Dec 14 2017 12/14/2017 12/15/2017 97Comments by Nash

Tom Torero is a Thief | Street Hustle Book Review

Posted in

This a review of Tom Torero’s Street Hustle daygame textbook. This post is about his book. But maybe more so, it’s an attempt for me to unpack why I don’t trust or respect that guy. Not anymore.

There are different kinds of men in the world. I’ve met a lot of guys in the community. Some of them weird or sketchy. That’s real.

Mostly, the guys I’ve met via pickup are solid guys. I credit Rivelino for emphasizing camaraderie among this community of players. I’m on board with that, 100%. We have a great opportunity to help each other, to share, and to get better.

I’ll continue with a quote by a truly great man:

“What is true belongs to me! Whatever is well said by another, is mine.”
— Seneca

I like that quote. And I have several smart and insightful quotes from Tom below… but unlike Seneca, in no way do I think Tom’s a great man. That’s where I’m going with this post.

I’ll jump into the review in a minute… but before I do, I want to acknowledge that Seneca’s quote is about how the truth can come from anywhere. And if it’s sound, we claim it as our own. This is the nature of truth… it belongs to no one, and can be accessed and harvested by anyone with their eyes open enough to see it.

And there is also a difference between “claiming the truth” for yourself, and claiming yourself as the truth. Or in Tom’s case, passing off the truth of others as your own. That’s not subtle, it’s easy to understand. I’ll make that point in more detail below.

……………….

Warming up…

It is very clear to me that in the small pond of the daygame world, Tom is a big fish. I don’t doubt his skill as a daygamer for one second. In person or via his materials, he has moments as a great coach. We all know his stuff. And the reason we know that material… is because much of it is good. We can verify the “truth” of what he is preaching with our own experience.

Here are ^ some of the products from Tom that I personally own. If they look a little well-worn, it’s because I carried them around and read every page. And I also paid good American dollars for his Stealth Seduction video product. I bought these not out of charity, but because I was interested in how Tom could point to the truth.

I continue to think Tom can point many of us in the right direction.

But over the last year or so… when I think of him, I get a little bit sick to my stomach. That’s been the basic feeling. And I’ve been genuinely curious as to why? I used to love the guy. These days, as his name comes (and it does, so often), I’m constantly choking back the urge to spit when I hear someone mention him.

Why?

It’s his character.

For me… he is (has become?) another shady guy in the community. It doesn’t mean I can’t learn from him. But more and more when I think of him, it’s like asking a drug dealer for directions… he can tell you the way… but I wouldn’t shake his hand. That’s how I feel about “Sneaky Tom.”

And after starting off as a serious fan of his contributions to daygame, I just about have it sorted out as to why I think so little of him at this point…

I bought Street Hustle over a year ago. I wanted to see what he would put into his first non-memoir book (Beginner Daygame was more like a pamphlet). But as my distaste for the guy had started to set-in… I wasn’t super excited to read anything by him.

My reasons for reading this book at all were mostly about using it as a way to keep me thinking. I wanted to review his structure as a way to check my assumptions, to inspire me, and to keep me in the culture of daygame (which I love very much). Reading the book helped me in all of those areas.

……………….

Getting into the review…

The book has very nice overall production value and is divided into three parts. Part 1., His “Introduction,” which is all context, what Krauser might call “windwank” or what is otherwise lecture-style material. Then Part 2., His “Toolkit,” which is an attempt to cover everything from the approach, to texting, to dating, to marriage. And then in Part 3., He lists and answers “The Most Common Questions.” That “question and answer” part does something smart… much better than just concepts. That’s definitely the best part of the book, by my standards.

Like Stealth Seduction, this book is NOT about daygame. It has good coverage of the topic, but Tom tries to bite off the entire mating/dating universe in this book. My wing Sundance comments that that range of subject matter should be done in a multi-volume set, not mashed into one book. I think Sundance is right.

I was disappointed in Stealth Seduction (his video product), in that is was hours of boring date conversation (like hours and hours and hours), when you might expect more daygame. This book is better than his video product (much better, actually), but has that same disconnect of relatively low amount of daygame. That is a weakness for me, and it could be a strength for some kid that has no dating or relationship experience.

