“Just what is Game?”
Throughout every major Manosphere blog, there’s a constant presumption that readers know exactly what Game is. Game has been lifted to an almost mythical state.; Game is like some cure-all for the average guy struggling with attracting women’s attention and intimacy. It’s gotten to the point where familiarity with Game has become a given for Manosphere bloggers – we have varieties of Game: we have internalized Game, we have ‘“natural’ ” Game, direct Game, Beta Game, etc., but defining the term ‘ “Game’ ” for someone unfamiliar with the very involved intricacies, behaviors, and the underlying psychological principles on which Game is founded is challenging for the uninitiated to wrap their heads around in the beginning.
Just the word “Game” infers deception or manipulation for the unfamiliar. You’re not being honest if you’re playing a Game. So, from the outset, we’re starting with a perception disadvantage. This is further compounded when attempting to explain Game concepts to a guy who’s been conditioned to ‘ “just be himself‘ ” with women and who believes that how women allegedly hate guys “who “play games” with them. As bad as that sounds, the explanation of how Game is more than the common perception prompts a discussion for new readers to have it explained to them.
At its root level, Game is a set of behaviors and social skills based on psychological and sociological principles that best facilitate intersexual relations between men and women. Game is Best Practices.
Early Game
In its humble beginnings, Game was a set of improvised behaviors learned, adapted, and modified to improve men’s sexual access with women they had only limited (if any) success with. Game was defined as a series of behavioral skills and techniques that were observed, experimented with, and developed by the burgeoning pickup artist (PUA) forum culture of the early 2000′s. While a passing nod was given to the psychology that made these behavior sets effective, the focus was on the results and less on the internal mechanics that made them possible.
This introduction was the Manosphere’s first contact with formalized Game. Pick-up was an art, not a science. The quality of the art in pickup artistry was (and still is) left up to the practitioner to understand the basics of behavioral and evolutionary psychology and refine his ability to adapt and react to his target’s changing behavior cues in various environments and contexts.
If this were the only extent of Game, it would be very limited in scope. In the beginning, Game had a utility. It helped most men who lacked social intelligence to approach and develop a natural, intimate rapport with women they lacked before. The problem was that beyond Game’s “in-field” uses, it wasn’t developed past the point of “getting the girl,” it left even the most socially adept PUAs unprepared to deal with the psychology motivating women on a deeper level. It was this meta-psychology that drove men – unaccustomed to enjoying and then losing the affections of women formerly “out of their league” – to depression and suicide. The cure isn’t the cure if it kills the patient in the process.
Game was a wondrous toolset of skills, but without the insight and foresight to deal with what these tools could build, it was potentially like giving children dynamite.
Evolving Game
From its earliest inception, the Game was more or less viewed as a solution to a…
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