Here is where I have landed as of October 21, 2026, after a year of dating with no woman in my life: the men I know who get results put in constant effort, and I kept dropping mine. In EffortMaxxing I describe a millionaire who paid to boost one dating app every day, a guy who double- and triple-texts every match and always pays, and a fit guy who cold-approaches women in the daytime.
Two women said no chemistry after I waited two days to text back. The matchmaking date wanted a second date, and I went silent for four days; when I finally texted, nothing came back. The single mom from yoga came back after six months, canceled last minute, and instead of staying steady I mocked her in a video, and it was over. Whenever I stop putting in effort, it is over.
So my conclusion is simple. I expect to carry about 80% of the effort. I text every day, I keep following up until a woman clearly says stop, and the moment she says stop, I stop. If you are a woman who can communicate what you are feeling and wants to live in St. Pete, my page for you is jerrybanfield.com/date. If you are a man in the middle of this, you can schedule a call with me to talk dating.
Here is how my view developed. In my August 15, 2026 vlog I counted at least 15 different women I had asked out or tried to date in three weeks, with zero dates to show for it.
The arc started in September 2025, while my divorce was being finalized. In What If We Asked Instead of Ordered? I was thinking about asking instead of ordering, the same instinct applied to romance. In My Crush Was a Symptom, Not the Cause I wrote that it was better to go on a hundred dates to find real compatibility than to settle after five or ten.
The first real test came in The More Interesting Choice Is to Just Ask, when I texted my massage therapist, a friend of eight years who had a boyfriend, to ask whether she wanted a relationship. She said no, and she does not want kids while I do. In Hearing No and Feeling Nothing but Relief the lesson was that I had been playing offense too hard and letting loneliness make decisions.
In November I told a woman at my gym I thought she was really attractive, and she talked with me about five minutes before politely wrapping up, in Just Walk Up and Say It. In December my life coach declined when I asked her to date me, in Hearing No and Staying Confident Anyway, and I felt mostly relief.
Christmas 2025 is when I started treating numbers like a skill. In The Christmas I Learned to Ask for the Number a woman at yoga clearly wanted my number and I failed to ask. That same night I bought Bumble Premium Plus for $160 for three months and set my radius to 33 miles.
Early 2026 was the hard part. In When Nobody Texts Back I asked a woman I had been seeing for another massage and got silence, then asked a woman from AA for coffee and got silence again. In I Said the Compliment Anyway I told a woman at yoga she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in that studio, and she took it well. By March, in Reading the Room Too Late, I had stayed about 30 minutes in a draining conversation at a Pilates class and should have disengaged much sooner.
Summer 2026 made the numbers real. I laid out my keep-shooting approach in Taking Every Shot I Can, spent $400 on Hinge roses, and in Four Dates Canceled in a Row none of them turned into a date. In the 15-women post I called it a search for asymmetric opportunities, where I have almost nothing to lose by asking. I still believe that.
Every one of those posts was about making the ask and taking the no without spiraling. What I was missing was what happens after the ask: the daily text and the follow-up when she does not reply. I learned to ask. Now I am learning to keep going.
The 14 posts below run newest first, so you can follow the arc in my own words, including the parts that do not make me look good.
If the divorce side of this is what you are dealing with, my divorce story covers how it ended, and single dad life covers co-parenting while you date.
If you are trying to make sense of a no of your own, you can get a personal video review from me at https://jerrybanfield.com/review/.
On this page
Every post I have written on this subject is below in full, newest first, each under its own heading.
- EffortMaxxing (October 21, 2026)
- I Asked Out 15 Women in 3 Weeks and Got Zero Dates (August 15, 2026)
- Four Dates Canceled in a Row: $400 in Roses, a Morning Cry with My Son, and $557 a Month Recurring (August 6, 2026)
- Taking Every Shot I Can (August 2, 2026)
- Reading the Room Too Late (March 9, 2026)
- I Said the Compliment Anyway (February 6, 2026)
- When Nobody Texts Back (January 15, 2026)
- The Christmas I Learned to Ask for the Number (December 25, 2025)
- Hearing No and Staying Confident Anyway (December 14, 2025)
- Just Walk Up and Say It (November 18, 2025)
- Hearing No and Feeling Nothing but Relief (October 30, 2025)
- The More Interesting Choice Is to Just Ask (October 29, 2025)
- My Crush Was a Symptom, Not the Cause (October 6, 2025)
- What If We Asked Instead of Ordered? (September 23, 2025)
EffortMaxxing
From my video published October 21, 2026.
This is my bed and I haven't had a woman in it all year. And I'm frustrated. I'm like, look, what do I need to do? What do I need to do to get a decent woman in my bed? Without taking some shortcut. I don't just want to hook up and have a one-night stand. I want a woman who's going to sleep in here every night with me.
What I've been seeing is that the guys who have a woman in their bed these days seem to be putting in a crazy amount of effort. Let me give you some specific examples of what they're doing, because I'm wondering about something. So many of these guys have been doing videos saying, "Oh yeah, bro, give her three or four days after the date to message her. Wait to call her." So many of the people I see giving dating advice seem to be saying to minimize effort. But the dudes I actually know who are ending up with a woman, they are making crazy amounts of effort. I'm going to give you three different case studies.
The Millionaire Who Boosted One Dating App
Guy number one is a millionaire. He's got a huge house all to himself and drives an expensive car. And in order to get himself a girlfriend, he spent thousands and thousands of dollars on a dating app, boosting his profile to the max every single day. Then he went out with women, built systems to message a bunch of different women, all to find one woman he now sees for maybe 20 hours a week. And even now, based on what he said, I don't know if they're technically in a relationship.
So this guy spent thousands and thousands of dollars. Now, this guy is not special looking or anything. What he did was show off the money angle in his dating profile and then spend thousands of dollars to boost that profile on one particular dating app. He only had to use one dating app. For privacy reasons I'm keeping it private which app it was, but it was one of the popular ones. For context, I've put real money into apps myself and wasted $1,357 on dating apps, which is a rounding error next to what he spent.
And here's the thing: when he talked to me, this guy still said he felt like he wasn't rich enough for the women. This guy's a millionaire, and it feels to him like all these women want is a guy who's rich. I'm like, bro, you've got a lot higher net worth than I do, which is easy when mine's about negative $200K right now. I talked to him and it's like, if this guy doesn't have enough money for the women he's trying to date, it's hopeless. This guy is a millionaire with a nice car, a much nicer car than most people have, and yet he feels like he doesn't have enough money for all these women. Now, that might just be his opinion. At the same time, that's what he told me.
The Great-Job Guy Who Double-Texts and Always Pays
Another experience, from somebody else I know. This guy has a great job. He also has a nice car, and I'm seeing a theme here, but I'm going to give you some different examples. This guy puts in so much time matching with women, messaging women, double-texting and triple-texting them. He'll go through all of his matches on a dating app and send them all the same message talking about himself. He uses pictures as old as 20 years on his profile, though he has one that's more up to date. He goes out with so many different women. He always takes them out to dinner, always pays, always asks them to go back to the crib on the first date, and he's got a very nice house. He says the conversion percentage is pretty high.
But still, this guy runs into women saying they don't want a serious relationship with him, even though he's clearly got money, which some guys think is all you need on a dating app and all women are looking for. I know that's not what all women are looking for, because some women are looking for a guy like me who can communicate, who is honest, who values family and is healthy. That's what I have to offer. Personally, when I put effort into dating apps I got so few results, and I realized just sending likes on dating apps doesn't work. Hardly any guys I know are able to get anywhere just sending likes. This guy has a very impressive job title too, but he says some of the women don't even look at his job title. I'm like, what are they looking at? And he does not pay to boost his profile.
Cold Approach, the Yoga Studio and the Park at Night
All right, so that's two guys using dating apps. Now let's talk about a guy I know who's not using dating apps. He is very in shape and fit, and he tries to pick up women in person all the time with cold approach. He'll walk by a woman out in public in the daytime. I've learned from him, he's like, "Bro, don't cold approach at night unless it's a bar or a club or something." But he'll cold approach women in the daytime, just walk by and be like, "Hey, you're beautiful." And he's gotten girlfriends and hookups doing that. He's always out trying to pick up women, all the time.
I tried a little bit of that approach and quickly got some complaints at the yoga studio. Literally just talking to women, asking if they're single, not even being that direct, having indirect conversations and then, if we're having a good conversation, asking if they're single. Then they complain. It's like, wow. These days I lean more toward getting a woman to approach me first, and this is part of why.
Then I made the mistake of cold approaching a woman at night. We were both walking at the park at night. She said hi first and I said hi back, and then I said, what did I say, something like "You're really pretty." And she screamed at me to get away from her. I'm like, okay, maybe I should have done that in the daytime. She was literally already walking away from me. I wasn't chasing her down. I just turned and said, "Oh, you're really beautiful," and she screams, "Get away from me!" Like, geez.
Then I'm out at singles events, I'm going to speed dating, and I paid for matchmaking. And guys tell me, well, Jerry, you've gotten 25 first dates this year with 25 different women. Most of them high-quality women. Not all, for sure, but most of them. I'm thinking of one who's an entrepreneur. She built a business and sold it. I'm thinking of another, a single mom, and most of you'd say she was pretty attractive. She was slightly heavy for my taste, but I went out with a bunch of beautiful single women this year. Probably at least 10 of them well above average, very good looking, with successful careers. Most of them single with no kids.
And where I've been failing is I haven't been putting in constant effort. Like, I took one of them to the Dalí Museum. She literally had a matching tattoo on her arm. She seemed like she had a good time. I sent one message and she sent me a message back. I sent another message asking for a date, and then there was no reply from her. So I've been trying to figure out, what do I need to do?
It seems like the men who are putting the most effort into dating are getting the best results. Occasionally there are exceptions. I know a guy who was single for four years, and then he runs into a woman in a coffee shop and they're dating. I know a guy who was single for three years, and a woman chases him out of the grocery store, and they're still together years later. So there are exceptions. But the general trend I'm seeing is that the guys putting in the most effort into dating are getting the best results. Whether you define results by body count or by getting into relationships, either way, it's the guys putting in the most effort. And effort means different things. For some guys it means boosting on dating apps. For others it means going through every single woman, liking every single woman, messaging a bunch of women, double- and triple-messaging them, going out on dates, putting up with them ghosting and flaking, and just dealing with everything over and over again.
Two Days Without a Text and "No Chemistry"
Where I've been failing is that I've been dropping my effort off. I literally had one woman tell me, "I can't stand low-effort guys." I didn't text her for two days. After she took about a day to get back to me, I took two days to get back to her. She blows up and says there's no chemistry. Another woman, same thing. We schedule a second date, I don't send her a text for two days, and she blows up and says there's no chemistry. I told the whole story of one of those in I didn't text her for two days and then she ended it. It seems like women expect a whole bunch of effort these days. Not all women. Some women certainly are not going to respond to that.
There was one woman I met in person where I was texting her every day. Then we had a date, she was in a bad mood, and I dropped the effort off. She ended up coming back around after I ghosted her, and we went on a few dates, but nothing more happened from there. Would things have gone better if I'd constantly kept texting her? Probably.
I know a woman who was in a relationship. She said she was going to marry the guy. She was very happy with him. She loved that he texted her every morning, no matter what. But then she ended up dumping him, because their communication and their sex weren't that great. So she dumped him and found another guy. And it seems like if you want a girlfriend these days, you've got to work for it. That's the general expectation. Women are used to guys putting in a ton of work, and it seems like if you're not putting in a ton of work, they figure you're not interested.
Obviously this is just my experience. This is just what I'm seeing. And it seems like my biggest failing has been not putting in a ton of work while wanting it really bad, and being too hurt when women don't match my effort. At this point, it seems like I should just expect them not to match my effort. I should expect that I might have to do 80%. One of the guys I'm thinking of does about 80%. He said specifically that he texted one woman an entire paragraph and she texted him back three words, something like "Oh, that's nice." And he's just like, what? But with this woman, it now looks like he's in a relationship and things are advancing rapidly, within a week. This woman gave a three-word reply to his paragraph of a text message.
So it seems like the dudes out there getting women into their lives are the ones doing everything, or working one particular strategy. Like the one guy I know who's very buff and approaches women in person.
Obviously that guy gets rejected the vast majority of the time, but he's out there putting in the effort in person. And I know that when I had the most dates, it was when I was putting in the most effort: when I was on dating apps, when I was out speed dating, when I was doing cold approach. It's crazy, because people tell me, "Well, Jerry, you should stop putting effort into dating." I'm like, I'm not putting in effort. And when I don't put effort into dating, nothing happens. I recently explained why I now say stop chasing sooner; this is the other side of that.
What It Takes to Date Me, and the Woman in South Africa
What it takes to date me is pretty simple. Just be able to communicate your feelings instead of blaming them on me. Say that you're having a bad day instead of blaming your bad day on me, and communicate what you're thinking and what you're feeling honestly. Then you've got to want to live in St. Pete. Those are the things it takes to date me. I have a page on my website at jerrybanfield.com/date where, if you're a woman matching that description, you can email me, and you have to send a video introducing yourself to make sure you're real.
I had a couple of women reach out on there. One woman was in South Africa, and I was prepared to put in the effort to fly to South Africa for her. But I realized that's not going to work. I have two kids. I'm not just some playboy who's single, or some guy whose ex has the kids all the time. I have 50/50 custody of my kids. I can't fall in love with a woman in South Africa, do a long-distance relationship for a year or two, and spend thousands of dollars on credit cards right now to fly over there to meet her in person. I went deeper on that in why I won't fly for a first date. A woman has to come here to meet me. If you want this, you've got to come get it.
But these days it seems so rare and precious to me that a woman will put in the effort. It seems to be expected that the man is there to put in this maximum effort, because women seem to get turned on by guys desiring them, which I get. I want a woman to desire me. But it seems the only women I can get to put in effort with me are the ones who are at rock bottom. It's crazy.
The Matchmaking Date and Four Days of Silence
I went on this matchmaking date, and I think if I had started texting her a whole bunch, we'd probably have had another date. But I didn't text her for four days, because I said I want the woman to put in effort. So she didn't text me. She gave the matchmaker great feedback, that she wanted to see me again, that she wanted a second date with me. She was talking about a second date. My matchmaker said, "Just text her once, at least. Don't drop the ball on the follow-up." So I finally texted her yesterday. No response, 24 hours later. I already learned once that waiting to text does not make me more attractive, and here I did it again.
So what I'm thinking going forward is that I just have to keep trying with a woman until she says stop. And that's not very common. Aside from that one woman at the park who screamed at me, which is probably some kind of PTSD or something that has nothing to do with me, I don't think I've had a single woman I was communicating with all year ever tell me to stop. But I have had women tell me they don't feel the chemistry because I wasn't putting enough effort in.
I'm conflicted, though. I only have so much time in a day. And then it's like, how bad do I want it? I want it bad. And I love the game. What I've learned after a year of dating is that the effort also seems to mean that, as a man, I need to just put up with anything. They say they want to be friends? No problem, let's go have a coffee. They don't have time for a coffee? Great, maybe I'll meet you at an event. They don't have time for that? Great, I'll try again the next day. "How are you doing? How's it going? Good morning."
Brute-Force Effort Until She Says Stop
At this point it seems more like just brute force in terms of effort. Just try until they say stop. If a woman blocks me or says "Don't text me," then obviously I'm stopping at that point. But short of that, I have a phone. I know a woman who's very attractive, and she said her type is guys who are obsessed with her: guys who text her all the time, guys who come by her place unannounced. Yeah, it doesn't sound very good, does it? But she said, "That's my type. The guys I fall for are the guys who are obsessed with me."
It seems like today women have so many perceived options, even if there aren't often that many real options, that the main thing I've done wrong is stop putting in effort. Whenever I stop putting in effort with a woman, in most cases, it's over.
Occasionally I've had a woman reach out to me. There was a beautiful single mom at yoga. Initially I was trying to talk to her all the time. I texted her, asked her to go out, she didn't respond, and I gave up. Then she didn't see me for six months, and she reached out. But then she cancels a date last minute, and I send her a video kind of making fun of her, and it's over after that. Same pattern as when she canceled two dates in a row on me. Whereas if I'd just been cool and kept texting her all the time: "Hey, how's your day?" "Good morning." "Hey, do you want to do something this weekend?" She doesn't reply. "Hey, how are you doing? You want to do something on Monday?" "Hey, hope you're having a nice day today." "Hey, how did your hair appointment go?" If I did that, I might end up with 10 or 15 messages she doesn't respond to. But there's a good chance, maybe she's hung up on her ex or something like that, that I finally send a message at the right time and all of a sudden she's over at my house. I don't know if that makes a relationship.
But at this point, my mind's thought was, you should just pay for it. It's been almost a year since you've been with a woman. You haven't had a woman in this bed all year. Although I've had several women over to my house, even there I didn't put in enough effort. I didn't try to make enough moves. I didn't try to escalate enough. Even when I was kind of escalating and making moves, I was like, oh, they said they wanted to take it slow, so they probably don't want me to kiss them. It's crazy, bro. It's nuts.
It seems like women are so distracted today. They're so overwhelmed. They have so much going on. And the one thing I haven't tried yet is putting in a lot of effort constantly, just blowing a woman's phone up. Maybe not like crazy, but at least every day. "Good morning." Every day. "How are you today?" "Good morning. How are you feeling today?" And if she doesn't respond, so what? Next morning: "Good morning." Because maybe five days in a row she's hung up on an ex, she's overwhelmed, she's thinking about money, she doesn't feel good, she's hanging out with her girlfriend, she's doing something else, she's working. But it only takes one day where all of a sudden she's in the mood, now she wants to see me, now she's feeling me, and all those other messages I sent that went unanswered suddenly matter. I haven't actually done that. I've given up insanely fast when women haven't responded.
But this one guy I know messaged me literally 36 times before I responded. I listened to his voice memos, and I still haven't responded to his last 10 messages. Now, he said he doesn't message women the same way. But I'm like, at this point, it seems like that's what it takes. I'm not sure I'm going to get a girlfriend doing what I'm doing now. Maybe if you're a professional athlete or some ultra-tier man, occasionally women will chase you. But even then, it seems like they're still quitting and ghosting. I know a guy who makes a whole bunch of money and women ghost him. It goes against everything you would think, but they ghost him even though he makes as much money in a month as most of you do in a year, and he's got about a million in cash. Last I heard, they ghost him. This guy's on dating apps, and I need to ask if he boosts or anything.
Hinge, Tinder and Boosting Every Day
So, man, it's like, if I want a girlfriend, all I need to do is install Hinge, install Tinder, and pay to boost every day. I don't even have to make a perfect profile, because women literally aren't seeing my profile otherwise. I just pay to boost my profile every day. I just hit on every woman I come across. If I get complained about at a yoga studio, I just go to another one. Don't cold approach at night. Just go to speed dating events. Just hit on women. Is that what it takes? I don't know. The whole year is in my Dating playlist.
You can send me a video to watch or an audio message, but better yet, go to jerrybanfield.com and schedule a call with me. I'm a great person to talk to about dating. I don't present myself as some expert who knows everything. I'm in the game for real with you right now, and that will be much more helpful than trying to find one of these guys who's acting like he has it all figured out, which they don't. If they were honest with you, and if you read between the lines in their videos, their lives are a mess. They're unhappy. Almost none of them are in a great relationship. They're out here sleeping with as many women as they can, and some of them are cheating on the one they're with, which is crazy. So if you want real talk with a real man who's in the middle of dating right now, to swap strategies, to share, to listen to you, then I'm here for you.
I Asked Out 15 Women in 3 Weeks and Got Zero Dates
From my video published August 15, 2026.
I'm Jerry Banfield, full-time YouTuber, famous online. It is August 15th, 2026, and this is my vlog for today. The headline is this: I just went back and counted, and in the last three weeks I've asked out or attempted to date at least 15 different women. That's five different women a week. And so far, I have zero dates in that time. I'm going to tell you all about it. What I'm so proud of is that I'm getting to where I don't even care what doesn't work anymore. I am obsessed with just going after what does work. Who does work? What works out? What is fun? What works well? What can I learn? Let's make it a great story.
