The moderately dangerous game
Henrietta Tansy is this girl I know. Young, healthy and comfortable, whip smart. Also the kind of girl who will actually say, out loud: “I’m worried my eyes are just too big for me to ever really be pretty,” knowing perfectly well that they’re “too big” just like they’re “too blue”, or the lashes that ring them “too long”. Then of course she’ll lament for hours how difficult it is to have so many ardent admirers, and confide how deeply she wishes people wouldn’t judge her based only on her (admittedly extraordinary) looks.
In short, hers are Mary Sue problems, and the story never ends. I want it on record that I have never slapped her. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by suggesting that I have never wanted to.
She’s currently in her first serious relationship, with a guy she pursued, something she’d never had to do before. “It’s so empowering!” She made a fist and pummeled the air as she told me this. “I wanted him, and I went after him, and now he’s mine!” To be honest, it doesn’t appear she had to work very hard. As she reminded me, she’s so much better looking than her new boyfriend she’s surprised they don’t get strange looks walking down the street. When he seemed uninterested at first she was indignant. But with a little persistence she seduced him, and she couldn’t be prouder if he were every bit as attractive as she is!
And yet again I was reminded that being the pursuer is something I’ve never experienced. My relationship with seduction has been mostly avoiding mocking laughter by eschewing it. So if it were empowering I wouldn’t exactly know, but it wouldn’t exactly surprise me.
I have this sense that there was once a time, long ago, when people were meticulously taught social graces as part of a well-rounded education, much like children are theoretically supposed to be taught geometry now. They learned how to be charming, how to have presence, how to hold a conversation, even how to tell a story that captivates one’s audience. Of course, this could well be a romanticized version of the past that’s a side effect from getting my working knowledge of old timey social interactions from novels. Dialogue is usually a little snappier when an author’s had the chance to mull it over for months and then edit it a few times. Perhaps these social graces have always been things we pick up only if we’re lucky, with one in a million of us seeming magically born with them like Henrietta was born freakishly adorable.
The one thing I know is that they are skills, and as such can be learned. And pretty much the only group who seem focused on systematically improving theirs are Pickup Artists.
As a community, Pickup Artists are at times awe-inspiring in their pursuit of self-improvement. When I make it a point to observe their process without judging their motives, it becomes clear that what they call “inner game” is largely an effort to build self-esteem. And while beginners learn scripted gambits to start conversations, the ultimate goal seems to be attaining true, engaging conversational skills. It’s only mildly off-putting that having legitimate discourse is often referred to as “improvising” rather than “talking”. The problem (if there is one, and that depends on your perspective) is that for some reason this is all done in the service of getting laid. All that effort to become a better1 person gets cast in a manipulative light when it’s so single-mindedly libidinous, and frankly dehumanizing for anyone else in the sexual equation. But at least it’s honest.
I’m not honest.
I want what Pickup Artists want. I know what it’s like to feel like a social loser, and deep down, I don’t expect people to overlook that and see that I have a good heart and throw me a great big party with balloons. To be fair, my heart isn’t really all that spectacular. What I really want is to be charming and witty and poised and ever so magnetic. And my motives aren’t just to be well liked and make people smile, although those things are certain wonderful and welcome. I also want to be desired. I want to infect your mind like a melody and stab through you like hunger. It may be weakness telling me this, but I think it would feel empowering.
Even if I never took advantage of it, I’d want to know I had that power to seduce if I chose. It bothers me that the thing stopping me has never been nobler ideas about reciprocity and ethics and all that. Maybe those things factor in somehow, but it’s mostly fear I’d fail and look like a loser.
What makes this even worse is that I’m fairly sure that “Hey, wanna do it?” would work often enough that the question of seduction as art is barely worth thinking about.
- …or at least more socially pleasing [↩]
