So there’s an old school type of Pickup Artistry called Speed Seduction in which, instead of simply trying to manipulate the ladies into bed, our would-be seducers try to literally hypnotize their prey by repeating prefabricated “patterns” that supposedly work on people’s subconscious minds without them realizing it. The whole thing is based on something called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which most scientists seem to think is quackery. Most of the pickup techniques inspired by NLP are beyond ridiculous.
One NLP-inspired PUA “pattern,” for example, involves using the phrase “below me” when talking to the Hot Babes. Since “below me” sounds vaguely like “blow me,” you see, the Hot Babe you’re talking to will be subconsciously primed to want to give you a blow job. And no, I’m not making this up.
The creepiest PUA “pattern” I’ve run across so far is something called the “Door Pattern,” invented by some dude named Alex Domnikov, and recently brought to my attention by Mike Booth, the guy behind the hilarious Some Grey Bloke videos on Youtube.
One PUA has described the Door Pattern as “the “bad boy” of all patterns. … evil and cruel, playing on the fears and deep insecurities of women.”
Essentially, the idea behind this little routine is to manipulate any Hot Babe you’ve somehow convinced to sleep with you into desperately worrying that you’ll abandon her. Why she would consider this a bad thing, I’m not sure, as PUAs are not known for being especially sensitive lovers. But we’ll just suspend our disbelief and continue.
[TRIGGER WARNING for emotional abuse in what follows]
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So how does this dastardly Door Pattern work? Well, after you’ve had sex with a woman, and she’s feeling all glowy, you point to the door and ask her “sweetheart, what’s that over there?”
And she’ll say, “well you know, that’s a door, silly.” And you say, “yeah, you know.. I’m a real positive person, but.. I mean, can you imagine.. I mean, you don’t know what can happen from day to day, when you think about it in your mind. I mean, what would happen if I walked out that door and the door closed and as the door closed, it slammed shut, and no matter what you did, you could not open the door and you knew that you would never be able to look into my eyes again and you’d never be able to hear my voice again and you’d never be able to feel my touch again.” Ok, right here is where she starts going, “I don’t like this door business at all.”
So you reassure her a little, and then it’s back to the “door business” again:
Have some more fun with her, bring her to another orgasm or whatever and say, “you know, a terrible thing happened the other day. My friend was hit by a truck. I mean, it was awful, by the time they got him to hospital he was dead. I can’t believe it, you know? It’s almost as if, it would be a horrible thing you know when you think about..” (point towards the door) “..that no matter even if you were to get that door opened and you were to search, that you could never find me again..” Then she starts freaking out. You calibrate more on that part of, “you will never be able to see me again, you’ll never be able to hear my voice again.”
Repeat as necessary, and pretty soon any time she starts to get uppity, all you have to do is point to a door, and – ta da! – no more “bullshit” from her!
Having anchored that sense of loss and pain to the door, you can trigger it whenever needed. Whatever negative behavior may come up that you want to stop, the first time you just get up and slam the door. Whether you walk out the door depends on the level of bullshit. On later occasions you can just indicate tbe door in some manner. The example Alex gives: If he’s talking on the phone and getting any crap from her, and he knows the relation of where the door is to her desk, he says, “sweetheart, could you please turn right and take a look at what’s over there..” and that was the end of the bullshit.”
Assuming the Hot Babe doesn’t either laugh in your face and/or throw you out the first time you pull this creepy shit with her, what we’ve got here is a template for ongoing emotional abuse.
Happily, one enterprising soul has turned the Door Pattern into an ExtraNormal video. I find that the robot voice in the video meshes well with the psychopathic creepiness of the content.
The Door Pattern is not to be confused with the Doors Pattern, in which you get drunk and babble on about Nietzsche and everyone around you tells you you’re a genius.
There’s a video for that one too:
Oh, and here’s a cat singing the theme song to Game of Thrones. For some reason this popped up on YouTube when I was looking for drunk Jim Morrison videos.
