How much bullshit is enough?

Over the years, I've noticed that the guys who've progressed fastest in the Game, or done best, have invariably had something "wrong" with them. As in usually a clearly narcissistic/sociopathic personality, or just a little plain dumb.Not all of them, but just about all of them.That doesn't go just for advancement in the Game, but in the office too. That same grab everything first, ass-kiss and back stab mentality, will get you far. I'm pained to say.When I was at uni, I knew a guy, he was okay, but my Lord was he full of shit! He was a friend of a friend and one of them sorts that anything you've done, he'd done too but with bells on. I remember one night, out for a drink, we got onto talk about fights etc., the sort of stuff young guys bullshit up, and Billy (let's call him) goes off on the tale of being a wanted man by the IRA... Yeah, I know.Billy was an Irishman, and he comes up with this story of getting into words with some IRA big wig back in the home country, beating the shit out of him in some pub, and that was one of the reasons he was now "hiding" out in the UK, studying here.Even back then, green and gullible, I couldn't buy that the dude was A) drinking in IRA controlled pubs and B) slapping the shit out of their commanders over girls.And C) still be alive or walking.But this was a practised story, and one I'd hear several more times, with more arms and legs on each telling. The guy seemed to absolutely believe it too. Like the scratches on his arm, he'd got them after fighting off some guys on the way home one night. His flatmate told me he got them off the cat they kept. I didn't need the same flatmate to tell me the IRA story was all bullshit too.As was the boxing story. When he found out I was into training, he didn't miss a beat: told me he'd been an amateur boxer for Ireland and just missed selection for the Olympic squad by a whisker. Some injury or other kept him out. This was never mentioned till that moment, which was unusually modest given what a blowhard he was on all things other than that...I remember him telling me, all deadly serious, that he couldn't come to training with me; because if he hit someone, it could be lethal.Yeah. Gimme a break. But Billy had a swagger. People bought into his bullshit, and he was 'respected' to a certain extent, all by engineering of his own mouth, and no action. He got the girls too with it. Maybe not as many as he claimed, but he got them.That fascinated me. I was doing my "nice guy" genuine act, he was acting the full on tosser, and he got the chicks! Back then this greatly confused me.But Billy expected the chicks. He expected that women would like him. He was Great after all. The sort of dude that slapped around terrorist chiefs in their own local, a pick for his country's Olympics boxing team, and so lethal he couldn't dare train in the uni gym hall doing a bit of pad work for fear he killed someone.Billy believed all that 100%. And it didn't seem to do him any harm. Me thinking he was a harmless clown didn't affect his reality or life one iota because enough other people shared his delusion. I don't know where he is now, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was a Vice President by now, wherever he finally ended up working.Billy wasn't just a product of youthful exuberance, because I've gone on to meet plenty more "Billys" in my working life. Guys who couldn't do the job for shit, but talked the big talk, and despite results (or lack thereof) were well thought of. All achieved by word of mouth and spinning their own story.I was never good at that. I didn't play golf and didn't go to the organised afternoons (that included tea and sausage rolls in the price - how could you turn down a treat like that?) and I even shunned the official works annual formal dinner-dos. Wherein all the lameos would appear in formal kilt wear with their equally lamentable partners and make shitty work related jokes all night.YupOkay, that wasn't smart, and not exactly networking, but that's always been my problem - if I like people I make the time for them, if I don't, then, well, I don't.The work place involves more frame-games than a convention of PUAs and isn't all that far removed from the playground. Some workplaces are much better than others, but it's not the ethos or the perks, it's a matter of whether you get on with the immediate people you work with. There's being professional and getting the job, and then there's the indoctrinate, the guy who really does believe the company brochure, the dude who's a full blown party member and who will report you to the Thought Police for any infraction.These are the guys you work with who are on the same grade as you but act at least one grade higher at all times. You don't so much work together, as the guy overseas and reviews your work. The guy who will gleefully highlight any shortcomings in it, and proclaim surprise if you can produce something better than he can. Soon it'll dawn on you that these guys mostly produce nothing, except their own press.They're in every meeting with their smug grin and coffee mug, gums flapping, but when you pay attention, there's not that much substance coming out. Which is what "meetings" are mostly about: your own sales pitch. Doesn't matter what you're saying, so long as you're saying it.And so long as people leave with a positive impression, substance isn't required. Reality is perception and all that.And so it is in the world of PUA-dom too, as many an eviscerated instructor onSluthatewill attest.Back in the day, I remember reading on some blog somewhere, an ex, and now forgotten Lovesystems (or MysteryMethod as it was then) coach saying that the best student he'd ever