A Thousand Tiny Failures : Memoirs of a Pickup Artist (22 page)

Beauty is Only Skin Deep (Think and grow rich)

You never plan for terrible things; sometimes they just happen. You wonder if maybe you’d made different choices in the past your Karma bank would remain full. You hope that your loved ones live as healthy and happily as possible, and that no wars or natural disasters break out. You hope that you can continue to eat junk food and remain thin; you hope that you can sit around playing video games and going to work and one day you’ll get lucky and make lots of money and everything will just work out. But life isn’t like that.

It started off great. Victoria and I would see each other three or four times a week. We got along brilliantly. We’d watch good movies at night, drink a little, go dancing, play video games, watch smart movies and have great sex. Taking her virginity was very painful for her, but she came to love fucking. She made me laugh often and we were doing fine.

What I learned about game I applied to my relationship. I was always positive. I never complained, or displayed my insecurities. I made her come almost every time we had sex. I kept my word on things. When I said I’d do something, like go to the gym, or clean my bathroom, or keep a date…I would. But I didn’t allow my world to be dictated by her desires. I remained on the righteous path, and she remained attracted to me.

I found another restaurant job at a high-end
shithole
. The plan was that I would move up the ranks and be a highly paid server within one year. My first indication that I was deluding myself came at our first staff meeting. They made us all watch a video about
positivity
. Most of the staff bitched and whined about the video. I’d never worked with an angrier, more entitled bunch of cokehead yahoos. I asked some of the
bussers
how long they’d been cleaning tables.

“Two years.”

“Six months.”

“Three years.”

The coaching business was non-existent. I wasn’t advertising, or writing. I was working on a fiction novel that
Victoria
was encouraging me to write, but besides that I was somewhat content to slave away at the restaurant. I knew this was a dead end, but going home to
Victoria
kept me satisfied. The problem was, I was broke. I was lucky to take home twelve hundred a month, and she made less than that as a barista. But still, we were happy for a time; until tragedy struck.

One night, about three months into our relationship, we were kissing and I noticed her upper lip was a little bit red. We figured it was from my moustache. She asked me ever so politely to shave it off, and I did. No big deal. Two days later I was waiting for her to come over to watch a movie and she
texted
me:

“So… my face got a little bit worse. No, a lot worse.”

When I met her at my door, I was shocked. It looked like she’d been beaten up. She had a giant goiter on her forehead the size of half a golf ball, followed by dozens of others, of all sizes, going down over her cheeks and onto her chin. She was all red and swollen. It was terrible.

“What happened babe!? Are you allergic to something?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It just happened,” she said, with tears in her eyes.

I hugged her. She said that this was the second time her face had exploded with cystic acne. She had no idea what caused it. “How long will it take to heal?” I asked. She didn’t know, but the last time it happened, it took six months.

Six months was an awful long time, but I was willing to wait it out. I wasn’t so shallow I’d dump the girl I loved because she had a skin problem. It took me three years to learn how to get a girl like her. I wasn’t about to toss her.

Her dermatologist put her on some terrible drug. It made her skin dry up even more, it made her cranky, it made her eyes go bloodshot, it lowered her sex drive, it made her even more depressed. She was still beautiful and funny, but her ability to express herself was diminished. Her thoughts were constantly on what other people thought about her, and she believed everyone was looking, and laughing at her. After a few months her swelling went down, but what was left were tiny pockmarks from where the doctors had pricked the cysts. They left scars, and a slightly red area where the skin had been stretched.

Without her makeup she was still a babe, just a babe with a few hardly noticeable acne scars. I really didn’t mind. But what I did mind was her use of makeup. She wore so much makeup that she looked like she was wearing a mask. Sometimes she looked like the Joker. I would tell her, “Babe, you don’t look bad at all. You look great. But you wear so much makeup it looks ridiculous. It looks like a mask. Just try to go out one day without the makeup.”

She said I didn’t understand, and the makeup was for her, not me.

I’d make her wash it off before she came to bed. It made her cry the first time I made her do that, but after the first time she knew to do it every time. Maybe I’m an asshole, but I want to look at my girlfriends face, not a painting of it. I wanted to take her out more, and buy her nice things, to make her happy, but I never had money. My self-esteem was low as well.

About nine months into our relationship I started to notice little things about her personality that I didn’t notice before; maybe because I was blinded by her sex appeal and good behavior. She hated everything self-help. Whenever I talked about
positivity
or great books by guys like Tony Robbins, or Steven Covey, or Nietzsche, she would roll her eyes. I got her to read some
Eckhart
Tolle
, but she thought it was gay. I mean, she was nineteen so I shouldn’t blame her, but I had a hard time dealing with my girlfriend not being at all intrigued in my number one interest. She could at least get into Yoga, or meditation, or something. Then there was her lifestyle. She would eat candy like a goat, buying these big bags of the stuff. When I mentioned that candy might have something to do with her skin condition, she would just get annoyed and tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about, which I didn’t. And she was a slob. Not in her appearance, but her car was a complete mess all the time, her bedroom was a disaster. I would mention this to her, but she didn’t care. Also, she had no ambition, or interests. She used to want to be an actress and a photographer, but it was dashed by her acne, or so she said.

She was a talented photographer, but she didn’t have any money to buy a camera. When I tried helping her to think more positively so we could imagine ways to make money, she would just shoot me down and tell me to get off her case. I think I would have overlooked all of this had she not been stricken with the terrible skin condition. It changed her personality. I could relate to her feeling of helplessness. It was the same when I had man-boobs. She couldn’t hide her face under a baggy shirt.

