I was always nervous about the concept of doing a Geeks talk sexy workshop. However I pushed on with the help of Hwayoung Jung and Simon Carter.
The Concept was simple, take a bunch of geeks on one of Nicole’s Flirt and Walk tours in Manchester instead of London. But then afterwards have a couple of pickup artists talk to the group and maybe take them out.
After finally getting everyone on board (we had to switch from 2 pickup artists to 1 due to scheduling) the day finally came. The number of places also filled up at the end. We quickly filled to 12 people on the day before and unfortunately we had turn people away via the eventbrite signup. In the end we ended up with about 10 people through out the whole workshop.
It started in Madlab at 6pm, once people started turning up Nicole greeted them on the ground floor. Everyone sat around wondering what they had signed up to but we keyed them into the schedule for the evening and made people comfortable, before jumping into the first task/workshop as they walked up to the top floor of Madlab.
Nicole in her most charming way, ran a few workshops upstairs including staring at a person, sitting next to you. The idea was to get people thinking about body language. A nice little debate started up about length of time to stare at someone, depending on city and area. The suggestion was that if you stare at someone for 2 secs in London, you might end up getting your head kicked in. While in outer Manchester, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
After a few more exercises, it was time for the walkabout. On the way down to the Cooperative supermarket (just off market street, near the Arndale shopping centre) we were told to meet eye contact with people on the street and maybe even wink at one or two of them. I don’t believe anyone achieved the wink but catching people glances seemed to work, specially when a smile was added.
The shopping market task was to strike up a conversation with people in the store as you shopped (or at least made it look like you were shopping). There was extra bonus points if it was someone you fancied. So with that I personally took to the isles looking for the tea & coffee section, logic being you could easily ask someone for there advice on teas and coffees, plus you may get some nice ladies hanging out there or something (made sense in my head). In the end I got talking to a lovely blonde girl of about 25 in the beer, wine and spirits isle. I asked her about the beer she was buying and admitted my hate for beer but the need to buy some for a friends party today (little white lie). She wasn’t very talkative but I kept pushing and backed off at maybe just the right moment.
Others in the group tried at the Cooperative and the Tesco Metro just down the street. There was a lack of the general public but the task came to a end in the cooperative when security had a word with one of the guys and suggested they would be calling the police if they didn’t leave the store. I was in Tesco at the time, so I came back to find most people standing outside cooperative with the security and a manager standing close to the door way.
It was obviously time to move on, and share stories in a bar over drinks. That was the end of the Flirt club section of the evening. Now was the pickup section with Simon.
After a little while, we enter the photographic studios of Amir Shah, who kindly let us use them for the workshop. Everyone gathered around a table and Simon stood up and gave a really interesting talk about the game and how/why he got into it…
Simon was frank, honest and open when he talked about a relationship which went very bad and how he had to pick himself up. For him the book the game is nothing more that a self help book. He used it to pick himself up and better himself. Not by abusing his new found confidence but by finding himself. It sounds all very zen/new age but actually its quite touching. In actual fact I’ve found quite a few touching stories in the process of doing geeks talk sexy, including the story of Chris and Simon Carter. At that point I realised I was treating Simon like all the others I’ve known who had read the game, but in actual fact he was different.
Had I been too monochrome about people who read the game? I mean I had read the game too, many years ago and choose not to follow it or practice many of its techniques. Its possible (small chance I know 
that someone else (Simon in this case) had come to a similar conclusion?
In the Q&A which followed, lots of techniques were explored including the highly controversial technique the Neg. Simon talked about it and suggested he also doesn’t really like it but sees what its trying to do. He made a lot of good points about self confidence and meeting your own personal potential. Also a lot of things Nicole talked about fitted really well with Simon’s points.
Finally Simon talked about moving away from the pickup artist title. Like a Limitless which came out just recently, the ability was just part of him now. He was no longer acting and doing, it was just part of his personality now. And it shows… When I first was clued into the fact Simon was involved in pickup, I didn’t really believe it. I just thought that was his personality but then again, I’ve only known Simon for about 4 years and had very limited contact with him at that. I can hardly blame him for wanting to move on from pickup (maybe this is why he was so frustrated with the workshop description and title) There’s been a lot of negativity about the pickup aspect from many corners but Simon’s advice was consistent with my own and Nicole’s. It mainly boils down to,
- Be yourself
- Feel confident within yourself
- Don’t put people on a pedestals
- Treat people as people
- Your time is important
- Be the best that you can be
Before long our time was up and that was the end of Geeks talk sexy season 1. Although we had to change things on the run up to the workshop, it all worked out really well. The people who signed up were willing to push there own boundaries and accept they might need a little help in this area. As Simon said, no one really teaches you how to talk to potential love interests, its just something which your left to figure out by yourself… This also use to be the case for sex, but now there’s reasonable sex education in school… Not that I’m suggesting they should teach this in school but imagine the benefits if they did?
(Btw, its worth listening to this Techgrumps #29 where in the last 3rd, I discuss the Geeks talk sexy workshop and some of the insights and feedback I got from it.)
Geeks talk sexy has been a remarkable series and has expanded by own knowledge and experience. Hopefully its also done the same for other people. I certainly think there will be a second season, and maybe we’ll run the geek speed dating event and of course the flirt and pickup workshop again.
Thanks once again to Nicole, Simon, Amir, Hwayoung, Simon, Samantha and everyone who’s taken a interest in geeks talks sexy, its been one heck of a ride….
Flirting versus pick-up. Where to begin? First I suppose I ought to outline what I believe these two things are.
Flirting: to deliver a compliment to somebody in a way that says, “out of all the people right here right now, I’ve noticed you, there’s something special about you, and maybe we should talk a little longer.” Flirting is something that anyone can do regardless of the nature of the “attraction”: gay guys flirt with girls (who they have no intention of taking to bed), and vice-versa. I flirt with friends, lovers, former lovers, would-like-to-be lovers, people I am not attracted to, anybody. It’s a “compliment++”: it doesn’t mean “I want to have sex with you” (though there can be that connotation). From what I’ve read of Nicole’s presentations, and her website, I think she’d agree with me.
Pick-up: by the definitions of The Game (the book), this is all about steering conversation and interaction with someone as quickly as possible from initial meeting to sex. Don’t get me wrong: I have absolutely no problem with promiscuity. I have no problem with “one night stands”. You and I and Simon and Ian and whoever are quite welcome to shag whoever they want… but there has to be respect and honour.
On respect: The Game (or rather the book “The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists”) is about a short-cut. Using techniques such as NLP, reframes and others, the goal is to proceed from initial encounter through seduction to sex in a swift manner. And the people that Strauss writes about in The Game seem to have a secondary goal: validation amongst their peers. This is where The Game falls down for me utterly, and where my offence at Sexy Geeks’ “Flirting Workshop” (as originally advertised) stems from. The pick-up seems (to me) to be more about the PUA’s “self esteem” than something which, frankly, is more equal. The result is that many will see the PUA as sexist, misogynistic, etc. Personally I don’t differentiate on gender, so I just see this smarting of lack of respect: it’s about using someone. I always feel that you should party company with someone — be it saying goodbye or ending a relationship — leaving the other person in a “better state” than when you found them. Pick-Ups don’t achieve this; but further, the behaviour of Strauss and his peers actually distances them from the female company they seek. Theirs becomes a completely male-dominated society: they only ever seem to earn or seek respect from their fellow PUAs. Therefore I find their approach to be completely incompatible with the sort of thing I thought “Sexy Geeks Manchester” is about, namely “helping make good relationships”).
On confidence: personally I believe that the attribute of people that is most commonly “attractive” is confidence. Unfortunately we are all too easily fooled by bravado, mistake it for confidence, and realise this about our new boyfriend/girlfriend/lover/etc too late. Bravado is covering up an insecurity with a projection of confidence, and a lot of PUA techniques seem to be about doing just this. Sadly, as a “self help book”, The Game doesn’t really address the underlying confidence problems. The educated reader might do that themselves — I hope Simon was one! — but what The Game teaches strikes me to be more about “casting a glamour” rather than self-improvement. The strange and subtle thing about confidence is that confident people don’t usually appear confident… because they don’t need to!
But perhaps the PUAs you had speak at Sexy Geeks weren’t “bad” PUAs. You talk of a heart-warming story. I can fully get behind anybody who is pushing through a self-esteem problem, as your speaker Simon says he was after a horrible break-up. Unfortunately I have several questions, or perhaps hesitations, about this. For instance: “Simon talked about it and suggested he also doesn’t really like it but sees what its trying to do,” but in my book if you don’t like it, then why are you doing it? “Finally Simon talked about moving away from the pickup artist title”: is that because he internalised sufficient PU techniques till they became instinctive, or does he now have qualms with the ethics of “picking-up”? While the “lessons learned” by PUAs might be similar to those things that help with flirting (be yourself, confidence, etc), I think context is key: respect is earned not just from what you’re doing, but why you’re doing it.
