Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Real-Life Example of a PUA who Creeped Out an Entire Campus


In my last post on Wannabe PUAs and Social Exclusion I mentioned how the complete absence of tact can easily make socially inept guys alienate their entire surroundings. In the comments this discussion was enriched by a number of people, such as Johnny who chimed in that when he makes a new friend, he learns through Facebook that they've got a handful of mutual "friends" already, or an anonymous with the observation that he's bumping into the same people in a city as big and vibrant as NYC.

So, there certainly is some awareness that you're not as anonymous in the crowd as you might think. But what happens if you are a PUA who thinks that the world is his oyster and, just like in an arcade-style video game, he can always just insert another credit or hit the reset button? Well, "Sean Larson" is what's going to happen. (Thanks to another anonymous commenter for the tip!)




"Sean Larson" managed what you might consider impossible: He hit on so many girls at Ohio State University (OSU), and in such an indiscriminate manner, that his reputation grew and travelled far and wide. His reputation wasn't a good one, though. Here is a discussion on Reddit with hundreds of comments about a "Guy who harasses girls around campus", which started with this post:
Have any other girls out there ever been stopped by a short Indian guy named Shane or something? This guy has literally tried to stop me a grand total of six times, and every time he tries to ask me if I'm from LA or something cheesy. Does anyone know who this guy is? Does he even go to school here?

As the saying goes, karma is a bitch. I don't even know where to start with that guy. He has certainly proven that it is possible to completely wreck his reputation by utter stupidity. Have a look at the top ranked comment on Reddit:

YES! He's tried approaching me like four times, twice in Thompson. The first time he approached me, he just came straight up to me, kissed me on my hand (he kind of just yanked my hand up, because he took me by surprise), and tried to stroke my hair. I was like WTF?! Second time he tried to approach me in Thompson like we were supposed to be friends or something and I'm like nope Nope NOPE! I had to literally push past him, as I was leaving the downstairs bathroom and he confronted me in the hallway. I was then "Get the fuck away from me. I don't know you." He was still trying to persist and corner me and literally no one, in the crowded library, tried to step in despite me being obviously distressed. Maybe, it's just me, but if I saw someone in the same position I was in, I would've stepped in. 
So, when I've seen him try to do similar things to girls on campus and on High Street. I try to step in every time I see it happen because no one had the courtesy to do that for me. I've been seriously ruminating about trying to file a complaint against him but I don't even know his real name or who to go to, at least on campus. So yeah, that's my story. He's a creep and I seriously get sick to my stomach every time I see him.

Sounds like a charming little fellow to me. Like totally. And when I was reading that I was so "YES! I totally, like, want more of that!!!" Consequently, I dug around some more, and found out that the reputation of "Sean Larson" has been growing rapidly. The discussion on Reddit spawned articles in, for instance, the website of the student paper of OSU:
The 22-year-old man goes by the pseudonym “Sean Larson.” He said he uses the pseudonym to protect him from physical harm and stalking. 
“Campus is very tribal, so it’s like a tribal psychology place,” Larson said in an interview with The Lantern Oct. 26. “If you get found out for doing that kind of stuff (sleeping with many women), you can get extradited from the whole thing.”
Of course, Sean Larson tries the old PUA shtick of claiming that approaching a ton of women also means that he's sleeping with a ton of women. The problem is not that he's such a womanizer that all the other girls are pissed off because they have to wait for their turn until his dick is free for a few minutes so that they can hop on it. No, the issue is that he has approached so many girls on campus, and in such an awkward manner that he gained a reputation not as some kind of uber-manly Casanova, but as a complete creep.

Of course, according to that guy, the problem is that the women are such bitches. Here he is, verbatim:
They’re two-faced. When I’m actually meeting them, they’re all friendly and bubbly and give me their number,” he said. “Behind my back, when they go home, they’re talking s—.
PUAs are well-known for not realizing when they start annoying people, and they can't distinguish mere friendliness due to social norms from sexual interest either. But, hey, I guess if your plan is to just approach a few hundred girls then those subtle differences don't matter.

A commenter on that website described the situation very well:
You know, as women, sometimes you are approached by men and it is a really uncomfortable situation. So you figure, maybe if I’m nice but detached he’ll go away and won’t drag me into an alley and rape me. That’s not being “two-faced”, that is just self-preservation. That guy needs to find his kicks in some other way than harassing women.

I burst into laughter when I noticed that "Sean Larson" just had to chime in with a typical PUA comeback:
Some stupid rumors going on. Girls touch me, I don’t touch them. I’m the victim. The girls are sexual predators.
Of course, since there are so many girls after him, he doesn't have to approach a single one, and the OSU student newspaper just ran an article in which they implored all girls not to harass this poor little guy.

There was a surprising revelation at the end of the article, too:
Columbus Division of Police Officer Joshua Urlaub said Larson could be toeing the line of legal and illegal if he is too persistent in his pursuit of women. 
“It just depends on how far he goes with it,” Urlaub said. “If he’s continuing to harass them, and he won’t take ‘no,’ he’s definitely on the line of a harassment charge.”
Urlaub said anyone who is continually harassed should notify the police immediately.
This wasn't the end of it, though. The story spread to Jezebel, and some site called BroBible, of which I hadn't heard of yet, wrote a long investigative article on him with the lovely title How Ohio State Used Facebook and Reddit to Turn Against Its Campus’ Most Notorious Creeper.

I find it amusing that "Sean Larson" chimes in himself in the comments, thinking that all the negative attention he is getting is actually good for him.

The college kids posting there seem to have a pretty decent view of "game", though. Here's one commenter:
You aren't some sort of sex-wizard, you're just some dumbass who keeps flinging shit at a wall until it finally sticks. And then you brag about how well that shit stuck to the wall.
...and here's another:
What you're about to read is a tale of "pick-up artistry" gone wrong—how one dude in Columbus, Ohio managed to single-handedly piss off an entire college town and face an unprecedented amount of public shaming on Facebook and Reddit.
.... You know that's a bad thing right????

Following some more trails, I then came across an article in Business Insider. That PUA is apparently getting "famous". Their article had the rather unflattering title, Ohio State University Students Have Come Together To Shame A Notoriously Creepy 'Pick-Up Artist.

Compared to that guy some amateur who barely manages to creep out all the women who hang out in his local bar doesn't even register on the radar, though.

What do you think of that guy? Is he a creep or your personal hero? Let me know in the comments below!

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