AROUND THAT TIME, MY FRIEND JASON JOINED A PICKUP artist group, where men talked about strategies for hitting on women. This movement was probably a kind of reaction to the rabid man-hate that was everywhere. The men exchanged tips and stories on message boards. Occasionally, the PUAs – as Jason called them – would meet in real life. He took me to their meet-up one night. There were twenty men in a basement, most of them young like me and Jason.
A paunchy man got up and talked nonsense. He wore a T-shirt that read Tool. He had black spacers in his ears. The name of the band combined with his overall dweebiness and the circumstances he was in did not escape my sense of irony.
Tool said he went sarging for HBs. He approached a warm-up set of two. He locked in, but then he got locked out by
