My 4 best game books you haven’t heard of

[Bill]

These are four books I’ve read that improved my understanding or application of game that I haven’t seen brought up in the community having looked at many game book lists.

The Oxford Handbook of Human Mating edited by David Buss - This a huge text but if you want a up to date scientific understanding of this topic this is the best I’ve found. Usually what’s recommended in the community are popsci books discussing evo psych, while this is way less accessible it is far broader in scope as it summarizes the works of countless scientists in the field.

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini - His original book Influence the psychology of persuasion used to be recommended all the time in the community because five of the principles were very relevant to game. I prefer this book as it is more up to date and summarized the original while adding more relevant information.

The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey - To be fair I’ve seen one guy recommend this, but I think it should be more popular. It is about the mindset that leads to success in tennis, but it is relevant to any area in life where you want success including game.

A Guide to Unified Mindfulness by Julianna Raye - I’ve heard both rsd tyler and Karisma King suggest what separates people truly advanced in game is exceptional state control. Usually the advice on developing this is just to warm up or “meditate”. This book really explained meditation in a way that makes me understand how it is useful to game. It is a brief summary of classic meditation techniques translated into a secular format, but they are very relevant to developing great inner game.

 

[AspiringStoic]

On David Buss's work I would like to offer another side of the story. Most of his research if I am not wrong is based on self surveys where you ask women questions through questionnaires.

And women answering them give answers while in a logical headspace. While Game is all about speaking to women's emotional brain and women respond to that more than anything.

A lot of people who delve too deep into Buss's stuff get hung up on the V shaped physique, jawline, having resources etc stuff and away from actually developing Game or at least lets call it "confidence" which is way more of a universally attractive trait than any of the ones he mentions widely in all his books and podcasts.

It puts people into a passive headspace with all the who would women choose if shown photographs of these men etc type experiments?

While the reality is, if you look like a greek god and are a millionaire and you just stand there passively without approaching and another guy who might not be as good looking or wealthy ACTUALLY approaches the girl and engages her in an interaction, he has way more of a chance with her, than a stud just standing there passively hoping a woman would choose him.

 

[Bill]

On David Buss's work I would like to offer another side of the story. Most of his research if I am not wrong is based on self surveys where you ask women questions through questionnaires.

And women answering them give answers while in a logical headspace. While Game is all about speaking to women's emotional brain and women respond to that more than anything.

A lot of people who delve too deep into Buss's stuff get hung up on the V shaped physique, jawline, having resources etc stuff and away from actually developing Game or at least lets call it "confidence" which is way more of a universally attractive trait than any of the ones he mentions widely in all his books and podcasts.

It puts people into a passive headspace with all the who would women choose if shown photographs of these men etc type experiments?

While the reality is, if you look like a greek god and are a millionaire and you just stand there passively without approaching and another guy who might not be as good looking or wealthy ACTUALLY approaches the girl and engages her in an interaction, he has way more of a chance with her, than a stud just standing there passively hoping a woman would choose him.

It’s edited by him, it contains information from many different researchers. But they all may suffer from the same issue.

 

[Chase]

The other big textbook on human courtship science is The Handbook of Relationship Initiation. That one, like Buss's, is a hodgepodge of chapters contributed by a cross section of researchers. For the most part it's very dry. But contains some good info, and helped me find some studies I hadn't come across elsewhere (despite having already reviewed 2000+ papers by the time I started digging into it).

The Inner Game of Tennis is actually where the whole "inner vs. outer game" dichotomy in seduction comes from. "Inner game" was Gallwey's term/innovation. The book is actually possible across sports; e.g., American football teams swear by that book. It's a great read.

As for meditation, my personal all time favorite is Bhikkhu Bodhi's In the Buddha's Words, which I believe @Hector Papi Castillo originally recommended to me (he studied Buddhism in university). It is Pali Canon, the oldest Buddhist tradition, of basically Buddha teaching meditation, and Buddha's way of teaching (as translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi) is up there with Jesus and Plutarch as among the simplest, most profound approaches to instruction you will find in written history.

Chase