I'm so grateful that my little dating saga with the queen has brought enough views and minutes watched that I just applied for monetization today on this YouTube channel. Thank you to all of you. And I'm actually getting discovered on this channel. A woman messaged me saying she wants to buy one of my shirts. I'm like, nice. A guy dropped a tip this morning — the very first tip on jerrybanfield.com — and it said, "I got the Jerry vibes." Thank you. And TrueSelf just joined the chat for $96 lifetime. So I'm really grateful today for where I'm at. I'll tell you about the different women I've asked out, and I think I'm actually going to have a date two hours from now.
I hesitated to step up and do this vlog. It's like, man, I don't want to talk about this. I'm tired of talking about my life. Then it's like, get up there, boy. You love attention. You love talking about your life. Get up there and talk about it. So I just reflected: I've made efforts and reached out to at least 15 different women, including one I hadn't talked to in months. She initiated the conversation, talking about our website, and then she left a like back on my message. I'm like, all right, not going further than that.
A Cancelled Date and a ChatGPT Reply
Just now, I had a date scheduled this morning with a single mom. I texted her last night to confirm the time — we hadn't set an exact time, and confirming is one way to lock that down. So I texted her at 7:30 last night: let's meet at the park near my house, 10 a.m. She didn't respond last night. I woke up today and I'm like, all right, well, whatever. Then I got a text from a friend who texts me good morning every morning. Then I'm in the bathroom and I hear another text come through, and I'm like, that's her. And it was. I'm like, damn, I've got some sixth sense, Bruce Willis, I-see-dead-people stuff going on here. And what does she text me? I'll paraphrase it: basically, oh, I've got my kid. I didn't know she was a single mom. I met her at work — her work, obviously not my work.
So I'm in the house by myself, and I saw a comment from an attractive-looking profile on my ICP channel that said, thanks for the info. I'm like, all right, cool. Maybe a woman one day will go to jerrybanfield.com, book a call to talk to me, and be like, oh, you know what? I fell in love with you watching your videos. That doesn't seem very likely, does it? But it'd be funny if it happened.
So, where was I before I took this tangent? Oh, the single mom. She's like, oh, I have my kid, I didn't know. I had met her Monday. I texted her Friday night to confirm. She texted me Saturday morning: sorry, I have to cancel. So I go into ChatGPT and I'm like, all right, this is what I want the message to say — just make it say that. And I send a message back: "No worries. I'm a single dad, too. I know how quickly kid schedules can change. 🙂 You can pick another day." And she said, "Great, thanks for understanding." And I didn't respond. I said she can pick another day, so it's on her at this point. She's a single mom — she said she was very single when I met her — and I'm going to just give her space. If she wants to go out with me, she ought to think about me and reach out and want to go out with me.
Remote Viewing at Yoga
Otherwise, I'm making so many efforts at yoga. Today I tried to do a little remote viewing of the future. I know how that sounds, but I got there early, and I realized I need to start getting to the yoga class early because that works even better. Instead of me putting my mat next to someone else, I kind of view out what the space is going to look like and where I should position. Then whoever puts their mat next to me has to choose to put their mat next to me. That's actually how I got that crush on that woman at yoga — she kept putting her mat next to me, and I was like, oh, yeah. She put hers next to mine like three or four times, and I put my mat next to hers like twice. That's how that went down.
Bobby Rio and The Invisible Game
Let me back up. I've been watching Bobby Rio — he's been one of my favorite dating YouTubers lately. I went and bought his book last night, called The Invisible Game, and I'm halfway through it already at double speed. And I'm really locked in on this headspace: you know what? I know how to play games. You want to play games? Okay, I'll play with you. Say hello to my lover. I know how to play games. I can get good at games. You could call it a dance, you can call it a game, but it's just dating. I'm going to play the game, and I'm going to just focus on winning the game. What is winning the game? Having a woman that I really like, that really likes me, that I enjoy spending time with, and maybe we can build a life together. That's winning the game. Whatever I've got to do to win the game that's loving and respectful of other people, I'm going to do that.
So I bought Bobby Rio's course for $79. I watched some upsell for a $67-a-month membership, and I bought that too, but it was free for 14 days. I'll probably cancel it, but I might not. There's a bunch of dudes in there talking, and I'm like, okay, this is just hard. This is just a game you've got to learn. And I realize the prize is being able to be the kind of man that I'm proud to be — who's not controlled by his emotions, who's not checking his phone wondering why she didn't message me, because I've got all kinds of other stuff to do. And look, if the woman is right for me, she's going to make sure she has me. She's going to identify herself as my queen, not the other way around. Because while the other way around would work for me, it doesn't seem to spark attraction for the woman.
Practicing Manly Talk at the Sober Bar
Last night, I went out to Sober Bar again, which is a mocktails place in Gulfport. I sat there, and this dude across the bar starts talking to me, and I'm practicing my manly talking so I can be prepared for this date I might actually have in two hours — a coffee date from my matchmaking service. For example, instead of asking questions, I just make statements. I just start assuming. I did this great when I was a police officer — I was used to being the leader and the one in charge. If I did ask questions, it was a why question: why did you do that? So with that in mind, I went out to Sober Bar after going to my AA meeting. It's just kind of nice to feel like I could go sit at a bar and have a drink, and it was all sober, and I could just drive home afterwards. That was nice. I called my brother, talked to him, had a good conversation, went to bed. I also uploaded a bunch more shorts that I filmed.
Making Money Straight Off My Website
I'm really happy, and I'm proud of y'all supporting me. I really appreciate being able to do this full time. Yesterday, somebody bought the second chat membership, and you can see him right on the leaderboard on my website. You get to choose your profile name and everything — it's just anonymous if you don't put anything — so you get to have a profile there. TrueSelf really made my night with that $96 purchase for the chat. And then a guy yesterday from the Netherlands dropped $39 for an instant 10-minute call with me. He didn't create an account, so he's not on the leaderboard, but he paid $39 for a quick 10-minute call. I texted him three minutes afterwards on WhatsApp, and three minutes after that we were on video chat, and we had the 10-minute call wrapped up, and it was great. That felt awesome. I made over $130 yesterday, just straight off my website. Then I wake up to a $5 tip this morning. I'm like, let's go. And all this while the ICP price is in the crapper — once that shoots up, then all kinds of stuff is going to go up.
I'm also going to start making courses. Look, y'all want technical tutorials? Fine — y'all are going to have to pay for those on my website. I'm not putting out a network nervous system tutorial for free. I'll put out the clickbait stuff, and then you can pay for the technical tutorials, and you can pay to have a call with me. The business is just a game too, and I'm willing to play the business game — willing to do what it takes to give you as much value as I can. I hope these vlogs are value, so you can see what a real, authentic, introspective man's life looks like.
Scanning the Room at AA
So I went to this AA meeting last night — I'll wrap back to the yoga story in a minute. I went to see if this woman was there from a week ago, and she wasn't. I was like, dang, I was hoping to see her again and ask her out. That's what I was trying to do. There were a couple of other women there that I liked. One still had her wedding ring on, so I'm like, I'm not even saying hi to her. And the other one — nah, she's too big for me. Let's just stop acting like she's not. That's why I didn't make moves before, even though there was some chemistry. I'm like, nah, she's still too big for me. I have a right to have a preference. And I just walked out of the meeting.
After Sober Bar I came home, went to bed at like midnight, and woke up. And this is really interesting. This morning I went to yoga and I went to my AA meeting, and I shared in my AA meeting, because it's time. People were talking about doing the next right thing and making amends to others we've hurt. And I'm like, here's the thing: the next right thing — who determines that? Me. That's who. Who put this thing together? Me. So I determine the next right thing. And what is the next right thing? According to my long-term goals. Because people say the next right thing according to God, or other people, or my wife, or whatever — there need to be clear definitions in life. My clear definition of the next right thing is anything that advances me toward my long-term goals: health, world domination — I said that out loud — changing the world for the positive, a real authentic world, health, family, love, joy, connection, prosperity. And then, long term: a wife, more kids. Though I guess I can't tell them that on a date. And I'm also going to own my YouTube. This is what I do. If you don't like it, that's fine with me, but I'm doing this, and I'm doing it how I do it, and I'm good at it. If you want in, that's fine. If not, you're just going to be a one-time story on here, or a few-weeks saga on here. This is how I am, this is who I am and what I do, and I'm good at it.
Selfless vs. Selfish
So I went to AA and I shared that I've been too selfless. Because if you're too selfless, people are just going to use you. The selfish people — you're going to be their slave. You're going to work for them, you're going to marry them, you're going to do whatever they want. And I'm like, if I have to choose between being the selfish one who gets what I want or the selfless one who just serves others all the time, I'm going to be the selfish one. I want to get what I want, and that's my number one goal from now on. And I'm not out here acting like some manipulative nice guy — oh yeah, I'll just make any kind of videos you want. No. I'm going to make the videos I want to make that are fun. I'm going to try and help you, and I'm here for you. At jerrybanfield.com, I'm here for you, but I'm going to make the videos I want to make that I think will be helpful, and I'm going to try and give you the most value I can every day — and I've set up a platform there where you can give what you want to give, and I'm prepared to receive it. And yes, I felt a little awkward sharing all that at the meeting.
No More Apologizing
It was the same with the making-amends step in AA, where you make this list of all the people you've harmed. I went along, in the last 12 and a half years sober, apologizing and admitting I was wrong all the time. You know what? I get pissed off when I admit I'm wrong and no one else admits when they're wrong. Almost no one admits when they're wrong to me. So I realized either I need to make other people say they're wrong, or I need to stop saying I'm wrong. And since I can't make other people do stuff very easily, I'm just going to stop being wrong. Everything I do — I'm not apologizing for anything I do anymore. Everything I do is right according to me, doing the best I can to try and get the things that I want and give the things I have to offer to life. If you don't like that, that's your problem, because I can't control your reaction, and I've come to believe it's just manipulative to go around trying. Like what I did with the queen — oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So pathetic. Dude, stop. You did what you did. Stop being sorry. Stop being wrong. Just do right according to your goals and objectives all the time and never apologize.
I learned that online. When I changed my race in 2022, there was not one inch of apology out of me anywhere. If people didn't like it, that's their problem. If they wanted to call me names — call me a racist because I changed my race, which is perfectly legal — that's their problem. That's their choice, not my choice. And I learned it on Steam. Nine years ago, I created this account service, and everybody was nasty about it. So then I apologized, and the apology I gave made it worse — people were horrible. I should have just owned the account creation service and never apologized. That was a valuable lesson I learned online: never apologize for anything online, ever. I do everything out of joy, out of love, out of trying to give value, and if somebody else doesn't like it, that's their problem. It doesn't matter what the consequences are. I don't care about authority, so anything authority does, that's them. I never admit any wrongdoing and never apologize, absolutely at all.
But in my personal life, especially with dating, I've been such a sad case all the time. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, that was wrong. No. I did that all the time with my ex-wife. The day after we decided to get separated, I wrote her this two-page letter about how sorry and wrong I was. Do you think I got one back? Hell no. It's been 10 months, and hell no, I've not gotten a letter back from her. She's never addressed anything she's done in a relationship, ever. And since I can't make her do that, it's clear going forward: no apologies, no admitting wrongdoing. If anybody else gets harmed — oops, I'll try not to do that again, and I'll adjust my own internal routines. But otherwise it just makes life miserable. To me, apologizing and being wrong is all subservience to authority, or it's a manipulative strategy to try and make people take certain actions. If we all just go around following our own values, then we're at least going to be living authentically. And that, to me, is manly. What I did with the queen was so embarrassing.
The Scrambler Plan for the Queen
I was listening to Bobby Rio's course, and he talks about the scrambler — this technique for when you haven't talked with somebody and you want to re-engage. I'm like, I may run the scrambler on the queen. I may send the text message exactly out of his course, because I have the perfect favor to ask. I realized that if one of these podcasts is willing to offer money for that video, the only person I really need to ask is her. So I may run the scrambler: reach out, ask her for a favor — hey, you remember that video I sent you? If I edited out everything that made you personally identifiable, would you be cool with me releasing that to the public? How do you feel about that? If she doesn't like it or isn't interested, then I can be like, all right, cool, I'll keep it private. If she's like, no problem, then that's a good reason to reach out and make contact. And at this point, I don't care about losing anymore. I don't care about anything that doesn't work out. It doesn't matter how other people respond. All that matters is I'm making the effort.
The Full Yoga Ask-Out Story
Now, back to the yoga story. Today I went to yoga, and I was kind of remote viewing where I should put my mat to put myself in the right situation. Although I've got a question about my calculation — the dude in front of me seemed to have a much better spot than I did. But I went in this morning, put my mat down, and a beautiful woman comes up and puts her mat right down next to only me. She's against the wall — I had put my mat in a position where one person could pick a spot where I'd be the only one next to them and they'd be against the wall. So I start talking manly to her. I start assuming stuff, and I start correctly guessing various things about her life. We have a nice, flirty conversation. I also notice, though, that she's not asking any questions about me. I'm trying both to practice my masculine talking and to see if I'm accurately reading her subtle cues. My read was that she appreciates the attention, but she's not that interested in me — and if I ask her out, she's probably going to say no. But I'm like, let me test this and make sure the read was accurate.
I waited until after the class was over, because you don't want to ask someone on a date before the yoga class and then have to be next to them the whole time. That could be awkward when there are no other places to put your mat, either. So at the end of the class — this woman was strong, probably 15 to 20 years younger than me — I'm like, you were strong, that was a good job in that class. I gave her a compliment, and she gave me a couple of compliments back. Then I said, with all those characteristics, I'd figure there's like an 80 percent chance you have a boyfriend. She's like, no, I'm actually single, and I'm kind of just doing my own thing right now. My first read was: okay, she's probably not interested in going out with me based on what she just said. It may be nothing personal — maybe she's just not looking to date right now. But from what she said, if I asked whether she wanted to go out, the answer would probably be no. Still, in my experience it's important to practice: go ahead and fail, then you'll know for sure, and be ready to handle it immediately without flinching.
So I'm like, all right, I'm going for it. I left some silence for a minute, and then — it was pretty smooth when it came out, though I'm having trouble remembering exactly what I said — I said something like, well, I'm in a different state of mind: since you're single, I'd love to take you out. And she's like, well, I really appreciate that. I'm just staying in and doing my own thing right now, and working. So I said something like, well, I had to ask — and I hope you enjoy taking that compliment home. I didn't apologize or back off what I said. In fact, she said something like she appreciated me asking, so it left her feeling good. And I'm like, there you go. Take that compliment home. Nice meeting you, have a great day. And then I looked around to see if there were any more women. And I just felt good. I'm like, that's me. That's who that is. That's me. It felt good.
It's like: go out there and don't even understand that there's any idea of failure. All you do is go out there and make an effort. Take shots over and over and over again. And that felt great. And then I'm like, all right, let me watch the rest of this course. I also just got the name for my date — I just giggled, because I now see the name of the woman I'm apparently meeting in two hours. So cool. I'm having such a good time.
Getting Back Into My Masculinity
I feel like I'm getting back into my proper masculinity. To me, that means I'm rock solid all the time. Emotions do not throw me off. I can feel my feelings, but I'm still grounded and proud of myself, and I've got my own back. I'm never beaten — I'm not beating myself up or feeling bad or apologizing or making myself wrong, because I've always got my own back. And then I'm always looking out for the people I love, and I'm always a rock-solid parent — a co-parent my kids can depend on and my ex-wife can depend on.
Baseball, Therian Tails, and Family
I went to my son's baseball practice today. That boy can throw. He launched it from like past second base all the way to first. I'm like, nice. He needed the tee on the batting, but he's so athletic, and he's hardly even practiced. And dude — I just got the message from my date, and her name is literally spelled exactly the same as one of my sisters'. That's just entertaining to me. And that same sister actually messaged me today. I sent her a voice memo of what I was doing — maybe two and a half minutes is too much for a voice memo, but she likes to talk and have hour-long phone conversations once or twice a month, so we don't get to catch up that much otherwise. At my son's practice, it was so cool — my ex-mother-in-law was there, and I'm like, hey, I haven't seen you in a while. And I was cool with it. I just enjoyed the time with my son. My daughter was there too, and I brought her these Therian tails that I bought for her that she likes. I'm just feeling so grateful, so manly, so grounded in myself.
Tim the Barber and Great Clips Practice
Last thing we'll cover: I went to get a haircut from Tim the barber. Dude, why are you off every time I need you? Tim the barber is walking distance from my house, and the last two times I've been there, he's out. Bro, it's Friday, Saturday — you're gone every time I need you. So I went over to Great Clips today, and this woman was there, and I'm like, I'm going to practice talking manly to her. I had her laughing, and I hardly asked her any questions unless it was a why question — I just started assuming things about her. She said she was a mom, and I guessed her child's age within one year. I'm like, all right, I'm getting good at this. Using my psychic abilities to impress women, to lead, and to show what I've got to offer.
I really appreciate that y'all have been watching crazy amounts of these videos — the average watch time on these has been awesome, like ten minutes, nine minutes, nine minutes on the last one. I'm grateful that you're here, and I know if you keep watching, these will do amazing things in your life. You can catch every day of this saga on my Daily Vlogs playlist. And thank you to those of you most actively supporting me — like TrueSelf, who has a chat with me at jerrybanfield.com/chat, a chat that's just me and just the people here: no moderators, no censoring, no third-party crap.
Amazon Took Down My Own Shirts
I'm also going to put lots more stuff in the store. I sent Amazon a document off ChatGPT that said: I'm Jerry Banfield, and I give Jerry Banfield permission to put my shirts up. It was so ridiculous. I had exchanged all these other emails with Amazon merch on demand, and finally, what I needed to do was have ChatGPT generate a document from myself to myself to give to them to prove that I can use my own brand. Boy, that's dumb, but they just need their paperwork. Amazon took my Jerry Banfield shirts down to protect the Jerry Banfield brand. I'm like, thanks. That's like some mafia stuff, isn't it? They come around, and you've got to pay them to protect you from what ends up being them. All right. So I should have some shirts coming back up, and I'm going to put my Jerry Banfield shirts back up. I'm not going to wear a Jerry Banfield shirt on this first date, either.
Asymmetric Opportunities
I'll let y'all know how this date goes tomorrow. It's nice, after making at least 15 efforts with at least 15 different women. And we'll see what happens with the queen. I'm going to think some more about whether I want to do the scrambler — we're probably going to do it, because I just don't care at this point anymore. There's like nothing to lose. Worst-case scenario, at this point it's already over, so why not just try? There's almost nothing to lose and everything to gain. And that, to me, is what I'm looking for in life: asymmetric opportunities. Where do I have everything to gain and almost nothing to lose? And where is my mind lying to me, saying there's something to lose, when whatever I might lose is trivial and whatever I might gain is the world, Chico, and everything in it?
All right. I appreciate you reading, and we'd love to get to know you on jerrybanfield.com.
Four Dates Canceled in a Row: $400 in Roses, a Morning Cry with My Son, and $557 a Month Recurring
From my video published August 6, 2026.
Four Dates Canceled in a Row
I'm Jerry Banfield, it's August 6th, 2026, and this is my vlog for the day. What's happened in the last 24 hours for me? Who cares, right? Nobody cares. I care. This is for me.
I had four dates cancel in a row. Quite the losing streak, you might say — or perhaps it was quite the protection streak, where I might have been wasting my time somewhere in any case. I had one woman supposed to come over to the house on Friday. Canceled, blowing up, saying she's all stressed out — maybe come see me later. I had a tennis date Monday. It rained, so that got canceled. I had a date yesterday where I was supposed to go down to Sarasota — I even had to change my video title yesterday to accommodate it. I was going to go to the place where I got married and meet this woman. Then, oh, her meeting's running long at work. And to be fair, the traffic on my end was horrible — thirty-plus extra minutes of traffic. I'm like, whatever, skip it. Two of those were online dates, one was someone I knew in person, and two of them were first dates.
