New York Times bestselling nonfiction author Neil Strauss, who once found fame with The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, now says he hates the player and the game.
"Like many people, I've had relationships that didn't succeed and blamed them on the other person," Strauss admits. "But eventually, I was in a great relationship where I cheated and ruined it all by myself. And it caused me to look at myself and my pattern in all these relationships."
In answering that question, he looked inward to uncover why he's picking certain partners, whether monogamy works, why "great" relationships go downhill, and why it takes so long to end bad relationships.
"I discovered things and concepts that I never even knew existed that were making the choices for me," he says.
The now-happily married father of one is only too eager to share his discoveries about life and love in his new book, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships, which he's promoting at a Litquake brunch on Saturday, Oct 17, that's aptly titled "A Playboy No Longer: (Former) Bad Boy, Neil Strauss. "
Strauss went from interviewing musicians for Rolling Stone and reviewing music for The New York Times to co-writing a string of successful memoirs, such as Marilyn Manson's The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, Mötley Crüe's The Dirt, and Jenna Jameson's How to Make Love Like a Porn Star.
He would next write about his own sex life in the controversial bestseller The Game, the career-changing 2005 novel in which the author penetrates the seduction community. Unfortunately, Strauss began using those manipulative strategies IRL — and encouraged others to do the same in his sequel, Rules of the Game.
"I just have to embrace the fact that I had that side that was attracted to something so shallow and objectifying and narcissistic," he says. "There's a part of me that felt disconnected, and here was this group of guys that was maybe showing me how, instead of being an observer, to participate and have fun and get acceptance and all those things that maybe I lacked on the inside. I think it spoke to a wound, and the wound says, 'Yes.'"
He credits legendary music producer Rick Rubin with mentoring him out of The Game. "He helped me realize, 'You've got everything you've wanted, now you're social and can meet people, so why are you still not happy?'"
Strauss wrote The Truth in an attempt to answer this question.
"The answer and the heart of The Truth is that there are unconscious forces that we're not aware of, that are guiding the way we live our lives by the lies we tell ourselves — like 'I don't fit in,' or 'Everyone's making fun of me.' Maybe The Game and The Truth should have been one book, 'cause this is the conclusion it should have had, about getting away from manipulation and returning to intimacy and honesty. To start off with honesty, you have to be honest with yourself and know who you are before you can really be honest with someone else."
He also learned that communication is key or else we just build resentments, that we pick our partners to work out childhood issues, that sex suffers over time because we turn our partners into our parents, and that only once we "un-parentalize" our partners can we truly connect with them sexually or otherwise. He speaks from experience.
"I can just say for a fact that after we did some really deep work together last week, my wife and I had the best sex of our entire relationship," he gushes. "It's really fun getting to know and understand yourself better and let go of stories you cling to tightly and realize you're happier."
While he credits his self-discovery with saving his relationship and perhaps the relationships of a few close friends, with whom he's shared his new knowledge, he's maybe acquired a little modesty along the way.
"I love helping people, but I hate the word expert," Strauss says. "As a journalist, you become an expert for the purpose of your project. I just hope that I learn it, get excited to share it and then I want to move on to the next thing. I'm more interested in what I suck at than what I'm great at. If I feel confident at it, then there's nothing left for me except to keep trying to improve until one day you can't improve anymore, 'cause you're dead."
Although the now-married man and father has traded games for truth, he's still grateful for The Game.
"If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have gotten to know where I'm at now and everything I stand for, which is intimacy and connection and healing. So to me, that was maybe the darkness that led to the light."
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