http://declineandfall.joeblade.com/45/the-game/I was sitting at home, cradling a glass of Scapa and idly rewinding and rewatching the bit in Puff Daddy’s ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ video where he falls off his motorbike, when I was rudely interrupted by the telephone.
“Hello,” said the Editor in baleful tones.
“Oh, you’re back!” I said, feigning pleasure. “What’s happened this time?”
“Never you mind,” he said. “Have you seen this book called The Game yet? It’s by some fellow called Strauss, I think - right now there are adverts all over the Tube. You couldn’t have missed it.”
“Yes,” I replied. “Isn’t that the thing where he goes on about some secret society of men who have equally-secret techniques for chatting up women?”
“That’s the one,” said the Editor. “Want to do a piece on it?”
“It sounds like hateful crap,” I replied. “For one thing, everyone knows that flirtatious alpha-male behaviour tends to get you more attention with some people; there’s no need to write an instruction manual. Secondly the idea of a ’secret society’ is utterly laughable whether true or not. Thirdly, I…oooh he came off again!”
“Mm, but we could be in the throes of a publishing phenomenon here,” said the Editor wearily. “It’s practically our duty to cover it. Plus there’s a very definite urban angle to all this, wouldn’t you say?”
“Urban angle,” I muttered. “OK, I’ll take a look at it in a few days.”
“Do it now!” hissed the Editor “I’ll send a copy over by courier. You know,” he said, suddenly sounding remarkably devious, “I bet Rusbridger’s already got something sitting on his desk.” In spite of myself, I twitched slightly.
“I’ll do it now!”
Everyone’s a loser
Being a fast reader, I managed to get through the book in a few hours. As I suspected, we had a basic rehash of the most simple psychological tenets of the dominant male: eye contact, creating an illusion of shared interests, hats. Hats, I hear you say. Yes, hats. Except here the male art of dressing up slightly is called ‘peacocking’ or something similarly ludicrous. Well, personally speaking I find the alpha-male stereotype utterly laughable, and also happen to have had quite literally hundreds of women (by a variety of different methods), so was inclined to see the chat-up techniques set forth in The Game as something of a challenge. However, I needed a genuinely desperate idiot to complete the expirement, so I punched a number into my phone.
“Hello Rupert,” I said. “Fancy an evening out?” He did, of course.
No, really, don’t forget the hats
So here we were, somewhere in East London, having fired ourselves up with several capirinhas. I’d outlined the basic principles of the Game to my companion, who seemed visibly excited by the prospect of romantic success.
“Select your target carefully - how about that one over there? Yes, yes. Don’t forget, a couple of seconds of eye contact, then boom. Don’t forget to enjoy the thrill of the hunt” I finished sarcastically, and then propelled him on his way with a small shove in the back, causing him to spill his capirinha.
Rupert sidled up to the woman, peacocking for all he was worth.
“Hi,” said Rupert.
“Fuck off,” said the woman.
He came back, his eyes wild with desperation. “It doesn’t work!” he gasped. “It doesn’t work! What the hell are we going to do now?”
“Not sure,” I said. “You could always just go home and have a wank, I guess. It’s probably what most readers of the book are doing anyway, come to think of it.”
“Damn them, damn them all to hell!” said Rupert and staggered off into the cold, unfeeling Hoxditch night.
And the moral is…
Back at home, I fired up my iBook and got writing. The Game is a dead loss, I wrote. Hey, this is sounding a bit like Sex and the City, but without the sex. Or Sarah Jessica Parker’s horse-teeth sprayed all over the screen. But either way, it seems clear that there’s only one sure-fire way to attract the opposite sex, and that’s - I paused for second and preened my hair slightly in the ceiling mirror - to make large amounts of money, perhaps by writing a book about how to attract girls.
In all honesty, I was having some trouble working out a satisfactory resolution to my article, but then I had to break off in order to soothe the two women having a pillow-fight on my bed.
Le livre en question :
