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icycalm
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Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Sat Jan 01, 2022 1:05 pm

Tom Torero Died? (BREAKING NEWS)
https://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comm ... king_news/

Krauser posted a tribute but didn’t mention cause of death and is purging discussion on it from his comments. Similar to the Swoop forum censoring discussion on Roosh’s breakdown. They are just too chickenshit to discuss serious issues in the open like men.

TOM TORERO: DAYGAME LEGEND
https://krauserpua.com/2021/12/31/tom-t ... me-legend/

Newsweek doxxed him in November, and got some of his online accounts cancelled, so maybe this precipitated things? It’s hard to see why... If my accounts got cancelled I’d just make alts and move “underground”. It’s not a huge thing. And everyone already knows my last name. Who gives a shit? Those who are interested in all this are faggots anyway. You gonna kill yourself over what a bunch of faggots think?!

Pick-up Artist Tom Torero Sold Sex Recordings, Targeted Teen Girls Using Major Tech Firms
https://www.newsweek.com/pick-artist-so ... ms-1648461

I’m targeting teenage girls too, but I’m not selling sex recordings. Yet.

Was he a great PUA? Undoubtedly. I watched a lot of his videos and read a lot of his blog posts back when he worked at daygame.com. 2013-2015 was the golden era of daygame, and that’s when he peaked, and when I picked up the skillset.

But like all the rest of them he had a kooky understanding of life and psychology. I remember a video of him in his bedroom late at night talking about “dark nights of the soul”. Krauser uses this phrase too, and a lot of them do. Nigga just play some games or read a good book; you’re having a “dark night of the soul” because some retarded slut you met in the street did or said something?

Apparently he had started spending winter seasons in the Alps. Someone said this in Krauser’s comments. He could be doing the same this winter. He could easily get a girl to go with him too. He had his finances sorted, presumably. What on earth was his life lacking?

I do see this a lot with PUAs though. Again and again they are obsessed with “happiness”. Their mantra is “success with women won’t make you happy”. Nigga I ain’t trying to “get happy”, I am tryin’ ta GET LAID. You bitches obsessed with “happiness” need to get on the anti-depressants ASAP.

My first thought when I heard about this was China plague, but Krauser’s insistence on avoiding the cause of death raised red flags, so I googled.

He was in his early-‘40s. He could have had kids. He never even played Alex Kierkegaard’s Battlegrounds ffs. That’s no way to go.

R.I.P. Tom Torero. I’ll be reviewing your work soon.

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Re: Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Sat Jan 01, 2022 1:33 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur9pzT1KAzM

Image

This guy has it right. Pick-up in itself isn’t depressive. The weak get filtered immediately, the strong grow even stronger through it. If pick-up depressed him it would have happened years ago, not a decade into pick-up. This guy kept making videos about how much fun pick-up is, to help beginners who find it terrifying. And he was right. If you get decent at it it’s one of the most fun things in the world to do. It’s so fun it’s massively addictive.

Someone else in the comments says clinical depression, and I find that easier to believe. Apparently he’s had that since a young age. Couple that with regular midlife depression due to aging plus the hitpiece on Newsweek and his online cancelling, and suicide makes sense.

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Re: Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Sat Jan 01, 2022 2:40 pm

Document with details and updates: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17g0 ... pAeRgQOFE/

“It has been verified by his family.” - Steve Jabba
“Newsweek is pure evil.” - Jimmy Jambone
“We don’t know why and how Tom did this.” - Steve Jabba
“I do know that his revenue was cut off from his business.” - Steve Jabba

I don't think Newsweek is evil. They had a right do doxx him, and their viewpoint is valid, though weak of course. I certainly wouldn't want my daughter picked-up by Torero and filmed without her consent having sex with him. Or having sex with him at all.

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Re: Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:14 pm

As for his business, it can't have been that. He would have been prepared long ago, with crypto and whatnot. His profession was on the cutting-edge of cancelling, and he knew this for years. There's no way that guy wasn't ready for it. All those PUAs have very analytical minds, that's how they manage to play the numbers game properly.

It's far more likely that seeing his name dragged through the mud during a midlife crisis exacerbated by his clinical depression led to this.

Keep in mind that it's not just his name that was in the mud, BUT HE HIMSELF TOO. Street pick-up IS MUD. And he knew this very well, and even took advantage of this in his marketing, using terms like "street hustle" with pride.

