The Truth

Welcome to my The Truth book summary!

One-Sentence-Summary: The Truth is every man’s journey through dating in his 30s—with one massive exception: unlike most men who struggle with women and settle in favor of dying alone, Neil Strauss, the world’s top pickup artist, has endless options and a much wider sexual menu along with a wise friend, Rick, and his one, Ingrid.

“There are crow’s-feet forming around my eyes; the creases of worry in my forehead are starting to turn into actual wrinkles; and I’m getting gray hairs in my beard. Maybe I’ve passed my peak. The decaying process has begun.” (p. 137) Written by Neil Strauss at aged 43 in 2012.

I’ve finished reading The Truth by Neil Strauss.

booboo real-time book rating: ★★★★★ (percentage of books with this rating: 8%)

For a few days, I couldn’t put this book down as if it was the newest Netflix special specifically released and designed to be binge-watched. While the first half was a nail-biter all the way through, part of my interest was relevant to me and my current life trajectory as it relates to dating. The story slowed towards the middle of the book through to the end during Strauss’s second go at healing himself and marriage. I think because it was all for naught. Stay with me.

The book is about sexual addiction and rehab, dating in your 30s and 40s, whether or not to settle when you have a lot of opposite-sex options, with the ultimate message being: yes. That message is toppled by the following timeline:

Neil writes the book based on experiences between 2011-2013

Neil married Ingrid in 2013.

Neil published The Truth in 2015. He also had his first child.

Neil divorced Ingrid in 2018.

“I wonder why I feel like I can’t handle marriage, but I can handle fatherhood.” (p. 159)

I read The Truth hoping for relationship answers to my own doubts. Hoping to prove myself wrong about why I think marriage, or moreso a lifelong required relationship requiring two people to live together, is no good today. Knowing that Neil is very similar to me, a thoughtful 37-year-old bachelor with no intention of marrying but to have children, I was hopeful that he would provide rational explanations to why, ultimately, a relationship with one person is the correct answer.

He failed at doing that.

So, let me put down what my current thoughts are on marriage and long-term relationships. I am not open to marriage because

• it makes you lazy in terms of physical health and socially
• people naturally grow apart over time and should not be required to spend their life together if the resulting life would be much worse (keyword: much) than the alternative. Marriage today seems to end badly. Why not have a long-term relationship and end on good terms? Being married doesn’t mean you will end badly, but something about it seems to increase the probability of it ending poorly, and how sad! After building something with someone for 5 or 10 or 50 years for it to be thrown away, maybe along with some friendships too.
• in the best-case scenario, your wife becomes your best friend, which is to be expected after living together for decades. You don’t have sex with your best friend.
• if the man is wealthy but not uber wealthy ($100M+), the financial strain would be catastrophic in the event of a divorce given the court system favors women.

I am open to a long-term relationship with the understanding that I could leave, and she could, at any moment, but that we will still be friends for life. That’s what it means to be in a long-term relationship with me: I can guarantee that we will always be friends until our deathbeds. I will treat this and all relationships similar to how I would treat employment – if a much better opportunity arises, I will try it so I don’t regret anything. I will leave that past employer/relationship on the very best of terms, and may even return to it.

I am open to having a child with a willing woman who is mentally stable, intelligent, and will be a great mother with my financial backing, as long as my role would be more to that of an uncle. I will still be the child’s father, but I will not live in the house. That way the child will see me as a superhero instead of all my warts they’ll see if they’re around me 24/7. I want to say yes to playing with them more than I say no. The child will respect me if the mother respects me and I am an exemplary human. I also want to hedge my bet, not having to raise a child and forgo my own life for 10 or 15 years, when the child may grow up to be a drug addict, or to never want to see his parents again. This is what seems to happen to most families so I’d like to avoid this and prefer spending time when the child is older.

“‘Your problem is that you still think of love and sex as things that have to go together,’ his friend said. ‘You need to separate them. Start a family with a good platonic friend who’s your own age and keep sleeping with whoever you want.'” (p. 304)

On What True Love Is

“‘..true love is wanting your partner to have whatever she wants- whether or not you approve of it.'” (p. 168)

“‘Don’t trade long-term happiness for short-term pleasure.'” (p. 389)

Neil Strauss’s Father’s Fetish

Regarding his father’s fettish with gimp-legged women, that’s the most unimportant detail I’ve ever read. Strauss spins one of the book theme’s about this being a problem.