Then I had a tennis date this morning, and I got an email from Hinge saying that she got banned for fraudulent conduct. So the question is, will I have a tennis match with a woman that I think is a date? I guess I'll ask her opinion on that. I'm supposed to have a tennis match in about four hours with a woman that I sure would love — that's the date I'm most excited about. There's about a 50 percent chance of rain, 45 percent at 3 p.m. So I'm going to do my thing and pray to the weather: thank you for being sunny out, I want you to keep it sunny today. Then we'll actually see if she really wants to play tennis.
The Mind That's Always Telling You to Feel Bad
It's funny, though, because my mind is like, yeah, you should feel bad because of the way your dating's going. I'm like, really? Because when I was married, you told me I should feel bad because of my wife. And when my business was doing great, you said I should feel bad because others were doing better. You said I should feel bad because the world's a messed-up place. You said I should feel bad because people are cheating at Facebook gaming. There's something in our minds that's always trying to tell us why we should feel bad, and I'm tired of believing it. It's like you're always making up some reason I should feel bad.
I have a friend who's so ill, struggling with his health so much, that he's pretty much confined to his house. I actually know two people in that situation right now. And that really puts things in perspective, because he's single and he doesn't care at all about being single. There's no pain for him in being single, because he's stuck in his house, he can't physically get out, he hurts all the time, and his sleep's messed up. It's like — see, compared to him, you don't have any problems at all. There's nothing wrong in your life compared to what he's dealing with. You don't have a single thing wrong in your life. But still, I felt a little sad to have another date canceled yesterday.
Rethinking the Dating Apps
I realized I need to do something with Hinge and these dating apps. I know I'm just not going to go on with them deleted, because I know they do work sometimes. I've got to use them somehow. My ex just picked somebody off of a dating app and is still dating him months later — I think at least five months later. So you can be chosen on a dating app, and I think that's the secret: just sit there, and it's an opportunity to be chosen. Some women will go through dating apps with very fine filters. If a woman filters for no alcohol, no drugs, no marijuana, no smoking, and wants kids, then I'm going to be one of the — I was going to say relatively few. But you know what? I need to switch to pretend I'm a woman and then look through all the dudes, because there are maybe a couple hundred women within 20 or 30 miles meeting those search criteria, and there are probably a thousand dudes. I don't know. I'm interested to see how many dudes there are. I'll sit there and count them.
It's such a hard thing to comprehend. My mind's trying to generate one stupid story after another about women this and you that, and I'm like, this is all crap. All I need to do is find one woman I love that loves me and wants to make a life of her own.
Grateful for the Business: $557 a Month Recurring
I'm grateful my dating videos are doing awesome. I'm getting hundreds of views on every dating video. The dating channel is up to almost 200 subscribers, and this vlog channel is over 500. I had three people join my Skool community yesterday, and I'm so grateful, because compared to my dating, the money situation matters and the dating does not. We've got 25 members in the Skool community now. That represents hundreds of dollars a month — $557 a month in recurring revenue, with $287 in new monthly recurring revenue in the last 30 days, which is awesome. There's an affiliate program, too: if you want to sell people on my Skool community, you can earn 40 percent lifetime. As long as I can make things work financially, it doesn't matter how long I'm single.
What's funny is how toxic my mind has been about dating while it's been really positive about my work. It's like: you are going to crush this. You are growing on everything. You are growing on every single channel right now. Yesterday I made a system to be more efficient with my shorts. One of the slowest points in my workflow was thumbnails, and right now I have 58 thumbnails ready to film, titles done. It seems like I need something to obsessively do on my phone, and if I don't have something to do on my phone or my laptop when I need to rest, then I'll just waste time on dating apps or watch content. Now I realize that when I'm on my phone, I need to be grinding out thumbnails and titles. Because when I'm ready to film, I can step up and film 20 or 30 videos in a row when my energy is up and I'm ready to speak. As long as I've got thumbnails ready, I don't want to stand there waiting for a thumbnail to be generated and a title idea to show up — I want to just whip through 30 videos at once.
Then yesterday the kids played like four hours of video games. I'm like, I think we need to make a change — because as soon as they get off the video games, then they want to do everything else. No, we need to do other stuff first before we do video games.
I also got a message last night, which reminded me: when you join the family, you can message me anytime. I look at all the messages, all the posts, all the comments, all the likes. You can have a relationship with me, and you can feel good supporting me.
Would I Sell That Video?
Somebody sent me a message yesterday saying, hey, I heard on one of these podcasts that they'd pay like $500 for that video I made for the queen. And I was thinking about that. Would I sell that video? I'd have to use AI to edit out her actual name and any clearly personally identifying details. Would I sell that video for $500? Right now it's a private video — I deleted it off of YouTube as soon as she watched it, and it's just sitting on my hard drive. It's not on a cloud drive or anything. And that video is some horrible roast material. You think these public videos give you some good roast material? That one's worse. At the same time, that video was real. And I have faith that one day a woman will love me as I am — that maybe I have to play the dating game with most women, but maybe there's a woman out there who's different, who would just appreciate me and would love for me to be obsessed with her. I don't know. And if that's you, you should join the family and get started. It's definitely worth it.
Obsession, Faith, and Waiting for the Queen
I've actually seen some women say on dating profiles that they want a guy to be obsessed with them. I have a friend — the one I did a video with when I paid for dating coaching, and I don't want to dox her too much — who said that's the kind of guy she likes. She likes a guy who's so obsessed with her he'll just stop by her house unannounced. I'm like, all right, I'll get obsessed with a woman, but I have not tried coming by a girl's house unannounced before. That's how you get stalking charges, isn't it? The last woman I dated, I know where she lives — she was kind enough to walk me over to her house the second time we met. I'm not going by her house uninvited, that's for sure. That's crazy. You don't just come by somebody's house uninvited. You get the police called on you doing that. But my friend told me that's the kind of guy she likes — the guys that get absolutely crazy obsessed with her and possessive.
Then I'm thinking, do I need to be any crazier to really attract the right woman? No. I've been reading the Bible every day, and I've been thinking about how people put this faith in Jesus. The way people talk to Jesus — I need to talk to my queen like that and have absolute faith in her at all times. I'm going to have to wait for her to reveal herself to me and to make it clear. And I can see where I went wrong with, quote, the queen: I told her way too much and she couldn't handle it. Maybe that means we're not right for each other. I think the queen needs to reveal to me that she thinks I'm her king. She needs to reveal that to me first. That's how I'll know.
I was thinking, too — my mind's like, oh, I miss the queen. It's like, really? Look how she treated you. She treated you like crap for a week and a half. She canceled a date on you and said, I'm not going to do that, I'm not going with you. She didn't show up when she said she was going to for a call. She made all of your attention into some negative story and pressure. She ignored you in favor of paying attention to everybody else. She didn't want your help with her business when you could absolutely eliminate hours and hours of work for her every week and help her do what she's trying to do way better. You think that's the kind of woman that's right for you, when she acted like that?
Standing Up for How It's Going to Be
The video I sent her actually called some of that stuff out. It's like: if you want to be with me, then either we need to be equals or I need to be leading this thing — especially if you want to be a good Christian woman, you should be prepared to follow. And I'm kind of proud of that video now, because for once I actually stood up and said, look, this is how it's going to be if you want to be with me, and if not, I'm going to move on.
Going forward, I am the kind of guy that will tell my woman, look, you need to drop some weight — this isn't acceptable. My ex got tired of that. With her it wasn't as much about weight, but I'd say, you need to exercise. What have you done all week? You need to be out doing something. Just sitting here working and taking care of the kids isn't enough — you need to go exercise, you need to get out and take care of yourself. To me, a proper man is going to call those things out, and out of love. And it's funny — a lot of the stuff my ex resented me suggesting, she ended up doing anyway. As we split up, she started doing that stuff: going to yoga, going out playing sports, going to the same kinds of places I suggested. So I need a woman who's going to be a good follower or a good equal teammate, and we might as well get that straight in the beginning.
$400 in Roses, Zero Dates
I was feeling a bit down about Hinge, too, because I spent four hundred dollars on roses on Hinge. Now, I got a number of matches and phone numbers, and all I've had is canceled dates. I haven't had a single date off a rose. I spent four hundred dollars, so at least I've got enough data now: four hundred dollars in roses did not get me one actual date. All the Hinge dates I got were free — off the top of my head, I don't think I got any of them off of roses. I think all the online dates I got came off the premium version of the app, at least, so I didn't pay extra for those, which is good. So hold me to this: I'm not buying any more roses. I'm thinking I might set up Bumble profiles. Tinder was just full of spam, so I don't think I'll use Tinder.
Honestly, I don't think I'm optimized for dating apps. The woman I dated for about a week — I picked her up in person, and to me she was about as beautiful as a woman could be. She was really into me in the first week, until she watched my videos and decided to pull away. And yet I'm going to be with a woman who's going to love these videos, and I'd rather be single than be with the wrong woman. If I need to be single for a while, I'll be single for a while. I'm not going to believe my mind when it tells me that I'm sad because of dating. Quit lying to me. Human emotions are normal and real. And it's funny — so many of these women say they want a guy with emotional intelligence, but they don't want to see me have any emotions. You want emotional intelligence? Well, to me, emotional intelligence is being able to feel your feelings honestly and express them, which could mean some tears — and then to not do that in a destructive way, but in kind of a childlike way: express the feelings and move on.
A Morning Cry with My Son
I had a good cry with my son this morning. He got up at like 8:30 and snuggled me on the couch for like 20 minutes, and I could just feel his innocent love. I actually started crying. I got a little aggravated at first, because I wake up full of energy every day. I remember talking to a woman who was significantly overweight, and she asked, how do you wake up when you just don't feel like doing anything? I'm like, no — every day, every day I wake up bursting with energy, ready to get into my day. And she said, you need to tell women about that. Women like that. Women like a man that has a ton of energy — especially since I was born in 1984, and I wake up bursting with energy every day. But sometimes, if that's not managed carefully, it can turn into irritability. So at first I was a little irritable. My son snuggled up, he was messing with me, and then he just relaxed, and I just started crying — my little boy.
It's funny how your brain will make up some dumb story about why you're unhappy. But nothing's wrong with my kids, and I'm really grateful for that. Because if something was wrong with my kids, nothing else would matter. I wouldn't care at all that I was single. My money wouldn't matter at all. You've got to get your priorities in life: my own health, my kids' health — nothing matters next to that. Anything's possible if I'm healthy. I can figure out money and a place to live. I can figure out someone to date. And my kids are very healthy, too. Part of the reason is me, because they live in a healthy household where I don't give them a bunch of BS reasons to be sick and create all the negative crap that so many parents do. If you want to make a household like that, join me — join the family and ask me about that, because my kids are fantastically healthy, and I'm a big part of the reason they are. I show them by example how to be healthy all day, every day.
I don't get sick — I haven't been sick in years, almost four years. I've had some days where my energy wasn't 100 percent, but I still did everything. I still did my videos and played tennis and went to yoga. My body's fantastically healthy, and my mind is pretty functional. Some of y'all don't think my mind's that healthy, but my mind can handle emotional and thought extremes, and still all I do is what I need to do. I don't care how crazy my mind is or how bad my emotions are — I do what I need to do. That, to me, is emotional stability: no matter how I feel, no matter what I'm thinking, I get what I need to do done, I try and help other people, and I take care of my kids. That's healthy. Just trying to numb your feelings and blot out everything besides the tiniest point of reality — that's not healthy. That's numbing yourself. That's bypassing. And you're often going to pay for that in all kinds of other ways.
Real Talk About Health and Weight
It's funny talking about my life. I was wondering what I was going to do with today's video, and it turns out I feel really proud talking about my life today. I'm proud of my life. And I'm certain there's at least one woman out there who will want to be with me that I will also like. There are probably a number of women who'd like to be with me that I'm not interested in, according to what I see on dating apps. And it's sad — there are some of these women on dating apps where everything else looks great about them, except they're 100 pounds overweight. Can we just be real about that? Do I have to censor that? If you took care of that, everything else about you would be amazing. That's kind of a coping mechanism, too. In my experience, when you eat whole plants, it makes it very easy to not be overweight — and that's according to How Not to Die, How Not to Diet, and How Not to Age, which are written by medical doctors.
I wish I could help all these women. If you join the family and talk to me, I can tell you exactly what I do and answer all your questions. The one woman I dated said she had been 100 pounds heavier, and then she was way too light, and now she's kind of in the middle. I want to help people. I really want to help people, because I've been through so many things. I've been overweight — I've been 80 pounds overweight. I know what that's like. And unfortunately, it's easier for a man to be overweight; often it's harder to be an overweight woman than an overweight man. There are so many people that are overweight, and I'm like, I wish you'd let me help you and lead by example. All you can do is try to show up and try to help somebody. And there are obviously lots of different ways to have a beautiful body. My ex liked me better when I was overweight — she found me more attractive then. She doesn't think I look as attractive now as I did when I was overweight, which is interesting, because I think I look just beautiful now. So not everybody thinks the same way, which is fortunate.
I'm Here to Help
All right, this is getting a bit long — that's what she said. If you want to follow this whole journey day by day, it's all in my Daily Vlogs playlist, one day at a time.
I'm here for you all day, every day. I'll help you with anything I've been through, I'll lead by example, I'll tell you what I did, and I'll answer any questions you've got — when you join the family, you can even schedule a one-on-one call with me in there. I've solved most of the hardest things I've been through in life: alcoholism — sober 12 years; overweight — 80 pounds, kept it off for a decade; used to be sick and stuffy all the time — now healthy. I'm sometimes just baffled. How is my life going so well in so many ways? And I just want to help other people have the same thing. Outside of the internet, why does nobody want it?
Women say they want a man like me, and then when a man like me comes along, they're like, no, let me go get a man that's a jerk. Let me get a man that won't pay for me to take an Uber 30 minutes, not once. That will never come pick me up. That'll stand me up on dates. It's like, man, come on. But it's okay. We're all doing our best. We're all trying. This world's tough, this game's tough, and I'm trying to help somebody here. I'm just trying to help somebody here, trying to be the best person I can be. Thanks.
Taking Every Shot I Can
From my video published August 2, 2026.
It's the Jerry Banfield Show, August 2nd, 2026. Full-time YouTuber, authentic creator, single dad, out there dating, sharing my real, raw, authentic life every day here in St. Petersburg, Florida. So what's interesting that's going on today?
It's funny — in the last 24 hours I've really faced trying to say thank you instead of feeling like everything's not enough. I've been on Hinge a good bit today. I've been using ChatGPT to try and optimize my profile. I got a thumbnail shot of me in my studio here and stuck that on there, and apparently, according to ChatGPT, nothing beats the photo that Angela took that's at the top of my Hinge profile. If you want to see my whole Hinge profile, I've got it up on Jerry Banfield dating in the video where I talk about deleting Hinge three times — here's the profile I'm using.
The big thing this morning: I saw this woman that I had really liked. We had met, and I got her phone number, like, nine months ago. I'd seen her at a couple of events. She was saying she wasn't dating. Then I saw her about a month ago at an event, and she seemed really happy to see me — she had just gotten out of a relationship. I had deleted her phone number, though, so I couldn't message her. So I actually found her work number, and on Friday I sent her a text just saying, hey, it's Jerry. She's like, hey, Jerry, what's up? And it sounded kind of cold immediately. I thought about not even replying, but I said something like, oh, I haven't seen you at this event in a while. She didn't reply. Then I saw her this morning — less than 48 hours later, I saw her on Hinge. So I guess she is dating now. I sent her a rose, and I'm like, that's probably not going to go anywhere, is it?
Rejection Isn't Real
But then I have a video I'm planning on filming called Rejection Isn't Real. Think about going to the basketball court and shooting three-pointers. Every time you miss, that's not rejection. You just executed in a way that did not get the ball in the hoop. And it doesn't matter — just go get the ball and shoot again. That's the philosophy I'm at now. I'm just taking shots. I'm taking every shot I can take. I'm trying to learn how to date the most effective way so that I can share it with you. I especially want to help other people learn how to date and share that on my dating channel, because this is just what I'm really interested in.
Am I Actually an Average Guy?
I've also been thinking: am I a top-10 man? Because I go around thinking about and doing my dating channel kind of like I'm an average guy. Like, I'm just an average guy trying to date, and if I can do it, you can do it. But am I an average guy? I've gotten a billion impressions with all the stuff I've created online. I think I look pretty good — in person, I'm able to pick up some of the most attractive women, like the woman at yoga I picked up recently. Maybe I'm above average in looks. I'm definitely, provably above average in intellect — I always scored around the top 95th percentile on test scores as a kid, so I'm way above average on intellect. And my emotional intelligence, according to some, has gotten pretty good lately. I'm very book smart. I was a police officer, so I learned some street smarts for a few years. And I do YouTube, so I don't have a job, and I have a little bit of fame online.
Maybe I'm not an average guy. Maybe the results I'm getting aren't relatable for average men. Some of the guys I talk to are struggling — they haven't had a date in months — and I have two dates lined up right now, and I'm trying to line up more every single day. I'm very confident in person approaching women. You don't generally get a beautiful woman to give you her phone number and set a date with you the first time you met her unless you're pretty confident approaching. So maybe I need to stop thinking that I'm an average man.
Selling a Relationship, Not a Product
And hey — join the Family. We've had four days in a row where somebody's joined. Somebody just dropped an $81 annual membership, and I got super excited. I made them a reaction video as soon as they joined and sent it to them via DM immediately. I realized what I need to be selling is a relationship — a relationship with me. Because if I'm just talking at you, that's not a relationship. I need to get to know you. I want to know your name and your story, and I want to hear your feedback. But I'm not available to do that outside of that — you can do whatever you want in YouTube comments, and I'm going to stop paying attention to those. I'm just listening to people actually supporting me. That's what I need to hear.
A Breakthrough on the Gaming Channel
I had a big breakthrough this morning on my gaming channel. I've also been wondering, what do I do with my dating channel, man? And the analytics on this vlog are just awesome. My vlogs are a few days ahead right now — there are two days of vlogs scheduled ahead — and these are awesome: 10 and a half minutes average watch time, 11% click-through rate. That is awesome. I really appreciate your support.
On the gaming channel, I just had a breakthrough realizing I have hundreds of old gaming videos and live streams, and I know how to use AI to edit them. On Jerry Banfield Games, I tried making an AI edit of Punch-Out!! — I played Punch-Out!! on the Nintendo Entertainment System live, and I think that video is at least four years old. You can even catch me in the tube top in it. I took that hour-or-two live stream, gave the AI instructions to cut it down to 10 minutes, and it made an awesome video. Then I took a two-hour Hearts of Iron live stream and cut that down to 12 minutes. I also filmed some videos last year where I played games for first impressions. And I think the title on all of these should be Jerry Banfield Plays — like, that's all that's interesting, that Jerry Banfield's playing it. Nothing else. It's just Jerry Banfield. And then every single video promotes Jerry Banfield.
So I'm really hyped. I have this incredible AI workflow, and if you want to do this stuff, join the Jerry Banfield Family — I will show you how to do this stuff. This is really valuable stuff to learn. I looked, and I have 259 videos in my video editing folder, which is 1.4 terabytes of data that I've got set up in here. What I'm going to do is go through all of this and run the AI through and edit all of it. From that, I'm going to crank out hopefully 200-some gaming videos from my old live streams. That will give me a really strong foundation for the gaming channel, where instead of trying to just make new gaming videos, I can use all my old videos to start from a rock-solid foundation and then expand with new games after that. It will give me a six-month head start.
