The girls I've kissed are grateful

The oldest text message I have saved on my phone is from my old university friend, Owen. I can't remember the last time I saw him, but since I haven't been back to Derby since the one time I interviewed him for a feature I was writing on Urban Exploration, it's probably close to five years.

On a random January evening in 2007 I received a message from Owen that read:

"I am halfway through 'The Game' by Neil Strauss. Feels a bit like Palahniuk. In my head he's played by you. That's a compliment."

I wasn't sure what to make of this, since I'd never heard of either Neil Strauss or The Game -- but if he said it was a compliment I resolved to take it as such. But I also resolved to find out what this book was about, and what it was about the book's character that had him imagine me in their place.

Owen was a nice guy, but he had some odd ideas sometimes. He was a Goth, which in some ways could explain a lot, but the easiest way to describe the difference between us in our friendship is by relating the difference between my idea of going out for a drink, and his. I asked him one night if he wanted to go for a drink, he did, and we arranged to meet outside the student's union around 9pm. My idea of going out for a drink that evening consisted of going to the union, having a few pints of snakebite, playing pool, and stumbling home shortly before 12.

Owen's idea of going out for a drink was he had the keys to abandoned church, two bottles of cheap, fizzy white wine, and some hardcore pornography he had found in the grounds of the church earlier that day. And so instead of a few pints and home, we explored the abandoned building by the light of his pen torch, then looked at the porn he found, before drinking the wine in total darkness, because Owen was concerned about conserving his battery life.

That was Owen. He was a Jewish, vegetarian Goth who would sometimes eat meat when he was drunk and his girlfriend wasn't around, and liked to tell tall stories. He'd read a few novels by Chuck Palahniuk that I recommended, most notably 'Survivor' (which I still think is one of the best) and so I was curious. Who wouldn't be?

I think immediately following the message I looked in my local library for the book, and found out it was a true story about the world of pick-up artists -- there was also a long wait for the book, and I didn't think it would really be my sort of thing. Although I rarely thought any more about it, I kept the message. Until one day I was in a cheap bookshop and saw a copy on sale for £1. The book was on a top shelf among books for adults on relationships and sex, and came with a parental advisory sticker.

I realised soon into reading the book why it reminded Owen of Palahniuk, as the story progresses the style does have distinct similarities -- in a way, it reminded me a bit of Fight Club in places, where the story moved away from the fighting and onto Tyler Durden's army of "Project Mayhem". What amused me to begin with in The Game was when I noticed the main character was described as a "shy, awkward writer". At least, that's how it starts. Neil Strauss went from this socially inept introvert to what the "pick up" community describes as a "master pick up artist" or MPUA.

If you're interested in reading the book, you might want to stop with this post here, as I will discuss the ending -- at least, in a roundabout sort of way.

What intrigues me now is wondering how different some of my past encounters could have been, had I read this book before. Perhaps not serious relationships -- as I think many of the pick up 'techniques' would have only a relatively short appeal -- but if you do look at dating as a game, being played with certain sets of rules, the I could certainly have played it differently and with very different results. Rather than just being played. I think back to short-lived encounters and false starts with people like Claire and Ultra the electro girl, in hindsight they were both very obviously playing a particular sort of game.

Ultra thought she was pretty smart, but it was fairly obvious to me that probably what she was used to, or at least what she wanted, was someone to take her out on dates to expensive restaurants. Claire too, bringing her mate along when we went out for a drink, inviting me to a party then changing her mind. I wonder how different things might have gone with Claire if I'd realised what was being played was a game -- and known different skills to utilise.

Neil Strauss goes from "Neil Strauss: writer" but tragically single to "Style [as he is re-christened]: voted #1 pick up artist in the world", but unlike many others in the story, he keeps his soul. He looks into the void, and sees it is empty, he sees people becoming 'robots' with meaningless lives -- and fortunately, unlike others in his story, he doesn't turn to religion. He is the detached narrator while Tyler Durden is building an army -- literally, too, since one of his proteges calls himself Tyler Durden. What eventually saves Neil and brings him back to reality is a woman.

I do wonder if the 'rules' of The Game could have been used on people on the past for my own benefit -- but it's not what I'm looking for. At the end of Fight Club the narrator realises he has to step out from Tyler Durden's shadow and Marla Singer realises her true feelings are for him, and not for Tyler. Similarly, The Game ends with Neil Strauss realising he will lose the only woman he cares about if he persists in playing this stupid game and doesn't distinguish himself from Style. Lisa likes him for who he really is.

The important thing in both stories is that neither man could have got the girl at the end without the journey. The narrator in Fight Club learns from Tyler Durden, Neil Strauss in a similar way learns the self confidence that allows him to talk to a woman like Lisa to begin with -- and not be scared off when she sometimes seems bitchy. Lisa falls for Neil and not Style, but without being Style and learning from it Neil would never have been able to start let alone continue a relationship with Lisa.

The lessons I take away from both novels are complicated. They don't say "be yourself" or even the subtly different "be true to yourself" -- because in both cases who they are at the end is not the same as the start; it would be a pointless story if they were. Ulysses does not end his Odyssey the same man as he began it, even if the 'core' is essentially the same, although the comparison ends pretty quickly there. Do these people remain true to themselves? Maybe they don't lose their souls, but either way they build and improve on themselves.

It's just a matter of trying to draw out what's important in my own life. I know I have issues I need to build on, and it can be almost frightening to me sometimes how quickly and steeply my mood can decline with almost no warning. I know that I can appear needy, clingy and ineffective at times, but I also know that I have discovered new levels of confidence in me along the way and I am not the same person I once was.
In the words of Eddie and the Hotrods, "I am sure I must be someone, now I'm gonna find out who".