I wouldn’t call anything about this book advanced. It’s a broad-spectrum primer. It is a “jack of all trades” approach, and that may be it’s strength, in some ways.

……………….

Let’s get into the positives…

Here are some of my favorite moments in the book, things that caught my eye or that I was resonating on at the time:

“Men advance; women retreat. Men go to leave; women block their exit.”
— pg45

This is a good place to start for me. I first heard this quote in one of Tom’s memoirs (I think), and I loved it. There is a lot of male/female psychology in that line… and it explains a lot about how the dance progresses. We’ll come back to this quote later…

“Between 2010 and 2012 I collected data from the hundreds of dates I went on, and I used the findings to determine my own dating model.”
— pg57

This ^ is how he introduced the “Torero Date Model.” That is a rebranding of a product he did when he was at Daygame.com (which he doesn’t mention, hmmmm). It was called the Girlfriend Sequence. I saw the video product years ago. I’ve been on a lot of dates, so this was all a little too basic and simple for me… but could be a gift if you’re new to dating. Tom does a quick text-only version of “his” model in the book.

“Game is a Trojan Horse that uses the promise of success with girls to break through to a better you.”
— pg79

This is super wise. And explains the path of so many of us in game as we start with “tactics” (outer game), and limp into doing the personal change (inner game) which is required to get good with women. We eventually become better men… or we don’t get very far at all. I’ve referenced this as “alchemy” before, same basic concept.

“It’s hard to judge where on the angel-devil spectrum a girl is at any point in time simply by looking at her… It’s important not to predict or judge, but to go and find out.”
— pg85

For me, this is a reminder not to let myself weasel because she looks bitchy or whatever. This is a big part of why I read the book… for this level of reminder. In comments like this, I feel like Tom is talking from experience, and I appreciate that POV. I still need to remember this when I’m on the street.

“GIRLS BEHAVIOR: She stops for a second then carries on.
FEEDBACK FOR HUSTLER: Paused before continuing on to Stacking.”
— pg129

This ^ is one of five examples of in a section on diagnostics. So this is about daygame (there is some specific daygame in this book). It’s in Part 2: Torero’s Hustle Toolkit > Street Hustle (which is his daygame section). That also gives you a sense of how the book is structured. The diagnostics are brief, but helpful.

“I’ve found that having more than 3 girls in your ‘harem’ at any one time in the same location is enough. If you’re sleeping with each girl once a week, it leaves almost no time or energy for going out and meeting new girls.”
— pg198

This is exactly my experience. This Spring, I had three girls in rotation for about a month or so, plus new dates with other girls… it was a little too much, and I certainly couldn’t take on more. I didn’t have much time or energy for daygame. These kind of notes from Tom can help to set long term expectations for what’s reasonable.

“Having more than one girl in your life, and multiple sources of affection, stops you feeling needy and inflating the value of girls.”
— pg198

This is a priceless lesson from game. This is still radically under-spoken and underappreciated. Most of us are trying to get *some* action, let alone multiple girls at once. And if you can get several girls spinning in your life… sounds like a chance to brag, sounds like a lot of sex (and it is)… but that really misses the point.

Lance Mason really taught me this lesson years ago. That “the first girl” quenches your “needs” at a chemical level. And then, once your basic needs of attention and affection and sex are met… each girl you meet, you can experience her for who she really is, beyond your needs. That is a powerful experience, and a very important milestone for men that make it that far in this game. Good stuff.

“A good rule of thumb for a guy is to not get married and have kids before the age of 35… Sleeping around in your youth isn’t just fun; it’s also an inoculation against the common regret that married men feel at having left the field without having really played.”
— pg201

Great advice. Love it. Agree 100%. I’m trying to extend that out to 50 years old… and for the exact same reasons he cites here.

“Pickup is just the outward manifestation of the core principles of inter-gender dynamics. It’s impossible to complete or retire from the Game, because “Game” is the definition of biological life itself; how males and females interact on Earth.”
— pg208

That’s some pretty jargon-heavy wording but I like that thought and I believe it. “There is no shelter from the SMP until the day you become totally disinterested in girls and social dynamics,” says Tom. True, true.

