---
title: Episode 109 Pickup Nihilism
episode_number: 109
era: mid
source_file: Episode 109 Pickup Nihilism.mp3
audio_size_mb: 59.9
duration_sec: 1961.4
duration_min: 32.7
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.997
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T16:53:30Z---

# Episode 109 Pickup Nihilism

**Speaker 0:** Tom Torero podcast, a 109 on nihilism or nihilism. And notice the question mark because that is what we shall be debating today. Is daygame really that soul destroying? Parish news, first of all, for the daygame brethren, the flock of pickup artists that listen to this podcast. The first announcement is that in June or really from today, the end of May, I'm taking time off. I'm taking a month off the YouTube channel, the blog, Twitter, Instagram, the podcast to, first of all, enjoy my own daygame, enjoy my own time with girls and travel and sunshine and family. And secondly, to prepare for the documentary filming, the world tour. It sounds simple to go around the world in thirty days to do some teaching and filming and daygame debauchery but it's a lot of planning in terms of flights and accommodation and the documentary filming schedule and resources, storyboarding, scripting, equipment. If you've never made a documentary, perhaps you've never thought about what is involved. But that's what I'm going to be doing for June. And you're thinking, well, that's not fair. Where's all the free content? Well, my friends, I've just put up a tab on the top of my website, tomtorero.com, called archive. It's next to the home button right on the top menu bar. Click on archive and that will list for you hours and hours, hundreds of hours of videos, podcasts, articles, book links to my core teachings. That makes me sound like a cult leader, but you know what I mean. I go through fundamental stuff on daygame, texting and dating. I go through the black sheep philosophy stuff. I list my most important in fields, the the meta kind of stuff, the biology going on with mating and dating. So, quote unquote, red pill or the evolutionary basis for all this stuff. That's all for you to mind, to go through, to watch, to listen to, to read. There's way more than a month's content on there. 100% for free. So please don't moan, why is he taking a month off? There you go. That will be your month's homework. If you get through that, that really is everything you need to know. Okay? It's 1090% is you going outside and it's so sunny now in the Northern Hemisphere, so nice. We're coming to ideal daygame conditions in most countries where universities still in play. So the girls are in the cities but they're wearing skirts and dresses, a lot of skin is on show which makes you a horny animal and girls are single now, those winter boyfriends have disappeared or their summer boyfriends are just kind of token boyfriends, they're having fun, they're in good spirits, they smile before you even open them, they're feeling horny. So go for it. Final announcement, yet to do with the world tour. Guys were asking what places are left for those one day boot camps There's only one place left in Los Angeles, which is on the July 15 It's a one day boot camp twelve to five and there's one place left in Sydney on the July 22 that's the last live infield teaching I will be doing for this whole year so you can either catch me in Los Angeles on the fifteenth or Sydney on the twenty second. Email me if you want those places or that place in each city, tomtorero dot com. Alright. Nihilism, nihilism. It's got to be addressed because it's been bugging me. You could say for years I've been thinking about this, but particularly in the last few months and weeks, I've had more and more questions and emails about this. And an email that I'm going to read is kind of representative of the problem. See if you can spot some red flags in this email and also see if you can empathize with what he's saying, why many other guys including yourself might be feeling similar things. Okay. It's from a guy we'll call him a, that's his name, a and he says, Tom, a question if you don't mind. Gamed a girl, we flirt on Facebook, all is good, she's having a hard time health wise, some mental issues. I get that because I've been through it. I know how dangerous these issues can be, you know. But if I reach out to her, talk to me, which is morally the right thing to do, you can help another human being in trouble. So if you can help another human being in trouble, do I then risk being friend turned? More importantly, should I even be asking this question? It's more important to help someone if they need you. Right? I'm worried I am approaching a dangerous level of cynicism bordering on nihilism where I dare not behave caring towards a girl in case she sees that as quote unquote nice guy behavior. This is I think the road that leads to