--- title: Episode 126 How To Be Enigmatic episode_number: 126 era: mid source_file: Episode 126 How To Be Enigmatic.mp3 audio_size_mb: 56.8 duration_sec: 1861.8 duration_min: 31.0 language: en provider: deepgram model: nova-3 diarized: true confidence: 0.997 transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T16:57:50Z--- # Episode 126 How To Be Enigmatic **Speaker 0:** Tom Torero podcast a 126 on how to be enigmatic with girls, why that is so important as part of the push pull dance. Once again, from Russia where I have finished my number farming, took about two weeks of pretty intense daygame in the cold, in the drizzle. But I've got the numbers. I'm working the leads as we say. I've had a lot of first dates. I'm doing a lot of bridge dates, which is an interesting form of mini second date, you could say. It's like having an instant date, but just after the first date where perhaps you've pulled her home. It's a bit too much of the old pull. And to stop token LMR and any ASD, you meet her for twenty minutes, middle of the day, just a quick coffee coffee. You invite her to the cafe where you're working, then you get rid of her, which is part of the being enigmatic, which we shall talk about today. And then that sets you up nicely for the third date, which you could really call the second date, which is in your house, which is the cooking, which is the Netflix, la di da di da. Yep. It's not the usual one date model because this is Russia. It's the former Soviet Union rules that I talk about in Cold Calling, my book on how to seduce Russian women. So it's necessary because of this heavy token LMR and a lot of shit testing, strong frames. So we do the walking around the parks. We do the quick teas and coffees to prevent more blue balls. I've had my fair share of blue balls in the two weeks I've been here so far, And now I'm trying not to over pull. I'm editing the documentary. I'm enjoying writing more on my blog, on my website, tomtorero.com. I've got articles on there with accompanying videos on frame. This week, I was writing a lot about frame because obviously that was on my mind with all these frame struggles. I wrote an article on beta bait and signs you're losing the frame and male neediness. And I've just done one on the cult of personality with some trailer clips in there ready for next week's podcast. That's what it's on next week, Magnetic Men. But today's podcast is kind of based on the springboard article I wrote this week called leave her guessing. So I shall start by reading over that and then we shall dive into how to be enigmatic and how to do that practically and why it's so important. What's the psychology? What's the evolutionary biology behind that? And the article goes as follows. Be enigmatic with girls. Let her hamster wheel's mind spin and try to fill in the blanks. She'll do the attraction building work for you when you're not even there. Ambiguity and suspense keeps her coming back for more. Women love trying to tame the wild man and figure him out. It's at the heart of every chick flick and romantic novel. Be the puzzle that she longs to solve, the unpredictable guy who's both hot and cold. Linking to last week's podcast. Some practical examples which we shall explore today include starting conversational threads and then cutting them midway through. That's called an open loop. We'll talk more about that later. Don't answer her questions logically or at all. Wear a few interesting items. The classic advice from pickup, wearing a ring, rings, pendants, a watch, boots, anything with a cryptic story behind it. This is known as peacocking. Again, creating open loops. Make sure your Facebook, Instagram, social media has a photo stack that feeds her curiosity. If you don't know what a photo stack is, I've made a video on YouTube. Just search Tom Torero photo stack. Have a stockpile of intriguing DHV demonstrations of higher value stories that have been tried and tested in field. So you know what one's girls find interesting and what questions they ask and how to answer them. Leave items in your apartment that will trigger her imagination. I do this a lot just by chance when girls leave, earrings or stray hairs or little things or, you know, there's two wine glasses, wine bottles in the kitchen, little mementos, again, little, photos, items. With backstories. It creates intrigue and open loops. And as I've spoken about on the blog a lot, use vacuuming and ghosting to create tension loops as I discussed in last week's podcast. Such enigma is one of the key traits of most interesting man in the world game as caricatured in the Dos Equis commercials. Do you remember this? **Speaker 1:** He wouldn't be afraid to show his feminine side if he had one. His mother has a tattoo that reads, son. At museums, he's allowed to touch the art. He is the most interesting man in the world. I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer those zakis. **Speaker 0:** Stay thirsty, my friends. I love it. We shall come back to those commercials and why this kind of game is is fantastic especially if you're an older guy in his thirties, forties, fifties and beyond. And I finished the article by saying the danger with this kind of game both enigmatic game and most interesting man in the world game, is that it can seem try hard if you've not got the real world experience to back it up or that you're being too evasive for a suspicious reason. Thus, it's a balancing act to find the enigmatic sweet spot which we are going to talk about today. So we want to leave girls guessing. We want to create intrigue. We want to get that hamster wheel spinning. We wanna create tension. I've spoken about that a lot before. Tension loops in last week's podcast. Drama. So spikes of emotion, weaving in attraction, comfort and seduction. And luckily, if you follow my stuff, if you're a black sheep kind of character, then black sheeps do it naturally. Pirates, outlaws, renegades, rebels, misfits, they come and they go. They're in and they're out. Women wonder what the heck society wonders, what the heck as I say in my black sheep talk on YouTube. This is not normal. So women are automatically intrigued. What's your job? Where are you from? Why does he dress like that? Why does he behave like that? Why does he vanish? And vanishing is a big part of what we're gonna talk about today. Because you know about the hot hot hot stuff, which is pull pull pull, escalation, don't hide your dick. But last week, I introduced the idea of going cold. So combining hot and cold. That's the fractionation, that's the drama, and that is the tension loop, the catnip, the cocaine, which is so attractive. Because biologically, physiologically, biochemically familiarity in your body of chemicals kills sexual tension. So for you personally, comfort is dangerous. You get bored being in one place with one girl doing the same thing, same job for thirty years. But with women, that's why we call it the comfort quicksand. It's a trap. Okay? Because, yeah, she builds a bit of oxytocin with you, starts to feel very familiar. Look at the origin of that word family, family, like a brother. Tom you're so sweet, you're like a brother. Sexual tension, danger, excitement, open loops, drama, it's all gone. She sees you every day, you can't escape that you're the friend zone, you're stuck in that frame. Same with guys who talk less, this has been proven in many studies. Guys who talk less to girls on dates using shorter words are perceived as more attractive. Studies have shown this. Whereas guys who are rambling on and on and on, the gay best friend, the emotional tampon solving her problems, it's feminine. So instinctively, she feels unattracted. She can't explain why. That's just basic male female polarity dynamics. Yeah? And it's the nice guys who are always trying to diffuse tension, I. E. Trying to ruin the mystery, trying to ruin the enigma with their helpful logic because the male brain is linear and it's logical. You can't blame us for that. So when we're talking to another guy, that's how we communicate. No mystery. Do a b c, you know, to get x y z. Shortest path possible, nice and efficient. That's how we communicate. Women, no. No. No. No. No. No. Okay. It's covert. I shall talk about that in a future video. Overt versus covert. They like the blank spaces. They like filling in the gaps. They like these emotional roller coasters. They love drama because they love that hamster wheel spinning in their mind as psychologists say. Yeah? And by her trying to figure you out and fill in the details, then the attraction, as I said, is generated when you're not even there. So what a fucking fantastic technique. She's sitting at home scrolling through your Instagram or your Facebook or wondering why you haven't messaged her back thinking about you. You've planted all these seeds, these open loops in her mind and she's doing the work for you. So when she does finally turn up on the date, she's she's good to go. She's really really intrigued thus attracted. Yeah? And as we said in that Billion Wicked Thoughts podcast, great research in that book, when they describe a girl as like a miss Marple, like a detective. So it's in her DNA, it's in her biology biological interests to be this detective and find clues and think to are other women attracted to you? Are you preselected? That's why girls say, are you married? Do you have kids? Hoping in a way that you'll actually say yes or that you were married or you've got some secret or that you you were jailed for drug trafficking or whatever because they love finding