I don’t know if Rollo Tomassi was the first to coin the phrase, “Spinning Plates,” but it was his blog where I first heard it put the way that it is.

You all know what it is right? It’s where you are non-exclusive and date and/or have sex with multiple women instead of just dating and/or fucking one.

From what I remember reading and talking to a whole bunch of guys online about it, it’s probably the most effective way for a man to maximize his own sexual strategy. It’s also a great way to gain experience with many women in a short time, relatively speaking. Whether that experience is sexual, just with women in general, or some combination of the aforementioned.

Real quick, I don’t care if you have sex with the women that you date or not, that’s up to you. This isn’t about morality or religion, just that it’s simply a way of you, as a man, maximizing your options and getting as much experience with women as possible. So fuck her or don’t, that’s up to you.

Here’s where I’m ultimately going with all of this though, and I’m speaking from personal experience:

Talking, reading, and watching videos about “spinning plates” is all fine in theory. The thing is, most guys have never “spun plates” before, until they have.

Right up until I was 42 and freshly divorced, I had never “spun plates.” I did what most guys that I have talked to, do: I dated one woman at a time, and when it didn’t work out, I had no options and was back to “square one.” I did this for most of my life. It’s “what you did.” It was what was “expected.” And it’s what most guys did, and still do. Even at my current age. This is called “serial dating,” or “serial monogamy.”

So hearing and reading about “spinning plates” sounds great! Until you actually go out and do it.

First, you have to decide that is what you are going to do. If you are like I was when I made this decision, you’re single with no current options, no women in sight. But hey! “I’m the prize, Alpha Male, Red Pill Aware!” So you go out, meet a woman either in real life (yeah right) or you go online and match with someone.

So you meet up, get to talking, and eventually the question comes up: “So what are you looking for?” And you tell her something along the lines of “you just want to date, be non-exclusive,” and go from there.

Now, one of two things typically happen:

She’s either good with it, because she’s already spinning plates herself and you could be the next guy in the rotation, or she tells you something like, “I don’t share, no thanks.” And out the door she goes. You could run after her, but then you wouldn’t “be the prize” right? Besides that, you wouldn’t be spinning plates. You would be back to dating one woman at a time.

Side note: Having a string of one-night stands or same day lays from different women isn’t spinning plates. That’s just having a good fucking time. Spinning plates is where you have multiple women that you are seeing multiple times over a period of time. “Mini-relationships” if you will.

So maybe you get one that’s fine with you dating other women, and she’s seeing other guys, because she will be seeing other guys. She always has more options than you. Always. I don’t care how much of a “prize” or how “Alpha” you are.

So you are seeing her and if you have Game and are persistent, maybe you get another woman onboard. Now you have two! Now you are spinning plates. Maybe it’s only two, but two is good enough for starts. Maybe you go crazy with it and pull a third and a fourth. Congratulations! You are really spinning plates!

Man, life is fucking great!

Except:

You only have so many hours in the day. If you’re like me, you have a full time job, or you go to school, or some combination. You only have so many hours to do things like eat and sleep. You might have friends and activities that you like to do that don’t involve your women. How can you keep it all up? I’m not going to lie, it can be exhausting. Especially if you like sex, they like sex, and you’re giving her the “good sex.” You’re doing that, right?

Have you ever heard the phrase, “There’s only so much water in the fountain.” No? Good. Now you have. The most sex I’ve had was 3 different women in the same day. 1 early in the morning. 1 in the early afternoon. The morning chick came back for a quickie right after the early afternoon one left, the afternoon chick came back for something in the early evening, and then the third showed up around 11pm for some loving. I learned my limitations. 5 times total in one day will do it for me. But that’s with three different women too.

This is coming from a guy who had never “spun plates” before. It was all so new and all so fun, confusing, exciting, and tiresome too, as you can see.

The idea of “spinning plates” is to gain experience and “get what you want.” Eventually one of the women stood out to me. We had some spectacular sex, got along famously, and I enjoyed her company immensely, so I found myself spending more time with her, and less time with the others. We even got into some “routines” where there were certain days that I always saw her.

Until I didn’t.

“Hey, wanna get together tomorrow night?”

“I can’t. I have a date.”

Insert gut and ball punch here.

I knew she was seeing other guys. I even knew about them and had met one of them. (More on this later.)

It didn’t “shatter my world.” But it shook it up.

And this is the part that I wanted to get to. This is where we go from theory to reality and real life experience. This is the part that no one talks about. Remember, I’m talking specifically to guys who have never actually “spun plates” before. This is your first time. Before this, you “serial dated.”

Whenever you spend time around someone you end up genuinely liking, you develop feelings for them. You care about them. You like spending time around them. And if you’re fucking them, you like fucking them.

