The Big Loser This Week: Indirect Opinion Openers!

Ok, let’s dig right in to the second episode of The Pick Up Artist 2. We begin with the guys reminiscing about the guy who was barely on the show, Alex, and how each of the remaining potential master PUAs were all sure that Mystery was in fact talking about them when he was describing the person who was to be eliminated. Just goes to show how hard it sometimes is to step outside of yourself and examine yourself objectively.

Mystery is up to his clever ruses again. Did these guys really think this ratty looking building was a strip club? And if they did, it certainly didn’t look like one I would be excited to go to. Bravo on your cunning attempt to trick the contestants, PUA2 producers!! You sure got Simeon!

Instead these guys get to talk to today’s finest AARP card-carrying women. Which is actually a pretty fun challenge. One of my favorite things to do in Las Vegas is to hit up the Bingo Halls (typically the one in the Sunset Station…$6, comes with 3 complimentary cocktails and an hour of entertainment…How could you go wrong!?). Why? It amuses me to no end chatting up the elderly.

Try this guys…you’d be surprised how well talking to elderly women in Bingo Halls will boost your abilities to converse with anyone. My favorite thing to ask them: “You have the glow of a winner….what’s your secret?” Some of my favorite responses are something along the lines of “You gotta have a Positive Mental Attitude!” or “It’s just something in your blood!” But however you do it…just have fun with it.

[As a sidenote: It might have been interesting if they actually HAD gone to a strip club. Not necessarily to learn how to pick up dancers (they're all a long ways off doing that no matter what last season showed), but to learn a different skill-set. I have several years of working in some of Vegas' finest strip clubs and there are so many conversational lessons you can learn by conversing with dancers, it's unbelievable. If a dancer wants to make any money (and that's really the primary reason she's there), she has to separate you from your money...and that usually means talking to you. That's the game she's playing. There are many games you can play, too, depending on your desired outcome. Perhaps I will write a post about this in the near future.....]

On with the show…

This scene is fucking contrived and weird. Why are they not playing bingo? What we have is a bunch of guys walking around talking to older women in a very awkward fashion. It reminds me of when I was younger and in Boy Scouts they made us go to the rest homes and visit the lonely, elderly people there. It always felt awkward because none of us truly wanted to be there and everyone could sense it. This scene would be more interesting if they were actually playing bingo instead of walking around from table to table “working the room”. They could actually be having fun together and in that context this whole scene would seem much less weird.

Oh…and Kevin…WTF!?? “You older women have great stories. Tell me about World War II…”!!! I don’t think I need to say anymore about how awful that is.

Brian, CALM THE FUCK DOWN!! I know you want to win this challenge but this is WAY too high of energy to be bringing a bingo hall filled with grannies. It’s looking like he is shaping up to be the epitome of dancing monkey syndrome this season. I bet he thought he had this challenge “in the bag”, too! You see this kind of behavior a lot for new guys in the game (I know I used to seriously suffer from it). They try to be “Stiles” from “Teen Wolf” and overdo it and go too far trying to be “the life of the party”. Trust me, this never works….especially if they are not reciprocating with the same energy. The girls are always left thinking, “Why is he putting so much effort and energy into this when I’m obviously not. It’s kind of obnoxious. He must be low value…but maybe I can use him for entertainment tonight if nothing better comes along.”

Matt…nice job! I’ve found that often if you go in with a low, but sincere energy and give legitimate value (not dancing monkey value), you always get better results. Brian remains calm but definitely value-giving. I can totally see why this was a landslide victory…but, hey, as a consolation prize to all those who didn’t win the challenge…winning the challenges on The Pick Up Artist usually handicaps you for the elimination challenge…so they can all consider themselves winners!

(missing the code for the next clip…will put it up as soon as I get it!)

Christ, I HATE Mystery’s insistence upon using indirect openers!!!

Mystery: “Wow, you are very beautiful.”

Tara: “Uh, gee, thanks….ugh!”

Awesome acting Tara! Perhaps you will be able to land a role in “Shadow Boxing 3“!

I can’t believe Mystery is still advising guys to use “who lies more?” and “did you see the fight outside?”…God I hope they don’t use these in field. These openers are so goddamned played out! In fact, I can’t stand indirect game in general. I may not have a show on VH1 (perhaps that helps Mystery and Matador when using the indirect style), but I will stand firmly behind direct opening or at the very least social opening.

Indirect is at the least played out with the use of such cliche openers as Mystery is generous enough to give us, but at worst it’s damaging. What!? Like the girl doesn’t know why you’re approaching her? Like she really believes you honestly want to know who lies more, men or women!? Using this kind of opener subcommunicates insincerity and that you don’t feel high value enough approaching her because you want to do so. (Read my blog: Anyone Still Going Indirect?? for more on this subject).

I’m wondering, too, if False Time Constraints are going to become the next cliche thing. I’ve mostly dropped them except for the occassional playful FTC (”I have to go, my niece needs to be tucked into bed” or something similar). I noticed since season 1 that if you say something like, “I have to go soon, my friends are here…”, she would ask if I’d been watching the Pick Up Artist. This is an easy to handle shit test, but the real problem is that if we’re hearing this a lot…FTCs are totally cliche now!

