PUA style tactics are predominantly a reverse-engineering of naturalistic behaviors. PUAs didn't invent status games, they just try to copy them.

On what population do you base your view of "typical social behavior"? I do think that bars and clubs are pretty representative of the behavior of extraverts of average IQ. This is just what extraverted 100 IQ homo sapiens do when you put them in a room with a little ethanol. Such behavior may not be representative of the average introvert who is lower in sensation-seeking, but average IQ extraverts are a pretty big slice of humanity.

Bars and clubs may contain a disproportionate amount of status behavior, but this is just on the higher end of the continuum of status behavior among typical homo sapiens.