I try to imagine one of my ex-boyfriends proposing group sex to me. So romantic! But I can also imagine agreeing to such an arrangement — if I were sickly obsessed with my boyfriend. (And believe me, I've been there. It makes me say magnanimous things like, "Don't mind me! Enjoy your cocaine!") I imagine a girl loving Race feverishly, doing anything to ensure that he'd never leave her, even pretending to be cool with orgies. I start to feel sad for Race's fantasy girl, who might not even exist.
Jordan, co-founder of The Art of Charm, a guy who wears red suspenders and styles his hair like a Rhodesian Ridgeback, chimes in: "If you know you can get anyone, you can have standards. You don't have to settle for someone just because she likes you. Imagine how much happier people would be if they could marry whomever they wanted. You wouldn't want anyone but the person you had. You picked her. She was your first choice."
Well, fine — in theory. But what about a few years into the relationship, when the mystery's gone, when the sex has become routine? Won't someone else become first choice?
Of course Race stays optimistic: "There are those families when you're growing up," he says, "and everyone wants to be at their house because the parents love each other so much. You can just feel the love. They love each other more every day. That's so rare, but it exists. I know it's out there. So I'd rather be alone for the rest of my life than settle for less."
When Race turns his attention back to the beautiful girl to his right, his friend Patrick picks up the thread. Patrick met the Art of Charm guys when he took one of their seminars, but he's since become a part of their inner circle. He's quiet and tall and jarringly beautiful, with a perfectly symmetrical face and enormous hands (he holds them up to show me, palms out, then turns them to show me the backs). He wears a silver ring that looks like a wedding band, but it's resting safely around his index finger.
"Some men never come to grips with life with one woman," he says. "But then some find one woman they give it all up for. I think that the more you date, the more complex your standards become, so that when you meet someone who fits, it's not even a question."
I like this idea, but since it's coming from a single man, I take it with a grain of salt. "Won't there always be someone else who might fit better?"
By way of response, Patrick uses jargon I've seen in the seduction forums: "the scarcity mentality" and "the abundance mentality." If a guy, even one who masters the art of seduction, never loses his scarcity mentality — think of Great Depression survivors who re-use plastic sandwich bags — he'll always have a wandering eye.
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If a guy never loses his scarcity mentality — think of Depression survivors who re-use plastic sandwich bags — he'll always have a wandering eye.
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By contrast, a guy who internalizes the "abundance" of women available to him will be more likely to focus on a relationship without frantically searching for more conquests.
"The difference between a guy who is good with women," Patrick tells me, "and a guy who is good with women and with himself, is that even though the confident guy knows there will always be 'better' women out there, that doesn't affect the present. What's important is what's happening at this point in time and the experiences you have with this person now."
After a few minutes, I see Race in my peripheral vision, making out with the beautiful girl. When she gets up to go to the bathroom, he responds to some text messages.
"How many girls are you usually texting with?" I ask him.
"I don't know," he says. "Five?" He finishes sending a text message, looks up from his phone, and smiles at me.
The Art of Charm guys have great smiles. They also have straight posture and make direct, consistent eye contact; when I talk with them, I feel like they're holding me up over their heads, crowd-surfer style, and if I look away from them, it feels a little like falling.
Before I met up with Race, I asked my girl friends for their thoughts on professional seducers. A lot of them had the same response: "I don't get it. Why would anyone want to date a pick-up artist?"
One of my recently engaged friends said, "What kind of future do you have with a guy who can get any girl? You don't want the guy who can get any girl."
Although this is a practical assessment, it might not be honest. The art of seduction, when mastered, works because pick-up artists offer not what we claim to want, but what we actually want, even if we don't know we want it. But what's that exactly? According to Race, it's the perfect blend of Nice Guy and Asshole Guy — the confident man who is attentive without being needy. It might sound simple, but acquiring charm takes a lot of time and effort; charm can be learned, but not faked, and there really is no shortcut. If you're not confident, Race says, women are going to smell it.
"Guys come to our seminars," Jordan adds, "and they say, 'Teach us how to seduce women.' They want to learn to pick up women in a weekend. What they don't understand is that we've all spent years working on ourselves. So we do what we call 'hiding the broccoli.' A little kid won't eat broccoli. But if you smother it in cheese, he'll eat it. We tell these guys, 'Yeah, we'll teach you to pick up women.' But what we're really teaching is self-improvement."
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