---
title: Episode 199 Are You Lonesome Tonight
episode_number: 199
era: late
source_file: Episode 199 Are You Lonesome Tonight.mp3
audio_size_mb: 50.2
duration_sec: 1645.8
duration_min: 27.4
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.997
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T17:12:28Z---

# Episode 199 Are You Lonesome Tonight

**Speaker 0:** Hello. This is the Tom Torero podcast from Lakeside Edge. Rather sunny. Hopefully, you can hear the lapping waves. All very tranquil. Podcast number episode a 199. You filthy bastards. We have a 199 problems as black sheep bandit bachelors, but a ain't one. Certainly, if you know about daytime dating and daygame and doing your own thing, saying fuck it to the norm, not going your own way because girls are the carrot on the stick to my lifestyle, to this podcast, to probably why you're listening. But what are the honest transparent downsides to being a bachelor, to being a player, certainly in your thirties, forties, and beyond. That's the topic of today as we creep towards the two hundredth episode next week. So if you wanna be part of that episode, I'm nagging you one more time. You can take a horse to water as they say, but you can't make it drink. So I've given you lots and lots of notice. If you wanna be featured on podcast episode 200, it's your dream, your boyhood dream to be immortalized in this podcast available for free to download on iTunes to watch on YouTube every week. It's been going for five years now. Can you believe that? Anyway, if you wanna be on it, you just need to send me email me a sixty second or less m p three file. A few guys have sent me dodgy files that I can't open, so make it MP3. You can record it on your phone, record it on whatever. Make it clear. Say your name or a pseudonym, where in the world you are, and what daygame has given you. What this superpower of going up and talking to strangers and all the adventures that that entails. What has that done for you? Whether you've been doing it now for a week and you've just done 10 approaches or you've been doing it for ten years and you've done 10,000 approaches. Send me your file and I will put it in the episode. We've already got lots, but that's next week. Alright. No secret what this podcast is about. If you've read the title, it's on loneliness. The bachelor blues of being lonely. As Chris Rock said, you can be married and bored, or we could say you could be in a relationship and bored, or single and lonely. Ain't no happiness nowhere. And if you've watched the film that I always encourage players to watch, Alfie, which is original version, the Michael Caine version, you'll see this dilemma running through the film. Should you play on and be the bachelor and have that lightness about you, or should you cash in your chips, walk away from the table, and return to the, quote unquote, normal world and have that nice weight about life with the wife and the kids and the in laws and the family dinners and doing the right thing and manning up. What's the answer? I've touched upon this in other podcasts. This is a theme that is in all my books, particularly in last year's book, below the belt, where I write about this dilemma. And last week or the week before, as I was in the Balkans, I finished off rereading a fantastic book, which addresses a lot of these themes too. I read it originally before I started pickup. So I took different conclusions from that reading to a few weeks ago. And the book is called The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. There's a lot of parallels to family situations because it's set in Czechoslovakia in 1969. That's where my dad was a doctor and he escaped. The main character in the book, he's a doctor in Prague. He's called Thomas. And he's having to decide between this lightness of being a perpetual bachelor and the weight of normality and having one girl and getting married and settling down. I won't give away the ending, but a player will read it completely differently to, I guess, a married guy reading that book. But that addresses this question of bachelor blues and loneliness. And following that on the plane home, I read South of the Border, West of the Sun. Again, that was a second reading. I read that at university. And different conclusions again. It's by Haruki Murakami, the Japanese magical realist. Similar themes, although you could say perhaps a Disney ending. He finishes it more sweetly. But similar themes, should a guy who's good with girls, should the guy who's still got his mojo sexually attracted to girls even once he's married? Should he play on and have sexual adventures? Or should he ignore that urge and do the right thing for himself and society and his church and and stay in the bosom of family. So those are two books which prompted this podcast. And I've touched upon it, as I said, lot of times before. If you wanna know about the effects of doing a lot of day game, now ten years of day game and really not settling, and what this does to you, does it make you cold? Does it make you a complete bastard? What do you lack? What do you miss out on? Again, with perpetual travel, not having a base. What does it do for your mental health? What about friendships? And all the common questions, the black sheep bandit common questions. Then if you can't wait for the new book, plug, plug, plug. It's in last year's book below the belt. But I shall read a bit of an article I wrote last summer, I think, on my blog. It's called Bachelor Blues. And it starts with that Chris Rock quote about being married and bored or single and lonely. Ain't no happiness nowhere. And it goes on to say, if only one percent of men are in the secret society, then it's quite a lonely place to be by default. Whilst the other 99% of guys are coupled up and cuddling, probably watching Netflix, the perpetual player is hunting for his next meal, which is consumed rapidly before moving on to the next chase. Monogamous relationships make a man soft mentally and physically. You get comfortable. You stop trying. The frame slips away. Oxytocin, which is the cuddle hormone, floods your body as you get settled, certainly in the first