This is a normal part of a long term relationship. You take the good and the bad and weigh it out. But I wasn’t ready for that. I was still a relationship newbie. I wasn’t getting ahead in the restaurant business. I was barely making rent and food. I had nothing extra. I felt like I had no purpose or mission. I needed to do something. I needed a change.

 
One day I said to
Victoria
, “Did I ever tell you I used to be a dating coach?”

“Cool!” she said, enthusiastically.

“Yeah. Well I’m gonna to do it again to make some extra money.”

“Is it like Hitch?” she asked innocently.

“Well, sort of. But I’m way blacker and have a bigger…jet ski.”

“You give dating advice?”

“Sort of. I’ll explain it later.”

“Ok,” she said, and went back to playing Grand Theft Auto.

She had no idea. I wanted to keep it that way.

I found my first client and made an extra six hundred dollars. It was a huge relief because I needed clothes, food, and all that rubbish.
Victoria
was very supportive, but I wasn’t being the man she loved. I started acting childish, complaining, pouting, failing on my word. I was self-sabotaging my relationship. Pathetic. I didn’t have the balls to end it like a man. I didn’t know if I wanted to. I didn’t know much of anything. I was meeting a lot of women at work and the temptation was great. I’d never cheated and I didn’t want to. Guilt is evil.

One day she asked me what the address to my blog was. I gave her the
Url
but I knew she’d already read it. Then she confronted me.

“You said on your blog that you got four phone numbers in one day.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why would you do that?”

“It’s called a demo. I have to show the students how to get a phone number.”

“But it’s so, so, disrespectful to me!” she said. Her face was probably getting red, but I couldn’t tell under all the makeup.

“No babe. It has nothing to do with you. It’s work.”

“What else do you demonstrate?”

I explained my job; how I taught guys to approach at bars and clubs and malls and everywhere else.

She was confused. She didn’t want me to take girls phone numbers.

“I have to babe, it’s my job,” I told her, but she didn’t care.

We fought for a few days over this until I eventually gave in. “Ok, no more phone numbers,” I told her—I lied. I couldn’t tell my student to do something and not demonstrate it myself. It’s not like I called the numbers. I could understand why she would be pissed off, but I wasn’t about to alter my professional life for anyone, especially not for a girl, any girl. There would always be girls, but I only have this career to make a living with. As cruel as that sounds, a man must stay on his path.

One day
Victoria
confronted me a second time. “Ok,” She sighed. “Are you cheating on me?”

“What? No, I’m not,” I said. I wasn’t.

“Because you just bought a new pack of condoms, and one is missing.”

I looked at her and felt disappointed. It wasn’t like her to be jealous. She was usually really good. But now, in this situation, I couldn’t even see her. All I saw was an insecure girl wearing a makeup mask.

“It’s under the bed, where I always keep condoms. I put it there for us,” I said.

Victoria
walked over, looked under the mattress and pulled out the condom. She looked at me with tears running down her cheeks. They drew long streaks down her makeup. I couldn’t feel bad about it. I understood what she was going through with her skin condition and her pickup artist boyfriend, but what could I do? She apologized, but I was annoyed and sent her home for the night.

I was getting restless. I wanted to become a great dating coach but it was hard to find clients in
Vancouver
. Jeff, my old friend from
Montreal
, asked me if I wanted to fly out and coach him for six hundred dollars, which would mean leaving
Victoria
for a month.

“I don’t know man,” I said. “I don’t think the high end
shithole
will give me the time off work.”

“Have you asked?” he said.

“No, I don’t know.”

“Sebastian, you have a fear of success. Do you really want to serve tables for the rest of your life? You’re better than that. Go ask for the time off.”

“Ok, I will,” I promised him.

The next day I got to work and went to the manager’s office. The boss was sitting in her chair, working out the schedule for the month.

“Hi
Marnie
,” I said. “I wanted to ask you. I’m planning a short trip to
Montreal
, for about a week, a month from now. Could I have the time off?”

She looked up at me, lowering her glasses, “Oh…ok. Well, we’ll see what we can do.” She went back to pecking at her computer.

“This trip could make me some extra money.”

“Well, we will see. It’s a busy month,” she said, without looking up.

“What are the odds you’ll give it to me?”

She turned her chair to face me and took off her glasses. “Sebastian. You’re doing really well, but you need to learn to be humble. I’ll let you know next week if you can get the time off.”

“Well,” I adjusted my posture. “I need to know soon, because the flight will get more expensive the closer to the date it gets.”

“I understand, Sebastian. I’ll let you know.”

I left the office and bussed my tables. I watched as people wiped the grease from their chins. I refilled their water. Some of the servers bitched me out for being too slow. Maybe I am too slow. Maybe I’m not meant to be here, I thought. Maybe I would rather gouge out my eyes with a hard-boiled egg than bus another fucking table. Maybe some people trap themselves in a situation because they’re scared of making the wrong decision. Maybe they don’t realize life is painful and short, and it will all be over soon.

The next day I showed up to work ten minutes early. I walked into the office and placed my apron on
Marnie’s
desk, “Sorry, but I can’t work here anymore. Thanks for the job.”

She looked at me with a sour expression. “Sebastian, you should submit something in writing. We need two week’s notice.”

“Sorry about that. Good luck,” I said, and walked out.