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Re: Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Sat Jan 01, 2022 7:55 pm

It's quite a trip hearing his voice now. I never rated him much. I knew he was good, and I used some of his content, but he wasn't among my favorite PUAs.

Tom Torero's memory with Richard Dawkins at Oxford University
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtaWlAYAczE

When he was a teenage student at Oxford he emailed Dawkins to say The Selfish Gene depressed him. He even went to Dawkins's home to whine about it.

Meanwhile I was playing sports and videogames and hanging out with my friends and girlfriends.

Typical PUA with no interests. And in the end, his interest ended up not science, but the company of young girls.

When you are lame like that, all of life is a struggle. In earlier times you would have died young, or not even be born. Today you're born and raised and sustained on false hopes and anti-depressants. It is what it is. Much of his life was enjoyable to him, and he helped many people, including me. Then one day he'd had enough, and he turned off the lights.

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Re: Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Wed Jan 05, 2022 6:19 pm

https://www.sigmamaleforum.com/topic/12 ... mment-3697
YouSmallFish wrote: I spoke him on some coaching calls year or two ago; think he got involved juridically with that whole drama story of the BBC. He told me he does seasonal work like being a ski instructor. When did you meet him in London? I think he still does coaching calls if you look on his website, but not sure...

Maybe @Charlie can enlighten us on Tom's situation atm.

https://www.sigmamaleforum.com/topic/12 ... mment-3698
HaveACuppaTea wrote: I met him about a month ago, yes, he said he was now a Ski Instructor in Switzerland.

From back in August.

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Re: Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Wed Jan 05, 2022 6:44 pm

Plot twist: https://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comm ... s/hr0xhpr/
huxleyhog wrote: My opinion on this.. He's not dead. Zero proof will be shown. He did a runner after the newsweek article. Most of the guys putting out "Tom is dead" videos and blog posts know that he is actually alive. Just my opinion.

I hope it's like that. It would be consistent with PUAs being lame nerdy guys who overreact to everything. Pretending you're dead is less of an overreaction to killing yourself, but it's still an overreaction.

Considering how wrong the internet got my disappearance in 2015 (I was in prison while the internet thought I was dead from a street race), I of course don't really trust anything I have read on this matter. But whatever the truth is, overreaction is at the bottom of it. Whether that overreaction was caused by clinical depression or volatile nerdy emotions is debatable, but the point is that a man would neither kill himself nor disappear for no reason. And some bs Newsweek story is no reason.

I hope Tom is on his bike and reading all this from a burner phone. He had been living out of a van for the last few years, and the thread I linked above says he was thinking of downgrading to a motorcycle. Pretending he's dead and vanishing from the internet would be the next logical step, and I hope that's what's happened.

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Re: Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Wed Jan 05, 2022 9:27 pm

Tom Ralis was his name. You can hear him sing here: https://soundcloud.com/tom_ralis/mr-tom ... e-somebody

Image

Talented singer. He could have lived off that, in addition to PUA and skiing lessons. And don't forget he studied biology I think it was at Oxford.

He was multitalented. I suspect that's why he needed "freedom" that much. If you have many interests, it's much harder to keep a regular job than if you have only a couple. You want to be able to go where your moods take you, and you have many moods, whereas narrower people have fewer and as a result they are much more attracted to regularity.

A lot of good comments on Krauser's post. Here are a few. I'll post more later.

https://krauserpua.com/2021/12/31/tom-t ... ent-157982
Sherston wrote: Finally, finally after years of lurking, on 25 March 2019 I said ‘fuck it’, plugged in my headphones, switched on Tom’s audio guide to your first day game session, and walked out into Vilnius old town. Nine approaches in and I could hardly have been happier. Then on the tenth, Tom’s voice calmly guiding me through it, I approached a girl from the side, her face not fully visible. She stopped like a dream and….I stood there, gob-smacked. Genuinely one of the most beautiful human beings I had ever seen was staring at me. All honey-blonde, fur coat, and Ukrainian. Eyes sparkling, willing me to go on.

It was the first of many Matrix
-like moments of day game; time-freezing beauty which too few men ever experience. And it was thanks to Tom. A man who’s stock-in-trade was a deeply humane, everyday sort of witchcraft.

I wrote him a garbled email of thanks after that first day which he kindly turned into a little article on his blog. I’m mortified that I never followed it up with the London pint I promised and which I so assuredly owed him.

I’ve rarely been so hollowed out by the death of a man I never met face to face.

It’s clear from the comments above, that I was not alone in feeling that Tom filled a uniquely precious spot in my world view.

