The Truth. Neil Strauss
it’s only getting worse. Thanks to technology, we now have more dating and hook-up options than at any other time in human history, with countless desperate men and women just a click or swipe away, making fidelity—or even committing in the first place—yet more of a challenge. In a recent Pew Research survey, four out of ten people believed that marriage was an obsolete institution.
Maybe, then, the problem isn’t just me. Perhaps I’ve been trying to conform to an outdated and unnatural social norm that doesn’t truly meet—and has never met—the needs of both men and women equally.
So I stand here, packing for Chicago, riddled with guilt and confusion, with one foot in the best relationship I’ve ever had and one foot out of it, wondering: Is it even natural to be faithful to one person for life? And if it is, how do I keep the passion and romance from fading over time? Or are there alternatives to monogamy that will lead to better relationships and greater happiness?
Several years ago, I wrote a book called The Game about an underground community of pickup artists I joined in search of an answer to the biggest question plaguing my lonely life at the time: Why don’t women I like ever like me back?
In the pages that follow, I attempt to solve a much tougher life dilemma: What should I do after she likes me back?
Like love itself, the path to answer this question will be anything but logical. The unintended consequences of my infidelity will lead me to free-love communes, to modern-day harems, and to scientists, swingers, sex anorexics, priestesses, leather families, former child actors, miracle healers, murderers, and, most terrifying of all, my mother. It will challenge and ultimately revolutionize everything I thought I knew about relationships—and myself.
If you’re interested in getting more out of this odyssey for yourself, notice the words and concepts that most excite or repel you. Each gut reaction tells a story. It is a story about who you are and what you believe. Because, all too often, the things that we’re the most resistant to are precisely what we need. And the things we’re most scared to let go of are exactly the ones we most need to relinquish.
At least, that will be the case with me.
This is the story of discovering that every truth I’ve desperately clung to, fought for, fucked for, and even loved for is wrong.
Appropriately, it begins in a modern-day insane asylum, sometime before I escaped against medical advice …
A hairy man in green hospital scrubs takes my luggage, stretches a pair of latex gloves over his hammy fists, and starts searching for contraband.
“We don’t allow books here.”
The only other place I’ve been where books are confiscated is North Korea. Taking away books is a tactic of dictators and others who don’t want people to have an original thought. Even in prison, inmates are allowed to have books.
But this is my punishment, I tell myself. I’m here to be retrained, to learn how to be a decent human being. I’ve hurt people. I deserve to be in this hospital, this prison, this asylum, this convalescent home for weak men and women who can’t say no.
They treat all addictions here: alcohol, drugs, sex, food, even exercise. Too much of anything can be a bad thing. Even love.
Their specialty is love addiction.
But I am not a love addict. I wish I were. That sounds much more socially acceptable. There’s probably a special place in heaven for love addicts, along with all the other martyrs.
The attendant drops my nail clippers, tweezers, razor, and razor blades into a manila envelope. “I’m going to have to take these too.”
“Can I shave first? I didn’t have time to shave this morning.”
“New arrivals can’t use razors for three days while on suicide watch. After that, you need your psychiatrist’s permission.”
“But how can you commit suicide with nail clippers?” I’m not very good with rules. That’s another reason I’m here. “Mine don’t even have a file attached.”
He is silent.
You can’t fix most problems with rules, any more than you can with laws. They’re too inflexible. They break. Common sense is flexible. And I’m clearly in a place devoid of it. “If I wanted to kill myself, I’d just use my belt. And you didn’t take that.”
I say it with a smile, to show I’m not angry. I just want to let him know that this system doesn’t work. He looks me up and down, says nothing, then writes something in my folder. I’m never getting that razor back.
“Come with me,” insists a green-smocked woman—rail thin and sinewy, with unkempt blond hair and sun-damaged skin. She introduces herself as a nurse technician and leads me to a private room.
She wraps a blood pressure cuff around my arm. “We need to take your vitals four times a day for the next three days,” she says. Her eyes are dull, the words mechanical. This is what she does all day, every day.
“Why is that?” I ask. Too many questions. I can tell they don’t like them here. But I’m just trying to understand. This isn’t how I thought things were supposed to go. When I visited rehab to see a rock guitarist I was writing a book with, it seemed like a cross between a country club and overnight camp.
“We get a lot of people withdrawing and we want to make sure they’re going to be okay,” she explains. She listens to my pulse and lets me know my blood pressure is high.
Of course it’s fucking high, I want to tell her. I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life. You’re taking away all my shit and treating me like I’m going to die. Withdrawing from sex isn’t going to kill me.
But I stay quiet. And I submit. Like a good cheater.
She gives me a pager I’m supposed to wear at all times, in case they need me in the nursing station. Then she thrusts one form after another in front of me—patient rights, privacy, liability, and the rules. More fucking rules. One paragraph forbids me from having sex with any patient, nurse, or staff member. The next says that patients may not wear bikinis, tank tops, or shorts—and must wear bras at all times.
“So I have to put on a bra?” I joke, futilely trying once more to show how stupid their rules are.
“It’s kind of silly,” the nurse concedes, “but we have sex addicts in here.”
The words escape from her mouth with scorn and fear, as if these sex addicts are not normal patients but creepy predators to beware of. And suddenly I realize that the alcoholics and junkies have nothing on me: They harm only their own bodies. I am after the bodies of others. I’m the worst of the worst. Other addicts can’t find drugs in rehab, but my temptation is here. It is everywhere. And anyone in flirting distance must remain vigilant, lest I prey on them.
“Do you have any suicidal thoughts?” she asks.
“No.”
She clicks a box on the computer and a form appears titled Promise Not to Commit Suicide.
She thrusts a small digital pad and a stylus toward me and asks me to sign the form.
“What are you going to do if I kill myself? Kick me out for lying?”
She says nothing, but I notice her dig the nail of her index finger into her thumb. I think I’m annoying her. It’s the questions. The fucking questions. They don’t like them here. It’s because questions are powerful: The right question can expose the flaws in the system.
But I sign. And I submit. Like a good cheater.
She looks over my file on the computer, sees something that evidently surprises her, then turns the monitor away from me and quickly types a few words. I’ve only been here twenty minutes, and on relatively good behavior considering, and I’m already in the doghouse. And that’s