The curious, cautionary fates of many of the guys who go deep into game and Internet

They are telling you something, if you listen

Tom Torero has died, and he is said to have died by suicide. RIP. I don’t recall when or how I first started reading him, but it was many years ago, and I bought some of his books. I remember finding both DAYGAME and BELOW THE BELT (neither seem available on Amazon right now, sadly) amusing and at times inspiring. Yet, like many guys interested in these matters, there seemed to be a thread of darkness running through Torero soul + writings. He was smart, and I'm saddened by his passing.

There is a line of intellectual descent running through many guys interested in pickup or seduction, and it seems many guys found Torero’s work. Right now, the TomTorero.com domain seems dead, and I wonder if anyone has a backup of his material.

A few years back, Torero asked if I’d be on his podcast: for reasons of anonymity, I said no. I listened to some episodes. If he’d been born centuries ago, he might have been a priest, or a heretic, the line between those two positions being thin. Heresy attracts me.

I'm saddened, and have read some of the memorials devoted to Tom, and I'm also thinking about others who have trod, if not his path, then paths adjacent to him: Roosh found god and has become... a curious personage, to be polite, although many less-polite descriptions are possible. As of 2016, he was living in his mom’s basement, which, as you will see from the link, is more than a little emasculating. If you wish to have Roosh exhort you to find god yourself and stop sleeping with hot chicks, you can now do so, since he’s repented from pickup… I don't personally wish to.

Another guy, Goldmund (“Goldmund Unleashed,” although his website is gone), tried to monetize game and being a game coach for a number of years, before disappearing for a while and then coming back around, apparently in some kind of spiritual/religious cast, after family tragedy. I find his recent work and exhortations... not compelling. That he's done a 180 is notable: Why should we believe he won't randomly change again? He is scientifically and technically illiterate, something he shares with others in this space. The family tragedy is sad and I hope he and his family heal as best they can.

Neil Strauss wrote THE TRUTH, then got divorced after it. It's not clear what he's up to these days, though I've heard reports he's lonely and obsessed with cam girls. Could be false. I now read Strauss’s THE GAME as a brilliant book, still, but a cautionary tale. Mystery has a peculiar Wordpress site up now, with some older videos; he seems to have (mostly) disappeared.

A fellow named Jack Murphy isn't a game seduction artist guy, exactly, from what I understand, but he was into game-adjacent men's development. He appears to have written an article about being into being cuckolded... and he made some prostate stimulation videos, which someone or someones dug up. I dunno, if that's what a guy is into, fine, so be it, but it would seem to me that if that's what he's into, he's better off owning it.

Murphy has, or had, the problem of selling faux-masculinity to rubes, and his audience won't accept those parts of him. He exists in a space where the audience wants a kind of fantasy, and is most interested in guys willing to sell that fantasy. He ceased being an avatar of that fantasy and now seems to be cast from his fold.

Pat Stedman participated in the 6 January 2021 insurrectionist riot in an attempt to overthrow a presidential election, and possibly murder senators along the way. He was convicted of a felony for his role. Does that sound like a sound, well-balanced person to you? Or, read this piece on him. He wrote, “As I write this in 2023, only two friends from my life before 2016 have wanted to keep in contact with me: one from childhood, one from college. Two people out of 200.” Does he have no idea why most people are unhappy with a person who wants to end two and a half centuries of the peaceful transfer of political power? “I hacked my ex-girlfriend to death, and now people don’t like me anymore. WHY?!?!?”

Roy Walker said in February 2022, "Well, I think Putin had full rights to invade [Ukraine], whats the difference between Rus/UK vs The West/Libya?" I guess Walker is an apologist for murderous dictators.

Krauser advocates for genocide, pretends the Holocaust didn't happen, and openly admires actual fascists. Maybe he is an edgy 4chan troll... but he is pretty old for that.

This man’s story of borderline personality disorder (BPF) isn’t the same as the ones above, but it is raw and darkly beautiful and worth reading.

And then there is this guy.

How many of the guys speaking online are "Internet people?"

By the company you keep, you shall be known.

Some of the guys most attracted to this world are either driven mad by it, or that those with some madness within them already are attracted... one can see a kind of madness and tribalism in response in rampant science denialism. Many claim to have found The Secret... only for those same guys to recant and reject the previous "Secret" a few years later.

