12/1/24, 22:40 Lessons We Can Learn from Neil Strauss' Divorce

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Lessons We Can Learn
from Neil Strauss’ Search

Divorce
The most famous PUA of his time, a guru to CATEGORIES
thousands of men around the world, recently
Advanced
announce his divorce. Was it because he fell out of
Seduction
love? Maybe it’s because he allegedly ran up
Techniques
thousands of dollars with cam girls due to an
addiction? Let’s uncover the real truth. Attracting
Closing
Deeper Rapport
Double Your Dating
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the next 30-60
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It actually happened. Are we really that shocked Identity & Beliefs
though?
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12/1/24, 22:40 Lessons We Can Learn from Neil Strauss' Divorce

If you’re familiar with the world of pickup artists, you Methods

have no doubt heard of Neil Strauss, aka Style. His Nature & Reality
2005 memoir The Game: Penetrating the Secret
Outer Game
Society of Pickup Artists helped bring the seduction
community into the public spotlight, inspiring a new PUA Flirting Tips
generation of gurus and players to enter the scene. and Advice
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Fitness
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Neil Strauss Wife Reviews
State Control
However, Strauss recently filed for divorce from his
Style
wife of five years, Ingrid de la O, casting doubt on his
standing as a dating guru. Given that half of all Three Phase Model
marriages these days end in divorce, it may seem Uncategorized
cruel to attack Strauss for something that is not fully Understanding
within his control.
Videos
However, the simple reality is that Strauss’ divorce
combined with his erratic behavior somewhat
discredit him as an expert on women. As a man who
has made millions of dollars being our Pick Up Guru,
he should be able to make smarter decisions in his
dating life than the average 25-year old man. You
would expect him to know what he wants, including
that he feels it’s time to settle down, to be able to find
the right woman, and to be able to keep a healthy
relationship.
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12/1/24, 22:40 Lessons We Can Learn from Neil Strauss' Divorce

While we hold no ill will against Neil Strauss, his

divorce shows that it’s important for men to carefully
choose where they get their advice from. We all look
for people who have answers to our burning
questions, in this case – how to have a happy love
life, whether as a single playboy or finding “the one”
and settling down.

In The Game, Neil called himself a PUG (Pick Up

Guru) whilst using pre-scripted routines and
persuasion tactics that look decidedly rapey in the
#metoo era – overcoming Last Minute Resistance
anyone? He released the most expensive and
overpriced seduction course ever – The Annihilation
Method, and ran the multi-million dollar Style Life
Academy business. Millions of guys looked to him as
their guru, without knowing that he himself was
fundamentally flawed, depressed, and not worthy of
looking up to.

The LA Times called Strauss “A hero to men” but

history shows him to be an unreliable guru at best,
with his divorce the cherry on a sundae of bad
decisions and bogus claims.

NEIL STRAUSS AND THE GAME

In hindsight, there were worrying aspects of Strauss’
behavior and presentation going all the way back to
The Game, the book that made him famous.

A memoir focusing on his time in the seduction

community, The Game narrates Strauss’ frustrations
with his dating life and his efforts to become more
attractive to women, as well as his relationships with
other top gurus such as Mystery and Owen Cook
(Tyler Durden).

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The game changer!

While The Game is a good book from a narrative

standpoint, Strauss’ attitude towards the seduction
community is one of dismissiveness and arrogance.
He constantly presented Mystery and his fellow
gurus as emotionally disturbed and unreliable while
he stood above them, and he attempted to wash his
hands of the community by renouncing pickup not
long after the book was released.

The Game also has a convenient fairytale ending in

which Strauss meets his dream girl, Lisa Leveridge,
who broke up with him less than six months after the
book’s release. While there’s nothing wrong with
wanting to find a girlfriend or move on from past
experiences, Strauss takes a similar attitude with all
of his writing subjects: infiltrating them, then trying to
wash his hands of them afterwards to maintain his
reputation.

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Prepare for the worst… pretty cool book.

His 2009 book Emergency: This Book Will Save Your

Life is written from the same perspective as The
Game, with survivalism/the prepper community
replacing the seduction community, but it strains
credibility due to Strauss’ constant neurotic
chattering about how he’s afraid the world is going to
end.

The book contains some useful information but

comes off as deeply insincere due to Strauss
constantly claiming he wants to move to St. Kitts to
protect himself from civilizational collapse while he
continued to tour the world, profiting off of pickup
seminars and products.

A LIFETIME OF WISHY-WASHINESS
This is a running theme throughout Strauss’ career:
constant flip-flopping on just about everything. His
most recent book, 2015’s The Truth: An
Uncomfortable Book About Relationships, details the
sexual wasteland he exiled himself to after the
events of The Game.

Really neil??

Designed as a counterpoint to The Game, The Truth

purports to chronicle Strauss’ journey to monogamy
and family as he checks in and out of sex addiction 
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12/1/24, 22:40 Lessons We Can Learn from Neil Strauss' Divorce

clinics and passes out at orgies. When he married his

current wife, he even made a show out of “killing” his
Style persona at a mock-funeral.

If Strauss had been the pickup guru he claimed to be

back in his Style days, The Truth would have never
been written, because he would have been able to
put his expertise to use in finding a good wife.
Instead, he’s floated through a bizarre tableau of
sexual failure, from relationships with cracked-out
cluster-B psychos to sad sex parties with sad people.
I’ve been to a swinger’s club once; it’s not a place
where you find winners of either sex, never mind 40+
year old men who claimed to have all the answers to
women and dating.

Strauss’ soon-to-be-ex-wife Ingrid de la O may be a

psychotic or unstable individual, but the reality is
that Strauss chose to marry her when he should have
known better.

