What do you do when you are so high on life that people can’t understand you?

What do you do when you see beauty in every moment that you breathe?

What do you do when you see beauty in every person you meet but they don’t see it in themselves?

Which moments do you consider worth living?

Are you so oblivious to those moments that you let them pass you by as if they never existed?

I love what I do.  I love the people I meet.  I love life.

Yesterday, I was at a friend’s party.  The location was gorgeous.  Imagine a mansion hanging on a cliff overlooking Santa Monica beach.  The house is filled with flowers.  Beautiful people are mingling around in the patio.

The men are all successful.  Some of them are millionaires.  They carried a certain confident and comfortable energy with them.  The women are all wearing sun dresses.  They walked with that sexy feminity that would make any guy look twice.

And there it was… a little garden that only had one wooden bench in the middle of it.

I walked there and sat down by myself.  I looked out.  I breathed in the moment.

If I didn’t step away from the beautiful crowd, I would have missed it.

As I looked out, I saw something magical.  I saw that magical moment when the sun kissed the horizon in a red hot passionate embrace.

When you let that moment sip in through you, when you connect to your own  emotions, when you allow yourself to be grounded, you start feeling something you can’t describe in words.

Peace?  Love?  God?

I smiled.

A 42 year-old man I talked to earlier came up to me. 

Why are you here, sitting by yourself?

I asked him to sit with me and I pointed to the horizon.  He understood.

Then he asked me a question he asked me before:

Why are you here, at this party?

I didn’t know it… but I found out at some point that the party was actually a matchmaking party.  These beautiful men and these beautiful women were put together in this breathtaking setting to find one another.

I obviously wasn’t looking for “the one”.  I was just “there”.

I told him “Because I was invited”.

And then this 42-year old man and the 27-year old “kid” that I was started talking.  We talked for a long time.  (more…)

I guess I have been lucky.  For the past 9 months during which I have gotten slowly more immersed into the Seduction Community, I have mostly hung out with “naturals” (guys with generally good social skills and assumed to be naturally good with women ), guys who treat pickup as an extension of their social skillset and “natural game” students.  However lately (and probably because of my blog), I have met more and more guys who come from an indirect method background, guys who practice NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and even guys who are truly intent on learning pickup for the sole purpose of picking up women and maximizing their chances in having sex with them as quickly as possible.  This exposure has given me a greater appreciation for the diversity found in the Seduction Community but is also alluding me to a much darker side.

Call me naive, but when I was surrounding myself with guys who treat pickup as a hobby, I only saw the positive side of the Community.  It was the side that was focused on self-improvement and becoming a better person in order to better the world.  It was about creating a lifestyle where women would be drawn to you naturally because of the value you bring to their life.  It was about communicating who you are genuinely and confidently.  After meeting more PUAs through the SoCal Lair, I am painting a new side to this picture.  This side have guys wanting to improve themselves as well but unlike the first group, they are focused on becoming better to gain something for themselves.  They want to reach a specific goal (usually getting the girl) and will go to any length to get there.  Sometimes, their goal involves creating a name for themselves in order to feel worthy in life.

I am not implying that getting the girl is a negative endeavor, but the first group realizes that getting the girl is a by-product of being good to yourself and adding value to the world.  Getting the girl is part of a bigger process in which sustaining a fulfilling relationship with a woman is the goal.  The second group seems to be more focused on the short term and looks directly for tactics and techniques to get the girl.  I am not going to discuss what I imagine as the dark side of PUA right now (Neil Strauss talked about it in his book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists and Tynan “Herbal” also mentioned it towards the end on his interview with Pickup Podcast), but I do recognize two very different kind of men:

1. Guys who are process-oriented
2. Guys who are result-oriented

Most of my friends fall under the first category.  They typically foster a lifestyle in which they show passion and devotion for something outside of pick-up.  These guys are always fun to be with.  What I find exciting about them is that they care for you as a person.  When you meet them, they have a genuine interest in getting to know you.  They get very curious about your life experiences.  If they want to hang out with you, it’s because they find you cool and you can both chill with each other regardless of whether you talk to new women or not.  For them, socializing is about having fun first, and then extending the fun vibe to the people around them.  With this focus, it becomes very easy to approach women and for women to approach them.  When talking about pickup, the topic of women is spoken about in a very casual manner and the philosophy behind seduction tends to be treated with more importance than the techniques themselves.  Pickup itself is not a big deal and everything flows easily.

When I meet PUAs who are more result-oriented, I always feel a little bit awkward with them.  Maybe it’s their vibe but they don’t show as much interest in me as a person.  When they talk to me, I feel like they are trying to use me.  They want to see if they can take advantage of any value I may have to offer.  They want to find out if they can learn something from me and if not, they want to see if they can raise their status/social proof by having me around.  The interaction has a totally self-serving underlying intent.  When going out, they solely find joy in approaching women and  I could never see myself being able to just chill with them for a long period of time because most conversations revolve around pickup techniques.  Pickup is a big deal to them!  If I show any anxiety in wanting to talk to a woman, they would use tough love to motivate me into action way more than use words of encouragement.

Maybe I’m biased but being too result-oriented feels unhealthy.  A common saying is popping in my mind right now:  “Life/Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”  I shared these thoughts with my friend “the Scribe” on a late night session of instant messaging.  Unexpectedly, he confessed to me that for a while, he shied away from the Seduction Community because he had only met guys who didn’t know how to appreciate him on a personal level.  Everything these guys did with him was for pickup related reasons.  It’s like he was “being gamed” by them.

I understand that there’s a time to be process-oriented and a time to be result-oriented.  You actually need both and I know why it’s so easy to become result-oriented.  Guys just want to see positive results to prove to themselves that they’re actually internalizing what they’re learning.  However I believe it’s important to realize that the path to PUA mastery still require us to master the basics which lies in our ability to connect and leave a positive impression on just about anyone.  Be personable!  The better we project our personality outward, the better responses we are going to get.  And what’s a better way to do it than show how we are genuinely interested in the person we are interacting with?  Once the other person feels that we like them for who they are, it’s a lot easier to seduce or convince them to do something for us.  That’s the law of liking/friendship with a hint of the law of reciprocity from Robert Cialdini’s “Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion.”

No matter what the mainstream press may say, I still believe in the goodness of the Pickup Community.  I have seen many guys’ social and romantic lives change for the better as they embark on this journey into PUA-dom, but there are a few people… I just can’t hang out with.

05/17/2007, 11 p.m.

I’m sitting with him in the hills above the 405, staring out into the deep dark night.  Across from us, the bright lights of the Getty Museum compete with the sparkling stars in the sky.  I stare at the magnificent view.  My friend, a successful commercial real estate broker/agent, speaks to me with a confident modest smile.  He describes to me the immense amount of work it took him to renovate the house.  I try to imagine it, but I can’t.  No matter what he tells me, I can only picture the beautiful sleek and modern home that he proudly owns now.

As I listen to him, feelings of respect and admiration enter my mind.  For being my age, he has achieved so much.  There is a certain nonchalance to his success that I like in him.  Unlike some of the more colorful characters who lurks the streets of Hollywood, he shows no pretentiousness.  So I ask:  “What is one quality that you could attribute your success to?”  To which he says:

“Khiem… you got to be bold!  If you want to attract the guys who hold millions of dollars every day in their hands, you got to be bold… almost to the point of becoming a maniac!!!  They have to see the fire in your eyes so that they can trust you with their money.  That’s what I learned.”

I looked out and suddenly, I felt a certain fire reignite in me.