When people look at the NoGame app, they often ask: “Oh, it’s an app for pickup artists!?” Unfortunately, there is no short and simple answer to that question. To address it properly, we need to have a fundamental look at today’s dating culture and understand what ‘pickup’ means in the specific sense that the NoGame app promotes.

Finding common ground

There is no clear definition of the term ‘pickup artist’. Some think that pickup artists are old-fashioned gentlemen who like to meet women in the real world rather than through online apps. Others think that pickup artists are misogynistic creeps whose aim in life is to sleep with as many women as possible. By using this vague and highly charged label we run the risk of lumping many people together into one category who actually do very different things and deserve very different responses. Therefore, let us discard this convoluted, high-level concept for a moment and argue from first principles instead.

Partner search strategies

If you are not already in a committed relationship, finding the right romantic partners is likely one of the most challenging and time-consuming problems of your life. Societies have come up with many different ways to solve it and with the arrival of the internet, there are now basically two avenues: Online partner search and offline partner search.

Online partner search presents a lot of benefits and its popularity has risen dramatically over the past decade. Nevertheless, most singles also still use offline channels to find potential matches. Let us have a closer look at this sub-category. There are in fact three main ways of searching for partners offline:

The first one is to search in your social circle: the family, friends, workplace or other institutions you are affiliated with. This kind of search happens passively in the sense that you do not have to go out of your way to meet new people. You simply hang out in the places you hang out in anyways and with the same people you hang out with anyways. All you have to do is to remain open to friends of friends that come your way. Whenever someone comes along that vibes well with you, you take it further.

A second popular offline search strategy is to meet new people at bars, night clubs and festivals – spaces that are specifically designed to bring strangers together. I call this strategy party search. Again, as with social circle search, the dating motive is often secondary or entirely implicit for people at such venues. Flirting is just one aspect of an emotionally rich environment filled with many other stimulants: friends, music, alcohol and drugs. When you are drunk and dancing, the sex often happens automatically.

The 3rd and final offline partner search stands in strong contrast to the previous two in that it is much more intentional and direct. I call this proactive search. Proactive search means approaching strangers in real-world public spaces with the explicit motive of identifying and attracting suitable partners. It can be practiced in a nightlife setting but it does not depend on it. It can happen in the supermarket, the bus, a street corner or any other public space you can imagine. Proactivity just means that you do it in an intentional and controlled way and so it requires sobriety. The flirting is not just a byproduct of being drunk, but a conscious and planned activity.

NoGame’s niche & why just men?!

All forms of partner search have their merits and there are good reasons why some are more commonly used than others. The choice is completely up to you. That said, in my own youth, I have come to accept the third path as my favorite. The NoGame app is designed to help other men who primarily engage in proactive, sober, offline partner search and want to master it.

But why am I only addressing men? Well: Evolutionary biology has created strong asymmetries between the sexes. There are many exceptions, but in most modern human societies, it is the male role to make the first move, especially in the proactive search model. Making that first move entails its own set of problems and the NoGame app helps solve these problems. Being a man myself, I want to focus on this side, because it is the one I have experienced and know most about.¹

So what exactly do these men need help with?

It would be awesome if approaching attractive women came naturally to us men. A man could just go over to a potential partner, say hi, be himself, and get to know the person. In reality, approaching an unknown woman in public and breaking the ice in a tactful, appropriate and yet attractive way is extremely difficult. Some are naturally talented, but most men experience massive discomfort in that situation. As a result, these interactions are awkward, sometimes creepy and mostly unsuccessful at bringing people together.

The good news is that, as with everything, one can get better at sober flirting through a combination of theoretical insight and practice. As unromantic as it may sound, every man who is good at expressing his sexual interest, has probably thought about it very deeply, done it unsuccessfully many times, and learned from those failures. The NoGame app recognizes this fact and encourages men to go down that path. It motivates men to keep expressing their identity to the women they feel attracted to – despite pushback and frustrating results in the beginning.

A fine line

Pickup, the way I personally understand it, is a synonym for proactive, offline, sober partner search. It is one of many strategies to attract partners and there is nothing wrong with it per se. Nevertheless, it has gotten a terribly bad name, because for many years the pickup industry was obsessed with teaching lines, routines and tricks to manipulate women into liking a man. NoGame does not endorse this kind of pickup. Every sane person in the dating space now recognizes that manipulative tactics and tricks are destined to fail in the long run because they create a fake image and undermine one’s integrity. The most sustainable way to dating success is to actually know yourself and express this authentically, rather than pretending to be someone you are not.²

This is where ‚bad‘ pickup differs from ‚good‘ pickup: The pickup artist in the bad sense wants to date and sleep with a woman even if he needs to manipulate her into it because she doesn’t really like him and doesn’t really want to. He gets upset when he does not reach his goal and tries to learn more tricks to get women in bed. The good pickup artist, in contrast, expresses himself honestly and only sleeps with women who like him the way he truly is. He knows the social nuances of inter-gender communication and carefully chooses his words and actions, but he is perfectly OK with being rejected because it means that the woman does not like him the way he is. In that case, he simply moves on, because he knows for a fact that there is an abundance of attractive women out there who like him for who he really is.

Conclusion

Humans have always yearned to connect with other humans on a romantic and sexual level. There are various ways one can find sexual partners and modern societies have developed complex instruments to smoothen that process: online dating apps, social groups, alcohol and parties. If you do not want to rely on these instruments, you have to do things the old-fashioned way and proactively approach strangers in the real world wherever and whenever you feel a potential connection. Doing this in a respectful, charming and intelligent manner is pickup in the best sense. This is the kind of pickup that the NoGame app promotes.

Getting good at this kind of pickup is hard. But once a man has done the work of knowing who he is and has learned how to express that – through many failures and thorough self-analysis – women will thank him for approaching them. Pickup done well is something that women appreciate deeply. The NoGame app accompanies men on this rough, but highly rewarding journey.

Footnotes

1. All that said, the app can be equally useful to the exceptional women who do choose to make the first move!
2. Arguably this is a reason to not be using the label ‚pickup‘ at all, even for the kind of pickup I support. An alternative name that can be used for that is ‚game‘.
3. Title image by Tobias Zils