Tyler/TD (Owen Cook)

Wiki Contents

1. Personal Data
   
2. Trademark Advice
   
3. Biography
   
4. Tyler/TD (Owen Cook)'s Credentials & Experience
   
5. Notable Media Appearances
   
6. Books, Courses and Coaching & Tyler/TD (Owen Cook) Reviews

Personal Data

Commercial Alias Name: Tyler Durden (often abbreviated to TD or Tyler)

Real Name: Owen Cook

Nationality: Canadian

Date of Birth: October 01, 1979 (Age 45)

Height: 5"8

Profession(s):

• Pick Up Artist (PUA)
• Dating Coach

Affiliated Dating Companies: Real Social Dynamics (RSD)

Web Presences

Twitter profile: @RSDTyler

Trademark Advice

- Blueprint Decoded: A system based on inner game and confidence to attract women.
- Any man is capable of achieving attraction, regardless of mores imposed by social conditioning.

Biography

Personal Life

Owen Cook was born in Ontario Canada in 1979 and goes by the pseudonyms "Tyler Durden", "TD", or "Tyler".

Owen finished his collegiate education at Queens University with a bachelor's degree in Philosophy.

He often has referred to the success of his own entrepreneurial venture at an early age while he was at college, which allowed him to pay for university without support from his family and also made him relatively well off at an early age.

He has noted that his drive to become rich and successful in business was in large part to compensate for what he felt were weaker parts of himself when it came to getting a girlfriend. He became frustrated when his success didn't help him with women.

In March 2010 he announced that he had become a father of a baby son with his girlfriend Roxy of several years (see video below).

Pickup Artist Career

Owen Cook (TD)'s interest in pick up artistry began when he was dumped by a long-time girlfriend back when he was still in college. Cook was not able to cope properly with the break-up. Reaching his 'breaking point' and suffering from severe depression, he left school.

In 2002, Cook decided to be a part of the pick-up artist community. He assumed the alias of "Tyler Durden", as tribute to the novel and film Fight Club which he found inspirational and influential for his will to break out of social norms and constraints.

TD (as he was known) quickly became known for the high volume of good quality analytical posts he made on the pick up artist forum. He diligently went through all the existing archives of posts of PUA (Pick Up Artists) such as Mystery, Style, Gunwitch, Mr. Sex NYC and Toecutter and got straight into the field, trialling and testing everything he was learning.

In 2003, to further pursue knowledge with-in the dating world, Cook traveled across the U.S. and Canada to seek out and learn from the better known pick up artists. For much of this trip he was accompanied by Papa (Nick Kho) as the two had become good friends and wing men. He stayed with other community members to reduce his costs and coached and helped some of them in exchange for their hospitality.

Some of his attempts to connect with senior pick up artists and learn from them didn't go well. He traveled to Los Angeles to meet Mystery, but was unable to meet him (documented in Neil Strauss' The Game). He also traveled to Montreal to meet Toecutter, however Toecutter (also known as Steve Celeste) and TD didn't hit it off on the right note - Toecutter found him to be arrogant and cut the contact.

The Creation of Real Social Dynamics

These were the beginnings of what would become a partnership between TD and Papa to create Real Social Dynamics, one of the earliest and today largest and most popular dating companies. Notably he on these travels he also met Jeffy (Jeff Allen) and created a bond which would lead Jeffy to become one of the first dating coaches employed by TD later (in Real Social Dynamics).

In early 2003 RSD (Real Social Dynamics) was born. TD was effectively the creative director, in charge of coaching programs and RSD's content or coaching proposition. Papa focused on the business side of the company and marketing.

In 2003 Tyler moved to Los Angeles where Mystery, Style and his friend Papa were living in Project Hollywood. Not able to afford the rent, he accept the mundane condition of having a closet as a bedroom (from Papa's room). It was from Project Hollywood that Real Social Dynamics would begin to become a real company and TD would continue to learn from Mystery and Style while he was there.

This portion of Cook's life is probably the most famous. With all the events recorded in Strauss's novel "The Game", Cook and his fellow student Nicholas Kho (Papa) found themselves under the spotlight. Strauss went into detail on the two's training and how they developed their own insights on the game, learning from him and Mystery and inventing their own concepts.