assholeness and I don't want to go down that. You certainly don't want to go down an asshole. Yes, it's important to avoid being the provider, but at what point does avoiding being the provider become borderline misanthropic? I recognize that evolutionary biology is amoral, not immoral, but I do not, in the pursuit of good game, want to become a nihilist. I think this is a very legitimate and important issue that I have not seen anyone in the community sufficiently address, but you're a smart guy. Thank you, a, and I'd like to hear your thoughts. Signed, a. Alright. Some of those things you've probably thought, uh-oh, little red flags and other things you've nodded your head and thought, yeah, I'm worried about becoming a little bit too much of a nihilist, nihilist, I'm feeling a bit depressed by all this knowledge to do with women, I've got some raised dark triad characteristics coming out when I'm doing games. So where does it all lead? Is this Lord of the Flies? Is this all terrible? Is it all doomed? Is the world going to hell in a handcart? Etcetera, etcetera. Well, first of all, short answer, if you wanna stop listening to this podcast after the short answer, the short answer would be a, with girls and with that girl, I'm sorry, but you gotta be a dick. You gotta give her dick. You've gotta be a dick. Sex first, relationship second. With every other human being, be the good guy. Don't be the nice guy, be the good guy. Or be the nice bad boy as I always say. With other human beings, be symbiotically win win. But I'm sorry, a, with girls, you gotta be a dick. And this is the problem. Okay? It's a bit like a classroom teacher. You have to have two personalities and I was a classroom teacher. The two personalities are in the classroom, you're strict. You're nice, not nice guy but you're nice, you're calm but then you're strict. Okay? You've got borders, you've got limits, you've got rules. Children respect you more than they like you. Okay? Respect comes first. But when the teacher then goes out socialising with your sister or with your friends, you relax a bit. Okay? Sure, you're not a walkover, you're not a soppy nice guy, Disney romantic nice guy, but you're not the classroom teacher. Does that make sense? Same with the dog trainer. A dog trainer spends all day teaching dogs that want to be trained, correct rules and limits and boundaries, dogs love it. But that person is not like that in their normal life. They don't go around ordering everybody else, making them literally jump through hoops. So if you want to get really good with girls, I'm sorry, but you can't help that girl. Okay? You can't solve her problems. I know perhaps you've gone through similar problems, but you even answered your own question, which a lot of guys do when they email me. It's interesting that when you ask somebody a question, I'm guessing you already know the answer. Yeah, because you do risk being friend zoned. You will come across as the nice guy, as the friend, as the listening ear, as the emotional tampon as they used to say in the pickup community. And a guy spending a lot of time with a girl in terms of dinners and holidays and buying her things and flowers and chocolates, yeah, he's gonna come across as the provider and that will attract gold diggers, that's a separate topic. But with this girl, it's sad to say that she'll be more attracted to the asshole, to the DJ, to the guy that pumps and dumps her, to the guy that tries to pimp her. All this stuff is, yeah, shocking. And in daygame three point zero that talk, a section of that talk in the end is when I tell guys about, a film called Nymphomaniac and a documentary called Hot Girls Wanted and a documentary about a pimp called Pimp Snooki. And the faces in the audience were basically gasping. Couldn't believe it. Know, a lot of these guys were daygamers. But I said, alright, if you want to be red pill, let's go all the way down the rabbit hole. Right? Let's see what women are really attracted to in terms of evolutionary bio biology and the evidence for that. You know, extreme dominance, rape fantasies. Keyword there being fantasies. Yeah. When you tell nice guys this stuff, it is shocking because it doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem right to the moral guy, to the just guy, to the virtuous guy, to the guy that buys girls stuff and gives up his whole life, sells everything, moves across the world, he's with her for ten years, he loves her, he adores her and then one day she fucks her the plumber. It seems cruel and that is, you could say, the dark side of game which we will examine today. You hit the nail on the head, pickup is amoral. A lot of guys, as I've spoken about in the Purple Pill podcast or the Moralizing podcast, guys try to shame pickup and shame players. They're kind of conservative Christians. They hate it. They