Tinker, player, soldier, spy...

[sealwhiskers]

By now, most people have at least tangentially heard of "players" as in pick-up artists a la Neil Strauss' "the Game". Guys who have a whole sub-culture of methods on how to "pick up hot women and "get sex

Comments

[catsidhe]

As far as I can tell, the entire set of instructions for "The Game" can be summarised as: "Be, or make a good impression of being, on the Psychopathy Spectrum."

Really. The whole point of the exercise is to manipulate other people for your own gratification without regard to their feelings. That's basically the definition of a psychopath.

And the thing about psychopaths is that their very presence in your life is poisonous.

[striver]

Nod nod... That sums up what I was thinking, catsidhe, psychopathy. Very toxic people.

[sealwhiskers]

Possibly toxic and definitely dysfunctional, although psychopathy is its own very heavy bag of bones, and should not be called on lightly.

[sealwhiskers]

This is why pick-up artists, like the ones in "The Game" can only function in the very basic of short snapshots of social situations (a couple of nights in a bar, a one-night stand, etc etc) with the same person. And also why they have to compartmentalize and rationalize their behavior so much - unless they really have streaks of psychopathy of course, which I don't think the bulk of them have (although I wouldn't rule out many of them having other issues, of the kind I touch upon in this post).

[catsidhe]

As I understand it, not all psychopaths are serial killers, in the same way that not all autists are locked in and feces-smearing. Thus: the Psychopathy Spectrum. (viz. here, amongst other places.)

It is also why I said "or make a good impression of being". You don't have to be a psychopath, or a narcissist, to be on The Game, but you have to act like you are for it to work. And if you get good enough at pretending to be a psychopath, then from the point of view of the people you inevitably will hurt, it doesn't matter if you feel really bad about it afterwards. (A true psychopath, of course, wouldn't feel bad in the slightest, and someone with BPD or Narcissism would feel bad, but rationalise everything as being the other person's fault.)

I think I'm furiously agreeing with you, just using different terminology.

[sealwhiskers]

Yup, I wholeheartedly agree with the summary you made in your second paragraph.

(I'm aware that there are highly functional psychopaths out there, never killing, but it's still a very strong diagnosis of a big condition)