---
title: Episode 11 Perpetual Player vs Married With Kids
episode_number: 11
era: early
source_file: Episode 11 Perpetual Player vs Married With Kids.mp3
audio_size_mb: 51.0
duration_sec: 1670.8
duration_min: 27.8
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.999
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T16:53:28Z---

# Episode 11 Perpetual Player vs Married With Kids

**Speaker 0:** Podcast 11. Hello. This is Tom Torero. I hope you've had a good daygaming weekend, and you were doing it somewhere hopefully warmer than I was. London was a bit chilly, a bit freezing even though we were layered up on the boot camp. But the two guys were very solid, very dedicated day gamers. It was a pleasure, that boot camp. And what was interesting about those guys is that they were in their mid to late forties. And that's not as unusual as you might think. Last year, I've taught a lot of guys in their forties, even in their fifties. The oldest guy I've ever taught was 67, I think. So, yeah, the bulk of daygamers are in their late teens, early twenties, but there's a growing niche, you could say, for guys that have perhaps been through a divorce or they've come out of a long term relationship. They're coming to the game later in life. And I'm 35 and I really started daygaming properly when I was around 30. And you might know Nick Krauser, Krauser PUA. He's 39, I think, and at the peak of what he's doing. So it's not as much of a problem. It's not a big as a deal as people think. Because remember, male SMV is not just about age and looks. Thank God. But our sexual market value is based on lots of other things. Have a listen to my talk on sexual market value on this channel if you're not sure what I'm talking about. But anyway, it's good. If you maintain your health and your fashion and your grooming and you bring lots of other cool shit to the table, you can continue daygaming for sure in your forties and perhaps even in your fifties. Let's see what happens. But it got me thinking once again about this universal million dollar question, this dilemma that all men have to face, all women have to face, but really, it applies to more men. And that is, should you be a player forever? Should you be a womanizer? Should you be single, free, and happy? Or should you quote unquote settle down? Guys ask that a lot. You know, Tom, what are your plans with a girlfriend or getting engaged, getting married, having kids, buying a house, getting a car, getting a cat? What are you gonna do? When are you gonna do it? And quite clearly, there is no one answer. Nobody can tell you whether you should settle down at any age and have kids and a big family or whether you should gallivant around being single and staying that way. So there isn't one answer. There's lots of options and you can see it as a spectrum from completely polygamous on the left to completely monogamous on the right. Again, I've given a talk on that on this, YouTube channel about polygamy versus monogamy, lover versus provider, and all the different types of gain that apply on that spectrum because few people are binary one or the other. But, of course, if you get married, that kind of is binary. If you choose not to have any more sexual partners except your wife and you're good to your word, that is putting yourself in the monogamous box. But there are guys that are players in their forties, fifties, sixties. I met a guy recently on a flight. He was an Italian guy in his seventies, in his late seventies. He was dressed marvelously in a really dapper suit, but not a kind of a provider suit, in a really tailored, quirky suit with a little pork pie hat and a cane. Everything matched. Everything was interesting. And apart from that, really cool fashion and he was in very good health, very good state. He was slim. His eyes were sparkling. He was full of life. He was flirting outrageously with with everybody. You could tell he was a socialite. He worked the cabin crew. He worked the people next to him, not just the women. He wasn't coming across as sleazy or lecherous. He was very socially savvy, very calibrated. He had amazing social intelligence. And I really enjoyed chatting to him and I thought, wow. This guy's got it and he's obviously had it for many, many years. He just oozed charm and charisma. And he's gonna carry on, I'm sure, into his eighties, into his nineties. God bless him. So it reminded me once again that if you maintain your sexual market value as a man, you could hypothetically carry on gaming during the day in coffee shops or in airports or in your social circles or you could even do complete street cold approach for years to come. This podcast is gonna think about the advantages of doing that and the disadvantages of being a player forever and ever, and then thinking about settling down into some kind of long term relationship or marriage and complete monogamy, the advantages of that, the disadvantages of that, and then alternatives, things that are also possibilities. Because like I said, it's not just binary. Now since about early December, I haven't found myself a girlfriend, but I've certainly been seeing one girl more than I normally would. So I'm still daygaming and dating and seeing other girls. But one girl in particular, during my hibernation, it's been very nice to see her a couple of times a week. She knows what I do, but I've enjoyed things with her that go beyond sex. So doing normal things like going to the cinema or going for a walk, going for Sunday lunch, going to the theater, whatever. Building something more than just shagging and then kicking her out of your life, which is the typical player strategy. And it's been nice. I've been very aware that it's been creeping towards something more than just hooking up to have sex. So this dilemma has obviously been in my mind at the moment about whether I need to sit down with her and have a have a good old chat, how much she instinctively knows, what I want. I think I know what she wants because the typical pattern is that even though a woman says she's happy with what you do and your traveling open lifestyle, A woman subconsciously wants to pin the man down, not just in that