point the finger whilst at the same time watching hardcore porn, dreaming of sleeping with sluts, cheating on their wives or with their congregation, having this double life. Yeah? And the shaming pretending to be mister virtuous, that is as I've said last week and the week before, a sexual strategy. Being the nice guy, trying to listen to that girl is a sexual strategy ultimately. Now, we'll talk about when you should be good to another human being without me moralizing and preaching because that's not my place. Just in terms of your own mental health and getting through life. Yeah. I like the joke when people say to me, Tom, are you a nihilist? Are you a nihilist? And the reply would be, well, who cares? Does anything really matter? Fuck it. You get the joke? Yep. So should we be thinking about this question? Yes, we should. People have said to me, Tom, you're an anarchist. You're just watching the world burn, enjoy the decline, etcetera, etcetera. But no, I'm not political. I'm not religious. I believe in sorting yourself out before pointing the finger. So I'm not going to be baited into discussing any of those things. I'm going to be talking about your own long term happiness and trying to make life win win. Okay? Certainly not win lose or lose lose. And I've been through those dark depressive periods, believe you me. If you've read my first book, daygame, you'll know that when I read the selfish gene as a 17, 18 year old kid really, before going to Oxford University, I was already suffering from a bit of depression and anxiety but that pushed me over the edge. When I suddenly realised the meaning of life, the selfishness of life, the harshness of life, the brutality of life, the ugliness of life, I was distraught, you know, God is dead. And I emailed professor Richard Dawkins because he was one of my lecturers and a tutor at Oxford University where I was studying biological sciences. Very kindly, amazingly, he said, Yeah. I could go and see him about all these dark questions I had. And he put up with me sitting in his living room as I spouted off all this stuff a bit like A's email on morality and immorality and the bleakness of life. And I was just too much in my own head, I was sunk in despair. But what he was trying to say as an answer was, look, life is beautiful, life is amazing. Right? I shouldn't have called my book Selfish Gene because it implies, you know, this morality to it all. It's just a blind mechanism, but look at the wonder of nature, look at what evolution's produced and look at how with other humans you can make it win win. That's what he was trying to tell me, but I didn't listen. I went away from there eventually getting on to some antidepressants. But for for the whole of that time of studying evolutionary biology, I thought the world was violent, which it is, dark, which it is, wicked, cruel, horrible. Humans are capable of barbaric things. Nature is bloody. You know, when I watched a nature documentary, my mom and my sister would just see the cute deers or the cute bunny rabbits, but I would see the the wolf's fangs or the lion ripping out the intestine of the gazelle, you know, and I would just think, god, this is fucking bleak. And that's like when you discover red pill or whatever, your way into the pickup world. Lots of guys, keyboard warriors, keyboard pickup artists, they just have an academic interest in this and they read something like Evolution of Desire or Selfish Gene or Sperm Wars or Tom Torero books and videos and they think, fuck, this is how women really behave. Women have a dual mating strategy, women cheat, women can be more sexual than men, bloody bloody blah, humans are not monogamous, oh my god, and they freak out and this is the bitter taste of the red pill which I've spoken about in that Raw Red Pill Truths podcast. And you go through an angry phase, you go through a depressive phase, then you go through that bargaining phase that I've made podcasts on called purple pill, yeah, where you try to cling on to your old beliefs, the holding hands, everybody's the same and everything is peaceful and loving and there's no such thing as evil, la la la la la, covering your ears, covering your eyes, thinking let me just cling on to my old beliefs and ideologies, yeah, and you try to bargain, that's watering down of pickup and biological truths, that's purple pill. You might have mixed in with phrases like, leave them better than you found them. Yeah. Or, you know, we need to be radically honest with women. We just need to expose our vulnerabilities, align our chakras. I've made a mocking video of this kind of watering down. Yeah. You might that might even lead further to the game denialists who simply say, well, it's all manipulation and trickery. I would never do that. I'm virtuous. I'm moral. I would wouldn't treat a woman like that. You