Mindful Masculinity

Disclaimer: I am not a dating coach nor am I selling any dating products or services this blog is really for recreational usage to reflect on my previous experiences in daygame and to share my insight. For those wondering I am based in London/Nice/San Francisco so for those who want to network in the future please email: darrenpua1@gmail.com thanks

Decided to write a blog post regarding Online Dating and it’s impact on men and men’s self help and development. Im sure many of you have had success with online dating and I don’t doubt it but in my opinion for the majority of men it’s a dead end and I want to provide my reasons as to why.

What Online Dating Did to Men

• It essentially killed the PUA community – I mean considering search terms on google for the term PUA peaked in 2016 around the time when dating apps really started to gain traction.  The idea of men coming together and really sharing ideas around dating and male/female intersexual dynamics are pretty much dead . There are still some active forums- most notably -Reddit Seduction , SkilledSeducer, So Suave and Kill Your Inner Loser – however these don’t have anywhere near the foot traffic that they did back in the day. For example even in 2017 you could see the RSD forum was pretty well populated enabling users to find wingmen very easily.  Furthermore you  could attend meet ups and genuinely connect with like minded individuals – now that’s almost a thing of the past. Most the top tier value men in the pickup space or those that were perhaps going to go into pickup instead found themselves being satisfied for the urge on dating apps leaving only a few top tier men left dedicated to approaching with the rest  of the them being  either mid tier and the majority being low tier – autistic/ Asperger’s types. The result arguably  gleaned the top tier men from the community – the ones best capable of setting a good example to the rest leaving the need for guidance and maturity by the medium to low smv types unfulfilled – in other words the remaining men had few options of “high value” smv men to follow . 

• Less men in the community no doubt means that there are less people to coach – its no wonder that so many dating coaches have gone into retirement in the last 2- 7 years most notably Yad, Sasha Daygame, Tony Solo, Johnathan Neil Thomsen , Liam Mcrae and travel bum  all of whom retired in a short space of one another- now I know that money alone wasn’t the sole factor to their retirements but I believe it was defiantly a contributing factor to at least some of their retirements and I believe if the convenience of online dating didn’t exist these people would still be making a substantial amount and probably a good portion of them would still be working. 

• Women are more sexually satisfied now and are able to achieve hypergamous dating strategy thus leading to “hoeflation” in the Western world . I definitely think this is something that’s happened as a result of online dating – women now have more cock at their disposal with ease and don’t have to do much to climb up the sexual market place anymore . In contrast men were left working harder for less and had to really hustle hard especially in the western world. This left women feeling more entitled and needing to put less effort in to date men. The result a situation which leaves men feeling frustrated and women with all the choice. 

• Online dating is essentially winner takes all capitalism in action-  I mean I wouldn’t personally brand it as anything else. – quite literally 1 percent of men are fucking and picking up 80 percent of the chicks on there and even an average girl can manage 1000s of matches pretty easily. Only the very top tier men stand to benefit from this development with some trickle down to the male 8s and 7s but overall for the majority of men they stand to gain very little from online dating.  As for women the mid tier 6s and 7s will inevitably be absorbed by the fuck boy 9s and 10s and potentially messed around with men who want them for short term mating strategy but who will ultimately strive for better long term. The result leaves mid tier women potentially frustrated with the bottom tier probably dating slightly out of their league SMV wise on the apps .

• Is society pushing back though – there’s an argument to be said for this-the crash of stock for dating app “bumble” (an app in which women message men first)  showed that human nature can’t be messed around with – women ultimately want someone to open them and show some leadership instinct in the interactions – that being said Im  sure bumble has been successful for some men and women but judging by stock market share price and general users dropping I can’t help but think the majority are not finding  success with this app – a similar argument could be said for match.com which endured a similar stock price crash most likely emulating from user fatigue with the apps and of course it’s the hot women that keep this app running and the majority of them are probably being approached in real life plus being Instagram DMed  , Social circle/Clubs, Facebook dating or messaged on a variety of other dating apps like Hinge or Coffee meets bagel , language meet up apps etc. and the majority of attractive women can usually break into high tier social circles simply because they are attractive unlike men who usually have to do more to earn an upgraded social circle . The choice for beautiful women these days is seemingly endless so an app that makes men open first or an app that requires extensive work like match.com probably isn’t worth the time anymore for a desirable woman. 
• A possible lust for real life interaction?  Tom Torero said in one of his penultimate podcasts before his death that he foresaw a situation whereby real life interaction would be lusted upon and a move away from online will happen and to some extent the crashing of the bumble and match.com share price probably somewhat proves that there is a movement towards this happening.  However the pua community has remained smaller than ever- gone are the days of a 2004 style lair meet-ups or being inspired by watching Adam Lyons spin a chick on the street . Funnily enough my Aunt told me one of the things she liked about my relationship was the fact that me and my girlfriend met face to face (was a daygame approach for me) which she felt was romantic and nice to see in an era where everyone met online. 

• Online dating made men lazy- why put up with ego shattering approaches when you can hide through a screen and not face any harm to your ego and risk looking uncool. Indeed I see the appeal – for me I never enjoyed being commoditised online hence why I moved to daygame plus my results online bar one Brazilian model  lay  in Brazil were generally just shit.  Of course the same could be said for the laziness it invokes in women – women can simply edit their photos or use old ones of their prime to display themselves at their peak- the whole thing is pretty “inauthentic” and bordering on dishonest. Of course I’ve seen my male friends also edit their pictures for example using photos in favourable lighting and generally ones of their “absolute prime physique ” and not ones that are a true/fair depiction of themselves.  As someone who’s written a lot of online social media guides it might be somewhat hypocritical of me critiquing the aspect of “Fakeness” of online game but I use social media to prevent flakes from daygame  – to build trust and rapport rather than for online dating reasons. 

My Family and Online Dating 

My family have had mixed results from the life of online dating.  Two of my cousins met fantastic wives from it- my brothers however had less luck. My oldest brother had Asperger’s and with that came a lack of self awareness of when he was being used and manipulated by the opposite sex .  The result- he ended up meeting a Russian woman online at aged 20  flying out to Russia and then getting divorced once she came back to London after securing a British passport (she cheated on him with three other men). Online dating had just enabled female hypergamy to take place and for a woman to use the internet to basically take advantage of a man with a neuro developmental disorder . Online dating can be dangerous for certain autistic men and those with Asperger’s . I’ve personally know men with Asperger’s who’ve gone on online dates with women on tinder in Ukraine only to end up in a scam bar and paying thousands of dollars in “drinks bills” There are also examples in Colombia of naive American tourists having their drinks spiked whilst on online dates and ended up being murdered.  Online dating for men definitely comes with dangers compared with dating a regular woman on the street. With ulterior motives regarding the former likely especially if they’re picking up someone from the developed world like Ukraine or Colombia. 

My second eldest brother had similar bad luck with online dating- it became his only source of leads and he ended up dating a single mother and being in a very tumultuous relationship – despite being a millionaire and a success it served as an example to me about the importance of creating good quality options and for most men online dating isn’t the route to that.  Maybe if my brother had better photos the situation would’ve been different but I doubt it- online dating made him somewhat stagnant and over-reliant  – he was basically at the mercy of an algorithm when it came to meeting people- had he had the balls to do cold approach he’d probably be in a far better position today . I feel online dating just completely plays to the advantage of women in almost all cases in western cities – enabling convenient hypergamy with just a few swipes of their phone leaving the majority men to have to compete over the scraps available . All In all it’s a pretty tough situation for any man to be in whether they have a huge amount of value or whether they don’t as my brother was an accomplished individual but he only got a level below his smv and could only do as best as this online algorithm could give him. 

It’s not all doom and gloom for online dating 

I have no doubts a lot of couples still meet online and that it can be a competent way for a certain percentage of men and women to meet online – indeed a lot of cities around the world daygame just isn’t feasible. For example in Dallas there just isn’t the footfall to do daygame, barely anyone walks from A to B there which makes it really unfeasible compared to cities like London, New York or Paris. So I understand for most people there its really online or nothing – maybe relying on social circle or university but once that dries out in the mid 20s then its really not feasible for the long term either.  So yeah a lot of people are stuck using it due to geographical issues but for the majority of men who live in a city with decent foot flow I hope they at least try 100-200 approaches of day game and see the difference it has the potential to make in their lives. 

Instagram Dming Generation Don’t Really make Sense 

It’s funny scrolling through reddit and seeing posts of people asking for the best opener on instagram without really understanding that for 99.999 percent of men instagram dming Is a complete waste of time – unless you have truly elite SMV it really won’t work out for you sending random dms to hot chicks who have 1,000s of horny men in their dms all the time- your message probably won’t get read by them.  The whole route of online dating has encouraged men to take the easy way out and look for quick hook ups – rather than actually working on the way they present and portray themselves in the real world they’re too fixated on looking cool online. The stats are against you in most forms of game and it’s none more evident than in online dating especially instagram dating. Now im not saying its impossible – but you really need elite pictures to make it work well whilst being in the top percent SMV wise  and most men simply aren’t. 

Online Dating Can’t mask bad SMV and can’t be relied upon for the vast majority of men  

Even  Ex-The Natural Lifestyles coach Liam Mcrae who published a Tinder guide stated he saw daygame as the main prospect for his leads and Tinder as a side hustle – in the men’s dating community online guides sell well because they protect the ego of men who are simply too pussy to cold approach again that’s the big marketability of online dating – theres no rejection , no real facing of the toughness of life and having to really stand up for yourself as a man.  The online dating guides themselves don’t account for the simple fact that you realistically need to be in the top 5 percent of men to get decent prospects AND have good photos  . The majority of men don’t have the photos or the SMV to succeed so basically any guide or “online pickup line” won’t make up for their deficiencies – its pretty much a marketing scam for the majority of men . Daygame at least you learn leadership, confidence and communication skills with the right approach these are a display of smv and increase the odds of you dating “out of your league”   with online dating it’s the opposite for men – it just enables women to date out of their with men left waiting for what the algorithm can give them . 

Common Sense Statistic Dictates Men are Fucked in online dating

On the most basic level an average 6/7 out of woman can expect to glean a few thousand matches via online dating (if she swipes right continually) this means even if you’re in the top 5-10 percent of men you’re still expecting huge competition of 50-100 other dudes. It’s therefore just getting harder and hard for men to stand out on these apps – even if you are in the top 50 out of 2000 you then need to somehow message your way to getting the woman out on a date and have the online rizz to get her away from the 100s of other men who are messaging her on the apps which is once again unlikely.

Concluding thoughts

Online dating certainly has its pros and cons – for some men its a great lead generator – and to repeat the quote from  Liam McRae in his book “Tinder Success Stories” should be only used in collusion with other forms of game- mainly daygame and social circle game. It shouldn’t be the only source you have of meeting women – the main gripe I have with online game is how it mutilated the men’s self development community and left men on their own swiping on couches having to plead to bring out a 7 on a coffee date.  It’s probably in the long run caused more harm to the majority of men – whilst leaving a few of the fuckboys at the top 1 percent to take all the wins. 

If men are serious about their dating goals being proactive in real life is the best way. I hope men can move away from the apps and come back to the real world and actually show some leadership and intuition and go out there and approach but this seems like hopium. Men are slowly declining in the western world and I believe the overstimulation of technology and the connivence of apps may have killed our lust and desire to be proactive about our problems in life but then again- maybe I’m just a nihilist.