Review: Flawed premise
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 02 21, 2014
If you accept the premise behind pickup artist culture, that most women behave the same way and you can (and should) use behavior hacks to control them, then this book will be useful for you. A lot of the advice in here is useful in specific situations. If you think a woman is testing you, it's better to just avoid the test, and this book will tell you how.Unfortunately, the concept of "s*** testing" comes from a cynical place. The author claims that women test men to whom they're attracted, and that they do this continuously. The author says that women are assessing your sexual market value. The implication is that they're figuring out if you're worthy of them. If you accept the evolutionary psychology theories that say women are hypergamous, this will make sense to you, but I can't get behind evo-psych. (Evo-psych tends to assume that primitive humans were just families from the idealized 1950s, with more violence and more body hair.) So keep that in mind if you choose to read.In assuming that all women are testing you all the time, the author ignores the more obvious explanation. One of the examples of s*** testing was "Midway through your conversation with her, she decides to go the the ladies' room." Gentlemen, I assure you, women have bodily functions. Another example is a woman giving you a compliment on your appearance, and still another is that she makes sexually suggestive comments. Don't you want that from a woman?Yet another example that was worrisome: a woman on an online dating site wants to talk to you more before meeting in person. I don't think you understand that this is a question of personal safety. If you're obviously displaying the "dark triad" of personality traits (that is to say, Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy, which are promoted by pickup culture) you're also giving of subtle cues that you might not be a safe person to meet. Yes, this is a test. She's trying to figure out whether you're going to kill her and wear her skin.Some of the examples of tests are neutral things, like texting to say she'll be late, or showing up late without texting. Annoying, not necessarily a test. I know a lot of people who are just late all the time. She bumps into her friends while you're out together? Not a test.A lot of the examples of s*** tests are genuinely terrible behavior. If a woman bashes you in front of your friends, don't date her. She demands expensive gifts? Don't date her. She tries to isolate you from your friends? Don't date her. She flirts with other men in front of you? You know the refrain. Don't play Petruchio, there are plenty of people out there to date who won't make you miserable.The problem is that a lot of what the author attributes to malice can be shyness or awkwardness or sheer self-preservation. It can be a lack of communication. For instance, sometimes a person mistakes friendliness for flirtation. If she's taking too long to respond to your calls or texts, you clearly have different ideas about what's an acceptable length of time between communications. You can just talk about it.If you accept the pickup artist paradigm, I can see how this book would be useful to you. Some of the things called tests in this book are just scenarios that might come up within any relationship, so you'll be better able to prepare for them. If you're looking to build confidence in your interactions with women, reading this might help. Just take it with a grain of salt.