A Thousand Tiny Failures : Memoirs of a Pickup Artist

by Tony D

I leapt up and grabbed the mic with narcissistic, victory-fueled energy, “I got me a car, it seats about twenty! So hurry up and grab your juke box moneey!” The girls formed chorus group singing, “The looove shack, is a little old place where weeee can get together!” They even did a little dance. It was cute.

  They agreed to come back to Dylan’s to watch, “cartoons,”—and by cartoons we meant, “Sex.” It’s good to have some random reason rather than, “Wanna bang? Hehe, hehe, yeah…” It can’t be their fault. They’re not sluts! It just sort of happened?

  On arrival, Dylan pulled his girl to his room and Regan and I had the couch. We yak-yakked for about thirty comforting seconds before kissing. A few minutes later we heard a quiet, whimpered moaning, followed by a, ‘squeaka, squeaka, squeaka,’ from Dylan’s room. It was really hot to hear someone else, and made us hornier. I put my hand under her skirt to play with her pussy and she undid my zipper.

  “Oooooooaahhhhhh!!! Ahhhhh! Yes, fuck, mmm, yes!” Rolled through thin walls of Dylan’s room.

  “Wow,” she said.

  ‘Squeaka, squeaka, squeaka…’

  “Go for it bro.”

  One of my greatest frights, other than Thai police caning, Nazi zombies and transsexual drunk drivers are std’s. I’ve managed to stay clean so far by avoiding raw-dawging.

  “I don’t have a rubber,” I told her.

  “Ohh.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  I still have fingers! So I used them. I entered her and she stroked me back. We met in a chorus of unified hand-love. We stared into each other’s eyes while we did it. Sometimes not having sex is good too. I think she pretended to come. It was great fun anyway and we spooned ourselves to sleep, laying in a little pool of joy and guilt.

  In the morning, Dylan cooked us eggs and pancakes then he drove the girls home. We all exchanged high-fives like sixteen year olds, and I left him that morning to look for an apartment and job. It was going to be a good summer, or so I predicted. Nostradamus I am not.

  A spent a few days hanging out with old friends. I went to the beach to lie on the sand, gaze at boobies and work on my poetry book. I used to dread the beach—where people might stare at my funny chest. Now I loved to swim again. I even practiced approaching girls at the beach. It was much easier than clubs or bars—at least for phone numbers.

  The next morning I was taking a leak and noticed a funny bump at the base of my cock. I inspected it closer with a hand mirror and saw another one… and another one. “Fuck me, no, no, no!” I yelped.

  Dude! You bastard! Nein, nein, nein!

  What was it? Herpes? HPV? I counted five bumps in total. I bussed to the local clinic and the doctor swabbed my wiener, then he left me in the room to sweat it out. What could it be? I didn’t even bang that girl. Is this what I get for being a promiscuous man slut? I suppose I deserve it for making all those girls cry. But shit, they’ve made me cry plenty of times. What about all the ones that wouldn’t call me back, or mocked me? I’m not a bad guy. Why me? Am I going to have to cut my nuts off? Will I need to tell every girl I ever sleep with that I’m a disease carrier?

  The doctor came back after twenty long minutes. He stared at his clip board, then at me, then at the clip board again, put his gum in the garbage, adjusted his collar and said, “Well Mr. Newton, it’s a wart cluster called Molluscum Contagiosum.”

  Mini-terror deep down in my guilty gut. This is what I get. This is what I receive for trying reaching beyond my station. I don’t deserve pretty girls. I’ll just get a normal job, like construction work, or the postal office, and I’ll save up for a few years and go to Tibet and live a sexless existence with monks on a mountain, where no women and their pretty feet and shoulders and eyes are. The doctor gave me a soft smile. “It’s a common std,” he said. “Small children often contract this on their legs and arms but for some reason it is spreading through sexual contact. It’s not permanent, and with proper treatment can be healed completely in six to twelve weeks. The virus will not stay in your system.”

  Not… permanent. I heard the magic words, the soft whisper of a genius doctor. I figured it must be days like this that keep him going, all fulfilled like, when he informs a frightened man that he will indeed retain use of his penis. Then the horrible second part—six to twelve weeks. I repeated it silently to understand its significance, “Six to twelve weeks?”

