I am a self-confident, self-motivated, self-directed individual who pretty much knows exactly what to do and when to do things to get the preferred results. I am a smiling, friendly and mostly a charismatic person. At least that's how I used to be before I met this girl in my Freshman composition class.
She was very attractive and I fell in love with her. She exercised the seduction techniques mentioned in this book (such as stirring interest indirectly, creting triangles, getting close to me and giving the impression of like-mindedness etc) to make that happen and it came to a point where I was fantasizing her with me in her life. She was all that I was thinking of. I was losing grip over my life. I somehow became dependent of her. She then started coquetting and withdrawing herself. I gradually started losing my self-esteem and I was no more that charismatic person with self-confidence and self-esteem. I was doing things that she thought would ultimately would lead to our mutual pleasure...but it only made both of us empty.
Finally, one day she drove me to a isolated forest...and I thought she was going to have us do something pleasurable (finally). She just asked me to step out of the car and handed some papers and got in her car and left me there stranded. I was devastated. I started reading the papers. It was titled "The Seduction of <my name>". It started with a character map of me...everything that she had observed about me, my weaknesses, what gave me my self-confidence etc. Then there were list of steps, almost like a manual, that described how she seduced me step-by-step. Then there were extracts from personal journal entries that described how, initially when we'd first met, she admired my quality of self-confidence and how much she wanted to have control over someone like me...primarily because of her own lack of it...and how over time she got bored of playing me like an instrument and how predictable I became etc. She didn't enjoy me anymore. So, she decided to dump me in the middle of the forest with this fact sheet. I was lying on the ground there crying my lungs out to death with limbs too weak to move. I completely lost my self-esteem and was at a point where I wanted her to accept me as her slave and was honoured by that thought. I couldn't even look up at people's faces anymore. This is the worst form of exploitation there exists. It almost feels like being eaten alive by insects from the inside and not being able to do anything about it.
Few days after this devastation, I googled and found this book. I read it and it revealed to me how someone as intellectually incompetent as herself could do something as vicious as this. It made me feel a lot better to know how exactly the worst thing ever to happen in my life happened. Now I feel that everybody should read this book...just to avoid being exploited in this way, if not for anything else.
Cautionary notes:-
As for those of you who were inspired by the cinematic quality of what happened to me and are motivated to use the techniques mentioned in the book to drain admirable qualities off someone for self-gratification, I have to warn you by letting you know why she even had to dump me like that. She, after reading the book, had to condition herself against expressing any genuine emotions and had to perfect the impression of genuineness of her made up emotions. She conceded in one of her later personal journal entries that she was in a sort of psychological trap. She started having trouble doing even simple things such as expressing genuine awe or even anger. She always felt the need to go by the rules. It made her less of a real human being and more of an imitation of an admirable human being. When I recently contacted her, she said she needs professional help because she is very confused in discerning emotions that come from within and those that are just made up. Shes messed up.
As for the testimonials of these admirable people (who practice the art of seduction) thrown around in Greenes book, I have to inform you that those people are genuine human beings with natural seductive mannerisms. The most dangerous aspect of this book is Greenes portrayal of them as people who calculated their behavior and that ability to calculate behavior as being admirable. It inspires people to look at themselves and their naturally arising feelings with belittling eyes and to try to become these admirable people with admirable statistics. It also inspires them to lower the value for their genuine emotions. In my erudite opinion, focusing on your behavior and trying to adjust it using the feedback it receives from outside rather than using ones judgment from within leads to termination of personal growth. If youre so desperate to have a reputable history of conquests when youre older as to compromise on investment in your personal growth and true exploration of human relations, then go ahead and seduce people into falling in love with you for all the wrong reasonsand become an imitation. Remember that unforeseen pleasures are often the most gratifying.