We can moralise the PU techniques as “ice-breakers” and say “they just help level the playing field” or “but I have low self-esteem, I need something that works.” But at the same time, the presenters at your talk were labelling themselves as “pick-up artists” — to speak of someone as “wingman” very much suggests a PUA lifestyle as per Strauss’ initial meeting with Mystery — and this comes with trappings and potential anti-feminist connotations. Perhaps they would protest, “We’re pickup artists, but we’re nice people! We don’t exploit women!” — but I have trouble believing that, because I can’t imagine someone using that “negative” label in such a manner. Maybe I have it wrong, maybe Chris and Ian are reclaiming the words “pickup artist” in the way that some of us are reclaiming the word “slut”, but if so, that hasn’t come across at all in any of the blog posts I’ve read about their talk; and it’s not part of a wider movement that I’m aware of either.
Yes, there is a place for discussing these “chat-up techniques” and debating them. I think this is a very interesting topic, and attitudes such as The Rules and The Game should be discussed. However, I still feel very strongly that the billing of “Flirting Workshop” alongside “Pickup Techniques” did a disservice to what I believe you’ve been trying to do with Sexy Geeks Manchester. All your speakers up till now had been about forming relationships in which equality, fairness, happiness, passion and fun are a huge part; and some of the “types” of relationships discussed have been quite diverse. I wasn’t there, I might not be reading well enough between the lines, and for these reasons and more perhaps it’s not my place to be so offended… but I think this combination overstepped a line of taste, somewhere. As I said in my first tweet, “what next? someone talking about The Rules to Geek Girls Manchester?” — and that is still how I feel. Interesting material, but somehow — to me — it seemed the wrong combination of time and place for it.
I agree with you Marek. I wasn’t there either but stumbled across this conversation on the Twitter feed of two colleagues and frankly it transported me back about 15 years+, to when being a woman in a workplace or online space (and I was in both) was to negotiate many people trying to reframe/trivialise your every interaction as sexual or at least gendered banter.
Ironically, the possibilities of online spaces were very freeing for people like me. You know: female, with a brain, possibly interesting human beings.
I’m all for the creative power of play, but The Game fundamentally precludes the consent of both players. If anyone in the game isn’t consenting to playing, it’s not a game
, it’s just random acts of sociopathy.
Pity. As a social being (and a woman) anyone can have my conversation for free. I am social. But if they game me on any level, as opposed to inviting me to play *with*, then they lose.
Consent people, it’s not a difficult concept.
Just listened to Techgrumps and kind of shocked why there’s so much grief for PUA’s.
I think its a bit harsh saying they manipulate or ‘game’ people making things almost non-consensual.
To be honest the book by Neil Strauss is often miss understood, its a biography of his experiences in the PU community. Its not a how to pull girls book!
I felt that the PUA stuff fits in perfectly with geeks talk sexy, because most people who do PUA are total geeks.
The methods are not exactly black magic, e.g social proof, kino escalation, even ‘neg’ in, 3 second rules. The methods are built round what women want from men. Simple being aware of these factors helps a lot in social interactions in places like bars etc.
Aggreed the whole PUA scene is mostly a scam selling an impossible dream now. Even Neil Strauss says in the book that PUA was a cult and kind of ends the book saying just be yourself!?
p.s gender politics stuff is spot on… id say women have more power and influence nowadays.
I want to know more about what happened in Tesco
Ben, they make things non-consensual because they de-humanise women and use them as points scored in a game with other men. And a little basic googling and having read articles about the PUA thing before reveals the most basic rule that the girl mustn’t know what you’re doing. And mustn’t be listened to either, apparently.
I do think what you say about “what women want from men” and about “power and influence” get to the heart of the problem.
IMO it is just unhealthy and damaging to frame half the population as the enemy and to be trying to win your power back from them – which is part of Strauss’s anti-feminist mission.
Self help and fluffy stuff like feeling a bit more confident is fine, however you achieve it but there’s a whole lot more to “The Game” and I can’t see how systematizing your interactions with a group of people in a way that is fundamentally dismissive of their input into any conversation is going to enrich your social skills in the long run.
Were there any female geeks at this session by the way?
I should maybe point out that I only came to read @cubicgarden ‘s blog on the subject because I was intrigued by his tweeting on some interesting subjects from earlier sessions. And this one seemed so at odds with the spirit of those.
“”leaving the other person in a “better state” than when you found them. Pick-Ups don’t achieve this”"
Mine do
What’s up with this tired old book anyway? Its years old. The current PUA lore is all Eckhart Tolle and Brad Blanton and Marshall Rosenberg.