“Sorry, I can’t. I have a date.”

And then all sorts of blind spots that you didn’t know you had, show up in full force.

Jealousy. Insecurity. “What does that motherfucker have that I don’t?” It all hits you in the face, the gut, and the balls. But not you, right? You got this. You’re “the prize.” You’re an “Alpha Male.” You’re “Red Pill Aware.”

If you don’t have some sort of gut reaction, especially if this is your first time, well Bubba, you’ve not learned a thing. Maybe all you want to do is masturbate with another body, and I know I have in the past, because it is better than using your hand, but at the same time, sex, dating, and relating are less fulfilling, at least to me, if that’s all that’s going on.

So you either “play it cool,” or you go passive-aggressive, or some other self-sabotaging behavior. I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. But it does. This is where you learn where some of your blind-spots are. This is where you get to learn about you.

When I first met my ex-girlfriend, she was dating other dudes. I know because she told me. I decided that I was “cool with it” and that I could deal with that. And I did until she told me, “I can’t. I have a date that night.”

Then all the bullshit inside me, all of the jealousy and insecurities started showing up, even though I was seeing other women at the time. “What does she see in him that she doesn’t see in me?” “What am I lacking?”

The truth was, I wasn’t “lacking” anything. It wasn’t about me. It’s just what she wanted to do. She wanted to date multiple men. The way I came to realize this was two things:

1. When she was with me, she was only with me. Guys would text her while we were together, she ignored them. She only focused on me. What she did when she wasn’t with me wasn’t my business or my concern. But when she was with me, she was with me.
2. When I was with other women, it was about my experience. It wasn’t that she lacked anything, it’s just what I wanted to do at that time, what I wanted to do at that current moment. She didn’t lack anything.

The final “test” if you will, happened when one night we were out and about and we ran into one of the other guy’s that she was dating. She didn’t just want to blow him off or ignore him, so she told me who he was and wanted to say hello to him. Strangely, I was okay with this. I got to meet him, shake his hand, and size him up. This wasn’t an “old flame,” or an ex. This was another guy that she was currently dating and fucking.

I’m not going to lie, it was awkward. We didn’t become “besties.” We didn’t become friends. But I did get to see who he was. I got to see why she was attracted to him as well as to me. I got to see the things that he “brought to the table” that I didn’t. But I also got to see the why she was attracted to me as well. I know what I “bring to the table.”

And I was genuinely okay with all of it. He wasn’t “competition.” He wasn’t the “enemy.” I could see that he felt as awkward and uncomfortable as I did.

I have talked to some guys over the years who have taken “plate spinning” from theory to practice and almost every one of them have encountered these two scenarios. Being told, “I can’t. I have a date.” And sometimes actually meeting one or more of the “other” guy’s. It’s what will let you know if you can actually handle “spinning plates” or not.

Most guys who have never “spun plates” can’t handle it. The blind spots, the insecurities, the jealousy. They’ve never done something like this before and it sounded great in theory until the reality slapped them in the face and balls. And so they go back to serial dating. Much like many guys who get divorced end up re-marrying shortly after their divorce.

It’s hard to break the “programming” you have received from your parents, society, and culture. It’s hard to walk into the unknown. It’s hard to “deal with your demons” when they show up unexpectedly. It’s hard to acknowledge your blind spots when they are revealed to you. That’s the actual Red Pill. You won’t get it from a book, blog, course, or a video. You can only get it from experience, and it’s almost always a woman that actually “red pills” you.

I’m not saying “Don’t spin plates.” I’m saying the exact opposite. I’m saying do it. But the question is, can you? Most guys can’t if they haven’t done it. And most guys don’t have the “stomach” for it when the reality hits them in the face. That’s the practical side, if you will.

When I first met my belly dancer, she was already “spinning her own plates.” She had met a guy before she met me. I was, and am, okay with that. I was already spinning a couple of plates of my own when I met her. Over time, she had told me about the “other guy.” Turns out he’s never “spun plates” before, but was willing to “give it a go.” And things were good, until they weren’t. Turns out “spinning plates” isn’t his thing. He broke things off with her and started serial dating again. All I could do when I heard this was think, “Of course. It’s what he knows. It’s what he’s familiar with and what he is comfortable with.”

It sounded good in theory to him, until she told him, “I can’t. I have a date. I have plans for that weekend.”

Think you can handle being told, “I can’t. I have a date. I have plans.” Think you can handle meeting one of her “other guys?” Because one or both of those things will happen to you eventually. Are you ready to deal with your blind-spots when she reveals them to you? Because she will. Not that she knows that they are your blind-spots, but she will reveal them to you. Are you ready for that? Think you can handle it?

If you think you can, great! Spinning plates may in fact, be for you. If not, you have work to do. That, or go back to serial dating.