Okay, that’s some of what I liked about the book.

……………….

In terms of basic “weakness” of the book…

Street Hustle is too much generic “how to” and not enough examples. A lot of writing in the community is like that. I believe that Tom *has*, in fact, been on hundreds of dates, and he could have told us more from the perspective of those dates. That is one-of-a-kind detail… but instead, he gave us generalities.

Personal examples are the best things we have to offer, as men of game. Because that is how we cut through the bullshit of theory, into what is “field tested.” But more than that, your personal examples are your own. They literally belong to you. Being original is not the point of all this work (it’s about girls and growth). And if you’re not full of “original ideas” (and there is nothing “original” in seduction) you can take a pearl of wisdom and add your personal experience to it… and you’ve created something new. I respect that.

Tom does some of that in Street Hustle. There are couple of examples of situations or techniques:

On pg118 his “humble brag” example is a solid demonstration and gives you a taste for his humor (Tom can be funny). Then on pg119 he gives an explicit example about how to “close strong.” There are some moments when he goes beyond “lecture” and “theory” with relatable experience… that helps.

But even when he cites specific examples they are pretty generic. Like “say something like this” kind of advice. There is a difference between “an” example and something real from your life… there is almost nothing personal and real in this book, and that’s a weakness from my POV. Tom has plenty of that material that would make this book more uniquely his, why not use it?

To get a bit “gory” here, let’s talk about sex with a girl on her period (Tom does in the book).

Here is Tom’s treatment of the subject:

“It’s fine, we’ll put a towel on the bed.”
— pg193

For comparison, here is part of a Krauser story from Adventure Sex:

“I really dislike any talk of periods. As far as I’m concerned, girls are magical creatures who don’t piss, shit, bleed or vomit. Had this occurred a week earlier I’d have simply accepted it and arranged another date. However, I’d begun to buy into my own James Bond story. I wanted a conclusion. I asked her what day and if it was heavy, and she replied it was almost finished. ‘Have a shower,’ I said. ‘And see how you feel.'”
— Krauser, Adventure Sex

They are different types of books, to be fair… but the level of personal detail Krauser gives in his comments (the “bloody details,” so to speak) make the education more valuable to me (and more interesting). And Krauser (::spoiler alert::) fucked that girl. So the details have context. You should read that book. It’s excellent.

Tom also mentions the shower, but it’s in this dry “textbook” kind of way. There is no story. That makes Tom’s book a less effective teaching tool.

And then I could point to a few places where Tom generalizes too much:

“Once you’ve slept with a girl, the tables have turned and you’re now almost fully in control for a period of time.”
— pg196

Really? Not only does this *not* match my experience with women, but it sounds remarkable like what a 13 year old might say, if he’d overheard his older brother talking and missed all the subtly of the lesson. Sounds totally keyboard jockey to me. I wonder if Tom even believes that? I doubt he does.

I’ll be personal here and say that in my experience, when I was AFC, sex meant something (usually because it took me forever to get there, and if the girl stuck around, she was really into me). But now that I can fast-seduce… I end up with a lot of girls where the sex is not a big deal or it was a “trial basis” only. They “hit and run.” Tom’s knows this, I’m certain. I think he’s just passing out bullshit here. Out of laziness perhaps?? I don’t know. Not good.

“Create drama, not calmness.”
— pg270

So this… is some juvenile shit, IMAO.

“The more drama you cause, and the more tears she sheds, the greater her attraction and addiction to you.”
— pg301

This is garbage.

At some retarded level it might be true, and on specific instances, I bet it is very true. With low self-esteem girls, perhaps. But for most of us… is this the men we want to be? Again, Tom gives us absolutely zero examples of how this might be true in his actual experience.

And meanwhile… even if Tom believes what he wrote, I call BS on this kind of game. Lance Mason’s “Zero Drama Dating” sort of hints at different caliber of man (“Zero Drama”). And to practice what I preach here… I don’t have any drama in my relationships. I don’t. Drama is the reason I end relationships, it’s not how I keep them going. And to be clear… it’s the girls that bring the drama, not me. If you ever date Tom… I guess you’ll know what to expect.

……………….