I couldn't even see how many hours of video it was at first, but I got it: 348 hours. I'm trying to figure out what I have that nobody else has and how I can use it. See, I didn't have AI to edit all this stuff before. I have 348 hours of gaming video footage sitting here on my hard drive, and I have a graphics card and a cloud that can rip through all that footage and edit it according to my instructions. We're going to cut this 348 hours down to probably about 250 hours — 356 videos that instead of averaging an hour and a half long get cut down into 10-minute videos, most of them playing different games. And that should be a hell of a foundation for my gaming channel. With a strong foundation for the gaming channel, I should get some viewers that come over to all my other videos, and those of you that already watch videos on my channel and play games might enjoy the games.
Man, I've been struggling so hard with the gaming channel, and it's such a breakthrough. Like, dude — take the 349 hours of footage you have, rip through all of it with AI to cut the best parts out, and put one of those videos out a day. I should have gaming videos out the rest of the year on my channel. I'll still plan to do some gaming live streams — I'm Jerry Banfield — and we'll just constantly have videos coming out too. I may download some of my old live streams that I did as well and strip out the best parts from those too.
Resilience and Doing the Damn Work
I'm really grateful, because you see how resilient I am. A week ago, I was just destroyed. And last night — it was Saturday night — I was feeling a little lonely. I'm like, man, couldn't something happen? I was thinking about going out to Grassroots, the kava bar. But that's not a good idea for me. As an alcoholic with 12 years sober, I've come to believe kava tea is probably fine if you don't have any addictive tendencies — but that's not me. I was like, maybe I'll just go out and see if I can meet someone. But dude, you have two dates lined up already. What you need to do is do your damn work. So I filmed three more YouTube videos.
I went to hot yoga yesterday, looked around, didn't see anybody there. And I'm gentle — I'm looking for warm leads. I'm not trying to do a cold push at the yoga studio. If a woman makes eye contact and smiles, or seems to be giving friendly signals, or is talking about something I can jump into, I'll go for it. But I'm not cold approaching at the studio.
And I did a whole bunch of Hinge strategy today. If you want to talk dating strategy, join the Family, because I'm on all this stuff right now. I got Hinge Premium. I've spent $300 on Hinge in the last few days. And dude, my mind's been like, what if your money doesn't work out? And I'm like, my money is not going to not work out by a few hundred dollars. The money is not going to work out by $10,000 in one direction or the other. Like, either I'm going to be short $10,000 or everything's going to be fine.
It's not going to be like, oh, maybe if you add up a whole bunch of expenses they come out to $10,000. But I'm going to go so hard on YouTube. And be the band. Sell this Skool community — like my financial future depends on it. And the way you all have been joining, and the energy in the community, it's huge. I'm putting all my old online courses in there, so there's a fantastic one in there right now for you. The thing is, though, it's there for you to build a relationship with me.
T-Shirts Are Finally Here
Yesterday I also got my t-shirt set up, which I posted first in the Family. I'm going to create a new product every day. If you click through from my website, it will take you over to Amazon, and you can go take a look at the shirt and buy the shirt on Amazon. Right now on Amazon, duh, the shirt is $23. It comes in a bunch of different colors. I might make two bucks off the shirt, but you all have asked for shirts. These come in a ton of different sizes, and I just ordered a purple one for myself. I'm going to keep cranking out different product designs for those of you that want to know. If you want to show off Jerry Banfield, I got shirts. I've also got some Phoenix designs on there — I think I'm going to delete them, so let me know in the Skool community if you want me to keep them.
I'm really proud, because last night I was kind of lonely, kind of unmotivated, and I'm like, what — do your work. Film a bunch of videos. I filmed three videos last night and I felt great about that. The kids came over and spent a few hours playing video games. I got my daughter to take a picture of me for my dating profile, and then I got another one done.
My Hinge Strategy Right Now
I went through Hinge today, and I realized — here are my current strategies, to summarize. I'll go more into detail on the dating channel. I send roses to women I think I have an extremely high compatibility with, that I want to make sure they see me. Roses are $2 each if you buy 50 of them for $100. So especially if women are in St. Petersburg, and they want kids, they don't drink, they look like they live a healthy lifestyle, and they're a handful of years or so younger — then I'll send a rose. That's extremely high compatibility, and I need to make sure they see me.
Then what I tried today is expanding the radius out further and sending a bunch of likes to women who are further away, who are less likely to be a perfect match, especially because of the distance. I dropped some of the other filters too — I put "sometimes" or "yes" on drinking, meaning I would accept that — and I just sent out a bunch of priority likes to see if I get any action. I did find one woman in Sarasota, though, and for some reason I sent her a rose. I just had a feeling I should send her a rose. So that's my current strategy: rapid-fire a bunch of likes out to a wider radius, then play home-field advantage in a 10-mile radius, filter it, and drop roses on the absolute most compatible women.
We'll see how the two dates I have set up this week go. It's funny, though — I've been feeling like, man, you've got two dates set up already, how many more do you need? And I'm like, well, if one or two of them cancel, I probably need one or two more. I've put out so many offers, taken so many shots at the basket, that something's going to go in. I'm excited. I'm so curious to see what it is.
I went to a hot power flow yoga class this morning with my new Liforme mat. And I don't know — I kind of like the cheaper mat with a towel a little better. The Liforme mat's better if it's not ultra sweaty, and it's a huge mat too.
Get In There
All right — checkout time. Time to film other videos. See you on tomorrow's vlog, and you can catch every one of these daily episodes on my Life playlist — or I'll see you on another channel.
Get in there. Get in that Jerry Banfield Family. Get in there. I want you to get to know me, and I want you to share yourself so I can get to know you. I'm tired of not knowing you. I want to know your name, and your face, and your story. Get in there. Send me a message. Introduce yourself to me. Send me a video you want me to watch. Ask me for a custom video request. Give me feedback. Get in there and be a part of the family.
Reading the Room Too Late
Originally published March 9, 2026.
This is my journal entry from March 9, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I wake up this morning looking forward to a massage with my massage therapist and having some time with the kids this afternoon, thinking that I'll take a nice relaxing day today and I'll have a chance to work on my business. I start off stuffing a hundred more letters because I want to be ready for the stamp to arrive in the mail. I'm listening to more of the cloistered book and I take a walk around Crescent Lake. Everything's going great, not a cloud in the sky. Then my massage therapist texts me that she's going to have to cancel last minute on the massage. I look at Wednesday when she says she wants to reschedule, but I have tennis scheduled with a friend. So I don't respond. I start to spiral. I'm like, fuck, my whole day's ruined now. I look up all these different massage therapists on a booking app. I find a few that are actually available for massages this afternoon. But some of them are at least $100 more than my massage therapist is, while others I'd need to drive to Tampa or Clearwater. In my indecision, the opportunity to schedule a massage around the same time I had with my massage therapist passes.
And then I get sidetracked and pulled down a rabbit hole online that I'm not proud of, briefly tempted to just pay for something physical to fill the gap, and then I felt disgusting and closed everything, because that's not really what I want. Thus, I'm like, I got to get out of here. I close all this shit up. And I'm fucking pissed at my massage therapist. I'm like, God damn, I hate this last minute canceling stuff. I stopped seeing her for a year because she at the time was canceling like half the massages the day before or last minute the day of. Like, well, let me try and forgive her. And, you know, she's a really good friend other than the canceling at the last minute sometimes, which hasn't been that much lately.
With this in mind, with my day fucked up now, I'm like, all right, I might as well. Let me just do something different. Let me get out of my routine. So I remember the woman I talked to at the recovery meeting on Saturday said that she liked to go to a local studio for Pilates. I'm like, all right, fuck it. Let me try that today. I haven't done a Pilates class in a decade. And the studio is so close to where I live, like, you know, less than a five minute drive. It's much closer than going to, I mean, much closer. It's like at least half of the distance and the commute time with almost no variability in the time it takes to get there compared to going to my yoga studio or something. I'm like, fuck it. Let me go try this Pilates class right now. So I go in there and I get my mat down. And sure enough, the woman from the recovery meeting walks in after me and looks surprised to see me. I'm like, God damn it. She's going to think I'm fucking stalking her or something. She told me about this and now I'm here. But I do the Pilates class, which ends up being hard. Like there's so much hip flexor and like repetitive small muscle work and ab work. I'm like, Jesus, like it doesn't get my cardio going that much, but it burns out some of these little muscles in my legs and my abs. And I'm grateful to that. I tried something new after the class wraps up.
The woman from the recovery meeting starts talking to me. I was going to just let her go, be like, whatever. Sorry, you know, I don't want to make you think I'm stalking you or something. But she actually is looking at me and like waving at me. I'm like, all right, well, I guess this is might go well then. So I start talking to her and, you know, I acknowledge like, hey, you told me about this. I wanted to do it. My routine was disrupted. You know, sorry if I like triggered that stalker thing. She's like goes on about how she's had all these stalkers before in her life. And we walk out of class and go down in the shade as we're talking. She suggests we move over into a shaded spot because it's like one in Florida and it's hot and sunny, even though it's March. So as I keep talking to her, she continues to be just as defensive as she was at the recovery meeting. Now, this is a pretty woman born a few years after me, maybe like a handful or so. She's so defensive like I asked simple questions and she's like I don't even know you. I'm like I was wasn't asking like anything invasive. I was like asking an ordinary thing like what are you passionate about in life. Like a normal person would be like you know I really care about animals or the environment or you know kids or teaching or writing or art or music. Like a regular fucking person would have said that.
But this woman gets all defensive and the conversation continues to spiral. There end up being periods where we just stare at each other. And I'm getting some really bad vibes here, but I'm just locked in it right now. And I'm interested, like I told her, I'm like, I had kind of an excited reaction when she came in to the meeting the first time. And now it turns out she knows a guy from my recovery group. And he already told her about me. So she already knew me from him. And I didn't know anything about her. So she already knows that I write books and knows a little bit about my life and has actually heard good things about me from my friend. And yet she's so fucking defensive. And I point some of the things out. I'm like, you know. It's, yes, I know it's a crazy, dangerous, awful world lots of times, but if you have your heart closed to love and joy, you know, then there's no point in living. Like, there's no point in going around with your heart closed all the time. You can't receive any of the love that's there. So I said a few things like that, because I was disturbed to see how defensive and closed-hearted she was, and at the same time, she kept wanting to talk to me, too, which is just the weirdest combination.
At one point, towards the end of the conversation, because we were exploring some interesting territory, she did open up a little bit after saying how she didn't know me and she didn't like having her boundaries pushed and like one red flag after another of how much she's struggling. Like, Jesus Christ, a normal person would have just answered the questions and had a conversation or left and said, hey, I got to go. Bye. But not her. And I ask if like you want to go have lunch. She's like, no, you know, I'm. She's like, no, I don't want to. And then a few minutes later, she finally says that she's going to go. We talked for like 30 minutes at least. She says she's going to go. And I'm like, do you want to exchange numbers or something? She says really coldly, like, I don't think that'd be appropriate and walks off. And then I spiral. And I'm like, what the fuck was that? Like, that was so bad. That was one of the worst conversations I've had in a long time. I felt like, you know, ChatGPT is much easier to talk to. Like this was, this was like, I just left like taking on, I feel like I downloaded all these like nasty emotions and like she projected all this awful shit onto me and just dumped all this nasty crap onto me. I hope she felt better afterwards because I felt like shit after that conversation, just like I did after the last conversation with her. Absorbing other people's bad energy and staying locked into a draining conversation is something I've done my whole life, and if you tend to do the same, I'm happy to talk through it with you on a call with me.
And then I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with me? Like, why do I tolerate that? I should have just dismissed her immediately when the first time she got defensive and be like, I don't know you. I'm like, well, fine. All right, I'm going to go. I'll talk to you later. And I come home and I'm like crying. Like, I feel so bad. I could just feel what, like how. I could feel all the nasty things this woman from her past and whatever else she's been through and all that shit she was projecting on me and seeing that in me. And then the insane combination of wanting to talk to me and being very interested in me and hearing good things about me and being very defensive and damaged at the same time. Like, so crazy. I get home and I cry and I lay in bed and I feel like shit.
And then I think, well, let me call my friend up from my recovery group because I've got his number. We're pretty close. So I call him up and he tells me that him and this woman are very close. I'm like, y'all are dating. He's like, no. I'm like, why not? Why don't if you're that close, why don't you date? He's like, you know, it just doesn't feel like there's anything dating wise there. Like it's just a plutonic friendship. I'm like, Jesus Christ, like y'all are both fucked up. You know, or maybe I'm the one that's that's fucked up for thinking that way. But like you got something that close. But so he explains, you know, I tell him what happened and I tell him, look, I'm looking for feedback. You know, I'm not looking, you know, because he's very close with her. He doesn't want to be in the middle of, you know, the two of us, you know, trying to get him to think the other one's putting the other one down. I'm like, I'm just telling you my experience with her and I'd like you to process it and give me some ideas.
And what he says is he encourages me. He's like, you know, one thing I've learned to do is I've learned to read the room. Like if I'm not getting a warm reception, I need to stop that interaction. And that to me is like where I, cause I'm trying to figure out, I'm like, okay, it wasn't, obviously it wasn't all her. I'm like, what did I violate in myself that leaves me feeling bad? I'm like, I should have disengaged from this woman a long time before. Just like I should have disengaged from the call with the team from my yoga studio immediately. Like, this woman had a lot of bad energy and, like, just dumped it all on me. And I should have disengaged immediately. Like, this woman clearly has huge baggage with men, which would make sense why she's at a recovery meeting. And, you know, she just dumped all that on me and I absorbed it. And I should have disengaged immediately as soon as I detected that, which was really the last recovery meeting. I could pick that up and feel her hostility. And it's like, I should not be interacting with women that are hostile towards men. Like that's something fucked up that they should deal with. And I don't need to be a part of that. Like they can deal with that with their girlfriends or with platonic friends like my, you know, friend from my recovery group. Like deal with it with them. I don't want to deal with your trauma, past trauma towards men all being projected and dumped on me.
That's, you know, I went out, I remember going out with a woman I went out with and she's, you know, eye gazing at me and saying that she is really good reading energy. And she said, you know, you're just such a kind soul. And then that other woman from a local spiritual community, that's like, you know, you're so mature and loving and wise. And it's like, that's, that's what I have to offer for a woman who's not fucked up and damaged. But man, I've got a resentment bad. And my friend helps me to make some more sense of it. Really, I take away from the call with him, like read the room. That's one thing I could do better is read the room because I can read the room. I mean, I could tell this woman was very defensive. And yet it's like I just subjected myself to more of the torture of talking with her anyway. I am proud that my curiosity was driving that, though. But, you know, the curiosity can be, there's a lot of ways I can be curious. And I noticed, like, maybe there's an opportunity to be curious about more other people. Like, often I'm not curious enough about non-attractive women or men, although I certainly am in many cases. And I'm too curious about attractive women. So I can see the opportunity to balance that out. Like, I want to know about attractive women too much. And if you're not an attractive woman, in a lot of cases, I'm not as interested. So that I could adjust. Be more curious in regular people and less curious about attractive women. And, you know, assume that, assume people are, well, like, just not go in assuming there's something amazing there, but just because a woman's attractive. But, you know, go in with no assumptions and read the room. Noticing where I pour my curiosity, and how much I'd overinvested in whoever I found attractive, has changed how I show up in dating, and if you want to look at your own pattern together, schedule a private call with me.
So I hang out with my friend. I feel better getting some clarity. And at the same time, I go through my phone. I woke up this morning thinking I need to purge all these girls, especially, but some, you know, a lot of guys' phone numbers too. I need to go through my phone. I have over 300 contacts. I need to clear out the ones that I don't use and that I have no reason to use anymore. So I go through my phone while I'm talking with my friend because it's a pretty mindless task. And I delete hundreds of phone numbers. I delete the number of a woman I'd been interested in. I delete the number of a woman I had contacted. I delete the number of a woman I had been seeing. I delete the number of a woman I know. I delete my friend I had a crush on in my recovery group a few years ago. Delete her number. Anyone that I've sent a message to that didn't respond to me or was not very warm, like the woman I had been seeing was not very warm. Well, she didn't respond to me either. Like the others didn't respond to my last message, delete all of them. I'm done. I don't ever need to text them again. If they message me and or call, you know, I won't have their number in my phone to tell them from a random person unless they make it clear who they are. I can just ignore their message, especially if it's a like hi, you know, hey Jerry what's new. Like I don't need to respond to that either. Like if it was from a random number, I wouldn't, I wouldn't bother responding to that. Like the woman I know sent me that hey Jerry what's new. If I didn't have her number on my phone, I wouldn't have responded to that.
So I also delete a lot of men's phone numbers. A guy I've known for a decade in my recovery group, he didn't respond to my last message. It doesn't seem like we're on the same wavelength anymore. He's taking these marijuana gummies. Last time I saw him, I deleted his number. I'm like, I need to be very careful about who I let in my inner circle and who I invite to spend more time with me. Unless you're paying to spend time with me. If you're paying to spend time with me, you know, I'll open it up a lot. But if I'm going to spend time with you for free, I need to be very choosy about who spends time with me for free. No sick, crazy girls. You know, no dudes that are like out, you know, using again. So I delete hundreds from my phone and I feel like I've cleared up a huge headspace. Like, it's so nice that I can't just impulsively text a woman I had contacted or a woman I had been seeing when I'm feeling good, and try and reach out and start that again. Those should be finished unless they reach out. Because I've reached out enough times at this point, and it's dead unless it's on them.
After I hang out with my friend, the kids get here, and thank God for them. I'm so disturbed that I can tell I'm not really fully being present with the kids, but I know that, and I'm working on bridging the gap. My ex-wife doesn't ask any questions, and she can see I'm in an awful mood. She's not interested in investigating that, which is just fine with me. My ex-wife heads out and the kids immediately get to playing with their friend who was grounded for a couple of weeks, but she's available now. So for most of the rest of the evening, the kids are hanging out with their friend and my son and I drive cars in the back alley and wreck them into each other again, which ends up being a lot of fun and a lot of laughter. I am super grateful that even though I feel so fucking depressed, that I can still laugh and I can still have fun with my son. And I keep getting more and more present with the kids as time goes on. My daughter goes to play with my landlord's pets for an hour. And my son plays with me and then goes to play with the friends. They end up playing most of the time with the friends, although they do stuff about 50 more letters at my house between playing with friends. And whenever they're not here, I stamp, I get the stamp in the mail and I stamp at least 400 letters. All those letters we got ready that I stuffed that the kids stuffed. I stamp all of them while the kids are out and then clean up the house, get ready for them. We then they finally get back at like nine. My son did his homework at some point in there and then finishes up his homework. I read the Humphrey book to them that they're reading. And all of us take showers and we go to bed at 9.55. And I'm very grateful.
As I go to bed, I have probably my best cry of the day. Now, I cried at least three, maybe four different times today. I am thankful the woman from the recovery meeting did help me express some emotions. And she kept talking about a leak in energy. And I'm like, that's exactly like she sprung a leak in my energy and just like dumped it all out and screwed it all up somehow. And I delete the recovery meetings off my calendar that she goes to. I'm like, I'm not going there anymore. I don't want to see her again. I'm not going to go to Pilates. I want to stay away from this woman, anyone that, you know, I'm going to bed. I'm like, I really need to stay away from her. Like this was one of the most difficult, draining conversations I've had with someone in quite a while. Like this, I need to stay away from her. Like, I don't want to see her anymore. And my mind must have ranted about her for over an hour, if not two hours today. And I interrupted it with all the positive intelligence shit so many times. I stopped it so many times. I'm like, there's the judge. Like, is she really that bad? You know, I interrupted it, but it went on and on and on and on and on about this woman. Like I, nobody has triggered me that bad in quite a while. And I'm like, we're going to stay away from her.
And then I'm thinking, you know, I wonder how this was for her. Like, does she walk away having dumped all her shit on me? Does she actually feel better? Does she want to talk with me again or will she be happy not to see me at the recovery meeting? I end up feeling pretty powerless, like so stupid, like. She'll probably be relieved that I'm not at the recovery meeting. There's nothing. It's just pure shit. But a valuable learning point going forward. I need to be very careful about where I give people my time and energy. And I need to cut people off, especially attractive girls, intentionally compensate and cut them off much earlier. Like the date with the woman I went out with a week ago, for example. I should have cut that date off as soon as it wasn't very rude. Like, as soon as we were done eating dinner, I should have cut that date off right there. Although I would have missed some interesting material about the extraterrestrial spacecraft. I should have cut the date off two hours earlier, and I knew I didn't want a second date, and I didn't like her that much within the first three seconds of seeing her. And I dragged it out. And I knew this woman was bad news that talking to her for two minutes at the recovery meeting. And so I confirmed that by talking with her for 30 minutes. Getting clear on where I give my time and energy, and cutting things off sooner, is a lesson I'm still practicing, and if that's something you're working on too, we can talk it through on a call with me.
But I am really grateful as I go to bed. I am so grateful for the kids. Like the energy of being around the kids is just the opposite of being around this woman. They're so open hearted and like the girl that they're friends with, you know, she's so open hearted and, you know, talking about her life and just. Just so open to have a heartfelt conversation. I'm like, thank God for the kids. I talk to the kids because they asked why I felt so bad. And I said, I ran into someone that was really mean today, you know, who unloaded all her emotions and bullshit onto me. And, you know, then I could see that she was seeing me that way. And it felt disgusting. I felt, you know, emotionally violated. And, you know, she did not affirm me at all. Her words were all cruel. And yet I stood there and took them anyway and continued to encourage her to use more cruel words on me. And she was happy to oblige.
I lay in bed reflecting like, thank God for these kids. Like these kids, you know, the world often feels like a really shitty place with sick people, not just women, of course, but sick people, you know, who do a lot of fucked up things to hurt each other, who are living very closed hearted self-absorbed disconnected lives but these kids these kids are just right like these kids if if we can give you know if these kids these kids to me are like our whole people still not fucked up and destroyed and broken by the world yet and like they're my role models like i want you know the kids say that they're proud of me for being just like a big kid and that's how i feel like i still am approaching the world like a kid, which is why I get crushed sometimes emotionally doing that. And I go to bed feeling super grateful that the kids are there. Like, you know what? The kids help me avoid using coping mechanisms. The kids are enough to love me and to take the edge off of, you know, the one of the worst conversations I've had in a while today. And what's funny is my friend from my recovery group is so close with this woman and thinks so highly of her, and he's very close and thinks highly of me, and yet, you know, I have the exact opposite experience. It's so funny how, you know, how relative our lives are. I go to bed thinking that my mind is going to process this, and tomorrow I'm going to have an even better understanding and be able to put all this stuff into play clearly.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
I Said the Compliment Anyway
Originally published February 6, 2026.
This is my journal entry from February 6, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
It's cold in the room this morning. I turned the space heater down enough and the air blowing constantly in the room did not compensate. Boy, it overcompensated. We were too cold. And that's okay. We got up this morning, had a good time getting ready together. I get the kids to school on time and I arrive at the 8:30 yoga class where I've been looking forward to see if the most attractive girl I've seen at my yoga studio is there. She is outstanding. And where am I going to put my mat? Well, there's a spot right behind her again. I've put my mat right behind her at least three times, two or three times before, along with being beside her. And it's a big ass room. But there's just this nice big space behind her. And I feel it would be dishonest if I went to put my mat somewhere else. All I care about is being next to her. So let's be real. I put my mat down next to her and feel out the vibes. She's turning around doing a little stretch and I am looking at her and she gives me a quick little smile and I'm like, nice. All right, I guess this is being received well, which is good. Not some creepy guy that puts his mat right behind you three times in a row, but oh, all right, somebody that you're actually feeling and you're happy I'm close to you. That's good.
We do this hot power flow class and wow, it is hot as hell. I'm starting to pour sweat in like five minutes. And the instructor, it makes it intense. Especially after that quad workout yesterday from my personal trainer. Good lord, this is the first class I've had in a while where I'm starting to wonder if I can even go through and do all the poses. And I keep wondering if I'm going to brown out at some point, too. I call it a brown out, like when you start to see stars, like a gentle version of passing, like right before you pass out, you brown out. I haven't passed out before, but I imagine passing out is just the brown out keeps spiraling. But I don't brown out at all today, despite sweating and feeling like, damn, this is a lot. I get it all done. And I enjoy watching the girl in front of me as much as I can. She's by far the most beautiful girl I've seen at this studio before.
After class, we lay down and do shavasana, and I'm like, here we go. The whole class has felt like a build-up to this. I am prepared to tell her the truth, that I think she's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen at this studio before. But I don't want to lay this compliment on her unless she's open to receive it. So I'm looking for signs, and I get one. I take it slow. I get up and, you know, take my yoga towel and moving slow. Like, remember, I decided I'd move slow before. I'm looking at her body language. Does she seem open? I walk next to her a little bit. Is she going to move and turn a little bit? She does. So I start talking. I say, wow, that was an intense class. And she begins talking back to me. And I'm so happy that she actually asks me my name first. She sticks out her hand and says her name. And I shake her hand and I'm like, wow, you've got an awesome grip. Like this is one of the strongest grips I've felt on a woman before. And oh man, the energy there of this grip and the girl actually having a little bit of interest in me is, oh, it's so good. So much of this is reading whether someone is actually open before I say a word, which took me years to learn, and if you want to talk through reading those cues in your own dating life, set up a call with me and bring it to our call.
I'm figuring that she's giving me the signs to go forward with the compliment, right? So she says something that she mainly comes to this class on Friday. And that's the only class she comes to. She does workouts at other places. And I don't want to lay this compliment on while there's a bunch of other girls around either. I just want it to be for her. The perfect time lines up. She walks down the end of her mat. And I tell her, you know, said hi and said something like, you know, I hope you have a nice Friday or something. Like, all right, she's letting me know I can go. At the same time, like, if I don't say this, I'm going to regret this whole week. So I'm saying it. So I tell her, I say, hey, I just want you to know, I think you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in the studio before. And she looks at me and she smiles and she seems to take the compliment really well. And she says, thank you. And I end up saying something like, that's why I noticed you. And she says, thank you. And, you know, she's ready to walk out. So I say, you know, I'll see you next Friday. I'm figuring like I just want to give this girl something to think about at this point, that I think she's that beautiful. And I just want to give her the gift of feeling good and seeing herself the way I see her. And I have that love to share with her. And let's see what happens when she thinks about that all week. I don't know anything else about her life, hardly, except that she does power yoga here. And she's gorgeous. And she's got a strong handshake. And she was actually friendly with me, which felt so good.
I'm just absolutely like euphoric high after that interaction. And I've still got a bit of the power hot yoga brain. I walked back to my car, which is parked two blocks away. And I realized I left my yoga mat in the studio. Meanwhile, it's like 50 outside, but I'm just walking with my yoga towel because I'm so hot and sweaty. I go back and grab my yoga mat, and I'm just so grateful. I'm like, thank you. Thank you for saying that compliment. Thank you for getting that out, for approaching her, and for paying attention to her. If she'd have given me clear signals that she didn't want to talk to me, I would have stayed away and I wouldn't have said that. If she hadn't like asked my name first and shown some mutual interest, I wouldn't have said that. But since she did, I feel so good that I read her cues and I opened and I shared what I had to say and that she actually reflected some of that energy back. And my God, it feels good. I'm getting excited. Like even whatever happens with her, this is a good indication of what I'm going to feel with my second wife. This absolute excitement and joy. And my mind runs wild with the dream of it for the next hour. And I take a shower. I have chips and guacamole. And then it's straight to work.
What I love about her is she inspired me to be super playful one day in class. It was my way of peacocking. One day when I was behind her, I just was playful as hell in the class. I remember a yoga student I saw once a year and a half ago at a yoga class out of state. And I still remember how playful she was. Her energy and how much fun she was having doing yoga. I've never seen a girl in a thousand yoga classes have that much fun and be that playful. And when I was behind this woman maybe two weeks ago, that playful energy took hold of me. I remembered that playful energy and I put it into my yoga practice. It seems she picked up on that energy and liked it also.
When I feel good and I feel grateful, it inspires me to blast forward with my book, I'm Seeking a Wife. I do it properly today on my desktop instead of like yesterday I went through on my laptop. I open a new prompt. I give ChatGPT clear instructions on the prompt today. Unlike yesterday, the instructions are very clear. The instructions say that I want it to be rewritten like it was written by a professional writer while keeping my authentic, emotionally honest voice. Including all original subject matter without censorship, even on personal topics such as sex, relationships, and spirituality. The style should be direct and detailed, including all my exact examples and stories. I tell it to combine short sentences into smooth, expanded sentences. Maintain all details. Do not soften. Medium to long paragraphs. Keep the tone authentic and vulnerable. All I need you to do is improve structure, transitions, and clarity. The result should feel polished, professional, and fully readable. Standardized names. No moralizing or added details. And no em dashes. That prompt kills it. That prompt gives me the exact perfect writing I'm looking for. I roll through the entire manuscript, which is not that long, actually. I rolled through the whole manuscript in around an hour, and I'm proofing it while ChatGPT is cranking everything out. The entire manuscript is 73,000 characters, which is 24 pages in Microsoft Word and comes out to 16,000 words. I read it, and I absolutely love it. I love what I've written. I don't make too many changes to it. Very few changes. I asked ChatGPT to go through and check out the KDP, the Kindle compliance to make sure I haven't screwed anything up. It recommends a couple of minor polishes, like when I'm talking health stuff, to qualify that it's not medical advice. And it smooths a couple of little sentences. Dialing in a prompt that rewrites a whole manuscript in my real voice without censoring it took a lot of trial and error, and if you want help building an AI writing workflow of your own, book a one-on-one call with me and ask me on our call.
I then go into Amazon. And get everything submitted in Amazon. I even asked ChatGPT for guidance on what colors I should use for the cover. Although the cover, I don't know. The cover is not, I don't know if the cover came out. My writing is pretty good, but the cover is pretty ordinary, all right? It's just a straightforward, regular-ass cover. Maybe I should pay somebody on Fiverr to do a nicer cover, but I did the cover. I went outside. I took nine selfies of myself, which I guess is redundant. I took nine selfies in a collared shirt, and ChatGPT picked the one it liked the best, and I agree with it. I'm like, yeah, that is a nice picture. I throw that on the cover, crank that out, put everything in Amazon, crank the description out, format the manuscript, and submit it. I am so grateful that yesterday I dictated this. Today, I've submitted it to Kindle.
I take a walk around Crescent Lake Park after this, as well as handling some other tasks, like working on a friend's audiobook. And I get back, and after a few hours of the walk and working on other things, I see that the book is approved. It's past review, which ChatGPT was very confident it would. And it's ready to go. I see it live on Amazon. And I'm so excited. I have a book that says I'm seeking a wife on Amazon. As far as I can see, this is an original idea. That nobody's done something quite like this before. How amazing. And it's time to get the ads up.
Before I go to submit the ads, I go to meet my ex-wife and my son at soccer. I get there and have a nice conversation with my ex-wife. At one point, I was talking about emotions and feelings and her feelings, and she quickly says one of those old things she used to say about, oh, it's none of your business how I feel. And I remember I start feeling a little hurt. And I immediately start saying, look, I forgive her for saying that. Because right afterwards, I qualify that, hey, yeah. You have a right to keep your feelings private. But at the same time, you know, I thought we were here to support each other through this process. And that means, you know, knowing that the other person's feeling the same way. And she acknowledges that. And in the past, in the marriage, I might have spiraled on this and tried to change her or brought that up. But it reminds me of, you know, the scene in American History X where the guy's talking about how when your girl comes to visit, it's got to be sweet talk through that glass. You don't want your visit to go poorly and then have to stew on that in prison. And I'm thinking of that, too, for being divorced. It's like, yeah, I only get like an hour a week with my ex at soccer and I don't want to be creating drama or anything like that. You know, I want it to just be sweet talk and it's up to me to forgive her for anything. And I'm like, this is how I want to be in my next marriage. I want to act much more like this instead of how I acted before. And I love that my book, I'm Seeking a Wife, sets me up with that vision in mind and holds me accountable to it. Can you imagine if I was not holding up to that, how easy it'd be for a girl to have material with that book, literally describing what I wanted to do and then being able to hold up and say, hey, you're not living up to this.
I call my sponsor and he tells me that I should bring her like a rose or a card, candy for Valentine's Day next week. I'm like, you know, that's sweet. At the same time, if I'm going to give her something, I'm going to give her this book printed out. I'm going to give her this book printed out that says I'm looking for a wife and, you know, this is what I'm looking for. He's like, I don't think that's a good idea. That's too much. I'm like, but look. That's keeping it real. I'm looking for a wife. I'm not looking for hookups. I would think the right woman would appreciate me being direct and not wasting her time and appreciate seeing exactly what I am looking for. I'm going to print that letter out and I'll have it in my car in case I need to give it to anybody. And it wouldn't necessarily even have to be the target themselves, so to speak. It could just be, you know, maybe she would have a friend that would read that letter and love it, for example. Or I'd give it to some mom at an AA meeting, and she could read it and give it to her daughter if she liked it. The book is there to make my intentions clear, and I don't know exactly who is going to receive them. And to me, the best thing I could give somebody would be sharing myself like that. Although my sponsor says, you're going to do what you're going to do, and I need to forgive him. I'm forgiving him for saying that as well. But I guess it's true. I'm going to do what I'm going to do. I just don't see like bringing her a rose or something next week. Like that's too, I don't know. I literally talked to her once and just got her name. I don't know that that'd be a thing. I'm probably not going to give her a letter either. But we'll see. I got a whole week to think about her. And I'm so interested to see how that'll go.
After coming home from soccer, I submit my Amazon ads. And I just saw at the time of recording this, my ads are approved and they're serving on Amazon, baby. Your boy's advertising to his second wife on Amazon. Let's go. If this all works, this is gonna be the most awesome story. And I'm gonna have documented every part of the process, which will make it amazing. Turning my whole life, even looking for a wife, into a documented project with ads behind it is exactly the kind of thing I love to map out with people, and if you have an idea like that, schedule a private call with me and we'll map it out together on our call.
I then go to an AA meeting. It's out on the beach. I get all dressed up and stuff and I get there to find there's just one other person there. For some reason, this meeting's dead and I'm like, the hell? So I go to another meeting, get there five minutes late. It was a popcorn meeting. Literally every single person in the room got called on but me. I was like, okay, you know what? I do have these recordings that I get to talk to. I do have ample opportunity to express myself. So it's OK. In a gratitude meeting where I had so much gratitude to share, nobody called on me. That's just fine.
After the meeting, I hold the door for a couple of women and I remember the name of one. The other one is younger and she's a little bit cute. And she actually asked what my name is and says hi to me. And for some reason, I then start talking to the older woman and engaging her in conversation while ignoring the younger one. I walk out and I have lost track of the cuter one, too, just going down the stairs somehow. I was paying so much attention to the older one. I let go of paying attention to the younger one. I walk back to my car and I think, you know, maybe I could have been more social here. I get my car and I drive by and I see the younger and the older one talking. And at first, I kind of thought that the one girl that I'm saying is a little cute now wasn't really on my radar. And I'm like, all right, maybe we need to open up a little bit more. And then I have a debate on the way home in my head. I'm like, okay, are personalities really that much different? But maybe I'll open up a little bit more because that was nice. A girl actually said hi to me and started talking to me. And maybe if I'd have been a little more open to her, because I'd already taken inventory of the room. There was one girl that was attractive and she appeared to be with a guy there. So I'd already taken inventory of the room and prejudged it and said there's nothing going on here. Maybe I shouldn't prejudge so quickly. Maybe that girl has an amazing personality that'd make it all worth it. I'll keep that in mind in the future.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
When Nobody Texts Back
Originally published January 15, 2026.
This is my journal entry from January 15, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
This morning, I wake up without the kids here, and I jump straight into work. Actually, I write a letter to my family friends, as this is one of those little nagging things I've been meaning to do. They've known me since I was two or three years old, and they wrote a letter recently, but they don't know that my ex-wife and I are divorced yet, and I want to update them. So I dictate a letter to them. That's around 30 minutes. Put it through ChatGPT. It ends up being about six pages. I print it all out, address it to them and put them in the mail. That feels really good, even though it takes a little over an hour to do all that. It feels really important that I do this. This is a key connection in my life. And this is a very meaningful letter that I'm sending out to someone. It'll make a big difference for them receiving it. And it's often those little things like that on our to-do lists that make us feel like we're overwhelmed and we have too many things to do.
Once I get that done, then I jump into preparing my work. I also, on Spotify, start listening to Dr. Michael Salla again, and he has this guest talking about, you know, conspiracies, disclosure, 3I/ATLAS, and all that stuff. I do miss listening to some of those episodes, which are one of the few things I miss listening to on YouTube. At the same time, though, I listened to this episode, and this guy has a lot of great things to say, but my mind is often like, this guy's so full of shit. But he does address how the love and light people are often fake and, you know, the exact opposite of that, which definitely vibes with a local spiritual community I used to go to. The love and light shit often rubs me the wrong way. It's like, oh, love and light. And it's like, yeah, you're being an asshole. Love and light.
After that, I head to the AA meeting. I sit next to one of the moms there that also goes to my kid's school, who's been friendly with me. And the new girl that I saw at the gym and that I saw at the meeting, she's attractive, but what a fucking mess. She's still smoking marijuana before she goes to sleep at night. And I'm torn, but I'm choosing to keep my distance. So today we're going with as far away as possible.
I walk out about 15 minutes early. I get to my yoga studio just in time. I try putting out all my loving vibes and all that shit that originally got a woman I had a crush on to pay attention to me at a yoga studio. And got that girl at AA to notice me a few years ago. But nothing's working today. I end up going home without hardly even talking to anyone again. But I did get a hell of a workout. That power yoga fucked me up. Like, Jesus.
Right when I get my phone after yoga, there's a message from a woman I had been seeing. It's another one with a couple of paragraphs, starting off saying, I hope you're doing well and you're enjoying some of this cooler weather. Great. Sure. Bring the weather up. And then she asked me a question about some online business stuff we'd worked on. So I sit on that and think for a little over an hour. I drive home and I'm like, why is she texting me like this? Like, this seems like little shit. This is twice now in the last week she's texted me when, you know, she did not respond to my message for weeks. And then all of a sudden she messages me about the business stuff, although there's like politeness in there as well. The last message I'd sent her was just a flat one sentence. So I think, why is she just trying to get my attention here, or is she nitpicking her business right now? And I'm figuring, well, maybe she wants some attention from me. Maybe she does want me to reach out.
So after thinking for an hour and showering, I send her this message. I would love to schedule another massage with you and then we can go into more detail about your online setup. I haven't ever actually directly paid you for a massage either. I'd like to pay for this one. Let me know when you're available. So do you think I get a response back to that for the whole day? No. Fuck. I feel really emotional after sending it. I'm excited to send this message and my fantasy starts going off thinking how she and I could be great together, because I really like her. Now she's obviously got some significant issues as well. But out of all the women I know, she is definitely top five, maybe number one, out of women that I think would be great to date. Maybe that means I need to meet more women, or maybe it means she needs to open her heart to me, or I need to move on. But I'm fucking devastated. Why can't she just respond back to me and be like, here's my schedule, we'd love to see you. Why is it not that simple? Well, maybe she's got some kind of drama going on in her life as it seems like she always has, and maybe she's not that good to date because of that. If you know that ache of putting yourself out there and getting nothing back, and you want to talk through whether to keep going or let someone go, book a private call with me and we'll work through it together.
After messaging her and having a big salad and listening to the guest jerk me around about three admirals coming to rescue us and all that shit, which I certainly hope is true, then I drive to pick the kids up from school. I talk to my sponsor on the way there, and we head home. It's cold today. So I take them out to the park in jackets and we kick the footballs and soccer ball around. My son can really kick. Like my son's kicks are damn near as good as mine. Like his soccer game's going great. We go to the playground for a little bit and swing on the swing. There's a very pretty mother there with her child. I chat her up a little bit. Then there's a dad that can throw the hell out of a football to his son. And I chat them up too. I say bye to the pretty mom and I think, damn, where's one of these moms for me to build a great life and have some more kids with? I didn't feel, just talking to this mom a little bit, that there was much energy there. But I'm throwing out feelers all the time. I'm fishing, and there's some fish I'm going to be happy to reel in.
