On his latest podcast (dedicated to his new book Below The Belt) Tom Torero talks about how the player is necessarily selfish.
Well, you can’t very well not commit to anyone, or anywhere (many true players are location independent, remember), and do exactly what you want all of the time and not be branded selfish. Selfishness (despite the pejorative connotation of the term) is central to the ‘playboy entrepreneur’ lifestyle, which people like Tom, and I suppose myself, are embarked upon.
The mistake the non-player makes, though, is to assume that his counterpart has no feelings and that this is all a jolly jape to him, as he darts from one willing seductee to the next.
Of course, that’s not the case. Well, perhaps it is the case for those more sociopathic than me (or those who are simply more disciplined, and who say goodbye more quickly). But in my case, as you will know if you have followed this blog for a while, I have a tendency to become overly-attached to the women I meet, which makes it hard for me when they finally leave.
Because, make no mistake, they all leave in the end. Unless I leave first.
Why? Simply because no woman (or very few) are really willing to tolerate the playboy bachelor long-term (unless you are playing some very at-arms-length, dark triad games, which I prefer not to do, despite my bestselling book on the subject).
It’s not hard to understand why. Because really, what’s in it for them?
I, in particular, am damaged goods.
I am probably one of those ‘toxic bachelors’ that you see written about on websites aimed at women.
Not because I am a bad person. I genuinely don’t believe I am. I am (and it should go without saying) in no way misogynistic and I love the company of women. And when I begin to date someone, even casually, I find myself quickly protective of them.
If anything, if you were privy to my real-life, non-online dealings with women, you would probably conclude that I venture too readily into dreaded ‘nice guy’ territory.
Well, whatever. I’m not really bothered about winning any player medals.
What bothers the girls I interact with, though, is my utter incapability of holding down anything like a conventional relationship.
For one thing, I have always—since I was a child—found the very notion of marriage and suchlike to be stiflingly twee and bourgeois.
If moving to the suburbs and curtain-twitching with the masses had been my ambition I would have done it ages ago, and I wouldn’t have lived this exclusively urban and somewhat unusual life.
There was a time, though, many years ago, where I probably could have ‘settled down’ and got married, and yes, had kids.
Increasingly, it feels like that time has past. Not because I am too old (although look, let’s not be under any illusions here, I’m certainly pushing it). But more because somewhere along the way something snapped inside, and I am all but certain that I no longer have the patience (or desire) to endure a domesticity that was always going to have been punishing for me anyway.
The clearest evidence I have of this was how I felt when I lived with my ex girlfriend for all of six months back in 2016.
I am not saying it was all bad. In fact, in a way (if I had only been able to let myself go and relax into it) there was something rather wonderful about it.
To live with a woman who told me she loved me every morning when we were still in bed together, who cooked for me (not that I’m a trad who insists on that or anything. But you know, it’s nice to feel looked after sometimes) and who was there for me when I cam home was . . . well, it was pleasant.
I remember walking around my apartment, gazing at the unfamiliar feminine things there—clothes, accessories and so no—and thinking how alien they seemed to me, a man who has effectively eschewed close female contact all of his life.
But the anger that started to build up in me. The fear. The frustration that—by my own actions—I had imprisoned myself in this situation which I was immediately unsure of.
We lasted for six months cohabiting before I asked her to leave. That, for various reasons, was a traumatic period, and not one I look back on with fondness.
Actually, it was horrible.
And with the benefit of hindsight, now that everything has been said, and I have not heard her voice for over eighteen months, and it is very unlikely we will ever meet or have any contact again, did I make the right decision?
I dunno.
What does ‘right’ mean anyway?
***
Because we lived together (albeit for a brief period) that particular affair was a little more dramatic than others I’ve experienced. More recently, it has just been a case of people drifting away from me. Not because they are angry with me, or even particularly upset, but because they come to realise, sooner or later, that I’m simply never going to be able to give them what they want.
And then all that remains are the photographs on my hard drive, the memories of this or that evening, the sound of their voices, a mental photocopy of the way they looked at me . . . and the silence.
Always, in the end, when I close the door of my room, and sit down to write, the silence returns. And it is all I have. For that is all I ever wanted. That silence.
I suppose.
And if you want cutting-edge tips on how YOU too can escape the rat race, live a life of freedom, travel and date beautiful girls then sign up for my DAILY email here.