had, who'd went onto be a successful instructor, was as dumb as a brick. He did well precisely because he didn't question or overthink the material: he just did it, and did as he was told. I've observed that same phenomena. Guys just going out, spitting the lines and doing the routines, will get success where I'm expecting them to crash and burn. Of course that happens as well, it's not all a path to easy victory, get a lobotomy and get crazy amounts of ass; I'm not saying that. What I am saying, is that just letting go, and letting the woman make the decision, instead of taking it for her (that there's no point talking to her and she won't like you), is the point of the lesson.These dudes don't have much in way of off the cuff chat, and no wit, so going off material isn't something they tend to do, and when they run out of material, that's the end of the set.I've seen this manifest in academic world too. People who are good at remembering facts and figures by rote, but outwith the examination hall, fail to see beyond the question at hand and how to apply the information practically. Same in maths, not just history or literature. I've seen peers fully able to tackle a question and work through the process to the answer... butdefiningthe question is something they're totally unable to do. They're unable to pinpoint and extract the problem. If someone else does that for them then they can go to work on it, but they're lost until that happens. Because it hasn't been programmed and they don't deviate from it. Your programming can be very restrictive.The "Billys" of this world are programmed too, they're just following one with a lot less conditions and subroutines. So, without all that additional spaghetti code to get in the way and clutter things up, if you can just chuck out as many variables as possible, and replace them with constants - like you're the greatest fucking thing ever - then the ensuing sense of entitlement that comes with that will go a long ways to getting you whatever it is you think you're entitled to.Me, I've always been too much the guy who hangs back and waits in line. I don't shove to the front like Billy and grab all I can when I get there. The people who do, get more, and they don't agonise over being selfish or your loss either: it's just not something that'd even occur to them. It's not even bullying, it's just that they're entitled to it, this is how the world works, and there's nothing unfair in it. When youknowthat, you don't need to question it. It's like gravity. It's just a law of nature.And I've had wings like that. Well "a" wing anyway. What's yours is mine, but what's mine is totally mine, and you can get to fuck. While I'm concerned with computing what the outcome should be based on the rules of fairness, friendship and decency, someone with who's never had those subroutines added, just steams in.I have to say though, that whilst either being to dumb to know it, or sociopathic, works well individually, as a combo they don't. I have met guys like that, and the combination doesn't tend to make a super-slayer, just a poisonous mix that doesn't do anyone any good that comes into contact with it. At least some minimal, redeemable human qualities are required.A potentially great PUASo, for shy guys, or guys who like to rationalise, the Game is tougher. You have to overcome your intellectual arguments (which are probably founded on bad premises) and your inherent programming to "give way" - or not prioritise yourself first and foremost.I don't want to crush other people underfoot, but I don't want to do myself down either. It's a tightrope to walk. I'm not totally blameless because of course, I've disappeared on more than a few women without explanation over the years, and not been as upfront and honest as I could've been with others. In fact I've been downright dishonest and conniving. But I've never permanently damaged or emotionally scarred someone. I don't think any woman's been left the worse for having known me.That there is a line for me. I may still have an agenda, but I have a sense of decency. Trying to reconcile all that still entails over rationalising and too much code, though. No one who gets ahead does it by being "nice" and whilst I'm no angel as I said, I'm not cruel either. This is all stuff I've worked on since coming into the Game, and I'm still working on; the bigger game.I don't know, can you be successful and still look yourself in the mirror? I guess like everyone else I'll find a way to either justify it or rationalise it, come success or failure.Does it matter if your backstory is all bullshit so long as it gets you where you want to go? I mean Billy could never get in the boxing ring with anyone, but he'd have a damn good excuse for why he couldn't. He was a fantasist, not an idiot. But if push ever came to shove, I wonder how he'd bullshit his way out of it?Crunch time can happen in the office environment too. Very infrequently granted, as there's usually a fall back guy or two, failure is an orphan and all that. Except the work place tends to put that saying on its head, and success is due to the orphan that is Billy; it's failure that has many fathers (and none of them a Billy).Look atFrank Abagnale. He couldn't fly a plane or perform an operation but he bluffed his way as an airline pilot and doctor. Had a good run for his money too. Left a string of women in his wake as well. A charming impostor... and total sociopath and phoney underneath it all.So, while there's something seductive and fascinating about Billys, and certainly Frank Abagnale, would I go down their path? Playing King for a day would be a fun prank I admit, but ultimately, I like to know I can back my bullshit up if need be.