Okay, that should give you a very good (and sober) sense for the nature of the book. I think I’ve been more than fair, up to this point.

Did I like it? Ummm, yeah, some. I wouldn’t read it again. I might refer to it (and I have already)… for it’s examples of daygame culture. And for a young friend of mine (he’s 19, very little sexual experience), I did recommend this book.

If you want a very general, very broad review of game… this is pretty good. If you want hard-hitting daygame, there is a certain “potato head” that is a much better source in terms of textbooks. And even Tom has much better material in his memoirs.

Alright… that’s enough.

……………….

Okay. I did my review. I tried to be fair and show several examples of good material, along with some honest criticisms I have of the book.

The juice for me on this post is about why I used to like Tom (and I really did), and why it is that I no longer do. Let’s get into that… and my rather intentionally insulting claim that Tom is thief — which I believe fully and will demonstrate below.

If he is a liar and thief (at some level), maybe you don’t care. That’s cool.

For me… I had been struggling to pin down why I used to like him, but now I want to “change the channel” whenever I hear his name. What changed for me?

The process of this post – and the thinking behind it – helped me sort that out.

……………….

When many of us first encountered Tom, it was while he was at Daygame.com. The backstory was he was the “nerdy Oxford gent” turned seducer. I liked that story. I believed it. I actually think that part is likely true (maybe), and was charming in it’s own way.

At some point, I think I remember Tom talking about how he had to change his wardrobe (am I making that up?). He was too “posh,” and was getting put in the “nice guy”/provider box too often. This is all casual recollection here on my part, so don’t quote me on this bit. But as I write this post, I think that is clue as to what happened to him.

Why does he make me sick when I think of him now? What is it that ruined him for me as a hero??

It wasn’t only that I did a very painful review of Tom’s Stealth Seduction video product. That product (which is the companion to this textbook) was gross to watch. Tom was gross. And I admitted over and over that I sound like he does on those dates in many ways. Maybe we’re all gross to watch as we try to ply girls out of their panties. I’m sure I am, sometimes. But it’s not just that…

There is something about his vibe…

I can’t shake it… that feeling like there is something disease-ridden about him… this sense of “I don’t trust that guy” has bubbled up around thoughts of him for the last year or so. What is that about?

I have been genuinely surprised and curious to change my mind about the guy.

Meanwhile… he is such a marketing whore that you can’t get away from him. If you’re into daygame (and I am), I would make the claim that no one in our space markets himself like he does. It’s not just that everyone I know in the scene talks about his material and quotes him… even I do it. I cite him all the time.

So as the days go by, and I get glimpses of him… I feel like I’m seeing behind the curtain a bit. Stealth Seduction was part of that. But this book made it clear…

It’s not just that Tom is a thief… but that is a clue.

Let’s break that down. We’ll start with the book:

It’s little things, like this:

“Tell her she has something on her face, and then pretend to remove it.”
— pg186

So that is part of how Tom teaches you “physical escalation.” That’s shit game, but that’s not my point.

I’ve been studying game for years. I owe so much to the smart, active guys before me. If you read this blog, you know I am constantly quoting other guys. So in that example above, I believe that is ripped off from Mystery, straight out of The Game, by Neil Strauss. That irks me a bit. Partly because it’s shit game and terrible, weak advice on how to get good with women. But mostly as that he is passing that off that “trick” as his own. Lame.

To be honest that’s a weak example, here’s another one from his book:

“If you see a girl three times a week, she’s your girlfriend. It doesn’t matter what you say to her or what she agrees to – she’s your girlfriend.”
— pg199

This is a really excellent point, and one that meant a LOT to me when I first heard it… but I first heard it in Zero Drama Dating by Lance Mason of Pickup101. This was almost 10 years ago. And that’s not a generic point about girlfriends.

Here is what Lance said at the time:

“The rule is: If you’re seeing someone, three times a week, you’re in love. Get over it.”
— Lance Mason, “No Drama Dating” (DVD2)

So Tom says “girlfriend” and Lance say “in love.” Not a perfect match… but no way I believe Tom just happened to be so close to Lance on that thought. It’s very specific, not a general pickup truism, and something I’ve never heard anywhere else but these two instances. It’s possible that Tom and Lance both took it from the same source (maybe something like “The Red Queen??”). It’s “borrowed” by Tom, I feel certain. And Lance said it better anyway.

