Over a decade ago a young, clumsy college graduate named Roosh started DC Bachelor, a blog devoted to his attempts at meeting and dating women in Mordor-on-the-Potomac. His pursuit fit into a larger trend of “game theory,” an Internet subculture which, depending on whom you ask, is either a disgusting and worrisome current of misogynistic rape culture or a heroic grassroots information-sharing response to the sociological confusions that feminist tyranny generates.

Roosh approached his personal dating malfunctions single-mindedly. He had severe difficulty talking to women and approached this obstacle by regularly trudging out into the battlefields of night clubs and coffee shops, doing his best to approach and gain the interest of the women he saw, then trudging home to write plainly about what he experienced, down to the grittiest detail of stomach-churning failure.

“I think ego is a hindrance to realizing truth,” Roosh told me via email. “And the quickest way to demolish my ego is to broadcast all my personal failings. It’s hard to learn from experiences if there is an ego filter trying to shield you from emotional pain or discomfort. Lessons you end up learning will be weak and lacking real wisdom….I also think it’s ironic that the more you hide, in order to make yourself look accomplished, the less human you come across and the less trust you build with your readers.”

Instead of panicking when he eventually lost his anonymity, Roosh’s activity intensified. He made up his mind to turn freelance blogging, international travel, and picking up girls into a self-supporting lifestyle and career. He has succeeded. He has published at least thirteen books narrating his adventures from Argentina to Latvia and explaining to confused men the very basics of meeting women. His new website is Return of Kings, where Roosh and his most articulate readers help cultivate the peer-to-peer Internet renaissance of masculinity during its overall decline and disarray in the West.

His first trip through Eastern Europe was punctuated by his vicious exposure in national media outlets and open challenges from furious women, suspicious immigration authorities, and aggressive neo-Nazis. Yet after less than a month stateside he was ready to re-up for another tour. “Going to an American club or bar is torturous compared to these Eastern European venues where girls put out warm vibes without getting their rocks off on rejecting men.” Such is romance in a setting that is postindustrial yet pre-feminist.

He has toured at least twenty countries and “interviewed” hundreds of local women. He lays out his knowledge derived from trial-and-error experience. (“Estonian girls have the strongest English while Lithuanian girls have the weakest.” “Polish girls are shy about being affectionate in public.” “Icelandic girls have a very loose concept of fidelity, meaning she’ll definitely cheat on her Icelandic boyfriend for a guy she knows isn’t staying long.”)

He continues to publish raw and borderline-pornographic accounts of nightlife pursuits in various countries, often favoring smaller, cheaper second-tier cities over large cosmopolitan metropolises.