way, but she wants to she wants to cut off his balls in that she wants to make him the father of her children and she wants him to stay, to stick around, to help her raise those children, protect her children, provide. And sure, you could argue after that raising period is over, a woman's, hypogamous nature kicks in and she starts looking around again for other alpha males. But it is usually the pattern that the woman is trying to keep the man in and the man feels this restlessness and he's trying to flee. So you get this contradiction, you get this difficulty which we've all felt, should you stay? Should you go? Should you have the chat? When should you have the chat? And it's really nicely summarized in one of my favorite books, which is by the Czech author Milan Kundera. And this is a novel, but it's also a film And it's about this dilemma, should you stay or should you go? The book is called The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It's a great story about a man who wants to be an eternal bachelor. He's living in Prague, and I think he's in his forties. And yet he feels that sense of falling in love with one of the girls, and he has to decide to just stick with her or carry on his nomadic existence. I won't tell you the ending, but the title comes from the Nietzsche dilemma of lightness versus gravitas. Lightness being the fact that in our lives nothing really matters. It's all transient. It's all fizzy. We're flying like birds in the sky and we're free. And the weightiness comes from the fact that we're gonna die, we're rooted, we're part of the earth, that we're connected to the earth and humans feel, humans are conscious of this dichotomy, this existential bummer. Should everything be light and free and nothing matters or does everything matter? Is everything weighed down? And there's a beautiful quote in the book that I've that I've written down to read out and it says, the heaviest of burdens crushes us. We sink beneath it. It pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness? So that's the topic of the podcast. Should you be free like a sailor on the high seas, or do you bring your boat into harbor and dock and walk on dry land? Well, obviously, for young guys especially, the single life is very, very attractive because you've got a lot of time for yourself, you can travel, you spend time with your male friends, you save a lot of money and that you're not pooling your cash with somebody else. There's obviously that rush of new sexual adventures that your DNA is crying out for as a guy. You wanna spread your DNA far and wide. And we're not monogamous male humans in the sense that it's sexually advantageous for us to spread our DNA. We don't have to give birth to young. We don't have to raise young really. We have to spend time helping to raise young if we want to have kids because that ensures the survival of our DNA. But like I've said many times before, we are monogamish in that there are advantages to settling down with someone for a while, but then men want to be off again. Now that's not to say you can't settle down, and we'll come on to that. Of course, you can. A bit like being a vegan. It's not natural. But of course, you can make that decision and stick to that decision. But young guys especially, they long for this freedom. They're hungry for it. And when you're free like a wolf, it gives you that alphaness. It gives you that testosterone fueled freedom where you're on your hungry. You're looking for the next sexual adventure, you're looking for the next lay. It's driving you to improve yourself. It's driving you to get good at daygame or nightgame or any kind of seduction. And that filters through to other things like your fitness and your fashion and your hobbies. And also through meeting other guys doing the same thing, you get this amazing upward spiral of of drive. You get competition, of course, as as men, wear this testosterone in this competition, but that's a good thing again because it pushes you forwards. So we all know what it's like to be single and we know the disadvantages as well of being this kind of guy in that there's a lot of breadth in that you can have sex with lots of different girls and go on lots of different adventures and travel to lots of different countries, but it can lack depth, of course. So even though you're a wandering nomad, you're a bit like when the agricultural revolution came around. You're longing for some kind of roots, some kind of home, some kind of stability. Certainly depth in a relationship where you're not just having sex, you're spending time with that person, you're exchanging emotions. That's really important because humans raised in this tribal culture. That's our nature where we need other people for our survival and for our positivity. So it's completely normal to long for that. And other guys around you are more than likely settling down. So the older you get in your mid to late twenties and then early thirties, certainly, most of your schoolmates have got married, they've got kids, they've got a house, they've got a mortgage. That seems to be what society does. So you also feel that pressure as well. Not as much luckily as a female hears the ticking biological clock and feels that social pressure if she's single, but men do feel it on a certain level because many things are designed for couples. Many things are, weighted towards being a couple, even the cost of a holiday or the cost of a hotel. Simple things like that. Another burden is obviously that if you are hungry and you've got this testosterone flowing around your body, you're going out and you're looking for sex. You could say you're chasing sex, which is, even though pickup says we never chase, of course, we're going out and we're expending energy in hunting down new adventure sex and it's enjoyable, but it can burn you out. I've certainly had weeks, months where I've burnt out from day game and that you're always having to go out, you're always having to be on. It's Groundhog Day. The thrill of the chase continues and continues and continues. And that can wear off. So you can get a bit just a bit cynical, a bit bored, a bit tired certainly