As I read Street Hustle I kept having moments like this… these “borrowings.” They pissed me off, watching him pass this content off as his own insights. He looks like an ass in those moments.

And I hate to see a former hero look greedy.

Greed. That could be a big part of the story. His genuine notoriety isn’t enough for him. Despite his very real fame, he’s running around stealing from his brothers and claiming it as his own… when he doesn’t need any of that. And he is a long way off from camaraderie at that point.

This is a view into what I object to… he has no brothers. Everyone is a “mark” to him. Someone to rip off.

When I was writing about the Chinese Fashion Girl I picked up in NYC, I said I picked her up in TopShop (and I did). As I wrote that post, I was going to feature a comment or two about TopShop from the LDM guys. I never used a quote, but I did some research at the time:

Here is a guy named James Tusk talking about gaming in TopShop:

JAMES TUSK: You’re essentially in a brightly lit room, with a nightclub environment, because there’s loud music playing, and only girls
JAMES TUSK: Imagine if there’s a nightclub on planet earth like this, and you’re the only guy around, and absolutely loving it
— Aug02, 2017

Okay, cool, whatever.

But as I was looking for another quote, I found this:

TOM TORERO: Topshop’s like a nightclub just without alcohol or men – it’s three floors of girls all crammed into a small area, plus feel-good music pumping and zero competition.
— Aug03, 2017

So, I’m not sure who James Tusk is, but I have a pretty good idea that Tom knows who he is… as Tom wrote almost word for word what James said, exactly one day after James said it.

No, I don’t buy that as a coincidence. It’s blatant, nearly word for word. What are the chances Tom would reference TopShop as a nightclub, exactly one day after James said it… when they are essentially competitors, in the same market as daygame coaches?

What does that mean to me? I am imaging Tom is out scanning other guys stuff, intentionally looking for things he can steal. Like he wakes up… goes to the internet… intending to steal. That’s what he did on Aug03 this year.

Maybe some of these instances are, in fact, coincidences. But all of them? No way. It seems clear to me… Tom is a poacher.

He is so desperate (apparently) for content (maybe more than that) that he’s out actively pulling “game” out of other hunter’s traps. That’s gross. This is a good example of why Tom makes me sick as I get to know more about his character. I think this is exactly what Tom “smells” like. It’s foul.

So much for the “Oxford gentleman.” He’s plagiarizing. If he went to Oxford (and maybe he did not??), I’m sure he knows what it means to poach another man’s intellectual property. It’s small. And no matter how smart you actually are, it would get you kicked out of school.

And James is a relative unknown vs Tom’s reputation, so maybe Tom figured he could sneak off with that idea (which isn’t even worth stealing, but is clearly stolen, blatantly so).

How about this one, also from his book:

As part of the “10 Step Torero Physical Escalation Ladder” section (notice that he brands it “Torero,” he very much wants credit for “his ideas”), he talks about “Three Criteria”, and at that point, I already knew he was about to claim something that wasn’t his to claim:

“TOM TORERO: Tell her there are three things you love in a girl. The first is good smelling hair…”
“Tell her the second thing you like is a girl who doesn’t wear too much makeup. Say that the test for this is that if she kissed your hand and there’s a lipstick mark…
Finally, tell her you like a girl with a good taste in shoes…
“Explain that good taste in shoes means a good taste in underwear.”
— pg185 (the book came out in 2016)

Oh really? That’s a Torero technique, huh? Sounds pretty familiar to me:

BECKSTER: “The first one is I don’t like girls that wear too much makeup. There’s a little test we do, put a kiss here and it leaves a lipstick mark…
“I love girls with lush smelling hair…
“I have a third criteria, I really like girls that have good taste in shoes… do you know why?
“Because good taste in shoes means good taste in underwear.”
— From a London Saturday Sarge talk, 2012

So, for those of you that aren’t old school about all this, this routine may have come from someone else, but it was made popular by Beckster. His version is much better, and is used in the context of qualification, not escalation… but from there, Tom copies Beckster nearly word for word. Tom “cleverly” swaps point #1 and point #2, but otherwise… word for fucking word. This so shameless on his part. Ripping a super classic routine and calling it his… sad.