these clues of power and this guy has got frame and this guy is selected by other women. They figure out all these clues and they build this picture in their mind as I said, when you're not even there. What fuels all this is her not knowing. So we have to give her the gift as I've said many times before of her chasing you. And to do that, you have to create that space, that mystery, that vacuum. You have to be unpredictable. Like the bad boy, you come and you go, high and it's low, it's fun and then it's a door slam and you walk out. This sparks infatuation. And what I say in that, article on intermittent reinforcement is absolutely key. This is on a biochemical level and it applies to addiction, all your little vices, your sneaky vices whether that's alcohol or chocolate or sex or video games or gambling, whatever, based on the theories of skinner on conditioning. And intermittent reinforcement as in a mouse, pulling a lever and sometimes getting rewarded for that, that's better than continuous reinforcement where the mouse pulls the lever and every time gets the treat. So the random reward is what's so appealing because you don't know when it's coming so you get addicted. It's why people check their phone so often. Have you got a text message? Was that sound an alert for you or somebody else's phone? Has she replied? Has she looked at your message? Has somebody liked your photo? You really think that manufacturers of these apps and phones don't know this stuff. Okay? You really think that McDonald's doesn't know this stuff, that the creators of Facebook or Instagram or Twitter don't know this stuff. This is basic science, intermittent reinforcement and the creators of video games certainly know this stuff. The creators of Vegas gambling and slot machines definitely know this stuff. It is cocaine for the human brain and it is double cocaine, double strength cocaine for women. So why aren't we using this technique? Intermittent reinforcement. I've said in frame talks before that you don't reward an indicator of disinterest with an indicator of interest. You don't reward bad behavior as a parent or a teacher or a daygamer. And it still amazes me why so many guys reward girls for their bad behavior. So she's late and the guy's like, that's okay. She doesn't text him back and he sends another message. She writes him one word and he writes her 50 words. She's texting on the date and he's leaning in. Are you okay? Can I get you a drink? So no, basic balancing of equations. I think I'm gonna make a video on that for this week because it's a subtle nuance topic. And I was pleased that guys asked me for more subtle advanced topics. I was worried that guys were gonna say, no, no, no, more of the basics, but this is good. So we'll discuss the balance of IOIs, IODs, IOD to IOD, etcetera etcetera, the kind of chemical equations in this week's video. But just remember for now intermittent reinforcement, how that applies to being a man of mystery, enigma. So sometimes you're rewarding her, you're sending her a funny photo ping, you might even buy her a miniature bar of chocolate, you know, hey, I thought of you and this is a funny little kinder egg, there you go, cost me €1. And at other times there's forty eight hours of silence or a week of silence or you're looking away leaning back, you seem to be in a bit of a grump. You just get up from a date as we shall talk about you leave and she's thinking, what the fuck? This is why bad boys are chick crack. They are magnetic. Yep. Which is linked to the scarcity principle. You want what you can't have. That just makes humans desire it more because you're on a chemical level, you're getting a dopamine hit and then it's disappearing, so you crave it. That's the basis of intermittent reinforcement. And that's the basis of things like snipping and stacking. So you are perhaps remembering this from classic Mystery Method days where you start a conversational thread, she's kind of listening and then you stop it and you move on to a second conversational thread and Mystery used to say, oh, remind me to finish that story in a bit or he gives her an object and he says, just hold on to this for a while, remind me, give it back at the end. He's opening a line of conversation then he's snipping and he's starting another thread and he stops that and he starts another one and then he goes back to the first one. This creates intrigue. You can use it with classic game phrases like, you know what? As you say to her and then you slightly turn away and say, actually, never mind. Or you say, had a really odd dream about you. And she says, what? What? What? And you say, never mind. Or the classic Mystery Method, you say, you know what I really like about you? I can't tell you because then you'd stop doing it. If she asks you, like I said before, she says, oh, do were you married or what happened in your last relationship? You can just smile. You can do a bit of a cocky grin and say, it's complicated. Let her fill in the blanks. Let her do the dot to dot. Okay? Don't start trying to explain with logic, trying to justify, trying to rationalize. If you're justifying at any point in life, it means you're the defense. It means you're you've lost the frame. You're meant to be on the offense. This is not a frame war, so we want to be cryptic. We want to be enigmatic, subtle and under the radar. Recently, I think last week on a coffee bridge date, I could see that she was checking her phone a lot and I was mirroring her, IOI for IOI. Wasn't that invested in the conversation. She said she was sleepy. So suddenly I glanced at my phone, pretended that I just read an important text message and said, you know what? I've got to go but I'll see you next week. I put my coffee money on the table and I said, bye. And the look on her face was priceless. Okay. And not enough guys have the courage to do this. Leave her. And now the nice guy would say, what the fuck? That is ruining your chances, Tom, of fucking that girl. But you know what? Counter intuitive truths of game and red pill, that my friends will increase the chances of me sleeping with her. Because I'd had the first date with her where we'd had a little cuddle and she'd been back at mine. That was the second bridge date, the coffee date and I just got up and left. So I didn't hear from her for I think twenty four, forty eight hours, but now she's texting me like mad. Give her the gift of chasing you because she's suddenly thinking what the fuck happened to Tom. Yeah? It's like when you're pinging a girl, you've had this happen to you. Let's say you're pinging a girl back and forth and she suddenly stops texting, she vanishes for one hour, one day, one week and you're thinking, what the fuck? What happened? What did I do? What did I say? Is she dead? Has she got a boyfriend? Did she get married? Your mind goes into overdrive and that is exactly what we want to generate with her. But the good news is when women's minds go into overdrive, the hamster wheel goes a million miles an hour, Sparks come off it. It's going so fast. So a great dirty little trick of game is that when you're pinging or ping ponging as my friend Ian calls it, we'll come on to that in another video, which is back and forth texting all in one afternoon or evening to kind of accelerate the text process. You're halfway through a text thread, you're sending stuff back, you're pinging photo pinging each other and then suddenly just go offline. Don't say bye, don't say I've got to go, just go offline and turn your phone off or don't go on that app so she can see that you're not online. Again, counterintuitive, the nice guy's like, what the fuck? That's rude. I must help her with her problems. I must show that I'm a nice reliable guy. She's not gonna come on a date with me. What do you think actually happens? Gil freaks out, Gil fills in blanks herself, Girls thinks, wow, he's high value because he's got other options. He's non needy. Therefore, he's surrounded by women. All these things are subconscious and her interest levels go up. In game, a lot of these are called false takeaways where you basically feign disinterest. Yeah? So the woman chases you. It's all part of flipping the script. It's part of qualifying, which I've spoken about before. And women live for this. Women live for this kind of impending doom. It's at the heart of every chick flick and trashy romantic novel where they're trying to win over the dangerous bad guy. Yep. You can do a lot in which I shall talk about in my daygame dynamo texting video which I shall shoot when I get back to The UK. Sending her cryptic answers. So rather than when she says, maybe we could meet on men's Wednesday, the nice guy goes, yes, Exclamation. Exclamation. Happy face. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Super needy. Read my article on male neediness. Whereas the bad boy, he rolls off for a few hours and then he just replies, maybe. Or I love replying, maybe dot dot dot, we'll see. Or if you're really badass, just reply to something she said with silence and then after a few hours just reply dot dot dot an ellipsis. And she'll be like, what the fuck? So these takeaways preempting her disinterest by being disinterested before her, I. E. Pushing before she does, an IOD before she does, we'll talk about that in the chemical equations balancing video, rolling off. So just when you sense that she might give you some token LMR, you're rolling off first. That gives her this feeling of what's happening, why is he pulling away and it creates the chase. Yeah. Another game technique, I don't think I've spoken about this on a video, I've written about it of course in Street Hustle is the old school false disqualifier where you are basically ruling yourself out which is the complete opposite of a nice guy who's qualifying saying, pick me, pick me. A false disqualifier is basically saying, you know what, I'm the guy your mother warned you about. That's a great line. I'm the guy your mother warned you about. I'm trouble. Alright? You should definitely stop seeing me. I say, I'm too old for you, you know, I could be your dad. I am a very bad influence on you. Or on the street, often say, you know, I'm a very bad boyfriend. It's not gonna work out if that's what you're looking for. Now, in her mind, she's thinking, wow, a challenge. This is the first time a guy's ever been a challenge vis a vis, he must be high value. Otherwise, why would he behave like this? Yep. Alright. For the last ten minutes of the podcast, let us think of that commercial that I played you, Jonathan Goldman. That was the classic Dos Eckers beer commercials, maybe you remember it if you're my age. Most interesting man in the world. It's sadly been watered down now into a bit of a purple pill thing with a younger guy. I don't even think it's beer anymore, I think it's whiskey perhaps. But anyway, this is a form of game. It's been named, I don't know by who but I remember reading it in 02/2010 maybe when I was watching those commercials, the most interesting man in the world game, which is fantastic for people, for guys who are 30, 35, 40, 45, etcetera. When you've got real world experience, when you've got real DHV stories in your life, when you've really traveled, when you're really the CEO of a company, when you've really got natural embedded value and what that gives you life experience gives you is the zero fucks given vibe. Because by year 30, certainly by your mid thirties, you should have social status. You should have some success with money and a career and you're well beyond university and you've traveled a lot and you've had long term girlfriends and hopefully lots of lovers and that gives you gravitas. So women are naturally intrigued. This is the 50 shades of grey thing, the why younger girls fancy their lecturers thing. Yeah. You've just got that weight about you, hopefully not physical weight. And women, younger women are intrigued. So there's lots of natural open loops in your life anyway. An open loop being a cliffhanger, you know, you seed a little bit of information she wants to know more. So if she was to look through your Instagram or your Facebook, it really does have an impressive collection of travel photos and hobbies and successes. So you don't need to create the photo stack, it's real. And you don't need to peacock because it's real. You've really got those tattoos. You've really got stories about the rings and the boot and the jacket. It's not contrived anymore. And this is why guys in their early twenties, I've taught guys learning game, I think the youngest guys who ever came on a boot camp were a pair of brothers. I think, I think they were 16, I could be wrong, they might have been 17 but it was two brothers in London and they came on a boot camp and we were shocked. Because men have to build their value and in late teens early twenties, unless you've you're blessed with just good looks, which is a partial form of value, you can get away with good looking guy game or you're the captain of the rugby team or you're bit of a Justin Bieber celebrity. If you haven't got that, women don't feel that gravitas because you got to go through your twenties and all the shitty jobs and all the experience with girls, you got to build your value up, you got to sort your business out, sort your health out, you got to travel, you've got to have lessons from reality, the university of life. And the thing that you're trying to get away with the swagger or the peacocking or the fashion or the general vibe, it just doesn't fit you. Whereas the Jonathan Goldsmith, Sean Connery Bond vibe, we all get it Because a man like that, sure. He's been around the world many times and his face reflects it, his posture reflects it, his voice reflects it and it's real and women sense that. Okay? We call this amused mastery and it's where I'm aiming to be. Certainly, I'm going to be 38 watched over a week's time and when I get into my forties, this is the type of game I will be focused on, amused mastery. I'll do a podcast on this or a video on this or a whole video series on this because it's it's a form of being, it's a philosophy, it's a way of gaming which applies really to older men. It's mature but it's playful. So it's not just aloof. It's not just this two d James Bond, you know, super cool, super cold but you're showing that you don't