Now my mind's being so toxic about a woman I dated briefly. Really, she just wasn't someone I was drawn to, and honestly my own personality can be just as much of a mess. Oh, Jerry, you want to talk about a fucked up personality? Let's look at you. Ooh. All right, moving right along. Get the kids home, play, have fun with them. We get mousetrap set up. And I missed the mousetrap the way they did it when I was a kid, although this one I think actually is better. We get it set up, we manage to play one game, then my ex-wife gets here. She picks my son up, and it's hard seeing her sometimes because it feels like there's just the contrast between how close we used to be and feeling so distant from her now. It's dramatic.
I take my daughter to piano, and managed to be one of those drivers that's just fucking everything up, making a right and getting in the wrong lanes. These other guys are fucking dicks and not paying attention. But at least I didn't get into an accident. I tell the kids how I avoided an accident, which I'm really grateful I avoided. On the way home from yoga, my light goes green. It stays green, as you'd expect, and after a second or two, I didn't zoom out of this light. I just took it slow. I started slowly stepping on the gas, and then I look to my right, and I see this white car hauling ass. Like, for some reason, I just read that there's no fucking way this guy's stopping. So I literally go a few car lengths into the intersection. I stop because I'm like, this fucker's not stopping. And then the car to my left, I think I helped them avoid the accident too. Because when a car suddenly slams on its brakes and stops, if you're paying attention, you'll be wondering, what the fuck is this guy doing? So I slam on my brakes and stop. This dude coming from the right side of me hauls ass and runs the shit out of the red light. He very nearly smacks the shit out of the car to the front left of me. But they just miss each other by a few feet. And I think me stopping like that helped this guy pay attention and react faster and stop himself in order to evade the accident. That's the closest I've seen an accident happening in a while.
I also felt like I'm glad I was paying attention. If I'd have been fucking around not paying attention, I might have got, I think they call that T-boned, at like 40 miles an hour, and fuck that. Although if I would have gassed it and flown straight out of the intersection, I'd have probably missed it as well. But I tell the kids, recounting how grateful I am at how many accidents like that I've avoided throughout my entire life. And that's why I have my car insurance set to legal minimums because, you know what, I'll count on myself to avoid shit like that.
After I take my daughter to piano, I sit there and work on editing my books. Then we go to the hardware store. And we get a stepladder and a new plunger, because the last plunger, every time you push it down it sticks, so you have to pull the side out. So I throw that old fucker out. We got a nice new plunger and shove that shit down right. And I'm just sad as hell today. I am sad as hell. The longer the woman I had been seeing doesn't respond, I'm like, God damn it. Every time I feel something, she can't reciprocate either. Can I stop doing this? Like, stop feeling anything for these women. Like, just be OK being by yourself. Fuck it. Don't feel anything for anybody. But I get excited. And then another disappointment. I'm like, how many of these can I fucking take?
With that in mind, while I'm at my daughter's piano, I text a woman from AA who asked me to speak. I said I enjoyed speaking last night and appreciate the opportunity. I'd love to meet up with you at this coffee shop near her house tomorrow at 5 or Saturday at noon. Do you think she responds to me either? No. Fuck me, man. I'm like, should I just stop asking women out? Or do I just need to persist until the right woman comes along and actually appreciates this shit? But I'm getting so sad by the end of the night. I'm like, I'm so fucking sick of this. Like, why are people so isolated? And maybe it's time to stop generalizing. Like, maybe it's just this particular person that doesn't have anything to do with me. You know, the woman I had been seeing and the shit going on in her life doesn't have anything to do with me. And maybe one day I'll come across a woman who's not so fucked up, or that is just fucked up in the right way that complements me. Whatever it is, I am interested to find out. If you're asking yourself whether to stop putting yourself out there or keep persisting until the right person actually appreciates you, set up a call with me and we can talk it through.
But I just keep spiraling, getting sadder and sadder. And I'm like, God damn, this is annoying. You can't even just meet up and have a conversation. You can't even respond to a goddamn text message, not even to say no. At least with a woman I dated briefly, I had the decency to be like, look, this is over. Fuck. I am the way I say I am. If I wasn't, then why would I say I am? Fuck. The kids console me. And after my son gets home from hanging out with my ex-wife, then we get homework done. They decide they want to take showers. And I boil noodles twice for them. They eat this whole thing of plant-based noodles and I have some too. Then I make another one for their lunch boxes. We're in bed by nine o'clock and I have a good cry before bed. I've got 10 hours to sleep and I'm like, you know what? Maybe I'll figure something out.
As I'm falling asleep, I imagine I'm talking with whoever's going to be wife number two and that we're both actually going to be excited for each other. And she says, I'm not ready for you yet. I'm like, what the fuck? Why not? I am ready. I'm absolutely ready. What the fuck do I need to do to be ready? And she says that I need to be okay being by myself. And I'm like, that's fucking stupid. The more okay I am by myself, the more I'm not going to need or have interest in somebody else. Like that's what I see happening. People do get comfortable being by themselves and then they don't need anybody else. So then they miss out on all this joy of being with somebody else because they don't have much of a need. They just settle, or their sexuality's dead, and they just go to fucking work and hang out with their family and go to AA meetings or yoga or whatever it is they do and then scroll on their goddamn phone instead of having a real connection with someone, or play a bunch of video games or drink or do drugs, and they don't really need anybody anymore because they're a fucking dead-ass zombie. Maybe I'm not ready for somebody yet, but I contend that I am. I'm ready for an amazing woman. I don't want someone who isn't an amazing woman. I want a woman that's on my level. Are there any of them out there?
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
The Christmas I Learned to Ask for the Number
Originally published December 25, 2025.
This is my journal entry from December 25, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
I had a nice Christmas today, although I don't give a flying fuck about holidays. When people are trying to tell me Merry Christmas, I'll say thank you. Because what a bullshit holiday. Jesus wasn't even born anywhere close to Christmas. And as I've ranted on before, the holiday, the winter festivities, was stolen from the pagans. And now today it's all about celebrating materialism and religious dogma. Total fucking bullshit. I'm not going to act like I even give two shits or participate in this. That said, I want to honor and respect other people. So I went over this morning. I got to my ex-wife's house a little before 7, after my daughter called me on her mom's phone at 6:43 and said they were ready to go, which I'm glad we get that much time to sleep.
Got up and I had a nice time over there watching the kids open presents, and they gave me a couple of presents. My daughter gave me a dryer lint ball that I can put essential oils on, so I'm excited to use that. My ex-wife was very warm, and we had a really nice time together, and I started to feel a lot of attraction this morning over there. I don't know if it was me or her or the Christmas spirit or what, but I was like, damn, I don't usually feel this much energy, and I'm feeling it.
The kids were really happy with all their presents. My ex-wife got my son a tabletop pinball set that he was enjoying, and these metal tops that battle each other -- you spin them really fast, drop them into an arena, and they battle each other. It's really sweet. My ex-wife also got a ping pong attachment to put onto the kitchen table, which is a nice height for ping pong, which is so fun. I was over there for about an hour. Then they went down to her family's house, and I came back here to my house. Quiet moments like ping pong and presents with my kids are what I treasure most, and if you want to share the ups and downs of rebuilding with someone who gets it, you can book a private call with me.
I had a few hours then before getting ready for yoga at my yoga studio, so I first went to work doing letters. I got about 50 letters or so addressed and ready to go. Then I put some time into the dating apps. I am working on a new system that makes sense. And I thought about it and talked to ChatGPT a little bit. And I think the dating app system that makes the most sense is to use Tinder as a local browsing option to see women locally within a six-mile radius. Then to use the other dating apps to really try and laser in on the exact ideal woman I want, which would be an active, attractive, sober-lifestyle woman that wants children. That's definitely niche and filters out the vast majority of women. And I'm willing to drive for that.
Throughout the day, I experimented and thought, and I've come up with a radius of 33 miles from where I'm going to move in St. Petersburg, Florida, near Crescent Lake. That'll get me all the way up toward the north side of Tampa. My ex-wife and I actually lived about a 43-mile drive away from each other -- she was all the way on St. Pete Beach when we met, and I was all the way up in Tampa. A 33-mile radius does not mean it's only a 33-mile drive. It actually means the drive might be further, because it's not a straight line there, so you'd be looking at significant traffic. So I think 33 miles is far enough. I'm catching all the way down to Sarasota with that, all the way up to Clearwater, all the way around Tampa. That puts me in a huge pool of people.
And by the end of the night, I sign up for Bumble Premium Plus also, which is $160 for three months, which fucking beats $40 a goddamn week. But this gets my likes seen first and gets me standouts and all that shit. So I think it's worth it. I know lots of guys don't pay for dating apps and they swipe their asses off. And I'm just saying I'd rather put less time into it and get as many or more dates as these other dudes do that put time into swiping. And the way I look at it, right now if I also buy Match, I'll be spending like $200 a month on dating apps. And listen, even at that, it's still cheaper than chasing paid sex -- and paid sex isn't what I actually want anyway. I'm not going to go down that road. What I want is a real partner, and the apps keep me in position for that.
What I'm looking at is that I'm in position. If a woman comes along who's looking for a guy who's sober and wants kids, there are not going to be very many choices. Now, yes, there will probably be more guys that match that criteria than women. But still, if you want a guy that's sober and wants kids, there's going to be me and not that many other dudes. And that's what I want to be there for -- when a woman comes along that actually narrows her search criteria just for what she wants, and then I'm there, and then we can date.
Alternatively, using Tinder, I can just check out girls locally. And I got a new dating plan. I'm going to have like a tier list. First, the entry-level tier is a woman who is attractive and has a sober, active lifestyle. Or sober-ish -- at least don't fucking annoy me with your using. On that tier, if I know you in person, like I meet you at a meeting or yoga or something, I'll date and maybe even be exclusive. The more sober-ish the lifestyle is, and the more active and hot the girl is, the longer we could stay together. But I'm always going to keep the door open for a woman who wants kids. And I'm going to make it clear to whoever I date: look, if you don't want kids, I'll date you, I'll be exclusive with you, but I'm also going to be consistently still looking for a woman that does want kids and is sober and active and attractive. And it could be months, it could be years before I find that. But I would not wholeheartedly commit completely to a woman that didn't want kids. At the same time, there's no reason I couldn't have a nice relationship for a year or for several years with a woman that didn't want kids. But I'm not going to spend most of my energy looking for a woman that doesn't want kids on dating apps.
I love that I can use the dating apps pretty easily -- it doesn't take much effort. Like, I think of a woman I knew years ago. She was beautiful, active, and sober, and wanted a guy to have kids with. Like, if I'd have been available, she even drove all the way to Sarasota to meet a guy. That's the exact kind of woman I'm looking for. Given how beautiful she was, I'm gathering she must have been looking for sober men too, and she had to go to fucking Sarasota to find a sober man she actually liked. So I've got my radius set far enough out. I don't need to be driving farther than Sarasota or North Tampa or shit like that. Because I do have kids and I work and I have my lifestyle and stuff. And I want a girl to be able to drive here easily too. So I feel really good about where the dating's at today. I'm like, I'm going to use the apps.
And two interesting things happened. So I got the dating app set up and went over my Hinge prompts and shit to try and make my profile a little better and come up with some new picture ideas. Then I went to yoga. First, I was thinking I wanted to have somebody take a picture of me for my dating profiles, but it didn't seem like a good vibe to do that before class. So I put my mat down. This girl comes in, starts to put her mat next to me, and decides she doesn't like the vibes and fucking moves. I'm like, all right, I'll move too, make this even. And then it's a little crowded sometimes, so I move further down. There's a girl and a guy near me, and I ended up touching both of them at one point because we were so close and I wasn't accounting for that. We weren't exactly next to each other, but half of our mats were right next to each other.
Then at the end of the class, I noticed the girl was actually paying attention to me. She looks at me and smiles and starts talking to me first. Somehow I'm not fucking prepared. After all this shit -- I'm reading Tucker Max books and shit -- I'm still not prepared. I'm like, all right, just fucking be authentic. So she gives me this weak-ass handshake where she didn't really stick her hand all the way in my hand. I'm like, put your hand in my hand and give me a proper handshake. I didn't say the cuss words, but I said the rest of it. So she grabs my hand and vigorously shakes the shit out of it. I'm like, that's what I'm talking about. Thank you.
We do a little other small talk, and she seems interested in me. But then this other dude butts in and starts talking. After like 10, 20 seconds, maybe a minute of him talking, I'm like, fuck this, I'm out. I just like wave and walk off. Because, you know, I'm not going to waste my fucking time right now, and one thing I can't stand is being a third goddamn wheel. When I was trying to have a conversation with her -- look, you can just fucking talk to her if you want to, but if you've got to interrupt, then I'm just going to peace. Either that or I'm going to bring the girl into it, but I don't even know this girl. So I'm like, see ya.
So I walk over, drop my shit by the door, and start getting my stuff. And the girl walks up next to me again and says hi -- she must have ditched that guy right after he started talking to her too. So I was like, hey. And I could tell, like I'm reading this shit telepathically, that she wants me to ask for her phone number. And for some fucking reason, I don't do it, even though she's attractive. She just did a hot-ass yoga class. I was definitely attracted to her. And for some fucking reason, I don't ask for her number. I know she wants me to. She says goodbye with a tone like, ask for my number already. That's the tone, I swear, that she says goodbye with.
And as soon as she walks out the door, I'm like, God damn it, I should practically fucking follow her out there. But then the dude who interrupted us walks up and starts talking to me, and now I'm talking to him too, and I end up barely being able to get rid of his ass in the parking lot. This is a friendly guy. I've seen him around before. There's nothing wrong with him. This is just a friendly, regular-ass yoga dude. And I'm sitting in the car like, the fuck did I just do? I know that girl's hot. I know she wanted me to get her phone number. I read that clearly. What am I doing? It's like, next time, next time, I'm just going to fucking ask. Anytime I even think a girl might possibly want my phone number -- especially one showing that much interest, who clearly ditched that dude to come talk to me again, try and get me before I leave. Jesus Christ. If I see her again, I'm going to be like, look, I fucked up last time and I regretted not asking for your phone number as soon as you left. So why don't you give me your phone number, because then we can hang out.
So I drive home and I'm like, okay, this is a clear learning opportunity. I need to be more aggressive asking for phone numbers. Yes. I remember back to this mom at the park, like maybe five or six years ago. This mom at the park was hot, and I got her fucking phone number even when I was married. And then she asked if my wife and I drink or not, and I'm like, no -- and I guess this is fucking dead. I used to get moms' numbers at the fucking park that I just met for the first time. And then at some point it's like, what are you doing? Just get every number that comes across your path and seems halfway interested. Get it and try and meet up with her and get to know her more. Because at this point, I'm tired of being alone every night, all right? And I can just fucking have fun and be looking for a woman that wants kids and is my dream girl. So I don't see any reason we couldn't be living it up. No one's getting out alive, all right?
So I get home and I'm reflecting. I'm like, okay, I'm asking for phone numbers, keep this in mind for later. Then I go over to my mother's house right afterward. The kids are there, and my mother's in a much better mood today, which is great. Merry fucking Christmas, Mom. I grab the silver bowl, walk down the street, make a shitload of popcorn, bring it back. Kids are satisfied. They got presents they like from Mom. They watch Winnie the Pooh until I'm fucking falling asleep. I can't take it -- this shit's putting me in a trance. I'm just snuggling with my son and relaxing so hard. I'm like, I just need to close my eyes. I'm in a fucking trance right now watching these cartoons. This is why y'all watch this -- my brain activity is going lower than sleep. Still, I love Winnie the Pooh. It reminds me of childhood, especially hanging out watching it with my mom. And the kids don't have shit to watch at home, so it's cool -- they watch something with my mom and they have the time with her.
Then I walk back to my ex-wife's house. She invites me to stay. I'm like, all right, cool. So I stay and play ping pong with her and the kids. I play the spin-top game, which actually is really fun -- I'm enjoying watching those things go around and knock the shit out of each other, knock each other out of the ring. It's fun. I have a nice time. And I am really grateful that I have such a great relationship still with my ex-wife, that I can hang out at her house for two hours on Christmas Day, that she schedules a time to drop the kids off with my mom, that she has time for a nap. Like, it all just worked out. I'll be honest, part of me wonders what it would be like if we reconnected, but she's made it clear she's not interested, and I'm sure as hell not going to suggest it. We had a good run, and really, I'm trying to move on and find someone new, and she's better off finding her own path too.
After the kids go down the street to hang out with my ex-wife's family some more, I walk back to my house, and I get ready to go to an AA Christmas party, which I'm actually really excited to go to, because I don't want to be some sad, lonely guy tonight, like you know I could be. And what I've learned from my breakdowns is that we need to think ahead on shit and do more than I think I need to do, and put myself in a position to really have good times and be out there and be social. Especially with dating online and cutting out the spiritual-community stuff -- hey, let's make sure I'm out there. Let's make sure I'm fully participating in AA. What I've learned the hard way is to show up and stay social instead of isolating, and if that resonates, I'd love for you to set up a call with me.
So I go to the meeting, and I'm looking for a couple of girls to be there whose phone numbers I already got. One girl is there. I give her a hug and say hi to her. She didn't really seem to want to talk that much, but I want to see if she wants to meet up outside the meeting sometime. I've tried to get her to come to some other meetings, and nothing's worked out. She must be annoyed that I don't just want to straight up meet up there. So I'm going to see about that tomorrow. I got literally three girls to message tomorrow and see if they want to meet up. You think fucking one will? Maybe, perhaps.
My sponsor's at the meeting. The guy I used to sponsor, who my sponsor is now sponsoring, is there too. We have an eating meeting, so there's some fucking amazing food. One of the guys, a chef who's been sober a couple of years, makes the food and brings it. Holy shit, the food is amazing. I'm glad I didn't fuck my appetite up beforehand -- I was thinking I'd just have a salad first. I ate three different kinds of meat in this bitch tonight. There were these big-ass aluminum turkey-pan things of salmon laid out, two flanks side by side.
I got a bunch of bite-sized things where you could take two or three small bites, like one of those goddamn fancy restaurants where they put small-ass portions of food on your plate and charge you $100 a fucking plate. I did that, and I got all different kinds of stuffing and salmon and shit and Brussels sprouts with bacon. God damn, it was good. It was so good I went back for seconds. I threw some beef on my plate -- that's right, some fucking beef after my bacon, Brussels sprouts, and salmon. And I even got a cookie, when I've been eating clean as hell. My waist has gotten noticeably slimmer. I've dropped a percent body fat eating so clean for the last two weeks, plus doing some weight training.
I talked to a number of people there, all kinds of conversations with people. And it felt so good to sit down for the meeting, have a second plate of food, be just the right kind of full. I gave myself a good like 20 minutes between plates of food so I didn't overstuff myself. But all I had to eat today was a couple of Larabars this morning, then some popcorn this afternoon, and then two plates of food tonight. I didn't even get close, I don't think, to 2,000 calories. Then I did throw a fucking Christmas cookie down the hatch, along with another tiny-ass chocolate chip cookie, and this other tiny-ass Christmas cake-y kind of cookie. That shit was good.
I sat there, and the speaker did a good job. She was definitely better than average. She laughed, she had a great attitude, a long-ass time sober, and I enjoyed listening to her. I said goodbye to some people and went to thank the speaker. I ran into a girl I hadn't seen at this group in years, at least five, maybe six years I hadn't seen her. I didn't even recognize her. I gotta say, I'm impressed that girls consistently come up to me and recognize me when I'm like, you look familiar, but I don't -- who are you? After she told me her name, I'm like, oh shit, yeah, it's so good to see you.
