When Dating New Tricks Stops Working

Author: Aaron Fisher

There’s a question I hear all the time — sometimes people ask it outright, and sometimes it’s just sitting there under the surface.

It usually comes out sounding like this:

“Why do I feel busy with magic, but not like I’m really doing it?”

When people talk about “moving forward,” they’re almost never talking about learning more. What they usually mean is something much more specific — making the transition from thinking about magic to actually putting magic into the world.

And that distinction matters.

The people asking this question aren’t lazy. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. They’re watching good lectures. Learning new material. Staying curious. On paper, everything looks fine.

The problem shows up later — when it’s time to decide what they’re actually going to perform.

At some point, nearly every serious magician hits the same inflection point. People describe it in different ways, but many eventually recognize it as some version of what we’ve all come to call shiny object syndrome.

You like a lot of magic.

You collect tricks.

You enjoy learning.

But choosing which specific pieces you’re willing to do — not admire, not study, not keep on a list — starts to feel oddly difficult.

That’s not a personal failing. It’s a stage.

Early on, you should explore. You need range. You need contrast. You need to discover what excites you — and just as important, what doesn’t really fit once the novelty wears off.

But there’s an important practical reality hiding underneath all of this.

Getting a trick ready for real performance — and staying with it long enough for it to become good — is expensive. It takes time, focus, rehearsal, scripting, and a willingness to live with something through awkward stages. And that’s just to get it on its feet. There’s still a lot more to learn once you start performing it.

That cost is why choosing matters.

Working with magic is a lot like dating.

At first, dating teaches you how to interact with different partners. You learn what feels natural, what drains you, what looks promising but never quite settles. Magic works the same way. You slowly learn something that’s hard to see at the beginning: it’s not enough to like a trick. You have to be compatible with it.

There are pieces audiences love when someone else performs them — the kind of magic you enjoy watching David Williamson do, for example — but that never quite comes alive when you try to inhabit it yourself. There are tricks you respect deeply but never fully connect with. And there are effects that simply don’t come to life in your hands, no matter how strong they are in theory.

That realization can be frustrating — but it’s also necessary.

The trouble starts when people never leave this phase.

They keep meeting new tricks. They enjoy the spark. They feel productive. But they quietly avoid the harder step: deciding which pieces they’re willing to stay with once things stop feeling shiny.

Here’s where things usually get uncomfortable.

The moment you decide that your goal is actually to perform — maybe to build a close-up set — your relationship to new material changes. You might look at what you already have and realize you like three strong pieces… but none of them really works as an opener.

Now, when you watch a lecture or learn something new, you’re no longer just browsing. You’re looking for something specific. Your field of vision narrows.

You can still appreciate great magic. You can still take notes. But you’re no longer accepting every new idea as a candidate for your working repertoire.

That shift is healthy.

What it often feels like, though, is trading the excitement of discovery for something closer to hard work. You give up the constant sense of exploration and replace it with repetition, refinement, and responsibility.

That can feel like a loss — at first.

But that boredom is often the doorway.

Because what you get in return isn’t novelty — it’s intimacy. Shared history with a piece of magic. You perform it in good conditions and bad. You learn how it behaves across different audiences, venues, moods, and moments. Instead of being replaced, the trick starts to grow with you.

And before any of that happens, you’re making a quiet but important decision: what you’re willing to carry.

Repertoire doesn’t just live in cases and notebooks. It lives in working memory. Choosing what you perform means choosing what you’re willing to think about, rehearse, refine, and remember for a long time. Those choices deserve more care than we usually give them.

Of course, nothing is truly permanent. Tricks come and go over a lifetime.

But if you want to move forward, there’s no way around this step.

You have to stop shopping long enough to decide what you’re actually building.

So yes — date. Explore. Stay curious.

But if you take an honest look at where you are right now, it may be worth asking a quieter, more important question:

Which tricks am I ready to keep?

At a certain point, progress stops coming from finding something new — and starts coming from deciding that what you already have is enough.