What to say about Negs?? I HATE the term Neg! Not that I think they are bad to use, but because they are so commonly misused, that the term generally has a neg-ative connotation. The purpose of a neg is to build comfort or as Mystery puts it, the goal is to make her laugh. Too many guys use negs as insults or as a way of showing so much disinterest in a girl, that she doesn’t care whether he is interested in her or not….he’s just some weird, value-sucker who is pretending not to like her.

I think the community should unite and quit using the term neg. Perhaps Teases or Playful Banter would be more appropriate.

On to Matt’s prize: a boa!? All right, let me lay it out there…I’m no stranger to the boa. They can be good if used properly and if you actually have the kind of image that would support it. Overall, most guys don’t! This boa is gonna fuck his sets up, I almost guarantee it. It’s one sorry-looking boa….not to mention it looks horrible with his outfit for the night!! Way to go VH1 producers…punish the “winners” of all the challenges!

God the camera shots kill me! It reminds me of watching this really shitty movie (so awesomely bad, I recommend watching it…ask me about THE MOST AMAZING MOVIE DIALOGUE OF ALL TIME from this movie): Shark Attack 3: Megalodon! If you were to take out the scenes in that movie where they show someone throttling up on the boat, half the movie would be gone! I feel the same way when they get to the “in the club scenes” on PUA2. Let’s remind constantly remind our audience of this live and there are hidden cameras by flashing these cheesy looking cameras panning up and down!

Watch out! Matt has the magical boa of desire!

He doesn’t need the boa! I had a wing once who used to wear boas because I wore boas and he saw me getting serious results. I guess he must have thought that boas were magical talismans that invoke instant lust in women. He went so far as to tell me one night, that when he went out without the boa, he felt like he couldn’t pick up anymore.

Do you see a problem with this kind of thinking? I do! If your ability to pick up is based on something as silly as wearing something as goofy as a boa, you have a lot of character work to do. No self-respecting woman is going to want a guy whose sole value is that he wore a boa that night. Matt would be better off without this “award”.

Mystery: “He has a wonderful, pleasant personality, he’s just not engaging anybody. I’m a little disappointed.”

Hey Mystery, maybe if you wouldn’t have tried to get him to focus on the silly boa instead of focusing on just BEING the genuinely “wonderful, pleasant” person he already is you wouldn’t be so disappointed in this “waste of an accessory”!!

Todd “games” a fattie! Didn’t realize tonight’s objective was going Hoggin’! Nuff Said…

Girl to Greg: “So what was the point of that story?”

This is the best evidence that this silly indirect opening is bullshit. Why are Mystery & Crew so surprised at her response!? It was their material he was using that elicited this response….

Rian seems like he’s the club relations manager…but if he just went with it, he could totally rock this club! And he’s going more direct. If he were to learn Sin’s Multiple Hits Opener or just do Quick Sets he would be seeing great results….instead he switches to lame opinion openers and gets blown out…should I be surprised!?

Tara: “There’s some bitches up in this club!”

I think the material and presentation are what’s wrong. Simeon needs to chill… With all his leaning in and other needy subcommunications, not to mention his poor material (not his fault), the women have really no choice but to assume he is a low-value, tweeky, bore. Of course they are going to blow him out!

(Oh, and once again, nice acting Tara…you’ve got a lock on your role in Shadow Boxing 3!)

Karl: “Think of another opener…think of another opener…”

Well put, Karl! You should share this with the rest of the cast! These opinion openers are NOT working!

Brian finally gets a great response when he blurts out Matador’s “I like pickle juice!” (which is NOT an indirect opener, by the way). If he can get past the opinion openers and just do shit like this with his good energy, he’ll kick ass!

Kevin needs to get off the opener!?? C’mon Mystery & crew….you gave him the magical “Herman opener of lust“! Mystery has even preached that it takes something like 12-24 presentations of a routine to nail it…so if anything, Kevin is just doing what he needs to do to perfect the delivery of the material. The REAL problem here is the material is bad. Kevin, don’t blame yourself for this…Mystery Method has serious flaws as you can tell from tonight’s episode.

No big surprise that Brian wins…but to say the guys are “like a hair on your butt”….and mean it in a nice way!?? That’s just weird…

Mystery: “Welcome to your FIRST elimination…”

Haha…your first elimination if you’re not a big, gay-ish dude wearing a gold-ish chain named Alex!

God, the rune medallions are cheesy as shit! It only helps to reinforce the geeky stereotype of the D&D nerd ascending from his basement apartment lair to go out spewing the magical “Do you think Mick Jagger is hot?” incantation to cast level 5 charm spells on the ladies and bring them back to his lair. Can they please stop doing this!??

I know elimination-style reality shows need to build lots of suspense and drama in the elimination ceremonies..but jesus can they speed this shit up!

Mystery: “That scarf is MAGIC in my hands!”

Way to reinforce the idea that something external to himself is the key to learning game. Matt, you don’t need anything outside yourself to attract women…forget the silly boa!

Tara: “blah blah blah…believe in yourself….blah blah blah….” :p

Mystery blames Kevin’s cursing and “repetitive material” for his elimination…Mystery Method is based on repetitive material!!! The cursing could have been calibrated better (hell, I swear all the time in set!) but to eliminate someone for being repetitive…well, then I nominate the most repetitive guy on the show to be eliminated: MYSTERY!

Adonis