Should a short person with a tall-person fetish be belittled (pun intended)? What about someone who prefers asians, is that ok? Or chicks with dicks and/or big tits? Is someone who likes midgets a grey area?

The fact that his father has a sexual preference makes no difference to how he was raised.

On Lifelong Relationships

“Adam, and most people, seem to believe that if a relationship doesn’t last until death, it’s a failure. But the only relationship that’s truly a failure is the one that lasts longer than it should. The success of relationships should be measured by its depth, not by its length.” (p. 333)

Helen Fischer, a renouwend relationship expert and historian, had this to say about modern relationships and monogamy: “The solution, she elaborates, is for couples to do novel and exciting things together (to release dopamine and get the romance rush), make love regularly (to release oxytocin and sexually bong), cut themselves off from cheating opportunities, and, in general, make sure their partners are ‘continually thrilling’ enough to keep all three drives huming. / ‘Wow, that’s a lot to ask of two people,’ I tell her. / ‘Yes, and even then you still may want to sleep with other people on the side,’ Fisher retorts. ‘So if you’re gonna cheat, for god’s sake, don’t get caught.'” (p. 142)

“According to evolutionary theory, it’s supposed to be men who are wired to get more upset when a women has sex with someone else because his genes won’t be passed on if he raises children who aren’t his’ women have supposedly evolved to get more upset when a man has an emotional affair because of the fear of losing his support and protection.” (p. 267)

“‘Even if they have a best friend, that doesn’t mean they can’t have other friends. And that’s the way the people at this part think of seual relationships.” (p. 269) Same thing with a mother being able to love equally more than one child.

“..telling me that her feelings for Mike are gone. When I ask why, she says, ‘I think it’s because I’ve felt filled up by you since our talk.'” (p. 342) This was about Neil and Sage’s open relationships and Mike is the guy she met and fooled around with on the plane. If you want to have very long-term relationships, you must be understanding and allow your partner to make mistakes, and always be reasonable and rational.

This blog will contain both my summary and review of the book The Truth.

On Lying Or Telling The Truth

When Sage cheated on Neil even though they were in an open relationship: “If she’d just told the truth, then it would have been my responsibility to deal with my reaction to it.” (p. 340)

On Experts

“..I’ve met a lot of so-called experts. Most are just people with a little experience and a lot of confidence who’ve give themselves a title with which they can fool the suggestible and dim-witted.” (p. 85) Beware of all experts. Have they been in SEO or a doctor for 25 years? Likely they’ve stopped keeping up to date on the latest and greatest. Do they have dozens and dozens of reviews for their program or service? As an entrepreneur, I know that the bigger you grow your business, the more positive reviews you’ll have no matter what. Positive reviews don’t make the thing good, except for maybe book reviews in the thousands.

As I read the book, you will find my in-progress Influencing review and book summary notes below.

To Help With Last-Minute Resistance

“Many women think that if they put out too quickly, their partner won’t respect them. This is not the case. It’s not about waiting for a certain quantity of times before having sex, bit’s about waiting for a certain quality of connection.” (p. 192)

“Doctors used to claim there was a disease called drapetomina-a disorder in which slaves were seized by the irrational and pathological desire to be freed from their masters.” (p. 140)

You are reading my book review and summary by Neil Strauss. Be sure to check out my digital bookshelf for 100+ book summaries.

Did you know I’m an author? I wrote four books on real estate investing, travel, and language learning.

New Words

Grok (v) – understand something intuitively (can you grok what I’m saying?)

Sisyphean (adj) – an impossible thing (Part of boot camp is Sisyphean tasks to break down the hearts and minds of the future soldiers)

Non sequitur (n) – a conclusion that doesn’t logically follow from the prior statement (that is an odd non sequitur from what he just said)

Anhedonia (n) – inability to feel pleasure (He was in a state of anhedonia following his breakup.)

Thanks for visiting and thanks to Neil Strauss for writing The Truth!

Date Started: Friday, April 11, 2025

Date Finished: