Written on 2021-08-07

The art of seduction has had a profound impact on my life. This essay explores how, and why.

Adolescence

I was quite rambunctious as a child, but as I hit puberty I began to feel increasingly insecure and anxious. I was never a “popular” kid, and as my peers explored newfound romances I began to feel isolated from girls even as I desperately desired a connection with them. The isolation hurt, so I retreated into videogames and my social circle shrank to one friend with whom I spent all my time.

Middle school and high school proceeded in this way - me diving deep into World of Warcraft, anesthetizing the powerlessness I felt in real life with a fantasy realm where I was in control and valuable. Only when I took a break from WoW in my senior year did I have my first kiss and my first girlfriend; the relationship lasted some two months before she broke up with me. I retreated once again to WoW, and my freshman year of university saw me rooming with that same friend and playing some 12 to 14 hours per day.

Rail-thin and gawkish in high school

Playing that much leaves little time for classes or schoolwork, and the bill eventually came due. I was staying up late and skipping my morning calculus lectures, so I missed a midterm exam announcement. I received a zero for that exam, which resulted in a failing D grade for the class. I received a notice in the mail from my university saying that I’d been put on academic probation, and if I didn’t improve then I’d be dismissed from the university. I resolved to turn my life around.

Hitting bottom

I quit Warcraft for good that summer, and began to reconstruct my social life. I started hanging out with new friends. I went to the pool and barbecues. I began to take the gym seriously. When sophomore year started, I left the door to my room open as an invitation to come hang out to the other folks on my dorm floor. When a pretty girl in a brown shirt walked past, I turned to my roommate (a new friend) and asked, “Who’s that?” Two months later and she and I were dating. Three months more and I lost my virginity. The pain and isolation I had experienced throughout adolescence was finally cured… or so I thought.

When the relationship eventually fell apart after three years, all the feelings of worthlessness that had been masked by her validation came roaring back. Thoughts of suicide, which I’d idly contemplated during adolescence, became more prominent. I’d moved to Palo Alto for my post-graduation job at Palantir, and while I resonated with my new colleagues in a way I’d never experienced before, I felt incapable of sharing the hopelessness I felt. Compounding the situation was my attraction to two female coworkers, which wasn’t reciprocated.

Finding seduction

It was during this period that a group of my coworker friends introduced me to the seduction community. I’d heard about pickup artists in passing, but associated the field with sleazy, disrespectful, manipulative men that I wanted nothing to do with. Fortunately, a friend showed me this video (prefaced with the disclaimer, “Don’t judge - just listen”) that rocked my worldview: far from sleaze, here was a composed, charismatic man advocating that connecting with women is a skill like any other which is best practiced by growing yourself while being honest and respectful. That man, James Marshall, became my hero.

It’s difficult to see the inflection points in your life as they happen, but in retrospect that year, 2014, was one: I saw a therapist for the first time. I had sex outside of a relationship. I told a girl I was seeing that I didn’t want monogamy. I approached a woman on the street. I grew my hair long. I moved to Singapore. Each change, while not significant at the time, set the stage for my next seven years.

Wandering

And what years they were, as I fully embraced seduction and the wanderer lifestyle. I lived in 6 countries, visited more than 40, and made friends from dozens more still. I learned of other seducers advocating for the same honest, self improvement-based style of seduction. I learned to meditate and play the drums and do jiu jitsu and speak Portuguese. I had one-night stands and weeks-long flings and a relationship that lasted two years. But more than anything else, I began to understand - not just the cultures and peculiarities of the world, but that all the pain and isolation I’d felt growing up was my fault.

As my skills grew and I connected with more women in ever crazier ways, it became obvious that each girl - just like my second girlfriend - was only a bandaid for the pain I felt. The real problem, I realized after many long years and the assistance of an exceptional therapist, was the self-defeating victimhood mentality and negative conceptualization of myself that I was harboring. I craved validation from women because I wasn’t validating myself as a worthy individual deserving of love and respect, and women represented everything that I could never attain during my high school years.

What seduction is

I’d first thought that seduction was as the media portrays: trickery and dishonesty and manipulation, deceiving women into having sex. But my crazy journey has taught me that this is not seduction - it is deception. Seduction, rather, is portraying yourself honestly and fearlessly - lowering the defenses that we all carry to make room for an emotional and physical relationship with someone that you resonate with. It is about creation: inviting her to build something that enriches you both, rather than taking something from her. Most importantly, it is about growth: learning who you are, what you want, how to drop your guards to show yourself as you truly are, and how to handle the inevitable rejections when your truth doesn’t resonate with everyone.

I started my seduction journey thinking that it would help me resolve what I thought was my problem: getting girls. Only when I had them did I realize that seduction’s real purpose is to teach us to love ourselves, that we might be capable of the deepest human connections possible.

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