  “Yes. I’ll give you some antibiotics,” he said, scribbling on his notepad.

  “Not permanent?” I asked. “I heard HPV stays in you forever. So does Herpes.”

  “No,” he continued. “This is not Herpes or HPV. It will not linger in your system.”

  I walked outside the clinic and called Regan to tell her about the Molluscum. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” She said. “I had a one night stand on New Year’s Eve, but I had it treated. The doctor told me it was gone. I’m sorry!” She was crying.

  “Yeah, it’s not. I’ll talk to you later, ok? It’s fine.” I said goodbye and hung up.

  As I walked home I thought about my dick. My poor, poor dick. He was done for the summer! I felt like a Jedi that had his light saber confiscated. All I did was finger her. Six to twelve weeks!? I spent the last two years studying pickup and now I’m shelved. Karma? I didn’t do anything evil. Did I? If I met a girl that was girlfriend material, I would stick with her. She just has to be beautiful, interesting, feminine, fit, witty, funny and intelligent. Is that too much to ask?

  Chapter 28

  Rickard Yang (Interesting)

  I would take a month to focus on other things, like getting a life. I would still go out and approach women, but I couldn’t infect some poor girl with warts of despair. I needed to find a job and a place to live. I wasn’t a kid anymore; I needed a calling, a purpose. Otherwise I would be another random man speeding towards obscurity and regret. I used to write for money so I decided to keep dabbling in that. I also worked as an extra in the movie industry, which was a great way to meet girls, but the work was random, the pay sucked, and sitting around eating craft services made me fat. One of my friends offered to hook me up with a restaurant job, bussing tables. I was hesitant at first. I felt too old to be bussing tables. I could go back to installing stereo systems, but it bored me. I found no satisfaction in that job. At least in the restaurant industry I could meet girls. I wouldn’t need to crawl through attics or sweat it out at construction sites full of angry men.

  I ended up getting hired as a busboy at a local brew pub. The job was easy enough for the mentally challenged, but you needed to be fast and available, clearing tables so that new customers could sit down to drop their money on fatty foods. There were some hot girls, but I wasn’t able to attract any of the ones I wanted. I was a lowly busboy, the town bitch. The managers were all underpaid alcoholics and the cooks hated themselves. Most of the servers were alright to hang out with after work, but on the job they were demanding and arrogant. Still, I liked it better than other jobs I’d done. The pay sucked but it was enough to cover rent and beer.

  I’d been posting lots on forums, so my fan base was growing. It was a fun hobby, but by this point I was beginning to see pickup as nothing more than confidence, Right Action, and luck. My interest was waning. Most of the forums members were nerds. They preferred to fight and troll and contradict each other. So much energy spent on vagina, so little on spiritual development. Too much discussing and analyzing tactics instead of going out. The only thing a newbie needs to do is practice until they master the fundamentals: body language, fashion, grooming, vocal-tonality, verbal-improvisation, eye-contact, sexual-escalation and ego.

  I suppose that’s a long list, but if you practice it will come together through experience-based epiphanies. I made some great friends from the lairs, but at this point forums were a waste of energy. I started my own blog, because I’m a raging narcissist with delusions of grandeur.

  I sent an email to a Vancouver based dating-coaching company. I was good enough to teach. I didn�
��t feel like a guru, or some master pua, I just wanted a try anything to escape the kitchen. A writer friend once said to me, “My dad told me, son, you can work with your hands, your mouth, or your brain. You know which is best.”

  Soon after I was contacted by a guy named Rickard Yang. He owned a company called Dating Done Right, and was hiring junior coaches. Was I really going to teach pickup? What would I tell my mother? Did this mean I’d have to wear a suit and hang out in swanky clubs? I’d done alright, but I’d never dated a stripper or supermodel (like they imply you’re supposed to). I thought Rickard would transform me into a coach.

  I had no idea.

