I’m sitting here on my very first day of true retirement. In truth, I’ve been retired for quite a while now, but this is what I feel to be the actual first day of it. That’s because I’m writing from my new flat which I’ve moved into with my girlfriend, who I met through Daygame (the answer to a question which a surprisingly high number of people ask me) and with whom I want to settle down. We even moved out of London. It’s true, I am no longer communicating to you from a bachelor pad in zone one, but from out in the sticks, close to nature and somewhere where a night out for dinner and drinks won’t set you back an arm and a leg.
I’ll add this disclaimer in here, and I know I repeat it often, but I just want to make sure everyone knows because it’s another question which a lot of people ask me: I’ve retired from Daygaming for myself, but I am still a Daygame coach (the “King of Daygame” if a certain X account is to be believed).
I thought this would be as good an opportunity as ever to write a little bit about how I feel about retiring and to answer some questions which were submitted to me on X. These subsections aren’t in any particular order, mainly because I don’t think that there is some great purpose or theme that runs throughout all the points.
The Decision to Retire
This is just something I’ve always known that I will do, and so I’ve just done it. A while ago Joe and I were messaging on X and he said “I always admired how you planned your life with the precision of a swiss clock.” Now, I wouldn’t go so far as calling myself a swiss clock, because I was never that precise, but I am decisive. I’ve always known what I want and I go for it. I gave myself an ambitious yet realistic goal and hit it and haven’t looked back. As far as I’m concerned, I “won the Game,” and have moved onto the next stage of my life. That’s why I said that there isn’t any grand theme going through this post. This new stage of my life is simply what I knew I wanted to do and have done.
I know that there are lots of talented and charismatic men out there who are held back by their main sticking point: neuroticism, which leads to analysis paralysis. They are constantly asking themself “but what if” style questions and so they never even take the first step. I am not one of these people, even though I think about things a lot. I’m lucky to be the kind of person who has these thoughts but then does the thing anyway. That’s why “act first, think later,” is one of my life philosophies. “Learn by doing” is a corollary to this: try, refine, try, refine, try, refine. I usually find that after doing something three times I’ve learned 80% of what there is to know about doing it at a reasonable level.
Yes, I know “the risks” of settling down, and you can call it delusion, but I don’t think these things are going to happen to me. At the foundation of everything I believe, I have this deep seated optimism that my life will work out in the end. I know that to some people, acting this way is reckless. They will use emotionally charged words to try and get you to rethink your actions and to instil some of their neuroticism in you. Ultimately, it’s just a case of misery loving company.
The Naysayers
This leads nicely onto my second point: the naysayers. 80% of the reactions I’ve had to retiring are positive: they congratulate me on achieving my goals and wish me well in my next stage of life. However, I’ve identified three rough categories of negative responses:
- The guys who straight up want you to fail because of their biases. Usually these are guys who have gone through their own tough break-ups and divorces and so are wholeheartedly signed up to the whole “relationships don’t work and eventually she’s going to screw you over” dogma. They have a zero-sum view of the world. In my opinion, they’re either trying to defend their own ego because they won’t accept that their relationship broke down because of themselves or something they did and/or they didn’t properly vet the girl before entering the relationship, or they’re trying to defend their intellectual ivory tower which they base their self-esteem on. However, at least this group of people wear their opinions openly, unlike the other two.
- The “Game never ends” crowd. Again, it’s my opinion, and you’re entitled to disagree, but I don’t think the concept of “relationship Game” exists. If you’re going to be with someone for a long time then you cannot wear a mask; it will eventually slip. Or if you’re trying to artificially instil dread then the girl will just walk away, unless you’re taking part in a “dance of wounded souls” relationship (codependent and narcissist), which isn’t where you want to be anyway. I think that secure and healthy successful relationships come from SMV, proper vetting and the right amount of personality click. I wrote about this a number of years ago, and broke that personality click down into three connections: emotional, sexual and intellectual. Relationships lacking one of those connections will be ultimately unsatisfying. Bringing this back to those who say “Game never ends,” I think they’re just trying to get the last laugh. They want to be able to say “I told you so” if it doesn’t work out.
- The concerned trolls: the ones who say that they are actually on your side and want things to work out… but “just in case…” They are forever trying to give you these insurance policies and micro-manage your relationship. Again, I presume, to extend their ivory tower into your relationship. These guys remind me of the “magic wand” Gamers who exist on X only to jump onto someone else’s post to give a condescending explanation on what the guy did wrong and how if he was in that situation everything would have magically gone his way through his artful application of Game.
Is It Difficult to Retire?
Let this be a message of hope to all those out there who think that Daygame will turn them into a breukan man: Daygame will only break the breakable (breuk the breukable?). It’s a bit like alcohol, money, steroids, etc: it amplifies who you already are. So no, I am not an addict who’s lost access to his hit of choice, I’ve simply moved on from that phase of my life.
One thing that I would like to stress here is that, while I’m not being flippant – the Daygame journey is a serious, character building task to undertake – it is still a phase. I don’t say that as if it’s a “goth phase in your teenage years.” I say that to inform you that at some point, the process of approaching girls, dating them and sleeping with them will become tiring. Or at least, the perceived payoff isn’t worth the cost anymore. It’s at this point that you really are ready to retire.
That might be the most surprising part of retirement: how easy it’s been to transition to it. Let’s be honest, there is a lot of anti-relationship propaganda out there, usually pushed by the members of the Red Pill community who most resemble radical feminists. That propaganda propagates because of its shock value. It plays on human’s innate focus on high strength probabilities, rather than high weight probabilities. There’s also the fearmongering that “the hunger never goes away” and therefore if you’re in a relationship then you will inevitably become frustrated. I’ve never subscribed to their way of thinking, knowing that it’s the extreme of what could happen, rather than what will happen, but I was a bit surprised at how retiring was like slipping into a warm bath.
In my opinion, and there have been a lot of these throughout this post, the guys who push the idea that Daygame will break you and that relationships are doomed to fail are the ones who are broken and that, again, misery loves company. This might sound like a crazy idea, but Daygame isn’t heroin, and women, by and large, like all people, aren’t evil. You can easily do Daygame, enjoy yourself, have your adventures, and then settle down.
Oftentimes I’ve likened it to a video game where I got the Platinum trophy (the one you get for getting all the other trophies). I can look back at my time playing the video game and know it was a lot of fun, but I’m not interested in returning to it. Sure, I can walk down the street and notice an IOI, but it doesn’t tempt me one bit. I simply pocket it as another positive reference experience. If you’re currently in that way of thinking: that it’s hard to retire because you’re going to miss out on opportunities, it’s because you’re still living in a scarcity mindset. The key indicator of being in abundance is the ability to identify an opportunity and pass up on it.
This is what having true abundance is and what true outcome independence feels like. I think it’s ironic: that you can only feel this way once you don’t really care about the thing anymore. I appreciate my luck in having the raw materials and correct mindsets to get me to this point – the one I chose – but I recommend to guys to draw a line in the sand and tell themselves that once they hit a particular goal or time limit that they will count themselves as having “won the Game,” and to please make it realistic and to not move the goalposts. Doing so will only lead to you getting rekt.
Was Daygame a Waste of Time Then?
Daygame taught me a whole raft of new skills, but they are fully transferable, and so they don’t rust. I feel as if I truly am a charismatic man and I can see the effect I have on people. Therefore the charisma I gained from Daygame comes into play with every person I interact with. It doesn’t feel like wasted ability and I don’t regret my time in Daygame one bit.
In fact, I think that was a powerful mindset jump I made over my time Daygaming; that it wasn’t about learning Game, per se, but instead about learning charisma. Once I made that jump then I was able to start believing in myself as the charismatic guy, rather than someone who merely had domain specific skills. Please don’t get me wrong here, though. I am not simply advocating for “the Game never ends” by another name, because I’m talking about becoming a better version of yourself for self-actualisation.
Then there are the friends you made along the way. Some of them have retired like I have and others are still going. Retiring doesn’t suddenly cut you off from those people and for those that continue, their results aren’t some source of envy. In fact, once you’re out of the Game and your ego is taken out of things, you can enjoy your friends’ successes and congratulate them with complete sincerity.
Aren’t You Going to Get Bored?
No. I’ve learned that Daygame actually distracts you from life, and I really love living. Daygame can be a conduit through which self-improvement can act but ultimately for a better life you have to look at things holistically. Daygame was simply the fun journey and the good life was the destination.
When you’re a serious Daygamer it can easily become your entire world; everything you do is geared towards achieving Daygame results:
- Use 80%+ of your holiday from work to take Daygame trips or going full nomad to be in the top Daygame locations year round
- Scheduling your week to maximise time Daygaming
- Selecting hobbies to maximise SMV
The list goes on.
Once I stopped Daygaming, I saw that there was so much in life that I wanted to do, even if it was just to take a nice walk without that nagging voice in the back of my head telling me to be “awake to opportunities.” In fact, such a small thing as taking a walk with no pressure provided a strong example of how all-consuming Daygame can be while you’re an active Daygamer. That’s where the “aren’t you going to get bored” question originates from. I guess that it’s availability bias: we think that since Daygame is our be all and end all right now, that once we retire it will remain so. In reality, it isn’t.
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I’ve done my best to cover the questions I received but if you would like to know more then please leave a comment below.
Yours unfaithfully,
Thomas Crown
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