Picking up pieces

NEIL STRAUSS'S college years were wretchedly chaste. Even when he landed a job as a rock reporter with the New York Times, the closest he got to unfettered hedonism was a peck on the cheek from Tommy Lee. “Some guys had it”, Mr Strauss remembers. “Other guys didn't. I clearly didn't.”

Then Mr Strauss discovered the online world of Pickup Artists (PUAs), a vast internet community where self-styled seduction gurus with names like Mystery and Juggler dispense their techniques to grateful acolytes in virtual lounges and locker-rooms. Wryly admitting his AFC status (average frustrated chump), Mr Strauss logs on as Style, achieves PUA stardom and becomes role model and tutor to a new generation of AFCs. This is the game.