just need to sit down and talk to them. Yeah? But as I think it was Roosh, the famous red pill writer, he said, what ultimately is the shocking truth, for one side to win, the other has to lose. Simple sentence, but think of it again. For one side to win, the other has to lose in terms of this sexual strategy. Yep. So for men, it's pump and dump. And for women, it's cling on to guy, cut off balls, make him provider, drain him of resources, and then get rid of him or, you know, behind his back, get some alpha DNA and possibly that guy will raise another man's children. Shocking. Okay. This is where that leave them better than you found them is not really true. I wish it was true. There's a form of it that we'll talk about which is my second form of the hustle but look, this is is life. Life is not fair. Life is a competition. Life is brutal. These are truths. Really important is that you read them as early as you can. So I'm jealous if you're a 16 year old going through all this material, then great. You've got a lot less unlearning to do. You combine all this stuff with action. I've said it before. If you're just behind a keyboard or you're just reading this stuff, you're just writing comments on forums, you're debating it, you'll get fucking depressed, you'll get angry. There's loads of married men online who are extremely angry now they know all this stuff because they can't play the field. This knowledge combined with action is fun because it's a loophole, you can go out, you can enjoy all these benefits of casual sex, of non monogamy, of travelling around the world, of being a bachelor, the beauty of selfishness you could say, with it being win win for other humans, we'll save that to the end of the podcast. But yeah, combining it with action, that's very important. And accepting, reaching that final place of swallowing all this knowledge, acceptance. Evolution is the explanation for life on earth, accept that. How does it work? Look into basic genetics. Accept that. This is the jewel, nature of women's sexual strategy. Accept that. This is men. Men are non monogamous. This is what, sexual market value is. This is the sexual marketplace. Accept that and then move on. Okay? Life is not just about, mating. Although as I said last week, that is your purpose for life on earth if you want to give it a purpose. But there's loads of other things for you to look at, for you to experience. There's stuff that humans have created called culture like cinema, like art, like great great sculpture, friendships, great food, great wine, great destinations. Limited time on earth, so enjoying other things than just beautiful women. I love women, not in a kind of a chody, Disney, one eye to see needy way, I love them in terms of this is my hobby, I love having sex with beautiful women, I love the beauty of women, I love feminine energy which is a compliment to you, giving off that don't hide your dick masculine vibe. It's complimentary. It's fun. It takes you all over the world. So what's not to like? In the beginning, yeah, you could be a nihilist if you stayed in your bedroom and you just thought about pickup. But if you went out and you actually did pickup and you were having sex with young hot girls a few times a week, traveling around the world, having beautiful adventure bubbles with girls, creating all these memories, trying not to hurt them. Hurt does happen, which we'll talk about, but that's a bloody good life. Yeah? Rather than being stuck in a dead end marriage, hating your partner, losing your resources, then getting really angry and bitter, venting it online, moralizing to the people that are not tied down like you, that's a pretty bleak existence. Yeah. And we create that prism. We forget, as I said in the depression, anxiety and stress podcast, we not only create the prison but we lock ourselves in. The key's in our hand, the key's in our pocket or the door's wide open and we sit there in that cell of our minds thinking life is shit. Life is terrible. Life is bleak. And the door's open. All you gotta do is, first of all, understand that you can leave and then make that decision as I said last week. You say, fuck it. You go all in and you leave. Yeah. It's scary because you gotta leave those old beliefs. You've gotta leave those old ideologies. You've gotta leave perhaps religious beliefs that you were told by parents or other people when you were a child. You've got to see the world as it actually is, not as you want it to be. And then walk out and enjoy it because we're all gonna die. It's just a scheduling issue. And that is a cliche. That's something you'd read on Facebook with a sunset picture behind it. But you got one shot at it unless you're a hardcore Buddhist and you're gonna come back as a kangaroo or something. But certainly in your current form, you got one shot at it. So you