Teachable moment from Neil Strauss' The Game

[Razor X]

I stumbled across some excerpts from Neil Strauss' The Game about the makeover he received from the people who were teaching him how to become a pickup artist:

"You're going to have to shave your head," he said as he looked at me.

"No thanks.  What if I have a strange-shaped skull, or weird marks on my head like my dad?"

"Look at you. You're wearing glasses because your vision sucks.  You have a hat on to cover a huge bald spot.  You're ghostly white. And you look like you haven't seen the inside of a gym since grade school. You're doing well because you're smart and you're a fast learner. But looks count, too.  You're Style, so start being Style.  Just snap:  shave your head, get Lasik, join a gym."

Notice that he didn't say, "Get a hair transplant" or "Get a toupee."

Moments later at the barbershop:

... Mystery sat me in a chair, told Marko to instruct the barber to remove my tumbleweeds, and then supervised the procedure to make sure the barber shaved down to the skull.

"Balding is not a choice, but bald is a choice," he said.

....

When the barber finished, I looked in the mirror and saw a chemo patient staring back at me.  

"It looks good," Mystery said. "Let's see if there's a tanning salon around here.  We'll have you looking like a thug in no time."

....

My first thought when I was shaven-headed and tan was:  What took me so long?  I looked much better.  I had transformed from a 5 to a 6.5 on the attractiveness scale ....

For further reading, go to:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ibpvw3wALXcC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=Neil+Strauss+shave&source=bl&ots=Z45IZv2uQI&sig=EWF72hw56DdtDxNunxKAiOE5RC0&hl=en&ei=dtZUTMv5K8KC8gbCxeRI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false

[D.A.L.U.I.]

"Tumbleweeds" great, has all the right mental images.

[Tyler]

That's a very cool and inspiring chapter in that book that can show how quickly someone can make a transformation into a confident person in a matter of days.

[PBurke]

that whole book was good!