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Race Depriest is ready to meet the girl of his dreams. The "meeting" part, at least, should be no problem because Race is literally a professional — a social-dynamics coach for the Manhattan-based dating-instruction company The Art of Charm and co-author of the e-book Window Shopping for Women: How To Meet Women From Myspace, Facebook, and More.
"I'm really not a pick-up artist," he tells me, reminding me of college frat boys who would claim, "I'm not, like, your typical frat boy." But I can't help thinking that Race is sincere. It helps that he has a baby face, bright green eyes and hair that screams Abercrombie and Fitch. Last week, our mutual acquaintance, another not-a-pick-up-artist pick-up artist, told me that Race, despite his prowess with women, is ready to settle down. Of course, I was intrigued. Why would a professional seducer want the same banal thing that everyone eventually wants, when he could just as easily avert what pick-up artists call "one-itis"?
I was determined to find out.
I meet Race for beers at an East Village laundromat-turned-bar called Drop-Off Service. He sits to my right in a semicircle booth. We're with some of his friends and two mysterious, beautiful women who gaze at Race like he's a lava lamp and they've taken too many bong hits.
If you spend time with Race and his crew (most of whom are affiliated with The Art of Charm), you get the sense they know something you don't, as if you're hanging out with magicians and the second you excuse yourself to go to the bathroom, they will draw their heads together and say, "She really believed I plucked that quarter from her ear!" But you also suspect that the second you leave, they'll forget you exist, that your absence will make no impression at all.
Race's agenda didn't always include plans to settle down.
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Two mysterious, beautiful women gaze at Race like he's a lava lamp and they've taken too many bong hits.
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Before moving to New York, he lived in New Mexico, New Zealand, Las Vegas, Madrid, Alabama, and California. He worked as a numerologist's personal assistant, as a youth leader in Oahu, and as a birthday-party Spiderman in Albuquerque. He has traveled to eleven countries and slept with beautiful women all over the world. Only now, at twenty-seven, is he hoping to find a woman "to build memories with."
He tells me, "This is a fantasy, but how great would it be if a girl just decided she wanted me and would do whatever it took to get me? Not because she's needy, but because she sees something in me that she has to have."
I consider this, remembering a guy who pursued me for months before I gave him my number, at which point, he held the slip of paper aloft like a trophy and said, "I worked hard for this!" It was a touching, primal sight, like wild animals having sex. But the memory, and my concurrent understanding of male desire, clash with Race's fantasy.
"Don't you want a challenge?"
Race takes a sip of his beer. "Of course," he says. "But she would know what to do. She would not only meet my resistance, but throw resistance right back. All this stuff. . . it's like fencing. But it's not a fight. That's negative."
It's clear within three seconds of meeting Race, who gives the right kind of hugs (tight, two arms, no patting) that he rejects all things negative. The way he sees it, there's a lot to be excited about, all the time, and obstacles are a matter of perspective. Well, of course they are — if you're a gorgeous, fit, socially skilled straight man who can make yourself attractive to every woman on the planet.
Like many people, I became intrigued by the "seduction community" after reading The Game, Neil Strauss' 2005 account of spending two years among the world's greatest pick-up artists. Since reading The Game, I can't say I haven't scoured the online-seduction forums a few times. I can't say I didn't once succumb to a man who used NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) on me. I can't say I don't have an enormous celebrity crush on Neil Strauss, who ends The Game like a fairytale: fed up with abundant, meaningless sex, he settles down with a gorgeous rock star, and (at least in the book) decides he wants no one but her.
Within the seduction community, a lot of men seem to be following Strauss' lead: A long-term girlfriend (hot, of course) is, for many, the ultimate prize. Curiously, though, among the Art of Charm coaches, only a couple have serious girlfriends, and Race has been unattached for several years.
"So if you find her," I say, "then what? Monogamy?"
"Well," Race says. "I'm a man. I have an innate desire for variety. But I would never cheat. She would have to be comfortable with bringing other women into the relationship for sex. It would be something we would do together."
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