Ugly people, especially ugly men, they said, are destined to lead unhappy lives and die alone. They congratulated him for “taking the black pill,” shorthand for waking up to the tragedy of being ugly. The user uploaded a selfie, and other Sluthate posters agreed, mocking the flaws in his face. Eventually, he stumbled on a forum called Sluthate, where anonymous men gathered to “discredit the effectiveness of pickup art.” In one post, a user described coming to the realization that it didn’t matter what he said because of the way he looked. Still, he tried the techniques for a few years, with middling success. One rule stated he needed to initiate conversation with a woman three seconds after seeing her, which felt like taking an exam. In real life, pickup artistry made Truth4lie anxious. “Would you like to kiss me? I didn’t say you could.” Together they practiced lines from the book, planning to use them on girls in nightclubs.
Truth4lie was 27, depressed, and living in a student apartment after a year in a psychiatric hospital on suicide watch when a friend showed him Neil Strauss’s pickup-artist guidebook, The Game.