Maybe Tom doesn’t know who Beckster is, right?

Except anyone that has studied Tom (and I have) knows he studied Beckster. Like side by side in clubs together. This is all in Tom’s book Daygame.

tom torero steals from beckster

There it is… straight from Tom’s book. It’s got the word “Beckster” in the upper left corner, a pic of him, and the full routine.

Tom knows exactly where that routine came from, of course he does. Shameless. So, after learning from Beckster (winging him, I presume, at some level), Tom rips off his material and claims it as part of his “escalation ladder.” That is a classic routine that has absolutely nothing to do with Tom Torero.

For comparison, Beckster gives credit to other PUA types over and over in that talk… including a note to Ross Jeffries as he demo’s this routine. Not everyone in the business is a thief.

You warmed up yet? Let’s do one more… and this is the one that made me know I wanted to write this post:

“It’s a magic line that you can use on text or in person on a date, it’s a dirty trick and you just use the phrase ‘How normal are you?’ I use this a lot on text.”
— Tom Torero, Nov07, 2017

It’s a magic line alright. And Tom may use it on texts, and he is selling it hard as one of *his* dirty tricks, but he isn’t the slightest bit interested in pointing out where he got that line:

“The quickest seductions occur when the woman is thrown back in the defensive crouch. In fact, the line “So how normal are you?” could legitimately serve as an effective, all-purpose opener.”
— Heartiste/Roissy, May20, 2016

Roissy doesn’t give exact credit to the man that sourced that line (presumably to preserve the source’s anonymity), but he *does* say it was sent to him by a reader. Roissy is happy to deal out credit where it is due… he’s not such an ass he has to steal other men’s thoughts. Roissy is a great example of a pillar of game that consistently cites where his premises come from, and then… expands on them. Often, with specific and personal examples.

Let’s make no mistake here, Tom is very into getting credit for this stuff.

When he is busy stealing from Beckster in his “Escalate Ladder” stuff above, he makes it clear it’s the “Tom Torero Escalation Ladder.” In his dirty tricks video, he wants you to know that the “Miami plastic surgery” bit is “his routine.” He uses the word “patented” as well. Right after he steals that Roissy line, he talks about his “copyrighted” text opener.

So Tom is very aware that men have the right to recognition for their material… he wants that kind of credit for himself, that is obviously clear… but he will poach and steal from others.

Okay… so there is a fuck-ton of evidence.

The super weird part of all this is… Tom was already infamous for hiring an actress for a fake infield kiss-close (presumably to catch up to Yad… but Yad’s kiss was real).

Who cares about infields? Only us. Who is he lying to? He is lying to us:

“The latest scandal-of-the-week is that famous daygame instructor Tom Torero was caught out having hired an actress to appear in a “kiss close” video recorded outside Selfridges on Oxford Street in summer 2012.”
— Krauser, talking about Tom in Dec2014

The dude was already busted for lying to the daygame community. Why is he still doing shady shit? What the fuck, Tom? Seriously. It was a noisy big deal back in 2014, and he’s still continuing his trend of bullshit. Maybe not faking infields (although???), but appropriating other men’s work and passing it off as his own.

“What’s interesting to me is that over the years Tom has taught hundreds of students, and hundreds more have used the day game model he created with me (and others). Literally hundreds of people have seen Tom live in-set with their own eyes in unfakeable interactions. Hundreds have been live in-set themselves implementing advice they got from Tom and then seeing the effect it has on the girls. These people have enough direct evidence of their own eyes that (i) Tom’s daygame skills are for real and (ii) the London Daygame Model works, that the fact Tom got caught red-handed faking one infield doesn’t really matter. Yes, it was a bad thing to do. But no, it doesn’t shake their confidence in the model or Tom’s abilities as a coach.”
— Krauser

Krauser is correct here. It doesn’t mean anything about the LDM. Daygame is real. And I believe Tom is a very real and successful daygamer (I did a whole post about Tom’s NYC infields, which I assume aren’t all lies and fakery).

