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I’ve just found out that sometime next week, the Tyra Banks Show is going to do a feature on Lovesystems. I wish I could have been on there, despite the fact that the media generally prefers to paint PUA’s/Dating Coaches/whatever you want to call us as liars, douchebags or asshats (though to be fair, some are). Anyway, I think it showed a lot of courage and conviction for Braddock and Savoy to go on the show, despite the way that the media usually treats Dating Science.

To give an example of the kind of attitudes we have to deal with when we put ourselves out there in the media, have a look at  this article from the Boston Globe, which while not entirely negative, exhibits the same kind of willful ignorance and hypocrisy that most journalists show to our business.

The first line I take issue with is “If you’ve seen VH1′s reality show “The Pick-Up Artist,” you know what I’m talking about.” Oh god, please, please, please don’t compare us to Mystery!

Ok, to be fair, I can’t blame her for comparing Lovesystems to the worlds most famous PUA and my former boss, but really, that show has NOTHING in common with the kind of stuff that guys like Braddock, Cajun and I are teaching at our bootcamps. Seriously, if you see any Lovesystems instructor dressing like this on a bootcamp you have my permission to punch them in the face.

The author goes on to say

“A few hours later, when I met up with the men at Gypsy Bar to see them test their skills, I was horrified to see that the gags and methods worked.”

They mentioned their friends and families to prove they were “protectors of loved ones.” They made eye contact. I could see the women flipping their hair and laughing.

Those BASTARDS! Mentioning their friends and families. OPENING UP TO WOMEN. What creeps!

Skills included asking questions to start a conversation or using manipulative behavior like leaning back so that the woman is forced to lean in.

Leaning back only FORCES a woman to lean in if your heads are superglued together. Otherwise, leaning back makes a woman WANT to lean in, in part because she wants to hear you, but mostly because you look a lot cooler when you lean back. I fail to understand how this can be seen as manipulative – unless, of course, you were striving to find SOMETHING manipulative that you could write about. If you applied the same cynical attitude to a girl guide cookie drive you could probably find something to complain about too:

The girl guides learned manipulative tactics such as smiling when people opened the door, and painting flowers on their cookie boxes.

And finally, she goes to describe one of our students. This is the part that really got a bit under my skin, because it really illustrates the hypocritical social attitudes that men who are interested in self-improvement and Dating Science have to deal with on a daily basis.

He was a little guy, a student at one of the local universities. He was introverted with a meek smile. He seemed more comfortable talking to my friend and me than the women at the bar. He seemed to want a relationship. He seemed desperate for real company. He seemed like the kind of guy who might be better off without Love Systems and its methodology.

It’s quite ironic (and telling) that the one student that she approves of is the one she describes patronizingly as “little” and “meek”. So one student wins her approval at the cost of being emasculated, while the others are panted as jerks as she begrudgingly admits they get the girls. Kinda makes you want to be a jerk, doesn’t it.

It seems the true moral of her story is that the proper role of a man is to be a little, meek source of pleasant conversation, to give affection without ever receiving love or respect, and to accept his lot in life. I was that guy once too. Women love beta males, the way men love a loyal dog. But they don’t respect beta males, and they don’t love them the way a man wants to be loved, and that’s the problem. And that’s the attitude that we’re up against every time we’re in the media.

It’s that kind of hypocrisy that turns nice guys into bitter old misogynists with time. It’s that kind of hypocrisy that confuses men and leads them, week after week into our bootcamps and seminars, and it’s that kind of hypocrisy that I hope, someday, I will have a hand in eliminating. In the meantime, I’m glad that guys like Braddock and Savoy are out there facing it on the Tyra Banks show and elsewhere. I wish them luck.