Attraction Distraction

The problem with the Redwood Room can be spotted with a trained eye. Intermingling with the polished suits and Prada heels crowd are some other guys. Younger guys. Guys in striped collar shirts, mostly good looking or at least well put together, hanging around in clumps, surveying the crowd with a predatory eye. It is an infestation of self-described pickup artists. And at the Clift, they are often junior pickup artists, freshly minted, the webelos of the pickup set. That is because every Friday at the Clift, guys pay for classes in of art of the pickup. They are released into the wilds of the Redwood Room at about 9:30 p.m. Woe be unto the hot young thing at the bar who just wants a drink.

If they are going to call this "The Game," it seems only fair that there should be another team. We all like to go out and have a good time, maybe even meet someone, and there's obviously nothing wrong with that. But if guys are going to take seminars and pay good money to learn specific techniques, then it is only right that we should know how to spot them, and thereby have a little fun of our own.

My guide into the world of the pickup is Arron Wheeler, of Ultimate Interactions, who also teaches classes on how to talk to the ladies. Their classes don't purport to teach people how to become pickup artists, but how to master the underlying techniques and psychology to overcome social awkwardness. He has agreed to help me spot the more underhanded maneuvers, and learn how to avoid them.

Once learned, it is easy to tune into the classic pickup techniques, and I realized how many times I'd encountered them before. There's a reason these are taught: they're inconspicuous and they work.

The pickup community has settled on an easy opening line, and it's not the sleaze-ball come on you might expect. It's the same thing they teach you in sales classes ‚ ask for an opinion. It goes a little something like this: there you are, standing in a girl-herd with your lady friends, when a fellow walks up and says with a smile, "Hey, I need a woman's opinion on something. I think he's a moron, but my friend over there thinks..."

It's chatty and non-threatening. Smooooth. How to get out of it? "My friends and I were in the middle of a conversation. It is totally inappropriate of you to interrupt like this."

Similar in intent to the neg, a pickup artist may choose to ignore the person they are most interested in, instead playing up to her friends. The aim is to draw return attention, again by sidestepping those social defenses about too much attention. Refusing to be provoked is the easiest and most satisfying response. 

We moved from The Redwood Room's inlaid wood walls and high ceilings across town to the glass-fronted modern Matrix, also going strong on a Wednesday night. On the minuscule dance floor, there's some awesome white guy dancing going on. The crowd is young, and, this being the Marina, pretty much exclusively white and non-hipster. There's a lot of carefully groomed stripey shirts present. So how is one to spot the pickup artists in a joint like this?

Pickup artists prefer to prowl with a wing man, who can help steer conversation and direct or deflect attention, so I was on the lookout for Maverick/Goose combos. Another element of the formula is "peacocking," or dressing in a way to stand out. The underlying logic of this is easy to appreciate, especially when faced with the more typical man-crowd where no care is paid to appearance whatsoever. I have always had a weakness for men who can dress themselves, whatever the social genre may be. 

That being said, at the Matrix, we were frankly stumped. Was the guy in the prep school blazer, baby blue slacks cuffed into uneven pedal-pushers, and boat shoes peacocking, or was he just channeling some kind of retro A Separate Peace vibe? Was the short guy in the gold-sequined tennis shoes his wing man? Or was he just excited about his Bedazzler? Pink polo shirt with turned-up collar? Maybe this is normal in the Marina. I admit to not getting out much around these parts.

I spotted a clump of dudes with gel-spiked hair and striped oxford shirts. They were all facing outwards, surveying the crowd. One of them was rubbing his cocktail glass with his thumb in an agitated and slightly unsettling way. His buddy pointed out the ass of a girl in skinny jeans as she walked by. Again: pickup artists, or just guys? Perhaps if, like a bird watcher, you spent enough time watching them, you would begin to be able to tell which is which.