can sit there and be really angry or you can use this knowledge to your advantage. Right. A bit more about the what works with girls. Yeah? I talk about this in daygame three point zero. What works with girls, if you've read any of my stuff, if you've seen any of my videos, if you've read Evolution of Desire is being a jerk, being a bad boy, being rude, being an asshole, being selfish, being loud, being unfiltered, being reckless, being adventurous, being unpredictable, being dominant, being controlling, making her jealous because you're surrounded by other girls. Shock horror, cheating on her increases her attraction. Breaking her heart increases her attraction. Treat her mean, not in a shockingly bad way, but you know what I mean. Treating her mean to keep her keen, that is true. Alright? Remember the quote, I'm not a bad man but in certain situations I have to ask myself, what would a bad man do? That's from the movie War Dogs. So you can glimpse this in the lives of pimps and real players and real hustlers. It's heart of darkness stuff because you've got to stare this stuff in the face. Dark triad traits attract women. Full stop. You can argue as much as you like. You can moralize and preach and virtue signal as much as you like but all the evidence in front of you confirms it. And after hundreds of lays and thousands of interactions with girls, you can't unsee it. Okay? And does that harm me? Does that hurt me? No. This is the way the world actually is. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Yep. So the nice guy needs to go one eighty and for a couple of years, this is advice for you, a, you have to go down the bad boy route. And it doesn't make you a bad boy, you just have to take on those characteristics. Yeah? The ones that effectively work. So in the archive section, look at the top 10 pickup movies that I recommend and the actors. Take on their traits. Yeah? Like I just said, you learn from the pimps and the players and the hustlers without actually having to go down the dark route completely and end up in prison or end up peddling drugs, whatever. Because girls can't tell the difference between someone who flips the switch and who's doing that because they're a pickup artist, so they're flipping the kind of, you know, let's an example would be vacuuming, going silent on it or preselection. So bringing another girl along to a date. You flip that switch and it works. Or you can just be a born asshole, a a bad boy from your teenage years. You don't know what you're doing. Same switch switch is flipped, same attraction she feels. Now that real bad boy, he often doesn't last that long. He often ends up in a bad marriage because he doesn't know what he's doing. He often ends up in trouble. His his money matters are not in order. His general health is not in order, so he doesn't last the course. Or you can just learn to flip these attraction switches, which is what a pickup artist is. This is what street hustle is about. And you'll reap the rewards of women feeling that same attraction to you. This is what my nice bad boy video series was about. The link is also in the archive section, where you take on the bad boy traits but you're also quote unquote nice just in a different way. So you're charming, you're showing her this interesting dichotomy where you are the bad boy but you're a man of the world. She can have a conversation with you, you know, you don't beat her up but she feels like, dominant. This guy is a bit of a player, but he's not he's not completely reckless with it. He's not completely mindless. So you you give him the thrill. You give him the roller coaster without perhaps being born a bad boy, if that makes sense. Yeah? Now you'd be surprised that there are guys in the pickup community. There there are actually guys teaching pickup who never really got past the angry, bitter, phase. And you could say perhaps they hate women, they hate life. These guys are extremely hard to wing with or, to like or to spend time with. And they consider women evil, they say women are sluts. That's that purity fantasy thing as well because they're also chasing the good girl. They think that there's this conspiracy, everyone's out to get them, the world is going to shit, they blame everybody but themselves, they forget that the girl is the mirror, the world is your mirror, so trying to change yourself first. Yeah? I say no. No. No. No. Let's finish the podcast with some practical things because you've got the wrong idea. If you think I'm a nihilist, a nihilist, if you think I'm an anarchist, if you think I don't give a shit about life or other people, then my friends, you are wrong. You've completely misunderstood. You could say what pickup is, what, red pill truths are, what I'm try trying to achieve with all these projects that I'm doing. First of all, I love women. Like I said, not as a Disney beta purity thing, but I genuinely love their energy, like the energy of puppy dogs or playing with your nephews. Yeah. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. I love casual sex. I love non monogamy. I get affection from multiple sources. I do not sit on my own getting angry on the internet. Listen to podcast 43, one of my best, I think, on affection addiction. I love travelling, so not only for pickup but to see the beautiful world. I believe we live in amazing times. I really don't understand why people moan, you know. These are amazingly peaceful times. If you're listening to this podcast, you're blessed, not in a non religious way, right? You've got the internet. You've got, as an example, a fleet of private chauffeurs across the world, that's called Uber. You've got a portfolio of world's properties, that's called Airbnb. You've got any food you desire at any time of the day. That's called the supermarket. Unbelievable. Right? You've got cheap flights around the world. You've got medical care. Be fucking grateful. You know, there's that Louis CK sketch sketch where someone's moaning about leg room on a plane and he's like, look out the fucking window. You're flying thousands of meters up, hundreds of miles an hour. This is a miracle. Look below you. There's the Pyrenees, there's the Himalayas, and you're moaning about selection of films to watch on the plane. I can't remember what the sketch is but it's very funny. And yeah, laugh. There you go. Watch some comedy. Laugh. Listen to some great music. Eat great food. Drink some wine. The world is beautiful. Go to a forest. It has nothing to do with pick up. Enjoy the forest. Go to a lake. There are no girls there. Enjoy the lake. Go on the sea. Swim in the sea. Do it alone. This has nothing to do with pick up. Look at the mountains. Look at the stars. Yeah. And now in terms of other people, treat others as you want to be treated. That was my only classroom rule at school, treat others as you want to be treated. So hustle number one is where you pretend to be a boyfriend and then do a runner. Hustle number two is the secret society thing, I took about this in Street Hustle, where she's kind of in on it. Now, you sleep with her a few times, she's married but she's in on it. Yeah, she gets a bit attached to you and then finally she calls you an asshole and she leaves and she remembers you forever. So do you see, you're not really leaving her better than you found her but it's much better than hustle number one where you cut and run after lying to her for weeks. So when you start pick up, it's usually hustle number one, nice guy pretending to be her boyfriend and then after two or three years you move to hustle number two which is secret society stuff. I'll talk about that in the future. So yeah, with humans treat others as you want to be treated. It's a very simple rule. Altruism evolved, symbiosis evolved. That's what I mean by win win. It's better for you, it's better for them. Okay, now that doesn't make it a Christian virtue, that just makes it something that has evolved. Look into prisoner's dilemma and you will understand what I mean. And I leave you for the month of silence coming up from me with this message. Turn your back on the manosphere. Turn your back on forums, on pickup moaning, on whining, perhaps on Twitter whining, being the victim all the time. This is wrong. It's their fault. It's their fault. No. It's your fault. Alright? Take control. As soon as you take control, you can change. Channel all that anger that you feel about women into action. So I feel anger. Anger is good. Anger is also an evolved thing to make you act. But if you bottle up all this anger and you're sitting in your bedroom, and you're channeling it all towards pickup artists or to other people or to women. Women are bitches. Women are whores. I can't believe it's so manipulative. That's like getting angry with gravity. Know? Why do things fall over? Fuck gravity. I hate it. You're like, well, is gravity. Accept it. Take advantage of it. Go outside, right? It's sunny. Log off please and bask in some feminine energy or if you don't want to do that, bask in the beauty of the world. However shit you think your life is, just stop, go to a park and think I'm alive, what am I grateful for? And no, that's not Tony Robbins advice. That's human advice from me to you. Alright? Works for me and it will work for you. If And you're going out there and enjoying some feminine energy, fantastic. To get that feminine energy, need to give her that masculine don't hide your dick vibe. And make love not war, that was podcast number one. Or if you want, make love like war. Alright? Because smile is only a game. That was podcast, what was it, 109. I will be back in exactly one month's time. Until then, keep grabbing life by the horns.