“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” Prejudices: First Series

Most of you dear readers reached your throat-slitting moment some time ago. For me it was when lying on my sofa in April 2009, playing Battlefield Bad Company on my Xbox360, when I was overcome with an emotion I can best verbalise as “this will not do!” So I genuflected, figured out I’d love to be able to bang lots of hot women, and then in a moment of madness made a firm commitment to hoist the black flag of pick-up.

So here I stand, Captain Krauser of the goodship Daygame, sailing the high seas in search of booty with my fellow rapscallions. I was originally planning to write a post on that but as I kept reading Mencken quotes I continued to be astonished at his ability to parse high-falutin’ ideas into great witticisms. So, let me pick some of my favourites and offer an idiosyncratic interpretation for how it affects the unplugged nomadic daygamer.

“An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup.” A Book of Burlesques

This is the very essence of choosing girls on pure looks without due regard to their vibe and character. Far be it for me to pretend younger-hotter-tighter is not my goal, but banging super-hot girls won’t make you any happier – it’s chasing a phantasm. The cabbage gives you a full flavour, some nutrients, and is a good soup. I haven’t banged many girls in the top tier, just a few, but they aren’t really the memorable ones. Fucking a catwalk model is like poking a bicycle frame with a stick. The girls that please me are young and hot but they’ll also be brimming with feminine sweetness and preferably wide hips and fullsome jubblies. Avoid choosing girls from an ego-based “trophy girl” mindset. It’s okay to bang a few to get the monkey off your back but after that you need to be introspecting about what you really like in a woman.

And on another tangent, don’t think you can ever possess beauty. A rose is beautiful to be looked at. Once you try to consume it, it becomes tasteless gruel to you, and you’ve destroyed the beauty of the rose in it’s natural form. You can’t cure a purity fantasy by fucking angels. Setting your sites on the top tier is both a worthy goal and an insidious trap – you should aim high but make sure to aim for something real. If you think fucking a turbo-hottie will solve your problems you’re in for a big shock when you shoot your bolt and realise you’re still the same man you always were, with the same insecurities.

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable…” Prejudices: Third Series

This is unplugging and the independence of Daygame. It is dating against the machine. The blue pill is a carefully-crafted soft conspiracy that defines both your goals and your means to achieve them. You’ll first get that glitch – the splinter in your brain – when your intuition warns life is not what it seems. Taking the plunge and wrenching yourself out of the matrix is the big step, like dropping anchor and letting your ship sail away to the freedom of the open seas. Be ready for a long period of angst as the pain of the “dishonest, insane, and intolerable” looms so large in your mind that the small seeds of new meaning can’t yet be seen through the weeds. The reason this man is most dangerous is that once free he never looks back. No man re-enters the gulag. He’s gone forever, a free man in control of his life and far too savvy to let the chains be slipped back around his ankles.

“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” A Mencken Chrestomathy

This is the real emotional drive of PUAhate and the white knights. The unhappy man bristles at the thought others may be enjoying their lives and then focuses his energies on bringing them down into his pit of despair. Every time you read some pompous moralist explaining that players are low-lifes, their women are sluts, that they really ought to just settle down with a “good woman” of “high character” be sure that it’s all about envy. A spiteful lazy man will become a Marxist in politics and a White Knight with women. The lowest of all become nihilists and game denialists. If you’re ever receiving the hate remind yourself it’s because your life is happier than theirs and both of you know it. If you’re tempted to throw out hate at someone else, stop and think. Identify the emotional driver (almost certainly envy) and redirect it towards action. Pull yourself up.

“I know some who are constantly drunk on books as other men are drunk on whiskey.” (no source)

Two extremes in the community are theory junkies and pussy rats. The man who spends all day on his laptop watching YouTube videos and dialling in his inner game is practising avoidance of the simple sort – he can’t handle approach anxiety on the street. His solution is simple – get outside and hit on women. The man who spends all day spam approaching and hanging on to every lead is also practising avoidance but of the more subtle kind – he can’t handle self-reflection. Doing the same thing over and over again is often motivated by a fear of change. It’s okay to spend a few weeks, or even months, relentlessly opening girls day after day. You need repetition to burn the skillset into your muscle memory, to see what the streets are really like, and to desensitise yourself to approach anxiety. That’s far better than pontificating on internet forums. However, if you’re stuck with a brutal workrate for every solid number – you need to stop. Reflect. Introspect. Get a second opinion. Often this means a harsh calculation of your current SMV and a realisation that tight game in itself isn’t enough.

Daygame is a journey of constant growth and self-reflection. Don’t be fooled by false end-points. Ride your plateau for a while and then put your energies into finding the route up the next mountain. The drunk gets high every day and wakes up the next morning having slipped imperceptibly further down the slope.

“Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.” (no source)

Every player feels the pressure of the game. When balls-deep into an immersion cycle your love for the game will temporarily quieten all those doubts and you won’t feel the catabolic cost of gaming. But it’s there, under the hood, the fuel tank gradually running dry. Chasing women dissipates your energies until fatigue and game revulsion creeps up on you. This is when you lose the joy for it. The world has the colour and heat drained out of it and you’re going through the motions like an old factory where somebody forgot to switch off the assembly line.

Accept the cyclical nature of game. When you’re down it’s temporary, it’s not a sign that you ought to find your soul mate and “get out of the game”. We have a name for people who treat temporary fluctuations in mood as permanent changes of momentous proportions – women. Ride it out, read a book, have a beach holiday. It’s okay to go off the clock until your hunger returns. The moment you LTR yourself up and prattle on about love is the moment you let the bull into the shop. For a while the novelty and the commotion is exciting, but when the dust settles you’re lying next to a beast and everything you built is smashed to pieces.