Is Pickup Good or Bad?

For years, pickup artists have been portrayed in movies as sleazy men who seduce women just to get them into bed. I think that we can all agree that there are are pickup artists out there who fit this persona, but is he art of pickup really evil?

It has been nearly six months since I was first introduced to the art of pickup. At the time I discovered it, I was about to end a year long relationshp that was going nowhere, and was once again completely freaked out by the concept of having to meet women once again. Having the weak social skills that I had, I wanted to find a way to get myself talking with women, and every pickup method I found sounded like it would do that for me although at the time, the concept of being a "pickup artist" didn't sound at all attractive to me. I just wanted to be able to talk to women.

At that point, I bought Mehow's "Get the Girl" (http://www.mehow.tv/) manual, and read it. Everything in it made sense, but still it didn't help my approach anxiety, so I was a little frustrated. I started posting on the forums, and before long I started learning what pickup is REALLY about. Its all about men like me.

I can hear it now, the women reading this are probably mumbling "great, another a******" under thair breaths. Let me say not that I don't believe in sleeping with women if I dont want to be in a relationship with them. I'm one guy that would be overjoyed to settle down into a comitted relationship with someone I really cared about. So why would I want to be a pickup artist.

The art of pickup is like so many other things in the world, it can be used for good or bad. True pickup isn't about seducing women. Instead, it is about bettering ourselves and becoming the men that women want to be with. Sure the the different methodologies provide scripts and techniques that help, but those are mainly there to give us some confidence and a point to start from. In other words the scripts they teach give men like me material to use to get comfortable and have fun talking to women in a way that they will also have fun. I don't see anything wrong with that.

To me, the essence of the art of pickup is teach men the things that their parents and friends were never able to teach them. I truely believe that if every man were to learn this stuff, everyone would be better off. No one was born with the gift of being able to easily carry on conversation with the opposite sex. They just had the opportunity to learn from the people who surrounded them. Why shouldn't everybody have this opportunity? Also, if you are a women, wouldn't you rather see more guys with the ability to carry on interesting conversation with you instead of just giving you meaningless compliments and buying you drinks in hopes of getting in bed with you?