The Indirect Game Vs The Natural Game

There are several schools of thought among pick up artists. You might be familiar with the seduction methods taught by Neil Strauss, also known as “Style” in the pick up artist community. Neil Strauss and Mystery have changed their pick up style over time, going from an indirect approach to a more natural game. But what are the characteristics of these two main pick up styles?

Neil Strauss wrote a very popular book on picking up women called “The Game”. The book dates back to 2005 and it contains routines, lines and techniques successfully used by pick up artists. Neil is a talented writer, as proved not only by his book, but also by the several articles he wrote for the Rolling Stone Magazine and by his participation in the writing of auto-biographies of rock starts such as Motley Crue or Jenna Jameson. It’s important to understand that Neil’s writing talent has helped him come up with great routines. He is able to pick the right words to say to women. Neil learned how women react to different words and scenarios and has used this to make up a set of routines that work.

An example of using the indirect game is to tell the woman you’re talking to something about your ex-girlfriend. “When I went on vacation with my ex-girlfriend, I discovered a place…”. Saying the words “my ex-girlfriend” will automatically make you more attractive to the woman in front of you.

Actually, it might not be the words that make you more attractive to that woman, but the message behind them. The process is unconscious. The woman you’re trying to pick up will not realize it, but at an unconscious level her past experiences and hundreds of years of evolution will tell her that a man who used to have a girlfriend is relationship worthy.

Think about it. Do the words themselves make the difference or the way in which you tell them? If you go to a woman and just blur out a pick up line, without using the right attitude and tonality, it will rarely work. The natural game is about learning how to show your true natural charming self. All men have what it takes to successfully date women, it’s just that most of them don’t realize it in the beginning.

If you don’t have the natural skills to play with words and write witty routines, and most guys don’t, the indirect game will not work very well for you. You might be able to pick up some women by using scenarios, but do you really want to learn by heart Mystery’s “40 hours” of routines? Wouldn’t it be easier just to understand the psychological process behind words and try to be yourself? Once you get a grasp of the way the natural game works, you won’t have to beat yourself up with new routines and complicated pick up lines.

As a proof that this method works better, Neil Strauss and other pick up artists have started to shift towards teaching the natural game. You can see the change in Neil’s Annihilation Method DVD series.

You have to analyze both games and see which of them suits you best. However, the fact that most pick up artists use the natural game nowadays, should be a pointer that pick up routines are overrated.