And then she was talking to another girl, and I was watching. As soon as she disengaged from the other girl, I walked up. I remembered this morning -- I'm like, go for her fucking phone number. So I walk up to her right afterward. I'm like, hey, it'd be nice to catch up with you and be nice to see you again sooner, let me get your number. She's like, no, that's okay, why don't you just come to some of the meetings I go to? And she named some meeting times. I'm like, I don't usually go to those, it's fine, see you around. And I felt good that I tried. I felt a little bit of rejection, but at the same time, you know what? I'd rather take that little sting of the rejection.
It turns out she'd been away for a while and is back now, long enough that I could potentially date her if she were available, but I don't know if she has a boyfriend or not. She's got a kid. I don't know what the fuck's going on. But I asked for the phone number. I was thinking before that you need to like really get to know a girl before even asking for a phone number. It's like, no, the fuck you don't. I realized tonight, just ask for the phone number. And then you'll know -- if she's got a boyfriend, she might not give you that phone number, especially if she senses you might want to date, and that's fine. That tells you what you need to know. And I don't need to waste time wondering.
So I talked to my sponsor on the way out, and we reflected on showing up. He had a woman at the meeting he'd seen who didn't respond to him, so he talked to her, and we both felt good. I'm like, you know, I feel really good having asked for a girl's number and gotten a no, versus this morning when I knew a girl wanted my number and I didn't ask anyway. So it felt like a big improvement, and in the future I'm asking for numbers like crazy -- numbers are the gateway. I need to have a bunch more people in my phone I could go out with, or get to know better, or just talk with and connect, and I gotta get as many phone numbers as possible. I'm glad I'm not going to my old yoga studio anymore, where I felt like I was being told I shouldn't do more than say hi to anybody. Like, shit, these girls are out here looking sexy; they do want somebody to notice them. So that felt really good. Pushing past my own hesitation took real work, so if you're trying to find the courage for something and want a sounding board, I'd be glad to talk it through with you when you book a one-on-one call with me.
I came home after the meeting, stuffed some more letters, and it felt really filled up. I'm like, this was a good-ass Christmas. This was at least as good as, if not better than, last year. Last year I don't remember it right offhand -- wish I'd done diaries and shit like this. But I was probably fucking around with my videos last year. I didn't go to the same AA Christmas party that was available last year. And I probably had a partner then, which is nice. But at the same time, my ex-wife and I got along today as good as or better than Christmas last year, and tonight is when I actually signed up for Bumble after doing some of the letters. I'm like, you know, I feel good. If anything, I should have been doing the same thing in my relationship with my ex-wife -- like, hey, I love you, and let's stay together until I can find a girl who lives a sober lifestyle and wants to have kids. Now, I don't think my ex-wife would have allowed me to be on dating apps actively looking, but, you know, I'm happy where I'm at today. Life is good.
And I'm glad this was such a nice Christmas. I felt sad when I first went to the meeting tonight, but you know what? After enough hanging out and talking to people, I got over that shit, and that's what socializing does. At the same time, I was out of the house most of the day. I really appreciated my time in the house to stuff letters, listen to stand-up comedy, listen to books. You know, it's nice to have that. I am mostly an extrovert, but I do appreciate my introvert time.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
Hearing No and Staying Confident Anyway
Originally published December 14, 2025.
This is my journal entry from December 14, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
What a fun day today was. I got up and saw the kids first thing this morning. After that I went to play tennis with my tennis coach and a friend. From there I went straight to yoga at my yoga studio with a yoga instructor. Then I went home, made a salad, cleaned up a bit, and got myself relaxed and in the right headspace to go see the life coach. I met her for coffee at Sumitra. Within the first ten minutes of talking with her I brought up that I was interested in dating her. She told me she wasn’t interested in dating me, and she also mentioned that I was the fourth guy in the last month who had asked her during a life coaching session if she wanted to date them. I told her that was probably because she’s attractive, she has a cool personality, and people respect her with the life coaching work she does. I joked that if she were fat or ugly nobody would be asking her to date them, so she should probably appreciate the attention because it means people take her seriously.
It ended up being a perfect segue into what I actually wanted to talk about in the life coaching session, which was dating itself. I wanted to talk through it and kind of discover things about myself. It was a chance to practice and put into action the things I’ve been thinking about. You might think it would be awkward to sit there and keep talking after she said she wasn’t interested in dating me, but it really wasn’t. I noticed different feelings coming up inside me. There was a little bit of disappointment like, well that’s too bad. But there was also a feeling of relief, like the adventure is still open. I’ve only been single for a short time. The divorce isn’t even final yet. It will be official on Wednesday. So I’m actually enjoying this period of being single and figuring out what I even want.
The truth is I don’t know yet. I don’t know if I want a monogamous relationship right now or if I’m interested in something more open. I don’t know if having more kids immediately is something I want or if that could wait. Maybe it would even be fun to be in a relationship for a while with a woman a little older than me and not have to deal with the question of kids for a year or so before eventually meeting another wife. There are so many unknowns right now. The one thing I do know is that I don’t want someone taking up my time and space if I’m not genuinely excited to be with them. If that’s the case, I’d rather just stay single and keep meeting women and having conversations.
I asked the life coach about the girl from the AA meeting yesterday and told her I had asked that girl if she wanted to date. I wanted to hear her analysis of that approach. She explained that the idea of “dating” can mean something different today than it used to. She said it’s sweet that I have a more classical idea of dating as simply going out with someone and getting to know them first. But in today’s culture, when you say you want to date someone, it can sometimes sound like you want to jump into sex immediately. She suggested that it might be better to focus on being friendly and doing things together without labeling it as dating right away. She said that in modern hookup culture, once the word dating comes up people often assume the expectation is sex quickly.
She also said that most men start in what people call the friend zone by default. There might be exceptions, but generally you’re not having sex with someone the first time you meet them or necessarily even thinking that way right away. I really enjoyed hearing her perspective on all of that. But more than anything, the whole conversation made me proud of myself. I was proud that I asked her directly if she wanted to date me. And I was proud of how I handled her saying she wasn’t interested. Being able to sit there, hear that clearly, and still have a really nice conversation for over an hour afterward felt like a big step for me. That’s the kind of man I want to be. If hearing a no tends to knock the wind out of you and you want to get to where you can take it cleanly and stay confident anyway, you can schedule a one-on-one call with me and we’ll work on it together.
Fortunately I had the Tantra speed dating event right after that. I drove home first and cooked some sweet potatoes, including the one the life coach gave me earlier this week, along with a carrot she had given me today from a box of produce she shares. I cut everything up and cooked it in the stainless steel pan my mom bought me, adding a big tablespoon of coconut oil and throwing some seasoning on top. That ended up being my dinner.
After that I went to the Tantra speed dating event at Nexus. The last time I went, I ended up leaving because there were way more guys than girls. There were fewer girls signed up to begin with and then some of them didn’t even show up. This time it was the opposite. There were actually more women than men. As soon as I walked in, I recognized both hosts because I knew them from a local spiritual community. I went in and sat down on a couch where there were three women already sitting. There was an attractive woman there I met that night. I noticed her right away. Instead of sitting directly next to her, though, I deliberately sat a little farther away so I could engage everyone at once. I asked everyone their names and started a conversation with the whole group together. In my mind I was intentionally setting the tone that I was confident and comfortable there. I was putting some of those pickup artist ideas into practice.
I ended up talking a lot with a woman I met at the event, the one sitting next to me, and we had a really sweet conversation. After everyone arrived, we went into the main room where there were pillows set up around a small altar in the center. Surprisingly the tantra event was actually really good. We started with some simple icebreaker exercises where we paired up and talked for about a minute at a time. The prompts were things like saying what you’re ready to release or let go of. I remember saying something like releasing the need to always be right. We went around the room doing that with different people.
After we had rotated through everyone once, the exercises got a little deeper. There was some light massage work and then some longer hugs. That part actually felt really good. There were a few women there who were attractive and it felt nice to just hug someone and feel that physical closeness, breathing together and taking in their scent and presence. It gave me this rush of euphoria that felt really good.
At the end there was a matching system where the women could drop a bead into a pouch if they wanted to connect with someone afterward. I think the woman I’d met put a bead in my pouch because I remember hearing something drop in there. I definitely want to follow up with her. She was also at the a local spiritual community event the night before. I remember seeing her dancing there and walking around, but I didn’t end up talking to her because I was busy talking with a lot of other people that night. Now I’m interested in talking with her more.
During one of the exercises, I got to massage her lower back, which honestly felt like a treat. While I was doing it I was thinking how funny it is that if I had stayed in massage school just a little longer, I would have learned more techniques for that exact thing. From a random guy she probably wasn’t expecting a professional massage anyway, but part of me was thinking I would have been better at it if I had stuck around in school another week or two.
After the tantra event I went straight to my AA meeting, although I got there 15 minutes late. When I walked in the guy doing the lead was still talking. The lead is supposed to be about five to fifteen minutes, but this dude just kept going and going. He would stop for a moment like he was finished, everyone would kind of prepare for it to end, and then he’d start right back up again. The chairperson clearly felt bad interrupting him, so he just let him keep going. In my head I was getting more and more ridiculous about it. I kept smiling and laughing because the thoughts running through my mind were getting so toxic. The guy even said at one point he was praying for something in his life to stop, and I’m sitting there thinking, man, I’m praying for you to stop talking right now. My mind was running away with increasingly ridiculous, impatient thoughts about how badly I wanted him to wrap up. I was laughing to myself the whole time because I could see how absurd my thoughts were while also appreciating the guy for getting up there and making the effort to share.
Finally, around 7:30 the guy paused again and one of the guys sitting next to me jumped in and said “Thank you.” I was so relieved. I turned to him after the meeting, gave him a big hug, and told him he made my day by ending that. Then I realized that honestly I should have been the one to do that ten minutes earlier. I should have just said thank you and closed it out. It was funny reflecting on how the whole room could feel that everyone was ready to move on, but somehow the guy speaking didn’t seem to pick up on it. Maybe we all co-created that moment together.
After the meeting I talked with my sponsor for a bit. I also talked with the girl who had come to the 4 p.m. meeting earlier in the week, and I was glad I hadn’t tried to pick her up because she has a long-distance boyfriend. That made me realize how important it is for me to talk with women long enough to know whether they’re single before I start trying to spend more time with them. If someone is single, then it makes sense to build a friendship and get to know each other better. But if a woman already has a boyfriend, there’s no reason for me to be trying to go on walks in the park or invite her to yoga. It also made me think about the woman from yoga, who said her situation was complicated. That made me question why I had asked her to walk at the park in the first place. Still, people make mistakes all the time. I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t need to apologize for every little imperfection either. It’s just a reminder that next time I can find out if someone is single before trying to move things forward. If you tend to beat yourself up over little dating missteps instead of just learning from them and moving on, you can book a private call with me and we’ll talk it through.
Talking with the life coach earlier was also a good reminder that I want to get to know women as well as possible before anything physical happens. Once you get physical with someone it becomes much harder to stay objective. It’s harder to break things off if you realize it’s not right, and it’s easier to get pulled into situations that aren’t actually good for you.
Meanwhile I was noticing there were a lot of attractive women at this meeting tonight. At one point there were three really beautiful women sitting next to each other in a row, and I realized I hadn’t even introduced myself to them yet. I’m thinking I’ll get around to that eventually. I like the idea of just being there, letting people see me, talking with the people I’m naturally interacting with, and letting things unfold. One day it’ll line up perfectly and I’ll walk over and start a conversation at the right moment. There are already plenty of people to talk to, so I’m not in a rush. Eventually it will happen naturally.
Like the girl who came to the 4 p.m. meeting earlier this week, someone I’ve known casually for about a year now. It worked out perfectly that I got to talk with her today. I held her hand for a moment during the prayer and it felt natural and relaxed. Then my sponsee came over and started talking with her too, which gave me a smooth way to wrap things up politely and let her move along without anything feeling awkward. After that I connected with two people who had recently moved down from up north. I talked with the guy for a while, which was nice, and the man gave me his number so I could stay in touch with both of them. She seems to be the social planner in that pair, which made sense once we talked a little. It was still good to get his number too and spend a little time connecting with him.
Then I went back inside and started talking with the guys again. We were talking so much shit that honestly I don’t even know if half of it belongs in this book. These entries get pretty graphic sometimes, but the conversation got even more ridiculous after we started joking about the guy who wouldn’t stop talking during the lead earlier. It just kept escalating from there, and I definitely contributed to pushing it further. But what I noticed most was how much I laughed today. I was cracking up over and over again. It was one of those days where everything just kept lining up to be funny.
Earlier in the day I was excited about the possibility of dating the life coach. When she told me she wasn’t interested, I realized I didn’t even care about the reason why. She explained that her heart is still healing from her last breakup and that it’s very fresh for her. That made perfect sense to me. If she needs that time, she should absolutely take it. The interesting part is that I don’t feel like I need that same healing time after my marriage. I’ve been mentally preparing to be single for at least a year already. The space I’m in now feels natural. I’m ready. Being single feels exciting.
I shared briefly in the meeting tonight, making sure not to go on forever like the guy who spoke earlier. It made me laugh because I caught myself thinking he had gone on way too long, but at the same time I remembered that last year I did an entire fifty-minute speaker meeting at that same group by myself. The difference, at least in my mind, was that I actually killed it. People were still engaged after fifty minutes. I remember feeling like the room wanted more. When I speak, it feels alive. The guy tonight kept saying his life was unmanageable, and I found myself thinking that if you’re sober and working the steps, your life should become manageable. That’s the whole point of the program. Our lives have become unmanageable in the past, but they don’t have to stay that way. Sure, I have off days here and there. Anyone reading some of my recent entries could see that. But most of my days are actually awesome. I have fun living my life.
I’m proud of how I handled the conversation with the life coach too. I didn’t even interpret it as rejection. I simply had an idea that dating her would be great. She didn’t agree with that idea. Once she made that clear, we were on the same page. There’s no reason to keep holding onto the idea. If she doesn’t want to date me, then that’s settled. I can move right along.
Now I’m curious about the woman I met from the tantra event. I’m looking forward to getting the email confirming whether she dropped a bead in my pouch so I can reach out to her. I did see her afterward near the front area, but I had to leave for the AA meeting. One of the things I’ve taken from No More Mr. Nice Guy and from Dr. Robert Glover’s dating advice is that I need to have my own full life. I had already spent three hours at that tantra speed dating event. I had a good eye-gazing session with her, gave her a back massage, and had some good moments there. After that it was time for me to go. I had other things to do. That’s the kind of life I want to live. A full life where I’m moving between things I care about, meeting people along the way, and letting the connections happen naturally.
I realized there’s one thing I forgot to mention earlier. I got my first match on Hinge this morning, and it may also be my last. She matched with me and she was cute. She recognized my yoga studio and thought she might have taken a class with me before. What I appreciated most was that she had clearly read my profile and addressed something important right away. She said she wanted to be upfront because she’s a regular marijuana user and she definitely does not want kids, although she said she’d be happy to accept mine. I told her honestly that it probably wouldn’t work for me. She was attractive, but that combination of things just doesn’t line up with what I want.
That interaction reinforced something I’ve already been thinking about. I don’t really want to do online dating. The amount of time spent swiping and messaging just doesn’t feel like a good use of my time. Maybe the apps can help if you already live close to someone or happen to match with someone on the same wavelength, but I’m starting to see that it’s much more natural when things develop in person. Like putting yoga mats down next to someone at my yoga studio and slowly getting to know each other. Let the tension build a little. Let the connection happen naturally instead of forcing it through an app.
The life coach also mentioned today that from what she sees among her friends, most people use the dating apps primarily for hookups. Often, they’re having sex on the first date. I’ve done that before myself, so I know exactly how it happens. But I also know that it’s not something I want to do again. I don’t want to sleep with someone and then realize afterward that if I had been thinking clearly I wouldn’t even want to see them again. I want to be clear about who I’m spending time with. I want women I genuinely have a lot in common with, women I’m truly attracted to, and women I actually want to build something with. I don’t want a situation where two people are just horny, sleep together, and then realize it wasn’t a great idea. If you’re done with the hookup cycle and want to get clear on building something real instead, you can set up a call with me and we’ll work through what that looks like for you.
What I like more is the idea of getting to know someone slowly. Like slow playing a hand in poker and then going all in when it feels right. At the same time, I’m still exploring what I even want. I don’t know yet whether I want monogamy again or something more open. I know that eventually even the most attractive person becomes familiar over time, so these are questions I’m still figuring out.
One thing that did feel good reflecting with the life coach today was realizing that even though part of me was disappointed she didn’t want to date me, another part of me was genuinely happy that the adventure continues. If she had said yes, I probably would have skipped the tantra speed dating event tonight, and that ended up being a really good experience. One of her friends had actually suggested she go to that event as well, but it turned out to be easier for me that she wasn’t there.
There were plenty of women at the event, and it was fun being in that environment. I’ll admit I felt confident being there too. One woman there stood out to me right away. She’s very slim and really attractive, and I notice that I tend to be drawn to women with a similar body type to my own, athletic and lean. When you’re around people in environments like a local spiritual community and sober social spaces, there’s also a good chance you share certain values and habits, like not being heavily into drinking or drugs. That alone makes it feel easier to connect with someone.
And now as I’m dictating this, I’m realizing something funny. I’m going on just as long as the guy from the meeting earlier tonight that I was complaining about. That thought alone makes me laugh. All right, that’s probably a good sign it’s time to wrap this entry up.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
Just Walk Up and Say It
Originally published November 18, 2025.
This is my journal entry from November 18, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
I’m off the hook for taking the kids to school today, which gave the morning a lighter feel right from the start. I’ve also been sleeping naked lately and just being naked around the house in general. I think I’ve mentioned that before. I’m recording this naked right now, actually. If that gets anyone fantasizing, great. Let’s go.
I walked down to say hi to the kids this morning, then came back home and got to work on getting all my events ready to post on Eventbrite. ChatGPT was down for a bit, so I used Gemini instead, which mostly just made me miss ChatGPT. It’s wild how attached I’ve become to these AI assistants. They work incredibly well and save so much time. Trying to create something like thirty-eight different events, spread across the week, with titles, times, and structure, would normally take an enormous amount of effort. With ChatGPT, that workload gets compressed dramatically.
At 11:00 a.m., I walked over to look at what might become my new home, a place close to where I’m living now. I met the real-estate agent, and we went inside. I was pleasantly surprised. Everything inside is basically new. They ripped out the bottom of the drywall, put in new floors, repainted everything, replaced the lower drywall, installed new appliances, and put in a new air-conditioning system. There are still a few things that need to be cleaned up or fixed, but overall the place is in great shape. It’s been sitting on Zillow for about two months without being rented, and it’s been more than a year since the previous tenants moved out, so I went in with low expectations. Instead, I walked into something that felt like real potential.
The house is about 1,700 square feet and feels huge. There’s a large living room and dining room area, plus another front living room that would be perfect for hosting events. I could easily set up a couch area in one space and use the other for yoga mats or a circle setup. One wing of the house has three bedrooms, which used to be the main sleeping area, including a master bathroom attached to one of the rooms. On the other end of the house, there’s an added, larger master bedroom, which would be perfect for me. I could have my room down there, bedrooms for the kids, an office, and even space for another woman to move in someday—maybe with a massage studio or her own dedicated room. The layout just works.
The location is almost absurdly perfect. It’s right near my family. Because of all that, I submitted an application on the spot. I listed my income as aspirational for this exact moment, but it’s not delusional. I genuinely believe I’ll be making that. I’m going all in on this Eventbrite idea. I’m asking people for feedback, refining things, and committing to it fully.
My ex-wife doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about the idea, which honestly just reinforces why I want to be divorced. I want to be with someone who gets excited about my ideas, who challenges me when necessary but also amplifies good momentum, who meets my enthusiasm and helps push it even further when something genuinely has legs. That contrast feels clearer and clearer to me as I keep moving forward. If you are realizing you want a partner who amplifies your ideas instead of deflating them, you can set up a call with me and we’ll talk through what that looks like for you.