I'm not denying the power of the seduction arts, or the power of understanding evolutionary biology, or of attempting to learn about female behavior and psychology. But this post is about the utility of looking deeply at a person's life and trajectory, before buying into whatever they are pitching. That is one reason I encourage guys to consider status or coolness first, and one could add the words "accomplishment" or "achievement." It may be that the guys who get most into this are too outsider for too longer, to the detriment of their own development and growth.

Life has many seasons. For most guys, there is a season in life for game and chasing women and getting laid, but for very few guys should that be life's only season. Most guys seem to have two to five years of hardcore chasing women in them, and then they focus on other things.

Many of the smartest and most competent guys in this space live in it for a little while, up to a few years, and then evolve out of it. Mark Manson started as a pickup guy, then moved on to generalized self-development and social skills. Wayne Elise used to be known as the pickup artist "Juggler," and now writes other material. The “Charisma on Command” guy moved on from pickup.

A lot of guys spend some time in pickup world, they beat that game, and then they evolve into some other world. These guys also probably realize the small total addressable market (TAM) of pickup and game specifically. The smart, sane guys get in this area, do it for a few years, and exit. They use the skills they’ve developed for other ends. The less sane guys, the ones with more psychological problems, often stay for decades.

Very few guys actually want to be seduction artists, and  the overwhelming majority interested in this area want to get acceptable girlfriends, so, for the average guy, he learns enough game / pickup / fitness / whatever to get a girlfriend, and then he quits. This reduces TAM.  The market size is limited, and, for most purple-pill guys talking about game and whatever, there's a lot of natural churn as guys succeed.

And that is not even taking into account the reputation assassination as practiced by online haters.

For guys looking at the Torero exit, if things are going poorly, or if you are experiencing a midnight of the soul, reach out. To someone. Anyone. Life will have helpers in unexpected places (though you too will be expected to help others, in your own time). Life needs a balance of giving and taking, and I fear that some guys attracted to this space are over-fond of taking, and not fond enough of giving or building. It is of course a mistake to give away too much value. But I think we are built for mutual reciprocity and small groups: two things less foregrounded today than they were in the past. I'm not saying the past was great (I wouldn't have wanted to marry some chick when I was 20 and stayed with her forever), but there are elements of the past we should consider. Life design today is the individual's responsibility, and with responsibility comes risk.

Balaji likes to say that the internet increases variance. It tends to shred real-world community bonds, but the Internet people are not a substitute for your real-world family or friends. I'm not saying we should go back to a pre-Internet world, but we should contemplate what extreme variance does to the human psyche. What it does is not always good, though it can be. Torero and many other guys writing about game enabled me to achieve incredible heights with chicks, the kinds of heights I'd not have thought possible at say 19 or 23. Pre-Internet, I probably would've gotten married in my 20s, and ignored that nagging feeling of underperformance, gotten divorced in my late 30s, never fully realized what could go right. I've learned much, and Red Quest is an attempt to pay some of that learning forward.

Many guys neglect building larger communities and families, because they want to pursue the game. Contrast that with someone like Paul Janka, who was a very successful player for years, and then did something else. I'm not saying his way is the only way or the right way, but the difference between him and the guys in it for the very long haul matters.

The best people, the more you know them, the more admirable they become. Many people, as you know them better, reveal aspects of themselves that aren't so good. You're the top five people you spend time with and around. Pick with care. Remember the Internet isn't the real world. Many people who spend too much time online have problems. Those problems tend to leak out over time.

All of us want our lives to be meaningful, though what "meaningful" means may vary at different points in life. To attempt to forever pursue the game, seems to either attract guys who have other challenges, or to present other psychological challenges to guys, or maybe both. At the bottom of game and red pill is a question: "What does it mean to live a good life?" Developing skills with women is one part of that, but pursuing that throughout the lifespan likely leads to diminishing returns. Life, like calculus, is about change. Choose your idols carefully.

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Check out this, about the “Red Pill,” from someone else who gets it…

A healthy relationship with both parents and a normal adolescent romantic awakening: no “red-pill” guru had both. Like all ideologies constructed around a master narrative to explain the world, “red-pill” concepts are founded on a grain of truth and distorted to massive proportions to attract a target audience. In this sense, the “red pill” is no different from Marxism, radical feminism, or any other ideology that preys on minds desperate for clarity in a world that is full of complexity.

It is true that, on average, there are biological and psychological differences between men and women that require a theory of mind to appreciate fully and that being aware of these differences can help bridge the gap between the sexes, especially in the context of a relationship. The “red pill” organizes some of these differences into a seemingly coherent worldview that serves as a basis to justify the manipulation of women by men to often unsavory ends.