We live, it is said, in a city of beautiful buildings and ugly people. We are continually portrayed as lacking passion and social skills, losing our virginities at about the same time our BAs metamorphose into Masters degrees. We are apparently less attractive, less sociable and less likely to get laid than students elsewhere, although the chances are good that we will end up marrying each other, if only because no one else will. In fact, it seems that no one other than JP Morgan lusts after an Oxford student.Keen to investigate this, I regarded the influx of a new generation of freshers with an eager eye. From the lengthy crocodiles of new students traversing the High Street will be drawn a new flock of hacks and upstarts, thesps and boaties, socialites and socialists. Our university will, sadly perhaps but probably inevitably, stratify itself as it does each year. Within a few short months, weeks even, the different tribes separated by subject and college, as well as class, wealth and faith, will have identified each other and introverted themselves.However, for a blink of an autumnal eye everyone is in the same boat of finding where things are and trying to remember names. The future ‘Bridge girl’, who by November will be far too cool for college, goes to buy her gown with the computer scientist who will be social secretary of the Dungeons & Dragons Society in Hilary. In my own college I saw several acres of pashmina founder on tough northern lads who clearly wondered why the womenfolk were wearing tents. Like the end of a war or the fall of a siege Oxford’s freshers’ week produces some strange meetings, and not just with the tutors. But does it throw up some unlikely bedfellows?Certainly the chivalrous second year tactic of plying a fresher with sambuca and then stealing her keys delivered some results, but as this newspaper wryly commentated it was not “all about getting pissed and getting laid”. Intrigued as to why it wasn’t just the chemists who couldn’t find much chemistry, I found myself in Blackwell’s on the Thursday of 0th week trying to pretend I was not reading a large blue volume. The author was an American journalist called Neil Strauss, the title was The Game. A subheading simply declared “undercover in the world of Pick Up Artists”.Strauss’ story is essentially a tale of transformation from rags to sexual riches. A self confessed geek, he fell in with a “community” of men who styled themselves as “Pick Up Artists”, or “PUAs”, and claimed to have discovered and codified routines that would allow them to seduce any woman. He was eventually hailed as the world’s greatest PUA after one of his students used his routines to secure Paris Hilton’s phone number in a Hollywood diner. Strauss’ narrative did not really interest me but I was intrigued by the techniques he espoused. Reading further it seemed that Strauss had essentially perfected the well-proven mantra of ‘treat them mean to keep them keen’.Cleverly and consistently he had devised techniques and eventually an entire lifestyle that was conceived to convince his targets of his active disinterest in them right up until the moment he had lured them into bed. He would dress deliberately eccentrically (a habit known as “peacocking”) and approach women with a “false time constraint”: a wholly fictitious lie that he had other business to attend to and could not, therefore, harass them all night. An innocuous opener deliberately void of sexual intent would be followed by a barrage of mind reading exercises and magic tricks, and then his most powerful tool, the “neg”. Realising that beautiful women are bored by compliments and men fawning over them, Strauss chose instead to clothe a subtle insult within an overt compliment. The “neg” was intended to shred the target’s self esteem, and kick her interest buttons. I was sceptical, particularly when I chanced upon the sample “neg” in the book: “Nice hair, is it real?”Even the proffered alternative of “You have nice teeth, they make you look just like Bugs Bunny” did not convince me. Surely voicing doubts about a maiden’s curls could not be the way to her heart, or her bedroom? But then again, the anecdotal evidence seemed stacked in Strauss’ favour. As I considered the matter it became more and more obvious that there was only one way to put The Game to the test – I would have to play my own game and take Strauss’ ideas into the field. And where better to give them the acid test than Oxford, bastion of celibacy and libraries?Taking on the mission required a measure of anxious self-examination. I was, to be honest with myself, using a self-help book to pick up girls. Was my subconscious trying to tell me something? Nervously scrutinising my past
interactions with the fairer sex I decided I was probably not, in Strauss’ terminology, an “AFC” (average frustrated chump), but then again I was certainly not a master “Pick Up Artist” either. Whilst I had once briefly topped my college’s “Fit Fresher” poll on Oxford Gossip, I had to concede that electoral apathy may have played a roll as I garnered only three votes. I had undoubtedly been lucky to escape the Oxford curse relatively unscathed; there are a few Akam exes scattered amongst the dreaming spires, even if a couple of them only hold day membership of the club. But then again I had to admit to myself that I had never asked a girl if her hair was real, or spent one night in Paris. It was clearly time to learn.Time was of the essence. It had taken Neil Strauss two years to learn his game, but I only had a few hours. After all, I had an essay to write. So, on an autumnal afternoon in Oxford I set out to become a “Pick Up Artist”. I considered several hunting
