thinks they're inadequate, then that ache goes away and the idea that we're
not a person of value disappears to some extent.
And what about those people who don't get rid of their sense of inade-
quacy?
They become obsessed with sleeping with more and more women. And
that's a problem.
Then there are the kinds of guys who need to be in therapy sessions. I
can't tell you how many people I've seen in bad clothes say, in a nasal voice,
"Eric, I can't seem to pick up girls." I tell them, "You need new clothes, bet-
ter posture, and a speech therapist." All these things are evidence of deep in-
ner psychological wounds.
The phone rings. He answers it, speaks for a few minutes, then hangs up.
That was a girl I picked up thirty-eight and a half years ago—my wife. I was
actually researching the book right around the time I met her and used a
line on her. She walked past me in a bar and I said, "You're much too pretty
to let get away." I thought this tough New York chick would be mad. But
she said, "You think so." I couldn't get rid of her after that.
So how did you actually conceive of the book?
I had a friend who was a copy trainee with me at Benton and Bowles. One
day we both looked through the window of the El Al office next door and
noticed a girl working there. She was Mediterranean and gorgeous, like a
Botticelli. The next day, he saw me and said that during his lunch break
he'd followed her to a deli, where she got a sandwich, and then sat down in
the park, talked with her, and made a date to have dinner that Friday.
The next week, he came in and said that she was a virgin. He had to run
out and find a tin of Vaseline because she was so tight. That's what gave me
the idea of doing a book on picking up girls. I got interested in his brazen -
ness and his ability to turn talking to strangers into a comfortable, everyday
thing. I was very shy and unconfident growing up. I wrote about pickup be-
cause I couldn't do it, and I really, really wanted to be good at it.
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