What they show on there is only a fraction of what's actually involved in the whole process.

NewMingle gets it. I'm glad you're one of the few that actually understands what Mystery is trying to teach these guys. That it's not about trickery.

Women get approached by men all the time. They have quick defenses that can test a guy. 99% of men fail these tests and the women brush them off without getting a chance to know them. A lot of what you see on the show is just the attraction stage. A way for the man to get around those quick defenses and get a chance to show the women who they really are. Mysteries actual model is broken down into 3 stages....the Attraction Stage, Comfort Building Stage, and Seduction Stage. Each one of the stages is broken down into another set of 3. There's A1 A2 A3, C1 C2 C3, and S1 S2 S3. I won't go into all of those. The basic concept of the approach and attraction phase is to put the man and woman at equal levels. By approaching a woman, a man already has lower value. He's approaching her, essentially saying she's worth a lot. The point of the neg is to make her feel like she's lost value in your eyes. Thus, it's turned and the man's value is higher. She chases him to regain the value, he returns the interest and they're equal now. Then comes the comfort building stage.

Mystery is a self proclaimed nerd. He played dungeons and dragons. He also considers himself a late bloomer since he didn't lose his virginity until the age of 21. He got tired of not having success with woman, so night after night for 10 years, he went to the city (I believe it was Toronto. I know he's from Canada) and approached women. Over time he learned what worked and what didn't until he came up with a system that he calls The Mystery Method. This is what he teaches the men on the show. Mystery is actually a magician. That's how he originally got away with wearing the things he does and that's how he originally opened sets was by offering to do magic tricks for them. Now, he's so good at it, he can still wear whatever he wants and it doesn't affect his "game" in regards to picking up women.

Dressing outragiously like he does is what Mystery calls peacocking. His version of it goes that a male peacock speads his plummage of feathers to attract a mate. The bright feathers make the peacock more visible to predators, but it's a chance the peacock takes in order to attract a mate, thus making it more attractive to the female. In humans terms, it gets you noticed and it makes you more attractive that your brave enough to wear it in public despite the criticism you might receive. I understand Mystery's thinking on that one, but I don't agree with it. Mainly due to the fact that if you actually look at a peacocks feathers, the design makes it look like a bunch of eyes. It's actually a defense mechanism to scare away predators. Although, I guess if you saw Mystery and didn't know who he was, you'd stay away from him too.

I know this post is kind of long so I'll end it with this. Mystery's real name is Erik von Markovik if you want to look into him and The Mystery Method a bit more. He also wrote a book entitled The Mystery Method: How To Get Beautiful Women Into Bed that breaks down his method, including a lot of things you don't see in the show. Another recommended read is The Game: Penetrating The Secret Society Of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss. The book takes you through Neil's journey of being the lovable loser (like the guys on the show) to meeting Mystery to becoming the worlds 2nd greatest pickup artist (only Mystery is better). I like The Game because it not only allows you to see how Mystery's material can change a mans life so drastically, but it also gives you a lot of information on Mystery. It allows you to see him as Erik the person instead of Mystery the pickup artist.

House is one of the best shows out there. I knew Wilson wasn't going to leave, lol. He's too funny.

The point of the movie...the whole be nice to Earth or we're f*****....is a good moral of the story. But the acting was just horrible. Complete garbage. My friend swears that's how the characters are "supposed" to be and that it's not that bad. There's no emotion in any of the actors....except the math teacher (the actors name slips my mind right now). He was the only one that was convincing. Everything else about that movie sucked.

Well...it is a show about nothing, lol.

I like the Phillies (they're one of my favorite NL teams along with the Brewers and Diamondbacks), but I also want to be able to say that my White Sox lost to the eventual world champions. So I'm torn between the Phillies and Rays.

I've learned so much about myself

K UGER. That sounds like a car horn. K-ooooger, K-ooooger

Didn't your mother ever teach you not to play with your food

I had long hair for 3 1/2 years. Some girls liked it, others didn't. I cut my hair for work (I left it kind of long), then eventually cut it really short for baseball. I look better with short hair and it's less hastle to take care of. Although I haven't cut it in about 6 months so it's starting to get sort of long again (but not anywhere near as long as it used to be). Despite looking better with short hair, I like the feeling of having long hair. I think I'm going to let it grow until baseball starts again in March. I haven't noticed much of a difference in girls reactions since I cut it so I don't think it really matters either way. It's more personality than looks.

You're from Michigan? Tigers fan? Don't hate that the Sox won the division after you got Miguel Cabrera and finished in last, hahaha.

Actually, it stands for 2005 (the year the White Sox won the World Series) and my favorite player (Jerry Owens) wears number 7. Ironically though, 5/7 is the day I asked out my ex g/f. Although I never realized that until now, lol.

Tell me what you think

Most of the time they do it for free anyway. TAPS, before the show, would do it for free (they still do, the show just pays for their travel and stuff now). Everyone on the team has another job to support themselves. TAPS is just a hobby.

Not really. Rejection is rejection. It doesn't feel good either way. There's just more pressure on us because society says men are supposed to ask out the women. Women can sit back and wait for a man to approach them, then they can decide yes or no. Men don't usually have women approach them/ask them out.

Now you know how guys feel, lol. Take some of the social pressure off of us, haha.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it

I saw an episode like 2 weeks ago and now I'm obsessed with it too, lol. One of my baseball coaches missed the last 2 games of our season because he went out of state to do ghost hunting. I guess he's a part of a team with all the equipment so I'm going to ask him about getting involved with it. It seems interesting.

White Sox are in the playoffs. First time both Chicago teams have been in since 1906....when the Sox beat the Cubs in the world series.

By the way, the only weird experiences I've had are:

1) My friends grandma passed away in the back room of her house. There's a shadow of a hatchett on the ceiling that showed up after she passed away. They've painted over it and it keeps coming back. I was at her house one day and the back door opened and I saw a shadow of a person on the wall walking towards the kitchen. I thought it was her brother, but he was in the living room and hadn't moved. It was weird.

2) At one of the offices I work at, I've had a few weird experiences. The first was when I had the phone between my office and the receptionist desk on intercom so I could hear if someone came in. They say ghosts can manipulate electronics, well the intercom started giving off the type of white noise TVs give off.

Another time I went up there around 11 PM because I had forgotten my check and was in the area. When I opened the door, the office directly across from it had a glowing blue light filling the room. I thought it was just the computer monitor, so I shrugged it off and turned on the lights. I went into the office to shut down the computers in there, but they were already off. Most computer screens turn black after awhile anyway if they're idol for too long. But the fact that both computers and monitors were completely off was just plain freaky.

Yet another time, I was there on a Saturday with my friend/co-worker. The front door was locked and we heard it open and close. I thought one of the owners came in so I went to see who it was. Nobody was there except us. I checked the entire office. 20 minutes later, we distinctively heard the dead bolt unlock, the door open, and close again. I went out again to check and again, nobody else was there. The weirdest part about that one is, the door was still locked, the knob and dead bolt.

The last one I have from that office, I didn't experience myself. Last winter, about a week before Christmas, 2 of my co-workers stayed late (about 9 PM) to catch up on some encoding. They said they kept hearing peoples voices all night, but they were the only ones in the whole building. When they were done with their work, they went into the conference room and turned the lights off on the Christmas tree, and then unplugged the lights from the outlet. Remember this, it was unplugged...no electricty, lights are off when they leave. They went down to their cars and as they drove away, they looked up into the conference room window...and the lights on the Christmas tree were back on.

These are the only paranormal things I've experienced.