Dead Beat Jones had some funny things to say about Mystery, on VH1:

we move on to kissing techniques, which seem to be the least of these guys’ worries. Mystery’s friend, Tara, is set to help the guys out with this one.

Mystery’s method helps people make a connection that is beyond sex.

She says this, of course, right before she instructs the nerds how to kiss by having them make out with fruit.

This girl then goes on to blindfold herself, kiss all the remaining contestants and name a winner (although in these poor guys’ eyes they probably all feel like winners for getting to kiss something other than a peach). The winner of the challenge (Kosmo with a K) gets the honor/horror of having an earpiece on their next hunt which Mystery will use to guide him like a horny robot.

With his over-excited, adolescent personality and constant referrals to everything being “money,” Kosmo can clearly use every ounce of help he can get. But it brings up an interesting conundrum: if you need someone in your ear telling you how to pick up women, are you really accomplishing anything useful?

We then move on to touching or “kiss tactics.” Here, Mystery offers an obvious mindfuck: the “kino.” Claiming that it refers to “kinesthetics” or the ability to feel movement, he first says that you should touch everyone you’re talking to after 15 seconds…and I literally can’t wait to see these schlubs counting in their heads as they make awkward conversation. Then he makes the awesome claim that if you can’t get a woman to hold your hand, she probably won’t kiss you. Really, Sherlock? How many rejections did it take to figure out that gem? Let me give you a freebie: if she’s pulling away from you and screaming for help, you might want to let her go. And run.

Finally, it’s time to go out “in the field” again. We watch a few guys try to engage women who obviously have no real interest in them. There’s a lot of rejection, a lot of borderline-misogynistic coaching (one guy missed out on a “perfectly good-looking girl”) and a lot of uncomfortable actions.

This lead me into several hours of reading Pick Up Artist websites. One thing I noticed is the one’s with the most active communities (where each posts gets a lot of comments) tend to be the one’s where the writer is NOT trying to make money off the advice they give. An example:

I found it on this excellent site which showcases very old photographs. The description of the photo reads: “Unemployed lumber worker goes with his wife to the bean harvest. Note Social Security number tattooed on his arm.”

Despite this man’s pauper clothes (there was little peacocking during the Great Depression), his jobless status, his search for employment or food at a bean harvest, and his home made out of canvas, he wears the confident smirk and mischievous gaze of an alpha male. What does he have to be happy about? Oh, his attractive wife. And by 1939 standards she is a real hottie.

Shouldn’t he feel ashamed to be dragging her to a bean harvest? Most modern men couldn’t imagine taking their wives or girlfriends on a bean harvest date. It would be a massive DLV. Not only that, but he’s obviously proud of the Social Security number tattooed on his arm. This is one step above waving your food stamps in the air like a certificate of accomplishment. What could be more beta than tattooing the government’s ownage of you on your arm?

Self-satisfaction will see a man through all sorts of tribulations. Radiating confidence, deserved or irrational, is what is most attractive to women. This man looks confident, and his wife stands by him. She has the mousy, hunched over posture of a woman in love. All else that’s objectively negative about him fades to insignificance in the matter of what stirs her heart. In glaring contrast, today we have the spectacle of wives divorcing their dutiful husbands (70% divorces initiated by women) for the sin of catering to her every whim by being “economic partners, lovers, …co-parents and best friends. [A]lso each other’s co-workers, editors and primary readers.”

I have a new system for learning inner game — I call it bean harvest game. This is where you take a woman on a really shitty date, let’s say to a soup kitchen to pick up your rations for the week, and refuse to act apologetic or ashamed of your anti-signaling station in life. Instead, you carry your unemployment and poor taste with the confidence of a master of the universe. Handicapping yourself this way means you have no crutch to close the deal. Everything desirable about you must flow from your internal state. If this doesn’t sharpen your inner game and hone your ability to reframe, nothing will. Expect to be amazed how many women will still sleep with you after running tight bean harvest game on them.

I suspect that the better sites are going to be the ones where the writer is not trying to make money, especially on a subject like this, because as soon as the writer tries to make money, they have to lie and pretend they have secret techniques that no one else has. Not trying to make money allows them the chance to be more honest, which brings in a more active readership. If the writer does eventually publish a book, or somehow monetize this work, I give them credit for building up an audience in careful, patient way.