:p
@the kitteh
I see. So not so much a concern about falling out.
Wow, manboobz, the website where if I check it only three times a day I feel like I miss the whole discussion.
I like dissecting hideous things, so how about it! Let’s see…
Strike when emotionally vulnerable and their defenses are down (Like any good predator, yuck). Get them to visualize a potential future event (like a car salesman or real estate agent- “can’t you just see yourself rolling down the freeway in this baby/cooking in this kitchen?”) Evoke feelings of loneliness, powerlessness, fear, try to link them to a visual symbol that’s ubiquitous and likely already carries emotional weight. Obliquely imply you might leave her, and that it might happen any day and without warning. Even better if she’s been through a painful breakup before or lost a loved one, you can get her to relive the trauma in her head. Pull back before you cause too much damage, then repeat, pushing further and further each time; a tiny microcosm of the creeping normalcy of an abusive relationship.
Holy shit, it really is just a template for an emotionally abusive relationship. Fuck these people.
Yay Doctor Who, though. Can’t wait for this season to get going in America. Much more exciting than emotional abuse.
“I know Argenti has been offering an awesome welcome package with scented candles and some other stuff”
What Some Gal is trying to say is…
Welcome delurkers and other first time posters! Here are your complimentary hard chairs, SCENTED MOTHERFUCKING TOWELS and matching towel sets. They’ll be delivered by female (whore) penguins shortly!
Non-PUAs with delicate bums can grab a cushion from the pile, PUAs will have to damage their delicate bums on the misandrist hard chairs.
…I have really got to track down citations for that, the penguins and hard chairs are the infamous Tom Martian and easy enough, I think I can find SCENTED MOTHERFUCKING CANDLES, but does anyone remember who said women are misandrist for insisting on matching towels?
Also, tiny goats! Anteaters! D’awwww!
*ignores Eurosabra*
Doctor Who ftw of course!
Binjabreel — March 30th and/or ~2 weeks *squee*
Sorry, I have nothing productive to add, it’s one of those days (actually, more like that month, but hey Doctor Who)
Hrovitnir, re: mocking this stuff – I’d guess part of it is that we’re in an environment set up to mock this sort of crap: we’re used to it, we’re expecting it to be horrible and pathetic, and we’re a group. Forewarned and primed to mock, you might say. Very different from someone vulnerable, alone except for this wannabe abuser (as we’ve seen, not everyone is caught by it, even if they don’t know wtf it’s all about) hearing it from someone she presumably has some affection for or has simply been manipulated to depend on.
I know when I’m thinking “WTF idiot thinks this could work?” I’m thinking of how I’d react now; at eighteen, if I hadn’t already been Smitten, it might have been a very different matter.
Thank goodness for French Smiting, that’s all I can say. 😛
Conversation at the osteopath’s tonight:
Osteo: Wow, these glutes are so tight.
Me: They’ve been super-glute!
Osteo: Ba-doom tish!
Ah ha ha. Really, Kitteh? That’s amazing.
This post actually kinda got me in the brain parts so I was feeling a bit put off coming back for a bit. But then you post terrible puns and it’s better. 😛
Note: I do think we need to be careful about being too blase, but that’s human nature really. I’m just super duper sensitive to the “I am too awesome to fall for that!” stance people so automatically take. It’s not like people on here aren’t aware of the scariness as well as the stupidity. :/
Yeah, it is something to be aware of, and I’m glad you mentioned it. Like I said – it’s the difference between reading about it in a safe group, versus experiencing it unprepared (or prepared in the negative sense, by previous abuse) alone. Again, it depends on the person it’s happening to, but I agree, I hope nobody who’s been victimised by this sort of shit reads our mockery and thinks it’s aimed at them.
Back soon, dinner calls!
Steak and mushrooms, yum. First time in over a week it’s been cool enough for a hot meal.
