I'm In Brady's Bunch

I am obsessed with the how-to-pick-up-women reality show "The Pick-Up Artist" on VH1. So obsessed that I'm currently reading the book that inspired it: The Game, by Neil Strauss.

Say what you want about the premise of the show: Mystery's a psychotic, self-aggrandizing, charismatic woman-hater; the concept is mysogynistic; etc. But when I watch, I feel empathy for the nerdy guys and merely want them to succeed so that they'll feel better about themselves or at the very least move out of their parents' basements. Usually, the show stays pretty benign, covering subjects such as how to talk to a woman (or "girl," as they say on the show) or how to take a woman they've just met on an "instant date." Those innocuous topics tend to make VH1 viewers forget that the point of Mystery's "game" is to screw as many women as possible with as little accompanying commitment as possible. That, for the most part, is kept out of the show in the name of quasi-wholesomeness.

Tonight's episode, though, went darker. The guys were assigned to pick up an exotic dancer from a strip club, and when the challenge was announced, I don't know what the guys thought. I wasn't sure if any of them had even seen a woman naked before. In particular, I'm a little enamored of Brady, the adorable 25-year-old blond photographer (nice!) who's hot and quiet and shy. So shy, in fact, that he'd never previously been to a strip club.

Being the best-looking of the crew, he of course immediately picked up a pudgy hairstylist/stripper wearing a Catholic schoolgirl uniform and took her back to the show's limo. Once they were both seated, the stripper started drinking...something that looked like a can of Miller Lite, and Brady had inched so far away from her that he was practically sitting on the outside of the car. He then began a stream-of-consciousness speech that went something like, "I just want to find a nice girl...a sweet girl..." Finally, there was an AUDIBLE "I don't caaaare" exhale from Brady, and he bit the bullet and started making out with her. Because that was, essentially, the challenge. Um, yikes, anyone?

It's one thing to talk to chicks and get their numbers, but it's another to be "challenged" to make out with an exotic dancer in the back of a corporate limousine. Especially since Brady seems to just want to meet ONE nice girl, not swap bodily fluids with all the pole dancers at the local Spanky's.

But, um, maybe I feel this way because I'm starting to crush on Brady just a little bit? The fact that he had never been at a strip club at the age of 25 and the way he doesn't seem to understand quite how good-looking he is endears him to me even more. All the guys, in fact, were a little more attractive to me before they underwent their Mystery transformation and started realizing that a little psychological manipulation goes a long way.

So, Brady? Forget Jillian. If you win the game, don't join Mystery and his cult of douchebaggery and tour the country being a wannabe gigolo. Come to New York. I'll smile at you and listen to all your lame pickup lines, buy you drinks, and whisk you off into the sunset. Bonus: I am a nice girl. Most of the time.