At the very least, he should have been able to keep

his marriage going for the sake of his child, who will
now be raised in a broken home. Strauss keeps
making these mistakes because he’s full of hot air
and doesn’t really know how to deal with women. As
they say in Texas, he’s all hat and no cattle.

Even if you think of this as a bit harsh, consider how

Strauss’ behavior reflects on his business as a pickup 
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coach. Countless men seek out gurus like Strauss for

advice on how to improve their love lives, from losing
their virginity to getting better women to finding “the
one.”

Strauss makes money selling dating advice when his

own love life is a procession of scars and misery. How
can any advice he gives be trusted when these are
results he gets?

THE BOTTOM LINE

We say all of this not because we want to condemn
Neil Strauss, but because we want to warn men who
are looking for solid, actionable advice on women.
You need to be very careful who you choose as your
guru and avoid hero worship.

Another child maybe and two broken homes?

While Strauss has accomplished a lot of good over

the course of his career, his string of broken
relationships show that his advice on women is
questionable at best. The ideal approach is to learn
from as many different gurus as you can, absorbing
information, testing it out, and seeing what works
best for you.

The other lesson from Neil Strauss’ divorce is that

wishy-washy people are generally unreliable. Strauss
is almost 50 years old but continues bouncing from
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scene to scene, idea to idea like a teenage girl trying

on clothes. He has no anchor, no set of fixed beliefs,
and chases new ideas like a cat chasing a mouse,
forgetting about old ideas as he goes on.

Ultimately, we hope that Neil Strauss can emerge

from this period of his life stronger. However, his
history of sudden ideological reversals and flip-
flopping are an ill omen for his future. The primary
takeaway from his divorce is that you should always
be careful who you get your information from,
particularly if you’re paying large amounts of money
for it.

Finally we’ll leave you with some sound advice from

Strauss’ recent article 25 Signs Your Relationship is
Working (seriously, he did JUST write that article a
few days after filing for divorce):

“It is impossible for your relationship with your

partner to be any better than your relationship with
yourself.”

8 Comments
Art DECEMBER 13, 2018
This just proves one thing 100 percent of
you experts have ZERO CLUE! lol From
my Spanish best friend who had
zillions of Hot girls yet is divorced still
searching and note I would not date 99
percent of the stuff he showed me to
movie stars he picked up at the airport.
Yes if you want I can send you a link to
her!! True famous movie star like I care!!
He gets them all yet I don’t want that I’m
picky and girls say I’m just a dreamer but
I’m not I know exactly what I want but 
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you can’t even imagine my goals!!!!!!!!!!!! S

Forget it Zero chance for you tooo Thats w
hence I replied That is the REAL me and y
parents are my example my mom a Prom
my dad….
Sorry big time to see you get divorced He
remained single for that exact reason!!!!!!!
That is the entire truth but no one GETS it
have been fighting this since grade 8 …………
you. I come from that perfect family and t
me up too.
Reply

DR Richard DECEMBER 13, 2018

never heard of him and can not see him
as a pick-up anything from his
appearance!
Reply

Dan DECEMBER 13, 2018

Yeah, you know what? Neil might be kind
of messed up, but he’s a damn good
writer.
I look forward to the writing that will
hopefully come out of this.
Reply

Avalon DECEMBER 16, 2018

His writing? Earnest
Hemingway is a good writer.
Neil is Sub Par in writing, and
now the wizard of flaws is
cursing ToTo blaming fictional
tornados for his gimmic bag of
hot air failing to lift him up
anymore.
We can move on and learn
from this pan flashing, and just
be truer and better men facing
the world and women with 
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12/1/24, 22:40 Lessons We Can Learn from Neil Strauss' Divorce

innovation -but most importantl

authenticity, not ruse.
Reply

Pasha DECEMBER 14, 2018

C’mon, shooting on other people’s
failures isn’t the fairest way to advertise
your products… at those times you might
have also read The Game and took
benefit of it, then evolved your own path
and personal approach.
Just remember that people also have
feelings and that life is way more
complicated and less straight than you
describe it to be, like being a rational
pua 24/7. Also puas may fall in love with
the wrong one, but none of us is a moral
authorithy to judge how the guy sadly
lost his marriage.
Wishing you all the best, especially to
always hold control over your life as you
desire.
Regards
Reply

Greatimposter DECEMBER 14, 2018

What… The heck… Did I just read? Did
Neil Strauss beat you up as a kid?
It seems “pick up” and “long term
relationship” are two different
understandings. While he seems like he
is quite successful in one, he clearly is
unaware of how to be so in the other.
I dont see how the judgement of one
affects the other, so Im having difficulty
understanding what youre going on
about.
This is pretty aggressively a “ha, I told
you so” disguised by sone talented
writibg. But really, this is mean. 
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Reply

Fourth Protocol DECEMBER 14, 2018

Soooo you’re using anothers’ misfortune
to raise your own profile. And hey, why
not kick him when he’s down why don’t
you?
Reply

Rodney Stevens DECEMBER 16, 2018

There is a issue overlooked here and
that involved his need for a piece of
ownership paper. It was glossed over in
the assessment of Strauss. Why was
marriage necessary? Was it his idea or
did she give him an ultimatum?
This is central to any discussion of
relationships power control and desire.
As soon as a piece of paper was signed
desire went out the window for her and
her hypergamous instincts were
reawakened in such a way that they
could not be controlled even by Strauss.
As any MGTOW will tell you hypergamy
is not deleted upon signing a marriage
contract. It is in fact enshrined in the
document. Neil Strauss became a Beta
Provider as soon as he provided his wife
with a platform to search for an Alpha to
fuck.
Neil Strauss didn’t in the end take his
own advice. He walked away from Game
and now has to reread his own books for
clarity.
Time truly us circular.
Reply

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