take it seriously. You don't take life seriously. Right? You're giggling, you're amused, you've to smirk. So for example, if a young kid, when I was a school teacher, if a kid came up to me and said, sir, you know, a six year old kid went, sir, you're you suck or you're dumb or you're silly or you smell. How do you think an an adult responds to that comment? Do they lose frame? Do they get prickly? Do they get angry? No. This is why I say see women's shit tests, frame tests as just like puppy dogs or little kids. It's playful, it's funny. You a, you don't even acknowledge them, water off a duck's back or b, you just smirk, you say something silly back. Okay. Now, we'll finish with the dangers. The dangers of most interesting man in the world's game, an enigmatic game and making her chase, but particularly amused mastery and what I've just spoken about this kind of Dos Equis, Jonathan Goldsmith game. What's the danger of that? Well, a, you can look you could look like a provider. So if you're playing the Instagram, Facebook, man of mystery traveling around the world, older man with money, be very careful certainly in the form of Soviet Union as I talk about in Cold Calling. You don't be surprised when you attract these bimbos in Kiev, these gold diggers in Moscow because if that's the kind of guy you're presenting, the guy with speedboats and yachts and kind of Dan Bilzerian esque Rolexes, then certain women are going to gravitate towards you. Yeah. Moths to a flame or flies on shit, whatever analogy you want. So be very careful. The oldest students I've taught in their forties and fifties, I say, dress down, take off your shiny watch, don't tell them where you live or how much money you earn. You've got to still use charm and charisma. You've still got to use CAD lover. Yep. Also, it can be bragging. So too many wonderful Facebook photos, too many hot girls on your stream. It can seem over invested. It can seem try hard. So those DHV stories about you getting kidnapped in Mexico and wrestling a crocodile in the outback, be careful. Be calibrated. Alright? Combine them with hot and cold off and on. It can't just be look at me, look at me, I'm James Bond. It's bragging and bragging is over investment and the women will smell it on a subconscious level. She'll think, why is he being so try hard? Try hard suggests low value. Okay. He's not sure of himself. And being enigmatic, not telling girls real answers, not grounding things, not telling her anything about your life, not answering any of her questions, not bonding with her, completely pushing her away, it's evasive. So again, her miss Marple, her detective is thinking what's he got to hide? And a bit of this is good because the hamster wheel spins. But if it spins too much, the hamster wheel breaks or the hamster falls off or she just moves on. You're too much of a challenge. Let's say you vacuumed, you haven't texted her for six months. Fuck it. She's moved on to a guy that was more available. She's horny. Okay. She's not the angelic librarian you think she is. She needs to fuck specifically in the middle of her month when she's ovulating. And if you're always enigmatic then another guy, right place, right time, he's gonna come along and come. So I know it's hard, it's a balancing act, there is this enigmatic sweet spot which you shall learn but you can do a lot more of this when you get into your thirties, into your forties, I'm hoping into your fifties. Like I said, we shall talk about amused mastery and how that is a black sheep philosophy for life and why women find that so attractive. In next week's podcast though, as I said, linking to enigmatic men and push pull and intrigue and a lot of fucking drama. Next week's podcast is on the Cult of Personality. So if you can go to my website, remember it loads nice and fast on mobiles. It's super minimal and I've given three documentary trailers. I've been watching a lot of documentaries obviously because I'm editing a documentary But these three stand out for men with dark triad traits and their cult of personality. The first one is called The Source Family. The second one is called Gringo, The Dangerous Life of John McCaffey. And the third one is My Scientology Movie. If you wanna be a grade a student, I say at the bottom of that post, then also read Robert Greene's famous 48 laws of power and see if you can join the dots between all those things in those documentaries before I tell you the answers next week. That was, my friends, an enjoyable podcast. I enjoyed that. It gives me clarity recording these podcasts. That started off as a jumble of ideas, but now it's nice and sorted in my head. I hope it's sorted for you too. That was podcast 126. I should be in Russia next week. Think still. So until then, speak to you next week.