Kara & Michael’s Blog

I was watching The Pickup Artist 2 on VH1 last night. I was watching mostly because they referred to the host Mystery as world-famous and I’d never heard of him. The premise of the show is that Mystery is going to help a few dorks to get laid. No, really, that’s the premise.

Before I go any further, let me show you a picture of Mystery.

Mystery - stolen but not hotlinked

I don’t know about you, but the last guy I want to take how to get laid advice from is a guy who he dresses and styles himself solely in Adam Ant’s tattered relics. For reference, a picture of Adam Ant.

Adam Ant - stolen but not hotlinked

And I mean no offense to Adam Ant - I was rocking out to one of his albums this past weekend.

Anyway, I was struck by the premise of the show because while a lot of those guys were annoying, none of them were so hideous or so irritating as to be completely unattractive to all women. Here’s the problem - these guys want to fit into a stereotypical mold.

I think of these shows the way I think of those stupid movies where you have that shy, librarian girl with the smoking hot bod who gets a makeover and then scores with the hottest guy in school. The thing that always struck me about it was this: By the time I was 16 or so, I was well aware of the kind of guys I had a chance with and I did not waste my time thinking about other guys. I guarantee you that every crush I had past the age of 13 was a guy who I had a pretty good chance of making out with if the cards fell the right way or if we were drunk enough.

So what does the show do? It brings these guys into a house with standard hotties and then the hosts take them to clubs to try out their skills. Which brings me to my list of problems with this show:

1. All these shows teach dorks the same lessons:
   • The trick isn’t picking one girl to talk to, it’s talking to as many girls as possible, because you’re bound to get lucky sometime.
   • Most girls just want someone who is observant. They want a guy who listens to them but also picks up on physical cues. As Ursula says, it’s all about body language.
   • How you present yourself - confidence, hairstyle, dressing to emphasize your best features - is important.
2. Picking girls up in clubs is stupid. Really. Unless all you want to do is get laid, your better bet is to meet girls in class, at museums, at the gym, through friends, etc.
3. If you are not attractive, not wealthy and not charming, your options for girls are more limited. You will probably not bag a hottie, at least not permanently. I think these shows inflate guys’ expectations for relationships. At some point in our lives, we have to realize we’re not all going to be able to date or screw the hottest ten percent of people. That’s partly why there’s pornography and strip clubs. I guess men have a harder time letting go of that fantasy than women.
4. These shows focus on dating women like getting notches on your bedpost. It’s not about building a lasting or quality relationship. It’s about turning dorky guys into womanizing man-whores. Now, if you want to be a womanizing man-whore, more power to you. But it doesn’t really make quality tv, at least not in my mind.
5. Finally, I think it’s stupid to let anyone advise you on your romantic life. It’s something you should sort out for yourself after making lots of mistakes and putting yourself out there.

I get that it’s harder for guys in the dating world because they often have to be the ones making the first move. I understand that because I’m a girl who has almost universally made the first move on every guy I’ve liked. I’ve been turned down. I’ve been laughed at. And that’s all part of it. But dating is not some secret, and neither is getting laid. People have been doing it for hundreds of years, and some of us are made for it and others of us are not. Keats had not the temperament of Byron.

Finally - really? Taking love advice from a guy named Mystery? Hell to the naw, folks. Hell to the naw.

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