Oh hey, the Door pattern! It’s been half a decade. Nice, good to see it’s still a shining example of terror and fear and loathing. Classy.
I remember reading around on the internet for ways to curb my crippling inability to hold public presentations and somehow finding my way to that piece of pop-psych. My shorthand remains the same: “I don’t see how that turns me into a more awesome person”.
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What I can’t believe is people actually having experienced, in real life, this thing happening to them. Jedi hugs and endless, endless sympathy for that plight. Because the entire thing is just so… weird.
Because, yeah, sure, at any moment we can all die, we might have an undiscovered aneurysm-waiting-to-go in our brains that’ll flare off when we try running track for the first time. So this pattern takes the reasonable approach of: “We are both mature individuals who have decided to engage in a relationship, and we can, at any time, leave out through the door and be free from each other. Boundaries are cool, yo!” and turns it into a bad horror flick. Suddenly, instead of having fun now and enjoying each other’s presence because the future is at best uncertain you’re stuck in a trap of worry.
But as people say, the moment you get to the “Oh yeah and my friend died”, the first response of anyone around you who is a person is going to be “Ouch, that sucks, how are you holding up?”.
( Which actually is the one chance I can see it working? On someone? Like, you say that, they think “Oh, he’s talking about all this because he has recently experienced a significant loss and he does have a point in that it was pretty sudden…[Sudden, open gate to emotional abuse] )
What’s scary about it is that it turns choice and actions into tragedies to avoid.
“if I just walked out that door”
[this is a thing I will do at any moment, if you displease me in any unspecific way]
“And it slammed shut and you couldn’t open it and find me”
[and nothing you do after I have done that will change, so you must prevent me from doing it]
“Honey, what’s that over there?”
[If you continue voicing your opinion, I will walk out the door]
OR
“You’re completely powerless but it’s all your responsibility!”
OR
“Why you gotta get me so mad, huh babe? Now there’s blood all over my knuckles and it’s all your fault cuz I can’t help myself…”
Classy. And by classy I mean sick.
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Of course there’s also always the flip.
“Yeah! You’re right. At any given moment I could walk out that door into the wonderful world outside and find someone to talk to who doesn’t randomly bring up dead friends, doors and abandonment issues after we’ve had sex. I like it when you give me orgasms as if you’re operating a mechanical trigger and your sociopathic tendencies to manipulate I find charming, but really? I could walk out that door any time and find someone else to share cupcakes with!”
(Not that my snark about this being weird should be taken to imply that only stupid people would fall for it, because ha ha else you’d totally see it coming! Just that the entire concept is pretty outlandish. Emotional abuse is finnicky and devious and not cool)
One of the weird things with “I could walk out that door” turning into “my friend died” is that it’s like a flip from “I am trying to make you insecure” to sounding like he’s the one who’s terrified someone’s going to leave him. Not that it’s likely his planned victim is analysing all this at the time, but it’s one more way in which it’s not only creepy and disgusting, it just doesn’t make sense even on its own terms.
Mind you … if you were a nasty, cynical person* you could turn this into a great opportunity to do some instant psychoanalysis on the douchebag.
“You’re scared of walking out the door and disappearing from the face of the earth? Gee, sounds like you’ve incipient agoraphobia there. Have you seen a therapist about this? And fantasising about road accidents, hmm, my old professor would have said it’s the Oedipus complex. It’s just like an updated version of the child afraid of horses that Freud wrote about; you do know that was castration anxiety, don’t you? Sounds like this friend who got run over is your fear for a closer friend than that, if you know what I mean. I’ve noticed you’re a bit worried about sexual stuff, like you’re never really sure of yourself … but hey, wanna get naked?
“No? Whyever not?
“Oh, you’re leaving?”
[door slams]
*who, me?
You know, it takes someone with a very special type of sleeze to come up with a tactic as loathsome as this.
It doesn’t really matter if it works or not, I just can’t get my head around the idea of anyone actually wanting to think, never mind act like this.