few months and years. Things are familiar, safe, and boring. It's no surprise that this turns the girl off, and it also turns you off. Notice how the sex life decreases. A player in contrast rides the wave of adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin highs as he gets out in field getting an addictive rush, an addictive rush off cold approach pickup. He's energized and focused, and the youthfulness of the girls he's pursuing rubs off on him, both metaphorically and literally. What he massively is lacking, however, is the oxytocin induced bonding feeling as he moves from girl to girl. Once the sex is over and she's left the apartment, it's just him alone. The character of Hank Moody in the TV series Californication exemplifies this dilemma well. Hank is a middle aged bachelor living a bohemian life as a writer and womanizer in Los Angeles. Despite a huge abundance of casual sex, he's prone to longing for his former long term girlfriend and emotional around his daughter. The surname Moody sums it up. Booze, weed, meltdowns, mess, classic bachelor hallmarks. Players are certainly not immune to oneitis. I've often said that playboys fall harder because of the lack of oxytocin in their lives. This explains why many legendary cats from Frank Sinatra to Hugh Hefner get married brackets multiple times and lose both their frame and freedom. I call this affection addiction. And that's still perhaps my favorite podcast. That is episode number 43 about oxytocin and codependency. Anyway, I continue. So is there a solution to the bored versus lonely conundrum? It's very rare for a guy to pull it off, but a man can remain in the secret society and have longer term relationships if it's open and he continues to fuck new girls with or without his girlfriend. Or a player can ensure his oxytocin levels are topped up with mini relationships. I call them love bubbles. A few days or weeks here and there with girls as you travel. Close male friendships and even female friends sourced from former fuck buddies. Such love bubbles where you ensure that you're getting enough affection from women whilst not compromising your freedom are the equivalent of divers using a network of air cylinders on a long dive to be able to stay under for longer. I'm quite proud of that metaphor. It's a tough balancing act, believe you me, that every guy in the secret society has to master. Enough adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin to stay single and horny, but also enough oxytocin to feel loved and human. Too much of either can dash you on the rocks. That's why I also call it the siren song. This feeling that a player has perhaps even more than the chump who just goes from monogamy to monogamy, car crash to car crash. The player, despite getting all the casual sex, often feels lonely because there's many times when your male friends are not available to hang out, perhaps they've even got unmarried. You're traveling to a new place alone. The girls just left your apartment. You're alone. You've had your family dinner, and once again, you're alone. And as you move into your late thirties, I can tell you this from experience now, coming up to 40 this year, old father time comes knocking. Jesus. Just like these waves. Let me shift my ass backwards a bit. Hang on. Otherwise, this would be, not waving but drowning. Podcast a 199. Wouldn't even get uploaded. What was I saying? Yes. I was talking about as you get into your late thirties and coming up to my forties, and I'm sure in my mid forties, father time also knocks on the male's door. And we think of this just applying to females, you know, that sudden urge to have babies, that sudden panic, that shit time is running out. And you can look up all the stuff on female sexual market value and and when this panic happens and why and how it's quite literal because of her appearance and also her limited number of eggs. And how for men it's different. Yet still we have that panic. And if you've been picking up girls for a long time and suddenly everybody else around you starts coupling up, getting married, and then even lecturing other people. If he's a former pickup artist saying that pickup is bad and that the only thing that can make you happy is self sacrifice for the noble cause and and beautiful children, you know, the 2.4 children that greet you as you walk across your nineteen fifties lawn towards the perfect housewife who's there with your dinner. That's that's a draw. That's a pull. And players have it more because players have this oxytocin depletion, this need for oxytocin because they're getting too much adrenaline and serotonin and dopamine. So I would say players fall for this easier. The siren song pulls you towards rocks like where I am now, and then your boat before you know it is dashed on the rocks from decisions, and here's a key point today, that you make emotionally. You've all had that lonely night. I've had a few of them recently. This is again why I'm making the podcast. Also based on things that have happened around me with other people and family discussions. You have lonely nights certainly in the van when you're on your own. You have lonely nights where perhaps you've had a beer or perhaps, it's just been one of those days you've had a lack of sleep or perhaps you've been ill recently or perhaps you've broken up with one of the girls that you're casually seeing. Even that hurts. And you have these 3AM dark nights of the soul, the existential thoughts and questions about, you know, what are you doing. And in that emotional state, I used to do this far more, but at least now I wait until the morning. But in that emotional state, you can make rash decisions. You can text an old flame. You can panic. You can make a decision on a whim. Right. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna propose. I'm gonna get this girl pregnant. I'm gonna move to this part of the world. I'm gonna give it all up. I'm gonna whatever. You make an emotional decision. And low and behold, when you wake up in the morning, either you think, fuck, what have I done? And dwell on the emails or text messages you sent. Or b, like me, you just think, well, everything's fine with the world. It's another sunny day. Back to your mission. Back to seeing yourself as, what do they say, your mental point of origin, which is essentially what the black sheep band is. Understanding that you get happiness from yourself, that no one else can make you whole, all the things I've spoken about. In the morning, things are okay, or after your illness, or after your sleep, things are okay. Another for this is if you're having a massive bout of loneliness in the evenings is in the mornings, if you want some clarity, call a couple of male friends. And if you're sitting there thinking I don't have any male friends, then come on. Use your day game skill set to meet other guys, to meet other bachelors. Start off, I think I said last week, by just having them as wings and then doing other things with them and going on trips with them until the point where you can call them up and you can speak about these things. Because sure, it's lonely at the top as they say. If, the secret society members are not frequent at all, then it's nice to have a guy you can call up. And you don't necessarily have to even talk about this stuff. You just have a chat. And this morning, I had a chat with two guys in different parts of the world. That's the beauty of, calling over the Internet. You have a chat. You do something physical. I went for a walk, and you're back to your rational or as rational as we can be way of thinking. Don't make those decisions when you're lonely. And here's an interesting thing, which came from another discussion with a different guy. He said he knew somebody, his brother's dogs, cousins aren't, one of those situations. A guy that was a bachelor, I think, his fifties and still going strong. And his advice to the guy in his forties was beware this trap. This trap from the age of 40 to 50, or you could say from, 35 to 55, if you wanna make it a bit broader, which is that time for a guy, the danger zone when your value is peaking, but you're panicking because everybody else around you is walking away from the table. If this is a game of poker and you're thinking, fuck, fuck, fuck. You know, all those questions come into your head. All that pressure from outside is put upon you. But he said, if you can just survive those critical years, those panicking years, then you're you're the one smiling, reaping reaping the rewards when you're 55. I've said in other podcasts, simple practical things for loneliness. If you're listening to this podcast and you're you're not dating lots of girls, well, that's obviously step one. And what does daygame give you on a very base level? It gives you social skills. So even if you don't get late, your social skills will rapidly improve through talking to people. Talking to people, random strangers, even the bloke in the coffee shop. I chatted to the guy in the supermarket this morning. Immediately makes you feel human. You have a human connection. And if you do that 10 times, three times a week, aka going out and doing daygame, you feel okay. Going on dates, enjoying being there, that will make you feel okay. I'm not saying lots of random casual sex that you throw the girl away immediately. That's not gonna make you super happy. It's also not gonna make you super depressed. It's gonna make you super there you go. You learned that skill. It's useful. It's fun at the time. But just like eating loads and loads of ice cream, that's not gonna make you fulfilled. Now that's not me hating on daygamers and saying, well, kids and a wife are gonna make you fulfilled. Statistically, they're not. Statistically, they're gonna make you unhappier. So it comes back to this wider question, which is why I'm focusing more and more on the black sheep bandit stuff. Long term happiness is gotta be you sorting yourself out. Not thinking daygame is gonna solve my problems or a wife and kids is gonna solve my problems. I'm so lonely, therefore, I need to be in some codependent relationship because I had this emotional panic. No. It's just a sign that you are not quite the black sheep bandit that you think. Yeah. You should be content. I said with being alone. Alone is different from lonely. That was on the last black sheep bandit episode. Episode. You should also have a way of getting oxytocin without that codependency. I've said this numerous times. So that could be the harem, which is this year's project. But, you know, I'm not being diligent with the girls that I've seen in Russia. They fall away. A harem is not sustainable because naturally girls go from the player back to a a cozy beta relationship. Harems break up. Certainly Russian girls vanish if you don't maintain the harem. That's just that's just part of the deal. So you could rely on casual open relationships for oxytocin, but all things will pass. Those girls will disappear as well. So the players left thinking, fuck, fuck, fuck. Where can I get the oxytocin from now? It should be, like I said, male friends. They are a lot more sustainable long term than casual female. I should point out fuck buddies. Family members, but also at some point, if you face the death in the family, the death of a parent, you've probably faced the death of a grandparent, you realize they can't be your source of long term happiness and oxytocin. So you could get a dog and you think, okay, that's gonna be twelve, what, at best, fifteen years of oxytocin, but that's gonna end as well. So it's all about zooming out and examining why are you lonely. Are you really your mental point of origin yet? And daygame is a great distraction for it. Daygame has distracted me for about ten years now, and I'm gonna keep doing it for a long time. I know daygamers in their fifties. I used to live with two of them, and they're still going strong. So I guess I'll be doing daygame in my fifties. But you've also got to think daygame will pass. Where are you gonna get your fulfillment and oxytocin from? And as cheesy as it sounds, if you can't make yourself happy, nobody else can. It's it's your mission. It's the wider thing that you do which can't be tied to these temporal hits of adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, or oxytocin. Because if you just think, right, I'm gonna solve all my problems by marrying a girl tomorrow, All my player loneliness will go, okay. You get that blissful cuddling, the blissful first few months, the the kind of Disney dream of cuddling up on the sofa. But you know what happens to these relationships. I don't need to tell you. That comfort eventually disgusts the girl. It also disgusts you as you both get, soft, quite literally. You both get fat. You wonder why you don't want to shag each other. If that model worked, and I've said this before and I say it in my new book, if that model worked, that you could just marry a girl, have a couple of kids, get a dog, and everybody who followed that model was walking around with a massive grin on their face, that was the easiest way to happiness. You think I would still be chasing girls? No. Have I, considered the options rationally? Yeah. Does marriage make you happy? Do kids make you happy? Is being in one place, does that make you happy? You can have an emotional reaction to those questions. Yes. Yes. It does. I've done it. You might defend that position because you're saying, I made that choice. Therefore, everybody else is wrong. But it takes a lot of time, I found. I'm still at the point, and I probably will still be here ten years later sitting on this rock with the very same question. Calmly, rationally considering these massive questions, and they are massive questions. Because if you decide tomorrow to fly to another part of the world, marry a girl, and have kids with her, that my friends is huge fundamental change in your life and the next ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and beyond years. And I'm amazed when guys make these snap emotional decisions. After a couple of beers or I meet a guy in the town where I grew up and he's gone from a divorce with a couple of kids to marrying another bird. She's a single mom. She already had kids and then he moves in with her. And then before you know it, he's in this spider web of crazy commitments and problems financially, emotionally. And he for him, it's as casual as just, you know, yeah, it happened. Whatever. That's life. You spend more time thinking about, you know, what film you're gonna watch, what you're gonna wear, what you're gonna eat that night than these massive, massive decisions. So I'm encouraging you today if you are in that lonely position or if you're a player and you have these lonely moments, to just stop and breathe and think about why this is happening, to think about where you can get some temporal oxytocin from. So that could be the classic advice, you know, spin more plates. One is too close to none. That is all very true. It could be going on holiday with a male friend. It could be spending time with your family. I've just been a good boy, I've gone away for a few days with my dear mother. We went to the Polish Lakes and that was all very nice. Massive time for bonding and just being normal and calm in a few days. That's enough. My mom's probably had enough of me. I've had enough of her. God bless her. I love her. But you get the idea. It doesn't need to be either or. You don't need to make these panic decisions, especially now, as I said, this climate where PUA is under attack from both both sides. So the nut job, what do they call the far left, the radical feminists, they don't like pickup because they see it as creepy and misogynistic. And now weirdly, the the guys that used to be pickup artists are becoming real trad cons. That's the term. Very traditional, very conservative. Also now telling you that what they used to do is deeply wrong. So they're encouraging you to be the good boy just like them and stop and settle down and do the right thing and play the role of dads, not cad. Yeah. They will shame you for it. Is it because they are just reaching the age in their lives when they're making these emotional decisions and therefore they're telling guys in their late teens, early twenties to do the same? Sounds mad to me. Certainly, it's not a libertarian point of view. I don't mean political libertarianism. I mean, the black sheep bandit mental point of origin as yourself point of view. So don't come to me for a side, and don't come to me, to confirm an emotional decision. A guy will often on Skype want to have me confirm his snap emotional decision. And I can't make that decision for you. Yeah. I give you I help you with the rational facts. I tell you to pause and not do anything quickly. But in a wider sense, that's part of the problem, that you're looking to me to take the horse to water and make it drink. Whereas the whole point of this, if you haven't noticed already, is that the flagship bandit is making the decisions himself. You are the captain of your ship. The minute you take anyone on board and let them make these massive decisions, you've misunderstood the project. And the ship is going awry, and you're getting angry with other people when it was you that gave up that position of being at the center of the wheel. I'm out of breath because I'm pacing back to the van. I've just realized that I've left it open, which is probably not a problem here in Scandinavia, but, you never know. And my life is in that van. Wouldn't it be ironic that the van was nicked as I was making a podcast about how you shouldn't be attached to worldly things that you think might make you happy. The sun's coming out now. I know I said I'd be in Russia today, but, for a couple of reasons, I'm delaying it by a few days. Well, that's it. I'm not gonna drag this podcast out for the sake of dragging out. Just to remind you, keep some diesel in the van. Help me to keep doing this, putting out these podcasts for free by just buying some of my content. All the stuffs on my website, tomtorero.com. And if you wanna be on podcast 200 before the format of these podcasts perhaps changes, then email me your contribution, tom@tomtorero.com. Your name, your location, and why daygame has changed your life. Don't be lonely. Keep your head up. And next week is the big two hundred. Until then, goodbye. I wanna lift you up some delight. You know someone set up towards change.