The establishment of Real Social Dynamics by Cook and Papa, and how it is geared to instruct men on socializing with women was also included in the book. In addition, Strauss openly shared his mistrust of Cook through the book. He described Cook as a power-hungry and manipulative person, showing possible traits of a sociopath.

TD's approach to "The Game" at the time was virtually entirely 'routines' based. He has hundreds of memorized routines that he would use and teach to people that they were coaching. Around 2005 he alienated some of his friends (E.g. The One) through this strong focus, and a backlash in the pick up artist community against purely routine based game. This backlash was magnified by the publishing of "The Game" by Neil Strauss which put a spotlight on some of the routines used by pick up artists.

It became difficult to coach people with many of the routines because there were now so many men going to bars and clubs in L.A. and using them that girls were hearing them over and over again from different men. When "The Game" was published, the girls would sometimes say "Hey, that's one of those routines from 'The Game'" which would be deflating for the users.

The Hawaii Years and the First RSD Products & Conferences

Cook released his first product "Foundations" in 2006 via DVD. The same year, he moved to Hawaii for a change of scenery. He followed his first product up with "Transformations" in 2007, in which he featured a lot of the primary coaches at RSD.

At this time he also started to move away from routines. Routines was no longer a viable way to coach people because of the backlash and public knowledge of them. So TD sought out to find a non-routine based approach, and began field testing himself and getting his coaches to field test new approaches that could be taught.

This culminated in TD working on and developing his philosophy on 'inner game'. Some of this would be revealed in his 'Transformations' DVD.

He emphasized the use of focusing on personal growth and development to create attraction. This completely opposed the advice he had originally given and which was now popularized in the mainstream media which was based on 'outer game' techniques (and primarily routines).

TD commented at the time that RSD had grown significantly because of the mainstream media spotlight on pick up artistry, and all the students wanted to learn routines. It became a challenge, because they would be telling students "No, you aren't going to learn routines from us, we have a new way", when 'The Game' had depicted RSD as a company that taught the use of routines.

Early in 2008, "The Blueprint Decoded" was launched. It was Cook's seminal work on 'inner game' wrapped up in a long weekend seminar. He invested in the rental of high end video equipment to record and publish the result as the "Blueprint Decoded" DVD set. He elaborated not solely on how 'inner game' applies to pick-up artistry in general, but included how it affects numerous aspects of one's personal life as well.

At this time Owen Cook hinted that he wanted to eventually break free of dating coaching and move into a broader self-help guru role (similar to Tony Robbins).

Cook's distinctive and focused breakdown of complex social interactions brought him fame. In August 2008, He stated that he is "wrapping up with his role as figurehead of RSD and moving into self help". However it seems this was not to become the case.

Returning to Los Angeles

In 2009 he came back to instructing at the weekly Real Social Dynamics' bootcamps in L.A. His stay in Hawaii had made him rusty and at first it was rather embarrassing. He was approaching women in Hollywood where he was effectively a mini celebrity pick up artists, and would get followed around by people trying to see what he was doing (and seeing him get blown out by women).

He quickly got back into the swing of things, and had his skills back up to level however.

At this time he shaved his head (like many other of his instructors had formerly done - Natural Tim and Jeffy) to prove that not having hair didn't make any difference to meeting women.

TD has hinted that he has been working on a future product that will be relationship focused, from which he has used the learnings from his years in his own relationship (since 2004) as a basis.

Tyler/TD (Owen Cook)'s Credentials & Experience

TD is one of the few dating coaches to be in a long term relationship and also have (recently) become a father within the relationship.

He has been in a long term relationship with his girlfriend since 2004. He commented on meeting her, that he decided to get a girlfriend because it would be a better lifestyle, and went to San Diego that night to meet one. A few days later he got together with one of a latina girl he met that night (Roxy) who would become his girlfriend.

Roxy soon began coaching men to improve their dating skills also on the RSD dating programs. When TD moved to Hawaii she moved with him and they have since been a permanent couple. They had their first baby in March 2010.

Prior to Roxy, in 2004, he had a girlfriend from Seattle.

In recent years Owen became poly amorous, dates other women besides Roxy and has also had another girlfriend for a couple of years.

Notable Media Appearances