About a week ago I was sending text messages back and forth with a friend of mine on the topic of the VH1 show, The Pick Up Artist. Now, for the purposes of his privacy I do not want to go ahead and reveal his name here, but he is basically my pupil, my personal student being trained in the art of pick up. At first, he found the first two hours of lecture and material that I was teaching him highly valuable and very useful. After thinking it over, he now has some doubts.

Before I get into these doubts of my friend I feel I should go over what actually lead me into pick up. My story is not like most PUA’s, and in fact, I probably would not call myself a PUA (some of the best PUA’s don’t ). I started out using NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and material from Ross Jefferies in high school before I ever got into the idea of using it in my adult life. Basically, I am probably one of the few envied guys out there in the pick up community that had teen game right from the get go. As Mystery says, “one day you will be so good at this that you will teach it to your sons.” He is not joking. This is something that is outstanding to learn early in life, and will save you a massive amount of heart ache and frustration.

As I began to approach my senior year and broke up with my girlfriend of 2 years, I began to enter into a couple three monthers and then continously became a bit more promiscuous as time went on, being with multiple girls at once in a polyamorous relationship structure, or as guys in the world of pick up would call it, my MLTR’s (multiple long term relationships). After ending what ended up being a horribly maintained, miserable dependent sort of relationship with my ex-girlfriend Kim, I am now monogamous at the time of this writing with my girlfriend Dana, whom I love very much. Out of all the girls I have been with, none has been able to relate to me the way that she has, and with none of them have I so seriously considered marriage.

Just from my own relationship history, there should probably be some credibility in just what I have to say alone. My friend seems to see Mystery as an ugly clown, not believably capable of actually carrying out pick up or anything related to it. “I mean, just look at that furry hat,” he scoffs. Fortunately for Mystery, he is not trying to attract males. Tons of females describe him as being extremely sexy and will usually open him in conversation without him having to do anything when he wears his signature outfits, which also go with his lesser known persona of being an actual magician. According to Neil Strauss, he’s actually a pretty talented magician too. And speaking of Kim, she thought Mystery was incredibly attractive. Still, the opinions are mixed, but that’s not what is important. The important thing is: he has probably slept with over a few hundred women, and the things he does work for him.

I recently did some research into the statistics of how many visitors are visiting the sales pages of the various big time pick up gurus around the net. Among David DeAngelo, Mystery, Neil Strauss, and Ross Jefferies – Mystery holds the highest amount of web traffic to his multiple websites and businesses. I am not certain as to what his conversion rates are for his various home training programs, internet programs, ebooks, and live seminars are, but his traffic is outdoing some of the other major pick up artist instructors by more than 7 to 1. His actual book available in physical form now sits alongside the other mainstream books in the relationship section at your local Barnes and Noble.

Mystery wanted to be a magician when he was growing up, not the world’s greatest pick up artist. Pick up is his business and his way of making a living, not his childhood dream. As a part of that business, one of his goals is undoubtably to get the most airtime, exposure, and sales leads he can possibly get. The perfect way to do that would be through a reality television show, probably hooking in the very people that might need his help. My friend has a point to say that his show’s appearance next to other series like Charm School and Rock of Love is a bit demeaning, but after watching the different shows I have yet to see one that presents to its audience a subject with a similar level of emotional, mental, and practical maturity.

But looking at it from Mystery’s perspective, he gets a chance to do this show with VH1 and possibly explode his business. Would he pass it up just because the rest of the network’s programs are garbage? Of course not! He’d be an idiot not to want to get onto national television with a business such as his! Besides, he probably looks at it from the viewpoint of: finally, we can get a real show onto this channel. I know that’s certainly what I think of it. Today, Mystery has his own book being carried on Barnes & Noble shelves.

The painful moments are typical of any other reality show you would watch, but this time they’re a lot more appropriate – these guys are crashing and burning in one of the most important activities in life. One of the main reasons we are here is to find a mate and carry on the species.

Having said that, the emotional maturity only seems to go so far, and almost all the major players in the seduction community seem to still be finding those right techniques or methods for maintaining a relationship. But after knowing that they can always get better, many of them get obsessed with that concept and continue to seek out perfection, ignoring commitment. In the end, I think that this is a mistake for them, but to people like Neil Strauss’s credit: at least he tried out commitment and is still willing to try again in the future. Perhaps one of the reasons why they end up with so many different women is because they know they are never in any danger of being alone.

So what do you want me to do, buddy? Am I supposed to wave a magic wand and give you advice that you already agree with? The main reason I express all of this ideology to you is so that you can consider a totally different perspective. A lot of what we’re taught to know about dating and attraction is wrong. There is a different model to wrap your hand around, and from the experience of thousands of people all over the world, it appears to work better for initiating relationships. To answer another person I got into a conversation about this topic with: this is not for picking up insecure women either. This is about ending up together with the creme of the crop, the best of the best. With that comes those women who are confident, intelligent, independent, and of course: absolutely ridiculously hot, sexy, and beautiful. The 9′s and 10′s.

And I got one of ‘em. So please, if you have doubted the ideas behind pick up once because of what you thought at first glance, give it another shot and this time dive right in.