Pickup artists refine the art

"Who lies more? Men, or women?"

This is a common example of what Johnny Charisma, whose real name is Jake Lienen, calls “old school pickup game.” Charisma is what is called a “pickup artist,” or PUA, which is a man who has focused his life in pursuit of female company. Lienen first discov­ered the community while in high school, now a student at University of Iowa, because he felt he was a “nerd” and wanted to finally go out on a date with a girl.

Pickup artists have a global network that allows them to remain connected with each other provided by the Internet. The community was formed in the mid 1990s by a group of men and boys from across the United States who were once socially inept.

Many started off as nerds and science fiction fanatics. Then after years of trial and error as well as studying books on the fairer sex, animal mat­ing rituals, magic tricks and in some more extreme situa­tions hypnosis, they learned the laws of attraction. Many of these so called tricks and tac­tics are simply restricted sales techniques.

The first major figurehead of the fledgling seduction com­munity was a man named Erik Von Markovich AKA Mystery. Mystery was the first of these men to organize what he called “Boot camps” for which he charged a fee of $500, which included cover to go to bars and night clubs and a limou­sine.

In these boot camps he and his “Wingman,” someone in the know of the techniques used for attracting women, will take students into the field. Once in field he and his Wingman would interact with students, in some cases even going as far as interrupting conversa­tions with the intended tar­get to correct body language, voice tonality and phrases.

“Usually, being out alone can be kind of creepy, and it’s always nice to have some­one to analyze and critique the approach and the body language, conversation flow, etc.,” said Lienen.