclebound bullies will be kicking sand in their pale emaciated faces but put them in a starbucks or whiskey bar and they ll be taking turns making out with that bully s girlfriend as soon as his back is turned once i discovered their world the first thing that changed was my vo¬ cabulary terms like afc pua pickup artist sarging picking up women and hb hot babe1 entered my permanent lexicon then my daily rituals changed as i became addicted to the online locker room these pickup artists had created whenever i returned home from meeting or going out with a woman i sat down at my computer and posted my questions of the night on the newsgroups what do i do if she says she has a boyfriend if she eats garlic during dinner does it mean she isn t planning on kissing me is it a good or a bad sign when a girl puts on lipstick in front of me and online characters like candor gunwitch and formhandle began replying to my questions the answers in order use a boyfriend-destroyer pattern you re overanalyzing this neither soon i realized this was not just an internet phenomenon but a way of life there were cults of wanna-be seductionists in dozens of cities from los angeles to london to zagreb to bombay who met weekly in what they called lairs to discuss tactics and strategies before going out en masse to meet women in the guise of jeremie ruby-strauss and the internet god had given me a second chance it wasn t too late to be dustin to become what every woman wants not what she says she wants but what she really wants deep inside beyond her social programming where her fantasies and day¬ dreams lie but i couldn t do it on my own talking to guys online was not going to be enough to change a lifetime of failure i had to meet the faces behind the screen names watch them in the field find out who they were and what made them tick i made it my mission my full-time job and obsession to hunt down the greatest pickup artists in the world and beg for shelter un¬ der their wings and so began the strangest two years of my life 1 a glossary has been provided on page 439 with detailed explanations of these and other terms used by the seduction community approach and open

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p. 13

the first problem for all of us men and women is not to learn but to unlearn gloria steinem commencement speech vnssar college i withdrew five hundred dollars from the bank stuffed it into a white enve¬ lope and wrote mystery on the front it was not the proudest moment of my life but i had dedicated the last four days to getting ready for it anywaybuying two hundred dollars worth of clothing at fred segal spending an afternoon shopping for the perfect cologne and dropping seventy-five bucks on a hollywood haircut i wanted to look my best this would be my first time hanging out with a real pickup artist his name or at least the name he used online was mystery he was the most worshipped pickup artist in the community a powerhouse who spit out long detailed posts that read like algorithms of how to manipu¬ late social situations to meet and attract women his nights out seducing models and strippers in his hometown of toronto were chronicled in inti¬ mate detail online the writing filled with jargon of his own invention sniper negs shotgun negs group theory indicators of interest pawning all of which had become an integral part of the pickup artist lexicon for four years he had been offering free advice in seduction newsgroups then in october he decided to put a price on himself and posted the fol¬ lowing mystery is now producing basic training workshops in several cities around the world due to numerous requests the first workshop will be in los ange¬ les from wednesday evening october 10 through saturday night the fee is $500 u.s this includes club entry limo for four evenings sweet huh an hour lecture in the limo each evening with a thirty-minute debriefing at the end of the night and finally three-and-a-half hours per night in the field broken up into two clubs per night with mystery by the end of basic training you will have approached close to fifty women it is no easy feat to sign up for a workshop dedicated to picking up women to do so is to acknowledge defeat inferiority and inadequacy it is

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p. 14

16 to finally admit to yourself that after all these years of being sexually active or at least sexually cognizant you have not grown up and figured it out those who ask for help are often those who have failed to do something for themselves so if drug addicts go to rehab and the violent go to anger man¬ agement class then social retards go to pickup school clicking send on my e-mail to mystery was one of the hardest things i d ever done if anyone friends family colleagues and especially my lone ex-girlfriend in los angeles found out i was paying for live in-field lessons on picking up women the mockery and recrimination would be instant and merciless so i kept my intentions secret dodging social plans by telling people that i was going to be showing an old friend around town all weekend i would have to keep these two worlds separate in my e-mail to mystery i didn t tell him my last name or my occupa¬ tion if pressed i planned to just say i was a writer and leave it at that i wanted to move through this subculture anonymously without either an advantage or extra pressure because of my credentials however i still had my own conscience to deal with this was far and away the most pathetic thing i d ever done in my life and unfortunately as opposed to say masturbating in the shower it wasn t something i could do alone mystery and the other students would be there to bear witness to my shame my secret my inadequacy a man has two primary drives in early adulthood one toward power success and accomplishment the other toward love companionship and sex half of life then was out of order to go before them was to stand up as a man and admit that i was only half a man a week after sending the e-mail i walked into the lobby of the hollywood roosevelt hotel i wore a blue wool sweater that was so soft and thin it looked like cotton black pants with laces running up the sides and shoes that gave me a couple extra inches in height my pockets bulged with the supplies mystery had instructed every student to bring a pen a notepad a pack of gum and condoms i spotted mystery instantly he was seated regally in a victorian arm¬ chair with a smug i-just-bench-pressed-the-world smile on his face he wore a casual loose-fitting blue-black suit a small pointed labret piercing wagged from his chin and his nails were painted jet black he wasn t nec¬ essarily attractive but he was charismatic tall and thin with long chest¬ nut hair high cheekbones and a bloodless pallor he looked like a computer geek who d been bitten by a vampire and was midway through his transformation next to him was a shorter intense-looking character who introduced himself as mystery s wing sin he wore a form-fitting black crew neck shirt and his hair was pitch black and gelled straight back he had the complex¬ ion however of a man whose natural hair color is red i was the first student to arrive what s your top score sin leaned in and asked as i sat down they were already assessing me trying to figure out if i was in possession of a thing called game my top score yeah how many girls have you been with um somewhere around seven i told them somewhere around seven sin pressed six i confessed sin ranked in the sixties mystery in the hundreds i looked at them in wonder these were the pickup artists whose exploits i d been following so avidly online for months they were another class of being they had the magic pill the solution to the inertia and frustration that has plagued the