  We met for coffee. A respectably dressed Chinese guy in his early thirties, he was calm and well spoken. I couldn’t help self-hypnotizing on his bamboo nose-hair, coke-digger fingernails, and cragged, arid lips—his game must be so tight it doesn’t matter, I thought. A true master. He inquired whether I utilized pickup routines or natural game. “I usually just wing it,” I told him. “I’m into being present, and that’s difficult when you’re focused on future outcomes.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, stroking his chin fuzz, “interesting.”

  I was to join the junior coaches for lunch the following afternoon. “It would be great to meet other guys at or beyond my level,” I rejoiced, shaking his hand. Maybe this was the Punani Jedi counsel? I left with a renewed sense of purpose and self-esteem. If you ask the universe for a solution, it delivers. Oprah and all those dead smart people were right.

  The next afternoon, we congregated at Starbucks where Rickard introduced me to the junior coaches. I liked all of them; they seemed cool; not like the lair trolls. These guys put in the work, or were already stable. Rickard went over his coaching method, which was basically a copy of The Mystery Method minus the memorized routines. Rickard claimed to teach natural game. By this point, all pickup material seemed the same. It really didn’t matter what a student read if he didn’t apply it. At the end of the class he pulled me aside.

  “Sebastian. I have a client I’d like you to work with.”

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’ll try you out.”

  “Rickard, I’m just curious, what’s the pay?”

  “Well, a boot camp is twenty-five hundred dollars, so you can work that off at twenty-five an hour while you’re training.”

  I agreed. It sounded like a fine deal; he would teach me how to coach and in the end I’d get a job. But he’d never even seen me teach, or hit on girls. I would never let someone coach my students if I hadn’t personally trained them. I figured, or deluded myself, that he was a guru: an expert judge of character. But my spidey sense whispered: Or maybe he doesn’t give a shit about his clients and just wants to squeeze a quick buck out of them.

  Shut up Spiderman!

  I caught the bus to the new job… I had tables to clear.

  Chapter 29

  The Pua (Sometimes winners quit)

  “See that blond one over there, eating sushi in the food court?” I said, pointing.

  “Yeah, oh man, okay,” a not-so handsome twenty-year-old said. “What opener should I use?”

  “Search the environment, use improvisational creativity. What’s the most natural thing to talk about in a food court?”

  “Ummmmm, food?”

  “Totally bro,” I said. “Ask her how much she likes her food, from one to ten, and then make fun of her answer. If she says, ‘ten,’ call her a high maintenance princess, if she says, ‘three,’ call her a manic depressive with daddy issues. Go with the path of least resistance. Just remember, stick to emotional topics, not logical ones. If she hooks, she’s friendly and receptive, tell her you have a few minutes to spare and sit down. If she’s into it, get the number. And remember to make kino, shake her hand at least.”

  “What should I talk about?” he asked, fidgeting with his Blackberry.

  “Dude,” I said, “put that down and look at me.”

  He put it down.

  “You paid too much money to waste your time pissing around. Don’t worry about it, ok? Stay in the moment. Just stay in set for two minutes and you’ll do fine. Two minutes! Pretend if you stay in for two minutes, you’ll win a million bucks. Fundamentals, ok!? Go, go, go! Two minutes!”

  I gave him a little shove and off he went. He was talking to her, his hands were shaking, he was sweating: Normal newbie behavior. I was there once. She was smiling and flicking her fingers through her hair. I gave myself a little fist pump. He came back after five minutes with her number in hand.

  “Good job dude,” I told him.

  He was happy. We debriefed about the day’s work. After approaching thirteen girls he managed to collect three phone numbers and two Facebooks. Better than I did on my first day.

  “Awesome Sebastian. Thanks man. I’m really happy you’re helping me. You’re an awesome coach!” he said with a spreading grin.

  “Hey, it’s all you,” I assured him. And we went our separate ways. I left the mall and headed a few blocks down to Gastown, and my other work. The hostess smiled. I walked past the bartender and gave him a wave. I moved past the kitchen line and the food runner said, “Hi Sebastian, it’s gonna be fucking busy tonight. There’s like a hundred and twenty reservations.”

  “Cool.”

  I went into the locker room, yanked off my street clothes, mashed into my uniform and apron, punched the clock and journeyed through the dining area for my seven hours of nightly duty. Seven hours. Better than eight, I thought. Positive thinking kept prisoners alive in Auschwitz too.

