> instead of just "winning" interactions
Mainstream pickup artists yea. Some niche ones, not really. Wayne Elise feels like a good example, from back in the day.
On a throwaway because the judgmental people will judge me for the rest of my life due to me nuancing that not all people associated to pickup artists looked at social interactions in a zero sum way.
Agreed, it feels risky to just be associated these days, even if it's "adjacent" groups that explicitly don't want to be part of the "mechanical" side of improving social skills like "classical" PUA.
But, no way to change that in public perception without taking risks and being open about it.
So, if you're an HN reader, not wanting to be branded as a PUA but still want to find help socially (especially romantically), my two cents is look into the Ars Amorata community.
> But, no way to change that in public perception without taking risks and being open about it.
Yea, I can't take it. I've fixed my dating life but I'm not a charismatic leader by any stretch of the imagination. I've taken multiple stabs in Reddit threads but there is just no good faith discussion to be had. I've also tried it a bit on HN. On HN it's also very dicey.
> So, if you're an HN reader, not wanting to be branded as a PUA but still want to find help socially (especially romantically), my two cents is look into the Ars Amorata community.
Interesting, will check it out. I don't need help by the way. I'm married. And for social skills that I'm still lacking, I know where to go. Unfortunately, not all social skills in dating transfer well to work social skills.
Edit: just checked it out. Good to see Zan is still doing his thing. I remember him "I love women". He definitely influenced me with that quote back in the day.
The founder seems to have missed the opportunity to make a classical reference to Ovid's writing on love, instead constructing some ungrammatical Latin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Amatoria
It's on purpose! Quirks of the group kind of thing.
I'm glad to hear somebody say that. I never dug very deeply into the PUA stuff as the community seemed like quite a toxic dump.
But, a lot of the actual material I did see actually seemed like it was universally applicable in non-toxic and non-exploitative ways.
I think a lot of the basic skills and concepts are the same, whether using them for positive goals or for selfishly manipulative goals.