in your thirties. I'm sure in your forties if you carry on being a player. Tracing tail. So we've looked at being single, the advantages and the disadvantages. What about guys that have chosen to settle down? Well, you've got the depth and that you get to know that girl very, very well and she gets to know you. And you're not going out and chasing tail or certainly not letting your other half know you are. So you've got a certain amount, certainly for the first few years, of sex on tap. Now the depth can give that human connection, which can give the biochemistry of love. And love is a wonderful thing even if you break it down to biochemistry. Love is what makes the world go round. Love for your family, love for your friends, love for a girl. So it does add huge amount to a human being's life. And you can put your energy into other things because if you're not chasing all the time and putting all your competition and testosterone into chasing girls, you can put that into other things, other hobbies. And, obviously, you can experience the joy of children, really, fulfilling your biological destiny to pass on your DNA and to see your child grow and to spend time with your children. I I even though I've been married for a little bit in my early twenties, I've never had kids, not that I know of anyway, but friends that have had kids, I always ask them the question, you know, how did it change your life? And they always say, Tom, it's very hard to describe the the joy, the wonder, the beauty of what having children does. So I'm not qualified to talk about having kids, but I can imagine it's mind blowing. Now we are very aware of the disadvantages of proper monogamy in that you see the poor guy arguing with his wife in B and Q or carrying the shopping bags in Topshop or arguing about petty things when you see a couple and you think, are they really happy? They've been married for twenty years. Are they really happy? You see the arguments, you see the niggles, you see the boredom setting in, not just for the guy but for the girl as well. You see the amount of cost involved. If a couple's doing lots of things together and buying a house and going on holiday and certainly raising kids, and it's not just a cost of money, it's a cost of time. Certainly for the guy who wants to be the wandering nomad, he's investing a lot of time in one girl, in one house, in one family. So your personal freedom is obviously massively cut. And that kicks in the itchy feet, the boredom. So the farmer wants to become the hunter gatherer. And because you haven't got that massive drive, that sexual energy, that testosterone flowing, you notice that men can become soft. Men can become quote unquote beater, beaterized, if that's such a word, in that they're no longer putting as much effort into their appearance, their grooming, their health. The drive is dying down perhaps at work even. The drive is then negatively affecting sex, so sex drive is lower. Sex is more boring with the same girl over and over again. Things become repetitive, yada yada yada. All those jokes about midlife crises, middle aged men, getting into top gear, all that stuff. Yeah. I'm sure you're aware of it. And that makes it sound, oh, very depressing, you know, that it's just not an option. Sounds awful. Now I am qualified to talk about relationships and that I've had girlfriends of one year, two years, three years. Like I said, I was also married at university and I was married for almost three years. So I've experienced that kind of thing. And I've certainly felt the perks of both, the perks of going around to different countries, sleeping with different women, having a bloody good time, being very selfish, very egotistical, enjoying my own time, enjoying my own money. I know they say money doesn't buy you happiness but I saw a great quote yesterday that said, money doesn't buy you happiness but money can buy you a jet ski. And have you ever seen somebody unhappy on a jet ski? That made me laugh. But I've also felt, just like I have for the last month or two, I felt the joy of spending a lot of time with one person, not having to run around chasing tail and doing things beyond just sex, so feeling some kind of gravity. But it's still a dilemma because as I sit here recording this podcast, I'm obviously thinking, should I hang up my day game boots or should I continue? And I've had that thought hundreds of times since I started doing day game. It's nothing new. There's not a big dilemma. And my gut instinct is telling me that I'm already a little bit bored. I've got itchy feet. I'm already doing traveling breaks. I've just come back from Morocco. I'm just off to Finland, and then I'm going to Poland. I've got lots of things lined up. Even when I'm out with this girl, I'm looking at other girls. On the boot camp, I'm collecting phone numbers and demoing. So I'm already thinking, you know, set up more dates, see this girl, I fancy this girl. I've got ideas for projects. I've got ideas for big trips where monogamy or having a stable London girlfriend simply wouldn't fit in. So it's not just me having this dilemma. Lots and lots and lots of daygamers have this dilemma. But how we cope with this dilemma and what we do is a personal decision and nobody can tell you what to do. There isn't one answer. So the common pattern in daygamers is that many students learn the skill set, sleep with a few girls, find one they like and settle down. And that's all marvelous. We've had guys from old boot camps that have got married, guys in very long term relationships, guys with kids and that's great. And, I know daygame coaches and daygame instructors that have found the girl that they they think is the one, and they still teach daygame, but they don't, they don't sleep with other girls, and that's bloody good. There's lots of young guys, obviously, that get into daygame and just wanna sleep with as many women as they possibly can. They're not even thinking about settling down. And like the two guys yesterday, there are guys who get into day game because they've done the whole settling down, even having kids thing, and now they're reliving their youth in their late thirties, forties. And