I often feel the same flavour of inspiration when watching Tom’s work as when reading Hemingway, his fiction and his biography. A sense of the potential, through the struggle, of what modern life might be:

‘A man can be destroyed but not defeated.’

I’ll miss you, you dirty bastard. Thank you.

*******
Nick: an excellent and thoughtful tribute. Is there a way of getting some of these comments collated and to Tom’s family ?

https://krauserpua.com/2021/12/31/tom-t ... ent-158022
Victoria wrote: Tom was the best man in the world.
Our story began 8 years ago, when I was still a student.
Our trip to Barcelona with him changed my life. It was next to him that I felt beautiful, self-confident, I felt loved. He was still sincere, attentive, charismatic, self-confident. Next to him I felt like a Queen.

This trip was incredible and changed my inner world. I dreamed of such a man. We continued to communicate and I always believed and wanted to be his girlfriend, because I never felt so happy with any man. We traveled together, he taught me a lot and the moment came when my dream came true. And we began to live together. It was such happiness. I always wondered how, with such a lifestyle and such a hobby, he remained real and honest. I have always been attracted by his love of life and his open heart.
Going to sleep in one bed, I thanked God for this gift and the opportunity to be together. This is an indescribable feeling.

He is the best man in the world. Next to him you feel calmness, confidence, joy. And this was our best time and I am grateful to him for that. I knew what he was doing and it didn’t bother me at all, although I admit that at times I was jealous of other girls.
The world has lost such a great, talented person.
He was truly a man with a capital letter.
He has helped so many, inspired so many, made so many happy.
He lived a rich and interesting life and you can learn from him.
He knew how to surprise and delight.
Forever in my heart❤️[Thank you for sharing this. K.]

https://krauserpua.com/2021/12/31/tom-t ... ent-158049
Glenn wrote: In one of Toms vlogs, he was driving into the mountains of Slovenia. Tom had a few days “off” and had spontaneously booked a flight to Slovenia and rented a car at the airport.

We could follow along in the car and hear his voice in the background while we had the front seat view. It was a sunny day, and the scenery was breath-taking with green fields and mountains, as far as the eye could see. His message was simple:

If not now, then when?

Many years before, in July 2014, we met outside McDonalds in Riga. I was in my mid-40s and had booked a 5-day residential. I was nervous and excited.

Tom had booked an apartment at the top floor of an apartment building, next to a church in the old town. There was a national choir competition in Riga, so Tom and I woke up every morning to the sound of choirs singing in the church next to us. It was an interesting backdrop.

Tom was helping me with texting the girls in the morning (“You are at the gym working on your long legs?!”), and in the afternoon we went out to approach the local women. 12-15 sets a day was the Torero recipe. It was learning by doing.

I have never been able to replicate the results from that week, so Tom’s presence and guidance worked like magic.

The next summer I quit my job and started traveling and learning daygame full-time. Tom loved daygame, travelling and adventure, and you soon realised that you loved it too.

Let us honour Tom’s great memory and spirit by living life to the fullest (“Grabbing life by the horns”).

Thank you, Tom. You will always be on my mind.

Thank you Nick for a lovely tribute and for letting us share our memories.

https://krauserpua.com/2021/12/31/tom-t ... ent-158067
timway22 wrote: Another post from me, as I’ve been speaking with Tom’s mum on the phone several times since last week and wanted to clear some things up.
As most people now know, Tom took his own life, and the fake news article did play a part in that although it wasn’t the only factor, I won’t go into anything else online. Tom’s mum wanted me to make that clear to prevent any speculation on the internet. I have told her about all the tributes for Tom that have been coming in here and elsewhere and she was very touched by that.
Some people asked me about the funeral, when it is, if they can attend or make donations/send flowers etc. Tom’s family would prefer the gathering to be limited to close friends and relatives with family flowers only, I think they are planning to put the service on YouTube so people in the community can watch though. Any donations they would like to go to the mental health charity MIND. Here in Switzerland, we are planning our own service for Tom with his friends from the skiing community up in the mountains later this week.
Regarding making Tom’s content available, I have a lot of his podcasts on my laptop from when I helped him reupload everything two years ago. He has also left some hard drives and an old laptop at my house in the UK, I am not sure what is on them or what his family want done with them though. If any content is uploaded it will only be done with the express permission of his family and will be made available for free, one of Tom’s friends has offered to fund this. I’ll speak to Tom’s mum about this in the future when everything has settled a bit and I’m back in the UK. For the moment his family have made it clear that absolutely nothing should be uploaded without permission and legal procedures will be used to enforce this.
I still can’t believe Tom is really gone, it feels like I’ve lost a close family member. I’ll never be able to wind him up again by playing K-pop videos on his home projector or hiding plastic slugs in his shoe. Goodbye my friend, I’m sure you’re up there with your Dad flirting with the angels and getting them to take their halos off. You helped me so many times, I wish I’d been able to help you at the end. Tim