grounds. A club seemed most obvious, but my fellow features editor pointed out that using mind games to pull in Filth would be degrading to both myself and this newspaper.Therefore I decided to test the game in an Oxford situation: I would have to pick up a girl in a library. After all, the (Radcliffe) camera never lies. I chose the Rad Cam as the location for my Bodleian Romance, lured partly by its reputation as a social Mecca and in part by its undeniable resemblance to a gigantic nipple. I decided I would have to “peacock”: I was determined to dress to impress. Unfortunately I only possess one fancy dress costume, and there was no way I was going to the Rad Cam in a caveman suit. I donned instead a cavalry service dress jacket in khaki serge, emblazoned with steel imperial eagles on the lapels. I teamed this with a florid pink shirt with loose double cuffs, jeans, hooped blue and pink socks and highly polished brogues. I looked like I had just deserted from the Franco-Prussian war onto Carnaby Street, but I was confident I had the right look. Better men than I had fought and died in that uniform, and I knew it would do me justice. Aware too of the need for accessories, as well as the requirement to pretend to work so as not to blow my cover, I hid a calligraphic dip pen and a pot of Swiss green ink in a battered leather briefcase.Disguise complete, I left the daylight of Radcliffe Square behind me. I seized the strategic ground by the photocopiers and ostensibly checked the facebook whilst assessing the situation. The theology aisle was a disappointment, inhabited as usual by those who couldn’t find a space in the English section. Elsewhere, however, rich pickings were to be found, even among the few who held
the controversial view that the library is a place for serious scholarship. Having settled myself down opposite a promising brunette I opened my pot of ink and toyed with my pen. I glanced across – spoken openers clearly would not work, so my approach would have to be written. Fortunately the librarians had clearly considered this issue and thoughtfully left trays of pink shelving slips in the middle of each table, so I had a plentiful supply of billet-doux. I considered my opener. I did not have the heart to pass a clothed insult across the no man’s land between us, so instead merely wrote “You have nice hair” and cast it into the walnut ulu across the table. The response was not ideal, despite smiling she made no response and dashed for cover to the loos at the first available opportunity. My fragile self-confidence was shattered and I considered calling off the whole operation, before reasoning that I had been too soft and my “negging” skills had been lacking.There was, however, no way I was going to write “Is your hair real?” and offer the slip to a random individual; I had horrifying visions of being marched from the library in disgrace and falling under a permanent Bodleian ban. Instead I decided to take a safer option and reclaim the stereotypes for my own advantage: all the prettiest students are supposed to be at Brookes, and they are allowed into the Bodleian in their third year, once they have learned to read. Therefore there was a possibility, albeit a slim one, that an attractive Rad Cam denizen would in fact be a Brookes imposter. I carefully wrote “You have nice hair – are you at Brookes?” on yet another pink slip. It was the perfect Oxford “neg”, and this time the response was better. A bored looking blonde wrote back, “No, St Johns”, although she was less than impressed when I passed the reply “Close Enough” back inside the front cover of a volume entitled Sexual Deviance.By this point my antics were becoming increasingly obvious to the fifty-something DPhil veteran in the seat next to me. It could only be a matter of time before he betrayed me to the authorities on charges of illegal ink consumption and licentious pamphleteering. Therefore I had to make my last attempt the most worthwhile. I charged my remaining pink slip with another Brookes comment, sailed down the aisle that faces Brasenose and left it on another desk. I had noticed the desk’s owner a moment before as she manned the photocopier: she was blonde, and built like a racing schooner. Perhaps she actually was at Brookes.However my intuition turned out to be false: she was the genuine article. I made a return pass of her desk a minute later and picked up the reply in a feminine green hand “Thankyou, I’m at Oxford Uni.” I responded quickly, while ostensibly perusing volumes of Feuerbach; I toyed with “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”, but chose instead “Do you come her often?” Once more the reply appeared, although I lingered before collecting it, not wanting to appear too eager. The pen had changed to black, which I took to be a good sign: “I’m a fresher so I haven’t really had much of a chance yet. Seems like a good place to study! What do you read? Where?” She was clearly interested: now was the time to close the deal.
Three simple headings on another pink slip: “English (Occasionally), Worcester, Number?”This was make or break time.Once more I lingered before collecting the reply, but I need not have. The same hand and same ink: “This is probably just the sort of thing a young lady is supposed not to do, but hey.” The magical digits followed. I had done it. With a simple combination of ridiculous clothing, subtle “negging” and green ink and eclectic stationary I had conjured the number of a girl I had never met, never talked to, and whose name I did not even know from the Bodleian ether. Perhaps the game had something to it.That night I headed out into the gloaming with a photographer in tow to get some images to complete this article. I felt exhausted by the days events, and in no mood for further attempts at seduction. However, I gathered enough courage for one more skirmish. We opened with the line “We’re journalists doing a feature, will you pose for some images with me?” Bizarrely this procured amazing results. Through some unforeseeable cosmic accident a bevy of Danish exchange students had wound up in Thirst, and were more than willing to drape themselves over me for such a serious journalistic purpose. As our photographer snapped away and we collected an embarrassing amount of e-mail addresses, the other men in the bar looked at us with a mixture of anger, suspicion and disbelief.Suddenly the real meaning of what Strauss had attempted became clear to me: it was never about dressing up, or veiled insults, or looking disinterested. Rather it was about projecting an image and appearing at the centre of attention. The idea was clearly to be the ringleader, whether through conversational sharpness or, as we were, by offering the tangible prize of media exposure.As we left shortly afterwards to pad off into the rainy night with a memory card full of Copenhagen’s finest, I pondered the day’s events. I was not a convert, but I had learnt a thing or two. The only decision left was
whether or not to call her.
Simon Akam would like to apologise to all the women he approached in the research for this article.
ARCHIVE: 2nd week MT 2005
Bachelors in the art of seduction
