Watch out-becoming a cliche?
I enjoyed this book, but I must say with the advent of Mystery's VHI show, this strategy and the lines are in danger of becoming overused. I like watching "The Pick-Up Artist" to root for the geeks. I wondered if I would ever encounter anyone trying out Mystery's techniques. I felt like I was in one of those camera-ed up clubs when a man came up to me and laid on the lines. I responded by asking if he by chance likes to watch "The Pick-Up Artist". Of course he denied it and "had to get back to his friends". I think Mystery needs to write a new book titled "Saving Face When Females Call You on Your Game".
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Should be called "from dating to laying"
This book's claim to fame is, simply, its author. Mystery (Eric Van Markovic) is perhaps the most significant of the real-life protagonists in Neil Strauss' iconic pick-up expose "The Game," and he is now probably better known through his reality TV show "The Pick Up Artist" now on VH1.
One thing you learn about Mystery in The Game is that he has a passionate and volatile personality, but can't always stay organized enough to keep up with his own goals. For better or worse this comes out in "The Mystery Method." The book eventually gets around to including specific pieces of advice - and they are gems - but that is your reward only if you survive the first 67 pages. Most of the first four chapters could be described as Mystery's rambling thoughts on women, history, and biology. (Did his agent put him up to that?) Mystery takes fully 12 of those pages to tell you that attraction must come first, then comfort, then seduction. There are a good half dozen good pieces of advice in those early pages, but they aren't useful until you already have mastered aspects of pickup that are described hundreds of pages later. The big disappointment here is that after all that rambling, which seems targeted at guys who need a lot of motivation, Mystery only gives you one "opener" line to say when you approach a woman. One. It's on page 72, and his students overused it on the TV show, also. It's about a fight between two girls and a guy named George. And that is the area where pickup amateurs need the most help. For advice on opening, readers are strongly advised to look elsewhere than this book; Neil Strauss' "Rules of the Game" is dedicated mostly to opening.
Where Mystery's book really shines is in the later chapters, which include specific examples of how to read women, demonstrate high value, and, most important, plan a "miracle" date that will make a woman melt. Women will probably laugh at the endless examples of "IOIs" and "IODs" (indicators of interest and disinterest) that a woman will show a man, but ladies, we need these. Somehow, we were allowed to graduate high school and college without knowing that a hair toss means you want us to talk to you more. Fortunately, Mystery is there for us.
Again, though, the reader has to dig a bit. Mystery's voice wanders between that of coach and memoirist; almost like the book deal might have initially been for a narrative like "The Game" rather than a how-to guide. It's a price the reader has to pay. Ultimately, the men who will get the most out of this book are already good at opening (or have another guide to that), and are hyper-organized good student types. If you can easily separate the sound advice from the self-aggrandizing storytelling and rambling, you'll turn the advice in this book into pure gold.
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