So why is Tom such a poacher?

Could there be anyone else with more legitimate content? More tales to tell about girls and game? Maybe, but not many. Tom should have more real experiences to share than almost any other daygamer. And yet… he does this ghetto shit.

“Tom is an elite-level daygamer, possibly more skilled than I am. You’re well within your rights to cut him off your ‘guy to listen to’ list after this video expose but if you do so you’ll be missing out.”
— Krauser

Even after what I know of Tom, I still agree with what Kruaser is saying here – although I sincerely doubt Krauser would say any of that about Tom today.

This is the point I was trying to make with that Seneca quote in the intro to this piece.

But if Tom is a recognized “king” in daygame… why would he run around and steal the towels from the hotels he stays at? Is that king-like behavior? No. It is not.

I’ll take a guess as to what is going on as Tom steals from other community guys over and over and over:

Tom is broken. Maybe he always was, but in the early days of his path of self-improvement it wasn’t obvious. But he’s broken now.

Maybe what is fucked up about that guy is crystallizing as he gains fame. This is an indication of his potential for a Britney Spears level melt-down. As he rises to the top, we see how shallow his roots are.

Perhaps he’s arrested. He’s *is* the “nerdy Oxford” type. He likely got picked on by other guys, including slimy guys, back in grade school. But he was never honorable. As his daygame career took off, he didn’t want to outgrow those slimy guys that picked on him when he was young… he wanted to *be* them. And now that he’s “made it,” he is the slimy guy. He’s arrived. These petty thefts from the pickup community aren’t out of character for him… they are his character.

This ^, of course, is all amateur psychology and speculation. I’m just guessing about the dude’s pathology.

But… we know the “stealth” and “hustle” and “sneaky Tom” shit has been beat to death by him. He is retarded about that theme.

” I’ve always been a huge fan of the heist genre”
— Tom

Yeah, yeah… we get it Tom. You like “stealing” references. No shit.

But Tom can’t tell the difference between properly robbing a bank, and stealing a bartender’s tips off the bar. We know he likes Ocean’s Eleven, but he’s not doing a master con on Vegas… he’s breaking into parked cars to steal the coins out of the center console. What a fool. That’s what I’m pointing to about Tom. I think that’s nearly an apt comparison to the level of Tom’s lowness.

“It’s the hustle rather than the sex that I’ve been addicted to”
— Pg274

At last… Tom tells the truth. Maybe for the first time.

“I think it’s forgotten that successful pickup artists automatically have big egos, delusions of self grandeur, dark triad traits, are natural grifters, hustlers etc. To be morally outraged that a cad is a floozy is like being shocked that a magician is good with sleight of hand. C’mon chaps, let’s stop the he-said-she-said tittle tattle as TheDonald said which is really just virtue signaling.”
— Victor, from Krauser’s blog on an unrelated topic

Victor likes the “hustler” reference too. And so does my wing Sundance (who is a stand-up guy). I consider myself a hustler, as well… “hustle” as in work ethic. And hustle as in me vs the bluepill me… I want to “cheat” that version of myself out a of life of mediocrity. I want to cheat Disney out of another picket fence illusion. That’s my level of hustle.

And let me spell this out… I have no morality issues with game, obviously. Unlike Tom, I don’t have any interest in overplaying the “sneaky” part of this, I am proud of what we do as men of game (that’s part of my inner game).

Guys that know me know that I will announce what I am up to, there is no false morality or shame about this for me. If we “steal another man’s lunch money” (as Krauser has said), it’s a fair fight, actually, of our SMV vs that other guy. We “steal” in comparison to the expectations of romantic comedies. We steal a girl’s innocence. And we don’t actually steal. We don’t need to… the pussy comes along… willingly. That’s the point. Charm. Willing “victims.” This is seduction, not theft. With potential “repeat customers.” No actual theft is involved.

And if Tom wanted to talk about stealing from the girl (and he does this, sort of, in his “first hustle” which is in the book) I would be cool with that… somewhat. It’s still a symptom of a small, middle school mentality. But if that’s what he meant, ahh, whatever. Grow up… but fine. But that’s not what he’s doing.