@Polliwog:
I had the exact same thought when I read this.
By the way, except for the front page jerk that Polliwog mentioned, I don’t feel at all hurt by all of the comments mocking the technique. I’m just glad that so many people wouldn’t be taken in by this kind of manipulative crap. 🙂
Front page jerk is a giant jerk though.
Yeah, front page jerk read like victim-blaming trollage to me.
(must do better at calling those out as I see them…)
For the record: Getting into an abusive relationship does NOT make a person stupid. Or weak. Or bad, or secretly “wanting” it, or any of this shit.
If abusers were easily distinguishable by behavior that everyone recognized as dangerous they wouldn’t be able to get away with it. Abusers cultivate their performance to not be noticed. They’re really fucking good at it too, otherwise they wouldn’t be so dangerous.
And we as a culture in the US at least do an absolutely shitty job of teaching people what is and is not abusive just as we don’t teach consent.
Plus we have sociopathic assholes creating this shit from the post.
It’s a toxic soup. None of us are free and clear of it. None.
I really wish I had had a decent dinner last night.
I woke up really early because I was hungry.
I didn’t get home till 1am and I woke up at 7am.
I should call work and ask if they found my ipod……..
Steak and mushrooms Kitteh….I’d like fried tofu w/cilantro sauce and sauteed mushrooms on the side.
I sometimes miss having someone to cook for me on days I feel lazy. I suppose I will go fry some eggs, onions, mushrooms w/ eggs, slather it in hot sauce and tuck it into a tortilla.
Now I’m really hungry.
Sorry to preach, I just wanted to ensure any lurkers out there who’d had a similar experience to Polliwog knew the mocking of this thing /= “you were stupid”
@Polliwog – I’m so sorry that happened to you.
ION stop trying to make fetch happen Eurosabra:
http://fyeahenglishbulldogs.tumblr.com/post/45173237878
@drst
In addition to us mocking this as a group, in a group assembled for that basic purpose, many of us are also older than the typical PUA target. (Not that age is, in and of itself, protection from an abusive relationship, but that more life experience can change how people see themselves and their relationships.) PUAs (and MRAs) seem to like younger women in part because they are less experienced and seen as easier to manipulate and control.
I also want to make it clear that when I said I would have to be stoned for this not to come off as overtly manipulative, I didn’t mean that anyone would have to be impaired for it to work. Even if you can spot manipulation, that doesn’t mean that you won’t still be affected by it. I just meant that, to me, the lead-in seems so clumsy that, if followed precisely, I think I would be aware something was off. I think I would need a lead-in to the lead-in and stoned musings on things like doors was the only one I could think of.
Apologies to anyone if I wasn’t clear and insulted anyone.
@melody
Having someone to cook breakfast for you and to cook breakfast for*, is easily one of the greatest things about living with someone for me. Your breakfast burrito idea sounds wonderful, btw.
*I love cooking breakfast things, but they always feel like too much work too early in the morning for me to bother if it is just for me. That is also why I am a big fan of eating breakfast for lunch or dinner. I am more awake and feel more like doing things in the kitchen. /not a morning person at all
On the topic of the original post: I feel like “the door technique” is intended to be what non-PUAs would (rightly) consider abusive, but frankly it’s just so unsubtle (is that a word) that I have a hard time believing it works very often. I for one would be confused and creeped out, and I’d probably want the guy out of there pretty damn quick (so if the goal is to extract yourself efficiently the morning after the sex, mission probably accomplished).
*”the door pattern,” sorry.
Oh yeah – just read more of the thread, and just to be clear, I’m NOT trying to imply that only unintelligent people would “fall for” this or something like it, or that it’s their fault if they are in a relationship with an abusive asshole like the guys who do this; it just sounds so outlandish and frankly awkward and heavy-handed from the description.
Just going to add, even if someone is ‘unintelligent’ or bad at reading people or w/e, they still shouldn’t have to put up with this tactic, and it’s still creepy as hell.