https://krauserpua.com/2021/12/31/tom-t ... ent-158072
1v9daygame wrote: I first discovered Tom back in 2012 in the daygame.com days, when I was a socially clueless university student. Hearing Tom talk about his own struggles in early adulthood – and how daygame was the catalyst for his transformation, was what inspired me to commit to hitting the streets and improving my own dating life.

I never met Tom, although I did see him once in person in Sydney at Pitt St Mall, coaching a student. I was too shy to say hello and thought I would be interrupting his coaching session. A short time later I approached a nice blonde girl and out of the corner of my eye I saw Tom and the student watching on. The socially savvy daygamer he was, he must have spotted my approach and beckoned the student to come observe with him. Inspired by his presence, my vibe was on point that set, albeit I didn’t get the number. As I walked off, I heard Tom say to the student “ah that was unlucky, he did well there”. I regret not saying hello to him that day, but hearing his praise still remains a memorable daygame moment for me almost a decade later.

In the years to come, Tom was my imaginary wing on many a solo dagyame session. I’d have his Tom Torero podcasts “cumming in my ears” while I hit the streets. I’d always try and do the first approach ASAP – “first one’s the worst one” as Tom would always say.

In 2019, inspired by Tom’s tales of euro jaunting, I quit my corporate banking job and did a 3 month trip around Middle and Eastern Europe. It was a surreal feeling talking to girls in the same places I’d recognised Tom doing approaches from his video travel blogs. The memories and adventures with girls I had on that trip are largely in part to Tom’s trailblazing ways and him encouraging other guys to do the same.

There was a couple of reasons for me why Tom stood out from other daygame coaches. His constant calls to action, to “grab life by the horns” and to document in video form all the massive action he was taking and adventures he was having. He constantly told guys not just to be theory junkies. He wouldn’t just preach about the 10/10 challenge (approaching 10 girls, 10 days in a row), he’d lead from the front and do it himself – every year.

I also admire how Tom never got drawn into the negativity of the manopshere. He never “hated on” women, he always spoke of how he loved women and their femineity. His videos and podcasts were always full of warmth, positivity and cheeky humour. I remember many stressful times back in my corporate life where I’d play his podcasts during my lunchbreak just to hear his friendly voice. He spoke openly about his own struggles with the black dog, and his reminders that “we control the weather in our own head” got me through many of those tough days. It really saddens me knowing that we couldn’t help him in his darkest days like he had helped so many of us before.

Rest in Peace Uncle Tom. You may not be with us anymore, but your legacy will live on for many years to come.

https://krauserpua.com/2021/12/31/tom-t ... ent-158076
iamoutsourcepower wrote: Before I discovered Tom torero I was 26, surviving on Jobseeker’s Allowance and had only experienced maybe a handful of disastrous dates from okcupid/pof. I had no self worth, I felt completely trapped and hopeless and I’d often contemplate, even attempt, suicide.

In 2015 I discovered daygame.com and most importantly Tom torero. Over the years I’ve religiously consumed all of his free content, books, seminars and video products. Fast forward to today and I’ve now had 2 long term relationships, several beautiful flings and lots of magical one time experiences ;). I’m now a digital nomad that can live and work wherever I want. I’ve not only been blessed with connecting with hundreds, if not thousands, of wonderful women from every walk of life, but I’ve also built some cherished long term friendships.

I credit Tom with my new life and the truly mind-blowing experiences that I’ve had over the last 6-7 years. I’d often dabble in other influencers content but I’d always come back to Tom because he avoided all of the toxic red pill, woman/society hating nonsense. He was average looking, like me, and only ever preached happy feel good and cheeky vibes. While I’d watch other guys crumble to other influencers (money making) negativity. He’d always keep me humble and centred and remind me of how beautiful life is and how blessed I should be to share this unique gift of connecting with the world.

A couple of days ago I was in bed with a lovely lady and I burst into tears, as if one of my dearest friends had just passed away. I guess in that moment it just hit me of how much of an impact he had in my life. I was in bed with a beautiful Greek woman, all because I ran around, showed her my tiger eyes and gave her a cheeky little comment about her walk.

In honour of Tom, I’m determined to travel to lots of new countries this year, as I’ve been a little lazy on that front.

Thank you, Tom, you changed my life.

https://krauserpua.com/2021/12/31/tom-t ... ent-158080
Ollie Holt wrote: Beautiful post Nick. RIP Tom.

I first met Tom when I signed up to a daygame.com bootcamp in late 2011. Him and John absolutely blew my mind that weekend. In fact, you were there, Krauser, filming some of my infield which Tom & Jon analysed later that day. The three of you combined completely transformed my life and my relationships that weekend, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

Tom was an incredible teacher and such a wonderful person to be around. That such a tragedy could happen to him is unthinkable.

I wish only love and happiness for everyone else in the pick-up community.

Ollie

I never listened to his podcasts. By the time he started doing them, I was already great at pick-up. I don't need life advice either, and it sounds like that's mostly what the podcasts were. For me the most valuable content at the start were the "infield" videos. I just needed to see a bunch of examples of how it's done, and then I was off to the races. I learn incredibly fast.

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Re: Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Wed Jan 05, 2022 11:13 pm

I can't stop crying when I listen to that song. It is really him? I think it's his voice. His voice is unmistakeable when you've spent so much time watching his videos as I have. I never realized how much he had influenced me until now. He wasn't one of my favorite PUAs. But he was high up there. This video I just found is incredible:

Tom Torero's Story Daygame As Therapy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O68Jp4pNxM

It's the best PUA video I've seen. It's his life story. He had such an incredible journey, and in the end he figured everything out.

Note this is an old video. He says he'd been teaching pick-up a couple of years by then, so it must have been made around 2014-2015. In all, he taught for close to a decade.

Note also the nod to Mystery. So many people are talking about Tom now, and they should realize that as much as they owe to Tom, he owes to Mystery.

It's very interesting to me learning about their stories. Months and years of daily practice to succeed, when I got a number on my first approach and got laid on the second. Things come easy to me, and I don't know if I would have had the courage to persevere in face of the very long odds they were facing. Look where he started and where he ended. Unbelievable what he achieved.

I love you Tom. I think about you a lot.

Thank you for everything.


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Re: Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Fri Jan 07, 2022 12:15 am

His own works will carry him far, but now I've made him immortal. Scholars in coming centuries will be googling Tom Torero long after androids and artificial reproduction have rendered pick-up obsolete (or rather a true game, in the same sense as fox-hunting et al., practiced only for fun).

Orgy of the Will §1120: Strong versus weak suicide
https://www.patreon.com/posts/60824480
icycalm wrote: So it's clear that the strong kind of suicide is supremely honorable to the point where avoiding it brought dishonor in ancient Greece, Rome and Japan. But does that mean that the weak kind of suicide is dishonorable?

From our perspective—that of the living, that is—yes. It sounds harsh to pile dishonor on top of death to the poor weak bastards who off themselves for petty reasons—oftentimes even entirely inside their heads—in our society today, but that is the reality of how we, the living, instinctively view the situation, and MUST view it. All value-judgement is projection, after all; we judge from our own viewpoint simply because we have not and cannot have another viewpoint to judge from; and from the viewpoint of the living, suicide from weakness is horrific. Death in general is horrific, but if you're gonna off yourself, at least do it for some higher goal, and then we'll teach our kids about you in our schools and make a painting out of you and put it in the Louvre for millions of tourists to gawk at every year. When we condemn weak suicide, we put ourselves in the shoes of the dead person, and imagine how it would be for us if we copied his example, and our reaction to this thought MUST be anathema for all of us who are healthy. If we don't react this way, it means we are unhealthy, we are sick, and the medical community has developed whole libraries full of treatments and remedies to help us. They haven't developed anything to help the 300 Spartans lol, because there's obviously no need; the Spartans would have laughed at them. But to help weak people who are in danger of succumbing to such everyday occurrences as broken relationships—let alone voices inside their heads—yes, drugs and therapies of all kinds are needed, and we should keep pursuing them, since the more advanced the culture grows, the weaker the specialists who sustain and power it must become, in accordance with the laws of civilization I have already elaborated. Think of such highly delicate instruments of culture as the legendary pick-up artist Tom Torero who killed himself recently: it was precisely his decades-long clinical depression that pushed him to master street seduction, and teach it to a whole generation of young men, including yours truly. A strong, healthy man would never have gone to such lengths to gain female companionship. A Spartan would never have done it; he would have even disdained it; and that's why Spartan culture was low culture (compared to modern Western culture that is, not compared to non-white culture, which is essentially non-culture). Culture NEEDS such complex and multifaceted—and therefore WEAK—instruments as Tom Torero; it FEEDS on them, and it should therefore help and protect and shore up and strengthen them as much as it can. The stigma with which we mark weak suicide, with the attendant support we offer to those so marked, is our means of accomplishing this. But don't conflate that with heroes who sacrifice themselves to higher goals or with the old courageously choosing their time and place of death via euthanasia, as is becoming more and more common in Europe. In a strong, healthy society, to flee from death at all costs is as dishonorable as to kill yourself over trifles. That's how society judges death from ITS viewpoint, and MUST judge it that way if it desires to keep growing. Otherwise we'd all jump off a cliff, and some other species would take over.

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Re: Tom Torero dead (maybe suicide)

Mon Jan 31, 2022 1:05 pm

https://krauserpua.com/2021/12/31/tom-t ... ent-158735
Thought I’d just tune into to find out latest goings on with you here at my work desk Nick and found this. I feel absolutely gutted. I met him when I was with both of you for a full week residential in 2013. I signed up with that buddy of yours site (the ‘natural’ or whatever) as you were probably running out of $$ and needed a residential to fuel your reprehensible lifestyle for a another month or two or you’d be back in Newcastle. So it was weird – I had just taken a weekend thing some months before with Yad at Daygame.com a few months prior and – there was like ZERO hesitation that I was going. It wasn’t even a decision, it was automatic, a MUST opportunity as you weren’t doing many of them and were kinda cranky about the prospect. THEN I get word back from someone working for your buddy’s site asking if it was ok if you brought Tom Torero along. I was like ‘I’m not paying both of those guys’ and they said ‘no, no it’s ok, Nick is just gonna split it with Tom and you get the apt and all is good”. I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY LUCK !! How in the F’ do I get both of them for this ? No way !

First morning out with you guys while Nick still bleary eyed as we didn’t yet even have a coffee Tom kinda took control a bit out of the gate which kinda surprised me as it was Nick’s residential but I was under the impression that Tom was along for the ride – we spied a blond ahead and it was at his urging I make an approach. I did & got her number & despite excellent coaching etc. didn’t even get a date with her on that trip. Nothing seems to come easy to me though and I observed Nick and Tom working all night on leads not only from that day but dates & contacts from months & years ago & honestly I myself was no stranger to keeping up communications….anyway long story short: 4 years later we were married & now 3 kids. I bless the memory of that guy. Feel bad I didn’t stay in touch – painful to think about his last words at the airport to me “Stay in touch – you’re a friend now…”. It was such an off the wall crazy thing to do to travel partway around the world to a place I’d never been (my suggested locale which they ok’d) & go on that residential and stay with these 2 guys I’d never met who were like extremists and movement leaders/sector super-experts in terms of their approach to this fringe of society activity and way of thinking – like going on a snowboarding trip with a couple X-Games champs who were kind a competitive with each other. So F’in helpful he was, so positive, so encouraging.

I remember feeling bad thinking about his ‘dark nights of the soul’ that seemed to plague him and I have another regret or two and I’ll confess it here: it was to adopt an opinion about a few matters and actions I had observed and heard about that had NOTHING to do with me and I never discussed with him to hear his view. Yeah, I didn’t like what I heard and I kinda judged. This is a stark, in the face lesson to me and has me even more gutted about this. How F’in dare I ? This isn’t about me though but it’s yet another, final, contribution he’s made to me. This time a painful one and I don’t doubt that I’ll benefit from this too.

Anyway he affected my life. What if he hadn’t urged me on that approach ? What if I was with Krauser only and he took a shine to her and wanted to first ‘show me how it was done’ or ramble on about this our that theory, heh heh. No, Tom looked at me first/right away when she was in view, looked me in the eye and told me to GO. I probably wouldn’t have gone out and made that approach 5 minutes out the door on my first morning as the first activity of the day if it wasn’t for him – it was kind of a shock being thrown in the water right away by him. In later years my now wife and I would jog by the spot, stop and have a quick kiss before resuming our run.

Thanks Tom. Thanks a lot. I’ll never forget that moment you told me to “GO” or that week and for what I had to face and learn just now which lesson I know you’d be kind about. Thanks more than I can say.

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