For everybody else, great answers so far. I'm really trying to hone in on the part about actually starting pick-up. Many of you guys gave answers from a "looking back" perspective, I'm also interested in how you were thinking, feeling, and acting while "looking forward" from the starting line.
Don't think I can speak for everyone else; but can speak for myself.
So from a looking-forward perspective then...
For me, as much as I am at times a rational guy and a low empathy, stubbonly logical guy: I feel as though it was destiny.
Destiny being not some magical wind of fate that had things be, but rather: nature within me and casues that I was born with and that manifested themselves in me without my choice that had me need pickup and end up finding it.
I always had the pull to other women and draw for multiple women since my earliest memories (4 years or so on). Would get hard too, and lust over women, and look at tits on magazines that i had hidden in the clubhouse under my bed. I never had a phase of "eww girls are gross" or "I don't like girls" or "they have cooties". I also never had a phase where I was really falling for a girl without dually being into other girls thinking about wondering about and wanting to do things with other girls.
I would fall for and really jusut be enamored by one girl after another, 1-4 different girls every year during each year of elementary school and then more each year from further on as the years went on. Had my first sexual experiences with a girl at such a young age for the both of us, perhpas too young for me to mention but younger than most. Was always aware of girls being into me from as young as I can remember, multiple girls into me, noticing me, talking about me, checking me out, flirting with me, from a young age.
Wasn't particularly good looking and was skinnier than most of those girls up all the way through even high school, but still it would be this way. Chase has said it may be a mix of personality disorder and high testosterone/high sex drive. I have both; have it in some crazy and at times rather disturbing and perhaps problematic doses. Always felt that it was nature, that i had no choice in the matter and that i was born into it.
Born into wanting multiple women, needing it and potentailly never being able to really settle down and not have the need for other women (perhaps that fades with age and testosterone decline; or fades after I have kids, but I can only speculate, albeit uselessly... time will tell about that).
I was 13 or 14 when I first heard the term pickup artist from my friend. He told me that yeah these guys jsut go and meet girls meet them on the street and stuff and pickup girls and sleep with them. That exists, these guys exist, there are guys that actually go and do this !! I'd been searching for this my whole life, some part of me within me had been looking for this my whole life and I couldnt believe that this existed. knew one day that would be me would have to be me, must be me, at nature i had such a strong pull for it that had to have that (had no choice in the matter)!
I was 15 (might have been 14) when another friend of mine entrusted me with the game after a heart to heart discusision about girls I liked and were triygn to make headway with and girls he liked and was trying to do the same with. He gave me a pdf told me it was a sacred book and not to tell anyone or share it with anyone that it was inredibly secret and no one can know of the secret and dont tell anyone.
Strauss is a genius with how he marketed the book, how he made it be something so secretive and taboo but dually something that guys must read have to read, just as girls would have to watch 50 shades of grey (ah maybe a better analogy exists but can't think of a better one at the moment). Read it; told no one; went onto read much more pickup literature conequently. Worked on my fundamentals and getting better reactions from girls all through high school. Had some shoddy successes but nothing too special or exceptional in particular.
Found girlshchase either beginning of college or late end of high scshool. Was the best stuff I read and I think it was so part because chase presents it all so well so scientifically and is an effecctive communicator but also in part because I could identify with him felt as though was of a similar mind and what he had to say was fitting for me in that right.
(I think it is a matter of personality and who you charcteristically are that allows for you to be into pickup and then furhter ii into pickup, personlality/inner cahracteristics allow for you be into who and what subgroup primarily.) On a personal charcteristic level the game and shotgun approaching and opinon openers that characteristic of strauss and his material could appeal to folk of that characteristic nature. For me I was scientific, sought answers that were rational logical practical and experiential. Chase provided all that and more.
Found the site put it to work. Still have a fucking long way to go.
But yeah found it, and never looked back. Still don't look back. The journey continues.
EDIT: Oh and sorry about my spelling; drilled this out kind of quickly but didn't have the time to go back and edit at the moment; cheers