Despite my sincere desire to find a girlfriend, my efforts led nowhere. In mid-September 2019, while scrolling through my VKontakte feed, I came across an ad for a pickup school. They promised to “boost your charisma and confidence”—it sounded loud, almost comical.
I approached it with a dose of skepticism, but thought: if nothing else is working, why not at least give it a try? It couldn’t get any worse. Besides, I felt obliged to do something if I truly wanted to change my situation. They were having an open house soon, so I decided to go—just to see what it was all about.
On the appointed day, I drove to their office, not far from the Kuntsevskaya metro station. We were led into a hall where a young man, radiating confidence, began a motivational lecture. The whole thing felt like a classic marketing funnel: emotional pressure, persuasion techniques, intimidation. “You’ll grow old alone,” “you’ll have to marry the first random neighbor”—every statement was aimed at triggering anxiety and a sense of urgency. At one point, he even told a story about a guy with cerebral palsy who, according to him, took the course and found a girlfriend. It was an obvious trick: if even he could do it, then you definitely can, too. The emotional pressure ramped up by the minute.
I can’t say his words truly struck me—rather, I already had a growing resolve to change something. I felt it was time to act, time to at least try. I wanted to get moving, to break out of stagnation, and I was ready to move forward, even if the path seemed dubious. What’s more, I seriously considered taking the individual course right away—for 200,000 rubles. And even though I was nearly convinced, the coach kept piling on the pressure: only today, only now, a unique discount. But honestly, it didn’t matter to me anymore—the money was there, and my desire to change outweighed my doubts. I paid. I signed up for the individual course.
And so the first meetings with the instructor began. At first, everything was in the format of individual lessons. He immediately started talking about “secrets”—as if he really knew how things worked. According to him, everything started with posture, a confident look, proper speech, your walk, and clear articulation. You had to control your intonation, keep your back straight, avoid fidgeting, speak slowly and clearly, don’t rush. He insisted that this is what creates the first impression and sets the tone for interaction. I listened, took it in, and tried to apply everything. I followed his instructions: approached women, tried to start conversations, completed the assignments. But, honestly, I kept getting rejected over and over.
At some point, seeing that I still wasn’t getting the results I wanted, the instructor decided to connect me to the group classes that took place on weekends. There, several students gathered, assignments were given in a group format, and the atmosphere was a bit lighter—you felt you weren’t alone, that others were in the same boat, and that boosted your confidence.
Besides, in the “field”—that’s what we called the streets—a whole group would now go out, and the process stopped feeling so scary.
At these sessions, the instructors kept repeating one main rule—“Next.” It sounded like a universal remedy: if you get rejected—don’t think about it, don’t worry, just move on.
At first, I even liked this rule. There really was something liberating in not being dependent on rejection, not getting stuck in self-doubt. Just keep moving.
But over time, I started to notice how my attitude toward people was changing. You stopped listening to what a person was actually saying—you just recorded: “Did it work or not?” And if not—Next. Not as a sign of respect, but as a form of sorting.
One of the assignments that weekend really stuck with me: you had to approach any girl on the street and keep the conversation going for at least five minutes. Don’t run away, don’t give up—just stand there and talk.
I went out into the “field,” spotted two girls on Nikolskaya Street, and approached them with the standard “Hi.” The girls immediately put up their guard, but I knew: I had five minutes, and I had to endure.
They tried to ignore me, but, realizing I had to stall for time, I kept the conversation going, trying to establish at least some dialogue. Finally, the girls went up to a security guard at GUM and said, “This young man won’t leave us alone.” The security guard looked at me, and I, without losing my composure, said, “She’s my girlfriend—we had a fight this morning and now I’m trying to make up with her.” The guard chuckled, “I see, young love, all right.” The girls were completely bewildered, but I stayed calm—in that moment it felt like a win. When five minutes were up, I simply said, “Okay, that’s it, bye,” and left. Assignment accomplished.
Still, despite all my efforts, rejections kept coming one after another. Almost every attempt at getting acquainted led nowhere, and over time, it started to wear me out.
But one day, during yet another assignment on Red Square, things turned out differently. I met a girl from Perm. We struck up a conversation, exchanged contacts, and later I even flew to Perm to visit her. We walked around the city, rode the Ferris wheel—had a great time. The relationship didn’t work out, but that wasn’t so important to me. I love to travel, and spending a couple of days in a new city in good company was a cool experience in itself. Of course, the trainers gave me a talking-to: you shouldn’t invest so much for one girl. But I didn’t care.
Two months of classes passed. I tried, completed assignments, went into the “field,” talked, analyzed, worked on myself. But I still didn’t really manage to connect with anyone. There were conversations, there were attempts, but not a single one led to even a first date. It all went by quickly, leaving behind a strange aftertaste: on the one hand, I’d tried a lot, conquered my fear, stepped out of my comfort zone… but there was still no tangible result.
At the end of the course, they added me to their “secret” chat—something like a closed club for the “initiated.” There, participants shared “cases,” discussed approaches, and asked for advice if a girl turned them down. But what I saw there truly shocked me.
If someone failed—it was their fault. It meant they picked the wrong technique, said the wrong words, didn’t show enough dominance. The possibility that the girl just didn’t want to, wasn’t ready, or simply wasn’t obliged to say yes was never considered.
A rejection was never acknowledged as another person’s independent choice—it was seen as a system error, a bug that had to be fixed. No agency. No freedom. A woman wasn’t a person, but an “object” you had to find the “key” for.
One guy wrote that a girl refused to go home with him because she had a job interview in the morning. He asked in the chat, “Guys, what do I do about this?”—as if that wasn’t an answer, but a bug in the code. And they seriously advised him: “Push harder,” “You gave up too soon,” “She’s not warmed up enough.”
I felt sick. All this felt like “a secret told to the whole world.” Private circumstances, doubts, genuine “no’s”—were thrown out to a hundred strangers and turned into puzzles to crack.
That was when I realized where I had ended up. This was not a school of manliness—it was a culture of denial. Denial of someone else’s freedom, rejection, choice, will. Denial of the person themselves.
You’re not a loser—you’re just “not trained enough.” You don’t respect a “no”—you “just didn’t push hard enough.” You’re not crossing a line—you’re “using a technique.”
But the essence is the same: this was Darwinism without a soul. The ideology of the predator. Here, love is weakness, and a person is a resource. There’s no reciprocity. Feelings are a hindrance. Respect is a loss.
I left. For good. Not because I lost—but because I saw. When “no” becomes a challenge, and a living person is just an “unsuccessfully processed case,” this is no longer seduction. It’s violence. Just wrapped in pseudo-science.
I am not an alpha. I am a human being.
