Robert Kodama embarks on his journey through the world of Psychology

The Game by Neil Strauss is a theory that potentially improves men’s social skills, especially with the opposite sex. His book entitled "The Game" tells us many success stories of his encounter with women, and celebrities, and his follow-up: "Rules of the Game" tells you how you could do the same in 30 days.

A lot of it is to do with self improvement. In the book, each of the 30 days set out has specific aims and goals, looking at self-examining yourself and having a goal to reach and achieve by the end of the day. The goals look at a wide range of someone’s personality (e.g. body language, mannerisms, anxiety etc.). By being the harshest critic – i.e. yourself, the idea is that if you can spot the mistake, you can change it. The result is that if you are able to do so, you will be able to gain more confidence in yourself, and thus in your social skills – but more importantly in Strauss’ case, seduction technique. If you are able to be consistent in achieving your goals set out in the book, it suggests that it becomes part of your core personality traits – something that neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) suggests.

Strauss’ theory, and NLP are both relatively new, and so lack in much empirical evidence. This can lead to one thinking that these ideas are just lucky for some and not for others – or perhaps as there’s no scientific basis, it doesn’t really work. However, Strauss stresses his high success rates and some of my mates even swear seeing it work. Is it luck, coincidence, or a scientific theory yet to be proven?

You can buy the following books on Amazon.co.uk

• The Game
• The Rules of the Game

Neil Strauss MySpace page