Breaking the rules of 'The Game'

Forgive me if I sounds a little harsh, but I can't stand Neil Strauss. For those of you who don't know him, he is the author of The Game, a book which supposedly teaches men how to pull attractive women. My main beef with Neil is that he gives my beloved flirting a bad name. He represents and propagates flirting in a way which just isn't true.

[You might have seen me commenting on his flirting strategies in the Dec article of Cosmopolitan U.K. Keeping Party Sharks at Bay' http://www.jean-smith.com/jean008.jpg]

Those of us who understand its real meaning, know that flirting is fun, light-hearted, and it's about making others feel good, which is then returned to us. Neil, unfortunately, views flirting as a self-gratifying action (again, which is about the farthest thing that flirting stands for) whose only merit is in making the person doing the manipulation receive some kind of superficial reward, usually at the other person's expense. For example, one of Neil's rules is to "Never focus on the girl and ignore her friends. This makes you look desperate." Hmmm, besides worrying about how others will perceive him, i.e. desperate, I wonder if Neil has also considered that ignoring her friends is just plain rude?

I am not surprised at his attitude, because even though Neil is considered god-like to millions of his disciples, he is still lacking the one thing needed to be a great flirt...believing in yourself, so that you can freely give to others, rather than taking away from them. This 'self-confessed, skinny, balding loser with women' who can now, apparently, pick-up any woman he wants, hasn't seemed to be able to shake his own self-conceptions. For if he had, he would be wanting to build people up during his time here on earth, rather than tear them down for his own selfish gains.