Like many guys, I got into pickup by reading "The Game." To hear Strauss tell it, he got phone numbers from half the girls in LA. This set up "number closing" as a goal in many mens' minds.

Didn't it irk anyone else, though, that he started calling himself a PUA and even became a PU instructor before he he actually fucked one single girl?

"Number closing" a girl does not equal "picking her up." I keep seeing it on here: "I picked up this girl a the bus stop/laundromat/bar! She gave me her number!"

Well, did you get her in bed? Because THAT, gentlemen, is what "picking a woman up" is. Getting her number, adding her on social media, texting back and forth, kinoing her, making her laugh, "ooh, she touched her hair, an IOI!!"... none of these things are a pick-up.

I understand that for guys who are just starting out, getting a number is a small triumph: you've never had the balls to do anything like this before, and here you got a phone number like it was nothing! Hooray! And you're right to see a small success in that. But see it for what it is: you just went ten feet with the training wheels on. Maybe that's progress for you, and progress is good, but there's no prize for that. Never lose sight of the fact that number closing is not your goal. Sex is.