He is straight up with the girls (for the most part). He just steals from other guys in game.

He steals from us. He steals, it seems, exclusively from his brothers.

And then tries to fence his stolen goods back to us as his own creation. He steals – deliberately – from men that taught him. And then wants the next generation to pay him for “his wisdom.”

Okay. Well this is part of his story too.

“Play or get played. Hustle or be hustled. That’s the name of the game.”
— pg209

He is talking about stealing from Roissy and from Beckster… and then rolling around with that knowledge… like a petty car thief trying to convince his parents the stolen Buick out front is from “his hard work.”

The only “marks” here are us… that we believe this is his work. That’s insulting. He thinks he is gaming us (I bet that is part of the thrill). And he has, in many ways. Probably much more than I am able to spot and document here.

What an asshole.

If Tom had any history of saying, “I don’t know where I got this, but you should check it out,” I would be more than cool with the examples above. Not everybody is a goddamn game historian. But we have basically no evidence of that. I know he credits Mystery here and there (in this book, and in his Daygame 3.0 video). He credits Cialdini (the guy that wrote Influence). But there is a trend of him as a thief and it’s intentional, and he assumes we won’t notice or care.

I care. In part, just as I can now finally articulate why I don’t like or trust that guy.

This “smelling him out” is part of being calibrated and being good at reading people. If you’re socially calibrated, you should get a “funny feeling” about someone when they’re up to something shady and incongruent. This is our craft. We are supposed to be good at reading social cues (like desperation and incongruence). I increasingly read him as such.

It’s not that he isn’t a good daygamer. He is. It’s that his daygame skill hides some other facet of his psychology… something ugly. I don’t have it all worked out, but I am pointing to something real.

There are lots of guys in this community I show my back to, and at this point… Tom is one of them now. I’d roll my eyes if I saw him in person. If he walked into a room, I’d walk out.

But more over… I bet this stealing is just one of many examples where that guy is broken. This is the part that I can see, but I bet it runs deep.

I’ll close out with this:

“Catch Me If You Can: Great for technique and the hustler’s way of bending perception. Bad for the unresolved inner game and eventual SMV change.”
— pg277

That part of his book was pure foreshadowing for me. This is the heart of it…

Tom has some inner game issues (who knows what from, I don’t care)… and they leak out in his compulsive theft. He’s the Wynona Ryder of pickup (what a joke)… doing stupid shit for no reason, just like she did… stealing stuff from Saks that she could afford to buy. She could afford to be a person with honor. But she is not. And neither is Tom. He is as low as a kleptomaniac swiping lip gloss from a drugstore.

Maybe he wants to get caught. That’s another guess I’d make. Maybe he’ll thank me for giving him that sense of completion – he is finally truly “seen.” Maybe Mom and Dad never paid “Sneaky Tommy” enough attention… and this is him, acting out… in an obviously childish way.

Oh well. I finished his book. I wrote about it. I even probably learned a bit.

And I’ll continue to learn from him… despite his lack of character. He is persona non grata to me. Another lowlife. But as he cranks out more content than Buzzfeed… all in an area that I love and care about very much… I won’t be able to avoid him.

So I will incorporate anything from him that has the ring of truth to it… and just assume anything that comes via him is stolen. I’ll take the truth, and throw the shell of him away. That’s fair at this point.

“Whatever is true is my property.”
— Seneca

Seneca was an honorable man. I will study anyone. And the “truth belongs to me.” Even if it touches Tom… if it’s real, it’s real.

I feel a little better with this out of my system. I have a clear sense of why I want to spit when I think of him. If I can find the truth some other place, I will. I’ll certainly never pay for anything of Tom’s again. I’m divesting from that guy… what a tool.

One last thing… I started out my review with a quote from Tom I have always loved, that line about “men advance, women retreat” and all that. Well…

“Woman begins by resisting a man’s advances and ends by blocking his retreat.”
— Oscar Wilde

Looks like Tom changed the order of the words… and otherwise, stole that from Oscar Wilde. Jesus Christ. Is any of Tom’s material his? What a douchebag.

Here’s to honor amongst thieves. Tom… I’m quite sure you wouldn’t know what I mean.

Viva daygame.

Tags: