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 so for those who want to network in the future please email: darrenpua1@gmail.com thanks

Recent discussion video between Pat and Paul Janka came up on my feed-  this blog post is not meant to be actively “having a go” at them its just to discuss the topic surrounding the deaths between the two .  I have utmost respect for both of them and wanna give my stance. 

I think people are quick to judge the life of pickup artists without actually discussing people’s lives prior to pickup . Both Johnny and Torero had mental health issues which they were honest about prior to getting into pickup and I believe this often forgotten about when people are analysing the reasons behind their suicide. 

Mental health problems leave men behind in the sexual market place requiring PUA in the first place 

Both Johnny and Torero documented their mental health issues , with Torero suffering from anxiety and depression at university and Johnny suffering from an abusive household along with being severely bullied , Johnny often discussed his learning difficulties which makes his career as a postman turned life coach unsurprising..

The Neurodivergence issues which Johnny had made his life seemed a lot more fucked up than Tom’s in hindsight , with him being honest about learning disorders and other mental health issues. In 2017 he seemingly was hospitalised for having a mental breakdown too and then still continued on coaching in 2018 and producing content .  Tom had less issues , he was an oxbridge grad turned teacher so career and education wise he seemed to be more on the straight and narrow than Johnny.

I mean this is an obvious problem in my life too  – as someone who suffered a lot of social isolation at high school I could definitely relate. When I was young I was a computer nerd who did little other than playing video games , this obviously made me less desirable to women and made me lose out competition wise against other more competent males .   Men can fall behind in the sexual market place if they have bad habits and neurodivergence, addictions to porn/video games, depression and anxiety can all wreck havoc on a man’s smv .  In Johnny’s case he’d been honest about these problems + porn and prostitution makes it a tough battle to move forward in the sexual market place . Compare these guys’ problems to coaches like Paul Janka who are Harvard graduates and handsome model looking – it’s difficult to make the case that these inferior guys have a decent chance of making it out of pickup without a load of appraoches and even then when they have women its difficult to keep them around due to these mental issues. In Tom’s case he was actively against LTR’s and spoke out against them on numerous occasions- he’d also been divorced prior to getting involved in pickup so this could be seen as a reason for him not wanting a life outside of pickup and “moving on ” to another stage in his life.

Didn’t have anything other than game ?

I disagree , “you’re not in alignment with who you are “ by Sasha – its just word salad, In a tom torero meet-up in 2018 I met a lot of accomplished guys who had decent work and life but for them they just weren’t approaching or meeting enough people in their day to day . Having a purpose definitely helps but the majority of men are single in the west I believe due to lack of volume and work ethic in daygame rather than lack of purpose or aspirations in my opinion . Tom Torero for example was oxbridge educated , traveled a lot and led a very interesting life far more interesting than mine I’d add and much more accomplished education wise. Berba was less so but still he seemed well read and was passionate about fitness , with his anxiety, learning difficulties  and ocd it would’ve been hard for him to develop into anything much better than what he was. 

Roosh V’s as an example I think he personally looked better and was healthier when he was doing pickup and I blame his mental collapse on the death of his sister rather than anything else. Indeed Roosh V’s impact was huge- his forum is still very popular today and I respect him for what he’s done during pickup more so than the religious quack he is now. I’d argue he’s less aligned with a purpose now leaving game than he was when doing game . 

The Irony of Life coaches that cannot take control of their own lives 

This is very common and something that I’ve blogged about before on numerous occasions – the fact that Johnny Berba was hospitalised in 2017 for mental health issues and still went about charging for life coaching is somewhat ironic. But you see it all the time in the self help industry as well as the pua industry-  people who are obviously not ok charging for advice from other people about how to heal their anxiety when it seems that Johnny himself could not control his own. The hypocrisy of self help and men’s development – 

Johnathan Neil Thomson  from The natural lifestyles-  had frequent mental breakdowns in parts of James Marshall’s biography then became a coach for him despite obviously being a bit of nutcase. Eventually he himself betrayed James and ended his friendship with him.

Tom Torero would tell everyone in his podcasts to “man up” then eventually killed himself after the Danya Hajjaji article pushed him over the edge and destroyed his income. Maybe if he had better control of his mental health and had he seeked some help he’d still be here today. 

In Jonathan o’halloran’s (Johnny Berba’s real name) case the irony of a postman turned life coach who approaches women whilst having obvious cognitive issues and dyspraxia is also lost upon some of the newer members of the pua community. It was clear meeting Johnny in 2018 that all was not well due to his poor dress sense , scruffy look, spam approaching style and unkept beard that i believed even after a few minutes that this guy was not well. I found out 7 years later that he had been hospitalised the year prior for mental health issues so that comes to no surprise finding out about it now . Yet I still had wingmen that hired him for coaching and it was clear a lot of men saw him as relatable – maybe it was his anxiety problem, his past history with porn and prostitute addiction that many in the community have that made him a relatable figure-  sometimes the sheer deficiencies of dating coaches make them a more attractive individual to hire for coaching  than say a James Marshall , a Paul Janka or a James Tusk.  This “vulnerability” and “honesty” is marketable to a degree for the pua community – but to what extent do these vulnerabilities and honest attitudes simply just laziness . 

“Do the work” isn’t enough 

I mean on a basic level it’s just such a vague concept and one thing that struck me off about dating coaches. Sasha Daygame identifies “innerwork” “ self healing” but the reality is that dating is extremely competitive nowadays men need to do a tonne of innerwork plus approach , plus maintain their health, dress and SMV . Even someone like Sasha Daygame delivering this message is itself ironic seeing despite being in the dating game for some 15 years the guy still dresses like complete shit and now shills shitcoins on the Solana ecosystem. Again another example of the hypocrisy of dating coaches- “fix your problems now dear student “ – now give me $200 an hour whilst I procrastinate over my own deficiencies. 

The expectation placed upon men is indeed at an all time high whilst the potential pitfalls of failure are higher than ever too .  The fact that some people criticise Johnny Berba for approaching without “fixing himself” is laughable – he had obvious mental issues from the beginning that weren’t ever going to be fixed- even when I met him in 2018 I could see that he was mentally not well in the head. For these guys the hope in a sexually competitive market place like London is slim when you combine it on his  mental health, financial and cognitive issues  its obvious that Johnny was far too damaged beyond a repair. In the video posted the fact that Paul Janka is commenting  on the flaws of pickup is also a bit unfair – Paul Janka has 100 times the smv of Johnny Berba- of course that means Johnny Berba has to spend more time approaching women that the average dude. Neuro-developmental disorders , anxiety and depression likely leave men in the dust and they need to work hard to catchup on time wasted. I found this to be the case with myself , i spent a lot of years in high school wasting time not developing my smv, not reading , not going to the gym and not dressing well well it’s no shock that women picked other men over me.

The sexual marketplace is increasingly  more competitive 

This no doubt contributes more to the loneliness of men. The fact that women now can get 2000-3000 matches on dating apps in major cities means men have to do a lot more work to feel love and appreciated – this obviously means more time is required to spend on dating and approaching and I feel its important to men’s development to spend that time acquiring social skills to move up the sexual market place .  Men must do more inner work than ever and if they don’t they face being left behind at a faster pace than previous generations .  Indeed theres rising inequality between men and women in the sexual marketplace – this means that some men will invariably need to do more work than others to move up in said sexual marketplace. Add the mental , neurodevelopment issues that berba had and you’ve got a long way to go. For some that journey in a hyper-competitive city might be too much- I certainly feel that  in the west men have a lot more work to do than in the east. Which is why Sasha’ message is quite a confusing one – the amount of work needed varies from man to man and most likely those in pickup need to do more than others but a portion of said men are most likely too behind the curb in the west to be competitive therefore moving to a less competitive city seems a better idea to improve the slim  dating prospects low value men in the west are getting down- heck Johnny Berba himself spent a large portion of his time gaming in eastern Europe so too did Torero its obvious that deep down they must of known that the competitive nature of the western world of dating was probably not worth the squeeze . 

Loss of Income and Revenue can’t be discounted 

It’s obvious that both Johnny Berba and Tom Torero dealt with a loss of revenue during covid I mean we are talking a solid years’ worth of coaching revenue gone for both- that would hurt anyone bad, but especially when you add up the history of mental health issues that these guys had in the past it could take its toll – particularly seeing as Berba had tax debt and was probably not making much money prior to coaching (he was a postman before this showing he clearly wasn’t exactly balling it out)  and judging by his appearance and his poor health he didn’t look particularly wealthy.  Torero too was living out of a van for most the time , so he too didn’t seem to be financially “crushing it” so to speak he had also had his WhatsApp and Paypal payment accounts closed because of the Danya Hajjaji article. 

Pickup Can be Therapeutic 

In general I don’t see the harm with talking to women on the street, the relationships that are formed from doing so can be therapeutic – to blame this for their deaths is borderline laughable really I mean – these guys had a tonne of other issues they couldn’t resolve the fact that they had sex with some women on the street is the last of their issues. I think for the majority of men making conversations with strangers and putting yourself out there is the key to creating options which in turn can reduce loneliness . 

Some men have a long way to go in an increasingly competitive world . 

When watching Johnny Berba’s old videos of him coaching clients it was clear that a lot of them had some major disadvantages in their smv – either they were short, old, had features of autism , Asperger’s or Dyspraxia – all in all it was evident that some of these clients needed help more so than just approaching women. There was one memorable client who appeared to have buck teeth who showed little progress after his 6 week programme, who had major issues in terms of dress and still seemed very anxious in sets even by the end of the programme. I don’t think this is Johnny’s fault though- a coach can only really work with the boundaries of SMV he is provided with by his clients- if one is a male 2 then sending that man into sets with 7s and 8s is very unlikely to yield anything – some people have to work on themselves far more than others especially in competitive cities like London which are ruthless and unforgiving .  Daygame can bridge a gap between a few points of smv and not much else imo and I feel at times self help coaches ignore these facts and instead choose to take the clients money and send them into the trenches without any real rational thought behind what could be done to really fix their issues. 

Ideally a client should be at least a male 6 or a 7 THEN pickup should be a good way for them to increase their options – any lower and you’re looking at a big numbers game for people . To paraphrase in Sasha daygame’s  style in this case i’d say its time to “Do the work” on yourself , some of Johnny’s clients seemed in the lower levels of “left behind men – older, visually strange especially that buck tooth guy and really had serious issues with anxiety that wasn’t fixed – these people need a lot of time compared to most .

The community is pretty weak 

Given how diminished the views of Johnny’s content was it was clear he had been shadow banned and unable to regain his popularity- again im sure this shadow banning probably harmed his income – less views = less clients the same with Tom Torero .  Also due to covid there were no longer any real “meet-ups” in the pua community- the community couldn’t come together and discuss the issues , there were more Puas going out of business than staying in the game and covid simply exacerbated this  , the forums were dying / did die, groups like game global didn’t provide an adequate substitute for the loss of the community. Looking at Johnny Berba’s posthumous video releases they also appear to be gaining a fraction of the views they once did showing the popularity simply isn’t there even in honouring the death of someone who had a huge impact. 

The Media’s Roll 

In Tom Torero’s case Danya Hajjaji was an obvious cause , it was her article and her action of revealing Tom’s tactics in which he would record the taking of a girl’s virginity by voice note- I have to critique Tom for his actions here, if you know that the media are coming up after pickup artists then surely you’d spend some time to more adequately cover your tracks no? Berba wasn’t as impacted by the media as Tom was – infact his main criticisms came from other pua’s most notably John Anthony who would make videos mocking Berba- in fairness John Anthony’s infield was not much better and the videos he criticised Anthony in were Berba himself was deliberately humiliating himself. Nevertheless others in the community shared a dislike for Berba – me personally I saw him as erratic and mentally unstable as I said before when I met him in person in 2018  I later found out that he had been hospitalised for mental issues in 2017 so this came as no surprise to me .  Again I found it weird this guy looked a bit like a slob and was coaching guys to become their best self , it seemed ironic and borderline hypocritical but that’s just my view.  Whilst Berba was never attacked by the media himself the backlash against pua caused by the infamous BBC documentary caused his channel to become shadow banned-  the views dropped for him so too did the YouTube ad revenue and new clients in a similar fashion to Tom Torero. Johnny was not directly impacted but suffered a lot – add a lockdown in and it becomes clear that these factors rather than the pickup itself was  clearly causing the mental distress that could have instigated the OCD that eventually killed him. 

Conclusions 

Pickup is often blamed for a lot of things that I don’t think it deserves to be. In the case of Jonhny Berba and Tom Torero deaths I believe there are a number of more pressing issues that resulted in the deaths of these two individuals than pickup. More so – Johnny’s obvious Dyspraxia , cognitive issues, depression, history of anxiety from a young age , financial issues, tax burden, loss of revenue from covid probably played a greater roll than sex addiction – the same could be said for Torero who had issues years before pickup. From this I conclude that pickup was not the cause of their deaths in my opinion.