Prologue

It started Spring of 2001. I was 21-years-old and spent my free time on the computer reading message boards or playing games. I had no skill with women, and the ones I knew either used me for my brain to tutor them or as an emotional tampon to feel better about the guys who didn’t take their shit. I remember thinking how stupid these other guys were to make such pretty, nice girls upset. Don’t they realize these girls will probably stop talking to them? My friends were unsuccessful with women too, so we all reinforced our lack of skill during all-night games of Risk or poker. I wanted to get out of this cycle but felt I had little control to make a change.

I observed other guys and concluded that success with women was a skill you were born with. Then there was one girl I started to like in my organic chemistry class. She was Persian, same age as me, with long, curly hair and olive skin. We would study together in groups and I could swear she was giving me extra attention. I analyzed the situation with my nice guy friends and we all concluded that she did like me as more than a friend. After a couple weeks of hesitation, I finally asked her out on a casual date to the movies. She said she couldn’t because she was very busy. Weeks later I’d see her around campus holding hands with another guy. Instead of listening to lame love songs like I usually did, for the first time I got angry. A lifetime of frustration and not getting what I wanted became focused on this one girl. I was bitter that I, a nice guy, was getting passed over for guys who I thought were losers. So I started to ignore her. If I did end up talking to her, I would cut our conversation short. When she would ask me to study I’d lie and say I was studying alone, only for her to find my study group up late at night in the library. I started feeling good for treating her poorly. I hated her and everything she stood for, which was my failure with women. But then something interesting happened: she started making a strong effort to gain my attention and favor. It was like the harder I pulled away, the closer she would come to me. This was the first time I noticed that changing my behavior can affect how girls react to me.

Soon it would become clear that interacting with women wasn’t very different from the games I’d play with my nice guy friends, where changing tactics and strategies yield different results. At about the same time, I clicked a random link on a business forum and stumbled onto something called Tony’s Lay Guide. It was the best accident of my life. This guide had tips on how to approach women, how to talk to them, how to kiss them, and how to have sex with them. I immediately printed the entire guide in case the site went offline. It reinforced to me the idea that you can learn how to get better, that you aren’t doomed to a life of infrequent sex just because you weren’t born a natural. I studied the guide for two months before I actually did anything. It was May 2001 when I approached a girl for the first time in the line of a club. I talked to her for half an hour and got her number, to the surprise of me and my friends. It was probably beginner’s luck, but this first success sold me on the idea that studying the game was a worthy cause. That’s usually how it starts for most guys getting into game: a random discovery followed by a first success or initial high when they do something they’ve never done before.