  “Sebastian!” a server yelled, using his sleeve to wipe bacon sweat from his face. “Where have you been? I need you to step it up…I’m getting run over.”

  “I’m on it,” I said, rushing to his section.

  As I was clearing the table another server approached me.

  “Sebastian, I haven’t seen you in a while. I need all the water refilled in section A.”

  “Yeah sure. I’m on it. Two minutes.”

  The server scowled, fixed her apron and posture, faked a smile, and moved off. After I cleared both the sections I walked over to flirt with the hostess.

  “So, do you come here often?”

  “Haha. Shut up Sebastian.”

  “You shut up. I hate you.”

  “No you don’t. You love me.”

  “You’re vain.”

  Patelli, the manager of annoyance, yelled from across the bar, “Sebastian!”

  I stopped flirting and looked at him. “Yes, boss?”

  “Can you pick that up?” He pointed at a dish rag two feet from his polished shoes. The hostess remained silent, but watchful. Judgment Day. Cock fight of the slave-lord.

  I paused for a second. Was he kidding? He couldn’t pick it up himself? This guy was just power tripping… cock-blocking. “Sure thing boss,” I said, languidly walking over one step at a time. I kept our eyes locked as I bent down to pick up the linen, then slowly raised myself, and with a toss to the left, dropped it in the bin. “Anything else, boss?”

  “Yeah, can you go check your section,” he said without looking at me.

  Some rulers utilize respect, strategy and nobility; others… fear and ridicule. They were never meant to lead, yet here they are, born into bureaucracy like reincarnated hyenas.

  “No problem,” I said, and went to my section.

  What a douche. Why was I here? Who are these people? High school dropouts and wanna be actors. Nice people most of them, but how did this happen to us? Even Pol Pot was a moon-eyed kid once.

  That evening I went to Patelli. “Hey Patelli, I was wondering. I’ve been working here for six months now. I’m thinking, what does a guy need to become a server? I mean, I’m in my thirties. I’m a smart guy, loyal, funny, and a hard worker. I’d like a bigger challenge.”

  “Oh.” He took a long sip of his frappuchino. “You’ll never be promoted here.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “What!? Why not?”

&n
bsp; “We don’t promote from within. You’d be better off going to Dennys, or a fast food restaurant where they’re uh, willing to train young guys.”

  F.U.C.K U…

  “I’m not that young. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to serve beer and burgers,” I said, scratching my face in frustration.

  “Look. It’s just not worth it for us. Why train when we can hire someone that’s already trained?”

  “I’m a fast learner. I used to be a music journalist,” I told him.

  I wanted to tell him that every weekend I was teaching men how to overcome social-anxiety. We’d go to malls, bookstores, clubs, and bars—pushing them to approach random women—and it worked. I thought I might be a good server, but this job was a joke. I wasn’t sure I could be a full-time dating coach yet. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a dating coach—it’s such a weird job. How do you tell people you teach pickup for a living? They’d brand me a warlock and sharpen sticks at both ends. Rickard wasn’t paying me and I needed money. I was still on his, “training program.” Patelli wasn’t having it. I’d scorned him one time too many. He held tight his reins of power.

  I did my time, collected my twenty-five dollars in tips and left for home, physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. I checked my messages. There was a text from Rickard Yang asking me to meet potential students at The Cellar. I showered, ate dinner, played battlefield two, read Charles Bukowski, meditated, got into my skinny jeans and V-neck, caught the bus and went to the bar. He was standing in the back talking to the group.

  “This is Sebastian, my newest coach,” he said, patting my shoulder. “He knows a lot about game. Talk to him if you want any help.”

  A few guys came to ask me questions. I leaned back like a killer whale amongst dolphins while orating them on approaching, escalation, limiting beliefs, and all that stuff I thought I understood. Ego, that sneaky devil, whispering little stories of grandeur.

  You’re the shit bro…

  I finally saw Rickard chat up a few women, they were polite. It’s not like he didn’t have game. I saw him make-out with a hottie once—in less than thirty seconds (though she politely refused his offer to leave with him before escaping his chaffy clutches).