they're not thinking of settling down either. And you've got everything in between. Guys who are not sure, guys who want open relationships. So now we get into the other possibilities of having an open relationship with more than one girl creating like a harem and the advantages and disadvantages of that. I'm sure you know in that it sounds like a utopian and it's fantastic, but it's hard work maintaining three or four girls, seeing them once a week, having sex three, four, five nights a week, how much you are honest with those girls, how much you tell the girls. If you tell them and then they leave, you have to get new ones, blah, blah, So advantages and disadvantages of having completely open relationships and then obviously dealing with the jealousy because I know it's presented a bit like swinging or having a bisexual partner as the perfect solution. But as I remember with a French girl a long time ago, when I tried this, jealousy is a green eyed monster. It's very painful either for you or for her or for both of you, and that has to be dealt with especially when those love chemicals kick in and you have to deal with your partner having sex with other people or she has to deal with you having sex with other people. So there's lots of dilemmas with that. Like I said, there isn't an answer, but I'm really interested to hear from guys in the comments below this as to what approach you're taking. So how old you are, what are you looking for, what have you tried. There's a group of guys who listen to this podcast I know who are married and who have kids and they just enjoy hearing about daygame adventures and passive income and travel and the digital nomad side of things. So they're just interested, but they're not necessarily out there hitting the streets doing daygame. There's also another massive category of guys who are in quote unquote monogamous relationships, but they're not monogamous. So secretly, shocking. They chat up other girls, they go on dates, they sleep with their secretaries, they sleep with other girls and their wives never know or their wives have an inkling but it's never brought up and they never found out. And you can judge guys like that, but don't throw stones if you live in a greenhouse. I'm sure we've all, to some degree, been unfaithful at one time or another. In the Bible, it says just by thinking about it, you've been unfaithful. But remember, old testament also says that you should be polygamous and that a man should have lots of wives, same in parts of Islam, obviously, having more than one wife. So there's there's that option as well that is taking place all around us. You've got in France, concept of the lover. In Moscow, certainly, guys that have been married for a long time, a lot of them have mistresses. Wives know about that. They tolerate it because the biological logic behind that as well, as long as he's sticking with the family and providing him going off and spreading his DNA isn't too much of a disaster. The biological consequences of a woman cheating and going off and somebody else fathering a child with her, they're much more significant for the male if you think about it because he's losing out on his baby making machine and the mother of the children that you have with that person. It's a massive loss. So perhaps that explains the needy behavior, the overly needy behavior in all those love songs when a man is left high and dry and he doesn't have any game to start to spin new plates. But it's hard to wrap up this podcast because there isn't a cozy solution like I'd like there to be where where I could just say, this is the advice for daygamers. This is what you should do. And it was something that we chatted about with the guys on the boot camp. And interestingly, even though they were in their mid to late forties, neither of them wanted to settle down. They wanted to to be perpetual players. They wanted to carry on and they were looking after their value so they could. And I'll finish with another quote from a novel that deals with this theme. It's a fantastic novel called The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima, and it's all about a sailor called Rooji who is facing this dilemma. Should he carry on being a nomadic sailor, sailing the high seas, and feeling that call of the wild, that pull that he's always followed and he's always felt has given him that flow? Or should he settle down with a woman that he has met on dry land during one of his stopovers? And it's actually the son of that woman because she's a single mother. It's the son of that woman who feels almost disgusted and betrayed by this sailor's decision to to marry his mom. I'll tell you that they get married. And it leads him to do something shocking, something tragic at the end of the novel, which I won't tell you. But there's a nice quote again which sums up this existential dilemma of lightness versus weight. And the quote says, and all the time he was directing another question to himself. Are you really gonna give it up? The feeling of the sea, the dark, drunken feeling that unearthly rolling always brings. The thrill of saying goodbye. The sweet tears you weep for your song. Are you going to give up the life which has detached you from the world, kept you remote, impelled you towards the pinnacle of manliness? Are you going to give up that luminous freedom? And yet, Rooji had discovered on the return leg of his last voyage that he was tired, tired to death, the squalor, and the boredom in a sailor's life. He was convinced that he had tasted it all, even the lees, and he was gutted. What a fool he'd been. Alright. Leave your comments below because together we can perhaps create a road map for what we've tried and what we're gonna try, what we think works, what we think doesn't work, just to unburden yourself of having this question as a man. That was Podcast Alaren. Next week, I'm not sure if I can bring one out because I'm gonna be in Helsinki going up to the North Of Finland into the Arctic Circle to do something, which I will reveal on a video blog so you can you can see what I'm up to. Anyway, from London, for now, take care, and speak to you soon. Ta da.