“The Game” is up for Jian Ghomeshi

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Could this book (or another cheesy, overpriced volume just like it) be on Jian Ghomeshi’s shelf, right next to the now-infamous “Big Ears” teddy bear? I don’t know for sure…yet. But if this National Post report holds true, it looks an awful lot like the recently fired CBC radio host has been taking leaves from just such books. They may look harmless, but they are NOT. They are practically manuals for the physical and mental abuse of women. And the behaviors they endorse make ideal cover for a sadistic sociopath, as well as giving him fast-track access to more victims.

Take, for instance, this description of how Jian allegedly trolled for dates:

The woman, now 35, also said she observed some unusual dating strategies by Mr. Ghomeshi. He would search for messages about him posted on Twitter or Facebook by women who appeared attractive, then contacted them directly, she said.

“He did this every single night,” the former producer said. “He was soliciting non stop. It was his playground.”

“Soliciting non stop”? That, right there, is something pickup artists do all the time. It’s a numbers game to them. Whenever they see an attractive single woman, they try to move in on her. That flashy, handsy guy at the club, the one who keeps oozing around from one woman to the next, always getting too close for comfort but never within striking distance of a good hard No? Probably one of them. Jian has been described in similar terms.

And he’s far from alone.

The point of “The Game”, insofar as there is one, is to “seduce” any woman who’s not nailed down. The strategies vary, but the basic objective is the same: Chat up as many ladies as you can, try to get their phone numbers…and whatever else you can out of them. Uncomfortable escalations of physical contact are common in “The Game”, and are meant to lead to only one thing…and it is not real intimacy. To a PUA, sex isn’t something you do (with a willing and happy partner), it’s something you “get”, by hook or by crook, from a person who is (understandably) reluctant to “give it up”. And the implication of that, if you’ve read any of their sleazy writings, is that the man gains, and the woman loses. Fun, wow.

PUAs are ubiquitous sex pests. And they’ve existed, in some form, throughout history; Casanova was the prototype of the modern PUA, and Don Juan is the archetype. I’m so old (ha, just two months younger than Jian!) that I can remember sleazeballs who spouted corny pick-up lines at women being the butt of many a silly movie or TV sitcom. (The punchline invariably came when their targets shot them down.)

But with the advent of the Internet, they’ve become much more organized. They also have a greater volume of women to pick on, and thanks to social media they can do it at high speed. The danger they pose has grown exponentially, but — thankfully — so have the means of organizing a resistance. Last December, the Eaton Centre in Toronto was slated to be the scene of a PUA “training” session, in which hordes of harassers tried to put the teachings of their “seduction guru” into practice by hanging out in front of stores known to be frequented by teenage girls and women in their early twenties, and throwing their hastily rehearsed spiels at anyone unlucky enough to be in their path. They were foiled by an alert group of Torontonians on Reddit, who in turn alerted the mall’s security staff. The PUAs had move their harassment — oh sorry, “day game” — operations elsewhere.

Sometimes, PUAs use “seduction” strategies only as preliminaries to an actual relationship — the idea being to get lots of dates, and hope that something eventually sticks. Many of them drop out once they find a steady girlfriend, and some come to regret their gloopy phases. But even when they’re involved, some others are still playing games. The idea there, it seems, is to control women by keeping them guessing, presumably so that they don’t lose interest and wander off with someone better. Or so that they become subservient, cowed, afraid of losing the loser who’s got his hooks in them. Or to string them along as one of several, playing each off against the other(s). And here, again, we see shades of that last “game” in Jian Ghomeshi’s skeevy behavior at CBC:

At work, the former Q employee said the host would usher her into his office and talk about personal matters, leading her to think she was a friend and not just his colleague. But he would also play her off against another young, female producer, she said, treating one nicely and the other very unkindly one week, switching roles the next.

She said she and the other employee would take turns crying in the privacy of a nearby disabled washroom.

Nice, eh? Classic PUA abuser strategy, right there. Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry. Well “played”, Jian.

By the way, this is the same young woman who also says she endured Jian’s butt-groping and “hate-fucking” remarks on the job. And it sounds like he did a bit of gaslighting on the side, too:

Then during a script “read-through” meeting when she kept yawning, Mr. Ghomeshi said quietly, “I want to hate f— you to wake you up.” Later he talked of wanting to “grudge f—” her.

Two years later in 2009, he reached out and groped her bottom as she passed his desk, saying “I couldn’t help myself.”

That, of course, is straight-up bullshit. Did his hand just suddenly develop a mind of its own, à la Dr. Strangelove? No. He was on the other end of it, in control at all times. And since we now all know what a control freak he is, the excuse that he just suddenly lost control at the sight of a woman’s pretty little derrière won’t wash. This is another classic abuse-and-control strategy: Say “I couldn’t help myself” after doing something you know perfectly well to be abusive and unacceptable in the workplace, so that the victim feels guilty and to blame, and sorry for you, too. Make her second-guess herself constantly. That way, she’s less likely to complain to management and get your ass fired.

And that’s just one news story. There are others. Apparently, half of young Toronto has gotten creeped on by Jian at some point or other…or knows somebody who has. Word gets around. Women — and men, too — have been warning vulnerable young ladies away from him for friggin’ YEARS. Jeebus, this dude even majored in Women’s Studies; talk about your perfect places to learn all the right “politically correct” pickup lines!

And now he’s on the verge of becoming a very lonely man indeed. Since Lucy DeCoutere and Reva Seth have come out publicly to denounce him, the tide has shifted against him, just as I predicted yesterday. Lights has dumped him as her manager, and Amanda Palmer won’t be letting him tag along on her book tour, either. His promoter and “crisis management” firm have both deserted him. CBC just now revealed that it even has ironclad video evidence against him. (Oops, so much for that $55 million “defamation” suit, eh Jian? Ha, ha.) Rumor has it he’s currently scurrying around in Los Angeles, where fewer people know him…or his grungy history. (Heads up, LA ladies!)

The problem with making “The Game” your lifestyle, fellas, is that it inevitably backfires. Karma’s a bitch, and she’s got your number; lord knows you gave it away often enough!

And in Jian’s case, that bitch just bit him right on the ass. Non-consensually, as Karma is so often wont to do.

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