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p. 15

18 19 great literary protagonists i d related to all my life be it leopold bloom alex portnoy or piglet from winnie the pooh as we waited for the other students mystery threw a manila envelope full of photographs in my lap these are some of the women i ve dated he said in the folder was a spectacular array of beautiful women a headshot of a sultry japanese actress an autographed publicity still of a brunette who bore an uncanny resemblance to liv tyler a glossy picture of a penthouse pet of the year a snapshot of a tan curvy stripper in a negligee who mystery said was his girlfriend patricia and a photo of a brunette with large silicone breasts which were being suckled by mystery in the middle of a nightclub these were his credentials i was able to do that by not paying attention to her breasts all night he explained when i asked about the last shot a pickup artist must be the exception to the rule you must not do what everyone else does ever i listened carefully i wanted to make sure every word etched itself on my cerebral cortex i was attending a significant event the only other credi¬ ble pickup artist teaching courses was ross jeffries who had basically founded the community in the late 1980s but today marked the first time seduction students would be removed from the safe environs of the semi¬ nar room and let loose in clubs to be critiqued as they ran game on unsus¬ pecting women a second student arrived introducing himself as extramask he was a tall gangly impish twenty-six-year-old with a bowl cut overly baggy cloth¬ ing and a handsomely chiseled face with the right haircut and outfit he would easily have been a good-looking guy when sin asked him what his count was extramask scratched his head uncomfortably i have virtually zero experience with girls he explained i ve never kissed a girl before you re kidding sin said i ve never even held a girl s hand i grew up pretty sheltered my par¬ ents were really strict catholics so i always had a lot of guilt about girls but i ve had three girlfriends he looked at the floor and rubbed his knees in nervous circles as he listed his girlfriends though no one had asked for the particulars there was mitzelle who broke up with him after seven days there was claire who told him after two days that she d made a mistake when she agreed to go out with him and then there was carolina my sweet carolina he said a dreamy smile spreading across his face we were a couple for one day i remember her walking over to my house the next afternoon with her friend i saw her across the street and i was excited to see her when i got closer she yelled i m dumping you all of these relationships apparently took place in sixth grade extramask shook his head sadly it was hard to tell whether he was consciously being funny or not the next arrival was a tanned balding man in his forties who d flown in from australia just to attend the workshop he had a ten-thousand-dollar rolex a charming accent and one of the ugliest sweaters i d ever seen a thick cable-knit monstrosity with multi-colored zigzags that looked like the aftermath of a finger-painting mishap he reeked of money and confi¬ dence yet the moment he opened his mouth to give sin his score five he betrayed himself his voice trembled he couldn t look anyone in the eye and there was something pathetic and childlike about him his appearance like his sweater was just an accident that spoke nothing of his nature he was new to the community and reluctant to share even his first name so mystery christened him sweater the three of us were the only students in the workshop okay we ve got a lot to talk about mystery said clapping his hands together he leaned in close so the other guests in the hotel couldn t hear my job here is to get you into the game he continued making pierc¬ ing eye contact with each of us i need to get what s in my head into yours think of tonight as a video game it is not real every time you do an ap¬ proach you are playing this game my heart began pounding violently the thought of trying to start a conversation with a woman i didn t know petrified me especially with these guys watching and judging me bungee jumping and parachuting were a cakewalk compared to this all your emotions are going to try to fuck you up mystery continued they are there to try to confuse you so know right now that they cannot be trusted at all you will feel shy sometimes and self-conscious and you must deal with it like you deal with a pebble in your shoe it s uncomfort¬ able but you ignore it it s not part of the equation i looked around extramask and sweater seemed just as nervous as i was i need to teach you in four days the whole equation the sequence of

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