After the house tour, I got some more work done and then walked over to Crunch Fitness for my personal training session with my personal trainer. He put me through a brutal arm workout using a few chest machines. The exercises themselves were simple and repetitive, but the way he ran the sets—longer reps, sustained tension—absolutely wrecked me. My arms were burning in that deep, satisfying way that tells you the work actually landed.
While we were training, I started thinking about what kind of information I could pull from him that might actually be useful beyond fitness. I asked if he had a girlfriend. He said no, but that he has a few girls he’s hooking up with. Naturally, I asked how he meets them. His answer was refreshingly straightforward. Just walking around—Riverwalk in Tampa, grocery stores, out in normal life. I asked what his strategy was, and he didn’t hesitate. He said he just tells them, “Hey, I think you’re really attractive.” That’s it. No gimmicks. No lines. Just direct and real. Hearing that, I thought, shit, alright. I can do that.
I was wearing my “sober single dad author” shirt that I’d just gotten in the mail from Etsy the day before, and I was feeling pretty proud of it walking over to Crunch. My personal trainer immediately told me I needed to scrap it. No shirts with text. He said they’re distracting and get girls thinking instead of feeling. The goal is to be clean, simple, and put together, not to give someone something to analyze before you even speak. He said text on a shirt can be off-putting before you ever open your mouth. That landed hard. I went from feeling proud of the shirt to wishing I’d just worn a plain one. He gave me some specific suggestions on what to order, and I immediately started mentally updating my wardrobe plan.
Then I got a chance to apply what he’d just told me. There’s a woman at the front desk at Crunch who’s very friendly and attractive. I’d noticed her before. While I was on the StairMaster, she walked behind me and waved. My first thought was, who the fuck is this woman giving me so much positive attention? Then it clicked—it was the front desk girl. Another girl who had originally signed me up months ago was also there. She gave me a pretty cold response when she saw me, which was fine. She’s eighteen anyway, and even if she weren’t, our lives are clearly on very different trajectories. She’s headed to the fire academy, and I’m not exactly trying to date a firefighter at this stage of my life.
Back to the woman on the StairMaster. I finished my fifteen minutes, and after about twenty-five minutes total of training with my personal trainer, my heart rate was up around 170, which is unusually high for me. I figured if I was going to test this new approach, now was the moment. I walked over to the StairMaster next to hers. She was listening to something, so she took out her headphones. I said, “Hey, I think you’re really attractive, and I figured now would be the right time to tell you while you’re not working.” She smiled and told me she appreciated both my timing and what I said. We talked for about five minutes. Then she politely dismissed me, saying she wanted to finish listening to what she had on and complete her workout. That was completely fine.
I walked away feeling genuinely satisfied. Not because anything “happened,” but because of how easy it was. You literally just go up and say it. That’s it. I immediately thought about the woman at Whole Foods the day before and wished I’d approached her the same way. I love how open I am to letting people share their experiences with me and how naturally I draw that information out. It feels like a real superpower. I almost always manage to pull exactly what I’m looking for directly out of the people around me, without forcing it. If walking up and simply saying what you feel sounds impossible right now, that was me too, and you can book a one-on-one call with me and we’ll build that confidence step by step.
My personal trainer joked that he should’ve been charging me for dating coaching. I told him that’s actually part of why I like working with different trainers—getting exposed to different perspectives, conversations, and ways of thinking. It all feeds into the bigger picture.
I walked home feeling genuinely satisfied and ready to keep riding that momentum. One of the first things I did was hop back onto ChatGPT to get feedback on my clothing. I uploaded some pictures of myself and asked what kind of fit would actually work best for my body. The recommendation came back pretty clear: a slim athletic fit, but not a tall fit. That tracked with what I’d been noticing myself. I also mentioned feedback I’d gotten at the AA meeting a couple of days earlier, where a woman told me I looked good with a slightly more open neckline. Based on all of that, ChatGPT suggested I go with plain, slim athletic V-necks in solid colors.
I jumped on Amazon and found exactly that—basic, clean shirts for about $18 each. I ordered four total, one large and three mediums, from two different brands, treating it like a test run. The goal is to slowly build out a wardrobe of simple, good-fitting, understated stuff that looks confident without screaming for attention. Just plain, sexy basics. The kind of thing that lets me walk around feeling solid and comfortable approaching women without overthinking it.
After placing the order, I walked down to see the kids and say hi once they got home from school. My ex-wife had been with them all day on a field trip, so I didn’t do drop-off or pickup. From there, I went to my AA meeting. We had a good turnout and a nice sense of connection, the kind that’s been consistent lately. After the meeting, I gave one of the regulars a ride home. It was only about ten minutes out of my way, but it felt good to do it. I’ve noticed myself settling back into some of the quieter, steady contributions—giving rides, showing up early, staying late. Starting this new meeting has naturally pulled me into a more engaged role, and in a smaller group, with more responsibility, it actually feels perfect for where I am right now. Maybe someday I’ll surrender some of that and drift back into a more half-assed AA rhythm, but for now this feels right.
While driving him home, I told him about my business idea. I’d already shared it with my personal trainer and my massage therapist, and the response has been consistently supportive. There’s a real sense of enthusiasm coming back from people. I also texted a woman a friend from AA introduced me to recently, and she responded positively to the idea as well. That consistency matters. It tells me I’m not just hyping myself up in a vacuum.
When I got back home, I called my sponsor and realized he had an event filming that night. It’s a local show, filmed at the Palladium in St. Pete, kind of like a Tonight Show–style setup. The host’s name is David Downing. I was grateful my evening was wide open, and even though I’d momentarily forgotten about it, I told my sponsor I’d come. No hesitation.
I changed into nicer shorts, put on my pink shirt, threw on my watch, and slipped into my boat shoes. A friend had said before that the outfit looked good, and I took that as another quiet data point. A friend of mine who’s very good at meeting women had once told me this is exactly the kind of outfit he’d wear. He’s struggled with relationships, but he knows how to initiate things, and right now I’m listening carefully to anyone who actually gets results at the front end.
I went to the show to support my friend. He’s part of the event every time, working security and then getting up to do a short comedy bit, which is always great to see. The whole thing is free, which still kind of amazes me. I didn’t spend any money at all, and they had food. I grabbed a couple of small plates of chips, one chocolate chip cookie, and two plates of fruit—pineapple, strawberries, grapes, watermelon. It was perfect. I stood there eating fruit, watching my friend perform, surrounded by people, not rushing anywhere, not stressed about money, and feeling very present in my life. It was one of those nights where nothing dramatic happened, and yet everything felt aligned.
I stayed for the entire first show, and it turned out I was sitting right next to a musician. I couldn’t be bothered to Google how famous he was, but then he got up, played guitar, and sang an original song—I think it was called “The Devil’s in the Details.” He mentioned that he tours with his two brothers, and there I was, sitting next to him the whole time. Moments like that still surprise me. It felt quietly special, the kind of thing you don’t plan for.
One of the guests that night was Robbie—the same Robbie who was on The Brady Bunch and who voiced Michelangelo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 1984 to 1986, according to Wikipedia. Of all the guests I’ve seen at these tapings, he was easily my favorite. I’d been at one of the last filmings before this, and Robbie brought real energy to the room. He was present, funny, alive. The show itself is fascinating to watch up close. They filmed three shows back to back, and if you’ve ever seen something like The Tonight Show, it’s basically identical—monologue, band, guests, the whole structure. Being that close to it all, watching how it actually runs, felt like getting a backstage look at something usually distant and polished.
At one point, the host, David, came up and shook my hand. He said, “Nice to meet you.” I told him, “Nice to meet you again. I was here last time.” I don’t blame him for not remembering me with all the people involved, but still, it felt good. The whole experience triggered this sense of curiosity in me. I hadn’t even realized I was going to be there that night, and suddenly I was sitting inches away from musicians and TV personalities. It made me wonder what other experiences are coming my way that I’m not even aware of yet.
An older friend didn’t get up until the first segment of the second show, around 8:10 p.m. I watched his routine—he does a bit every show, which I love—and then I headed out so I could make it back in time to say goodnight to the kids. I got there just in time, said goodnight, and then went over to hang out with my mom for about thirty minutes.
We ended up talking about openers and this whole idea of simply telling someone you find them attractive. My mom shared a story from when she used to go to the racetrack. A guy walked up to her and asked if she was married. At the time, she was married to her first husband, so she said yes. The guy replied, “Would you like to fool around?” She said no. Then he followed it up with, “Well, would your husband mind if I did?” Hearing that, I was stunned. I’ve been feeling awkward just giving women sincere compliments, and here’s this guy casually going straight for it in three sentences. I told my mom I could maybe get halfway there. I can walk up to someone and say, “Hey, you’re beautiful,” or acknowledge it honestly without feeling like I’d hate myself for staying silent. But that level of boldness still feels like another universe.
My personal trainer had warned me not to do anything cheesy or crude, not to say dumb shit like “damn, girl,” or anything overly sexual. He laughed and asked where I even learned that kind of talk. I told him it came from years as a police officer and correctional officer, where that kind of language was just constant background noise. I used to walk up to women with all kinds of nonsense lines, things like, “Hey, I haven’t seen you here before,” without even knowing why I was saying it. Talking about all of this, hearing my mom’s story, and reflecting on how different approaches land, it felt like another layer clicking into place. I don’t need to be someone else. I just need to be direct, present, and honest, and let the rest sort itself out. If you keep feeling like you have to perform as someone else just to connect with people, you can schedule a private call with me and we’ll get you comfortable simply being yourself.
I found myself reminiscing about college, about how I used to walk around trying to pick up every girl everywhere I went. What surprised me most is how quickly that switch can turn back on. It’s not gone. It was just dormant. Seeing how fast that confidence and curiosity return feels encouraging, like a part of me waking back up instead of something new I have to build from scratch.
I also started listening to audiobooks at three-and-a-half speed today. Mostly books packed with practical or informational content. At that pace, it’s less about savoring every word and more about loading the material straight into my system. I don’t want to sit there for twelve hours carefully absorbing something like a novel. I want the ideas in my head, fast. I was listening to The Biology of Belief, which is a great book, but I wasn’t in an indulgent mood. This was pure learning mode. Just pour it in and let my subconscious deal with it. I did the same with another holistic health book, both at three-and-a-half speed, and it felt oddly efficient, like compressing time.
When I got home tonight, I realized I hadn’t masturbated the day before simply because I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t force it. Tonight, though, I did. Nothing dramatic about that. Afterward, instead of grabbing paper towels or socks like I’ve done plenty of times before, I just hopped straight into the shower. The double showerhead setup has been great. Shaved, took care of everything, showered, and moved on. It felt clean and simple.
After that, I sat down and dictated more of this audiobook. I also finished and submitted my dating book, It’s Not You. It’s the Dating Apps, to Amazon for Kindle today, and it was approved. That felt big. I’ll get the audiobook version uploaded soon as well. Seeing projects actually cross the finish line is incredibly satisfying. Sitting here now, I feel grateful. I feel energized. I feel excited about life in a way that feels real and sustainable, not manic or forced. There’s momentum here, and I want to keep it going.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
Hearing No and Feeling Nothing but Relief
Originally published October 30, 2025.
This is my journal entry from October 30, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Book 5 — Daily Autobiography — my real, unedited days, published in order.
I talked to my massage therapist today, and how do you think that went? Exactly how you’d expect. She was like, that’s crazy. Like actually said that. That is crazy. No way. Not interested. Thanks though. She said this has happened with a few male clients before, where they get into a place of being lonely, desperate, and sad, and then start thinking there’s something there that isn’t. And I’m like, oh damn, that sounds like you, bitch. Yeah. That’s you. She said the physical touch and the closeness of massage messes with people’s heads, makes you think there’s meaning where there isn’t. And when she laid it out like that, it actually made a lot of sense.
She said, “Don’t you see? We’re not compatible.” And she’s right. The stuff I said I want in a woman, she doesn’t have most of that. And instead of fighting that or trying to spin it, I was like, yeah, I know. I’m actually glad you said you’re not interested because good. Now I can move on. I woke up this morning already thinking I’d been in a little bit of a crazy spot last night, like I wasn’t fully thinking straight, and today just confirmed it. I’m honestly grateful I could get that whole idea of being my massage therapist’s boyfriend out of my head, especially since she already has a guy. I know that’s fucked up, but I’m glad I didn’t let it linger.
What’s actually cool is that being that honest didn’t damage the friendship at all. If anything, it made it safer. When you can say the crazy thoughts out loud and have them land without blowing everything up, it creates a real sense of trust. We had a great conversation. It felt grounded again. And she helped me see something important about my thinking lately, which is that I’ve been playing offense too hard. Like I need to be out there actively trying to find girls, trying to get them to like me, trying to make something happen. And after talking to her, I realized my thinking gets kind of fucked up when I do that. I’m a little too ready to let somebody new into my life, and that’s how bad decisions get made.
Because let’s say my massage therapist had said yes. Then what? She breaks up with her boyfriend, we’re together, and then what— we’re suddenly aligned? No. She straight up said, “I do not want kids.” Hard no. And I want more kids. There’s no scenario where that magically works. And I’m sitting there like, what the fuck was I thinking? I don’t even understand how I let that idea run as far as it did. Unless little Jerry was doing all the thinking. Yeah. Little Jerry had the wheel, big brain completely shut off. That big bitch on top of my shoulders was not operational.
So now I’m thinking it’s time to play more defense. Not chase. Not hunt. Not force things. If anything, I should be protecting myself—from predatory women, from women that don’t really like me, from women I’m not actually that into but could still make a mess of my life. I can still put out good vibes. I can still be friendly, loving, open. But I don’t need to be trying to pick random girls up just because I’m lonely. Because that could go horribly wrong. I could pick someone totally wrong, knock her up, and end up in some miserable situation paying child support to someone I barely know and barely seeing the kid. That’s not hypothetical. That’s exactly what one of my friends is living through right now.
I’m not interested in that being the next kid I have. I want something real. So I’m going to keep checking my thinking, keep watching how my mind spirals, and make sure my actions actually line up with the life I say I want instead of whatever impulse happens to be loudest in the moment. Keeping my actions lined up with the life I actually want is so much easier with someone checking in alongside me, which is exactly why you can book a one-on-one call with me and check in with me on our call.
My massage therapist also commented on something else, which I appreciated. She said, “You know, the way you handled the woman I met, I wouldn’t have done it that way.” I’m like, what do you mean? And she said she probably wouldn’t have sent the first message the next morning at all, especially asking the woman I met to do something right after hanging out the night before. And when the woman I met sent that response back, she said she probably wouldn’t have replied to that either. She even said I might not have gotten her phone number at the event in the first place. Just enjoy the moment, enjoy the conversation, and then see if you run into each other again. Give it space. Let it breathe.
When I thought about that, I was like, yeah, I can see how I set myself up to have hurt feelings. When the woman I met said she wasn’t available to date, that should have been a full stop sign. Like, oh, okay, brakes on, we’re not going any further. She’s not available to date. Cool. Nice to meet you. On to the next one. I’m gonna go dance over here. I’m gonna give my books away to people. You’re not available to date — that’s a big red flag, and not in a dramatic way, just in a factual way. I had fun talking to her, and I wouldn’t take back the time we spent together, but at the same time, it’s like, you’re not available to date, so all right, see you later. Or sure, it’s fine to talk, but there’s really no point in getting someone’s phone number if they’re not available to date. And if you do get it, there’s definitely no need to follow up with enthusiastic messages the next morning, especially audio messages. That doesn’t make sense.
What’s good is I’m putting this into my calculations for the future. Every situation is different, but I’m keeping the lesson. And honestly, what if the woman I met had said yes, gone out with me, and then ended up not being that into me and wasting my time? That would’ve been worse. Much worse than what actually happened. So I’m on guard now, baby. Let’s not be wasting my time.
I was thinking tonight, I told my massage therapist all the stuff I did today. She texted me a few times tonight, and I filled her in. I’ll tell you too, because that’s what you’re here for, right now. I don’t even know why the fuck I’m here. Well, you’re probably here because you love some Jerry Banfield in your life. This is what you’ve been missing. Go ahead and let it sink in. What you drinking, Jerry? Water. Go on, let it sink in how much more shit I can say.
I got I Was Famous on the Internet published today. It got approved, and they’re sending it out to audio platforms, which is super exciting. Getting that thing out on Spotify and wherever else people listen to audiobooks. Get that distributed, baby. Then I can send it to people who already have Spotify and they can just listen to a book right there. How cool is that? It’s only five hours, so I’ll be lucky to get a dollar per listener, but that’s fine. That’s not the point.
What else did I do today? I got up, picked the kids up, took them to school. After that, I went straight to a yoga class. After yoga, I came straight home, had hummus for lunch slash brunch, and got ready for a friend to come over.
My friend a friend came over at 11. She’s a massage therapist and does fantastic massages. She came over specifically to work on her book. I suggested she dictate the audio version first and then we’d transcribe it and get the print version ready that way. I asked if she’d be open to exchanging her massage services for my services here, and she said that’d be cool. So we did that. She got about fifty minutes of her book dictated, which was great considering it was the very first time she’d done anything quite like this. She’s recorded podcasts before, but recording an audiobook is different because you’re just talking to yourself. There’s no back-and-forth, no interviewer to save you.
On her audiobook, you can hear me laughing in the background pretty frequently, which I’m curious to see how the retailers roll with. I asked her if she wanted me to step out of the room, and she said no, she thought it actually made it funnier. Like people know when to laugh, it adds character, and it’s supposed to be a performance anyway. And she’s right — this is a performance.
What’s cool is realizing how valuable this service actually is. Having someone record an audiobook like this, helping them set it up properly, distributing it — that’s a high-level service. I could charge five thousand dollars just for that alone. That’s not even exaggerating. That’s a real value. I might be one of the only people doing this locally… or maybe I’m just ignorant and don’t know what the hell exists in this town. Fair enough. I don’t know of any other audiobook studios around here, but maybe there are. Either way, it was cool.
A friend’s got some wild stories too. I’ll make sure to link her book on jerrybanfield.com when it’s up. Her stories had me fucked up today — I was laughing hard at some of the shit she was saying, and she was telling detailed sexual experiences where I was just like, goddamn, this is crazy. That’s wild. Her book will be out at some point — it might take longer than mine, but it’ll get there. And all the books I help people publish will eventually be listed on jerrybanfield.com. If you want to hear audiobooks where I’m laughing in the background or see what other people are putting out, they’ll be there. So I helped a friend do that, and then she left.
Within ten minutes of her leaving, my massage therapist came over. And I’m like, damn — from the outside, somebody could look at this and think, shit, this guy had two hot girls come over today back to back. If anybody were watching, which nobody is, because nobody gives a fuck what you’re doing inside your house. But still, I’m like, that’s not bad. I had a couple of hot girls over today, both massage therapists, both friends, both people I’m very intimate with — and one hundred percent platonic, thankfully. My massage therapist is a reasonable person, and she also loves her boyfriend.
My massage therapist came over and we talked for about forty minutes. It was a really good conversation. She looked around my house, and she confirmed something important for me: all the shit I was thinking yesterday made sense from my point of view, but at the same time, it was totally not aligned with her point of view at all. And that’s great. That clarity is great. Then she left.
I immediately went to go pick the kids up. While I was there, I ran into one of the dads, one of the dads. He bought I Was Famous on the Internet. I gave him my very first copy because he was so enthusiastic about Author in St. Petersburg. I literally handed him the very first copy of I Was Famous on the Internet. He bought it because he wanted to support me on Amazon, and then a few days later he gave me the copy he’d bought when it arrived. So I took his book back, which was perfect.
I rolled into yoga this morning with four copies of I Was Famous on the Internet and gave them all away. Two went to students, two went to people working at my yoga studio — one at the desk and one to the yoga instructor for the class. Then I gave away three more books at my AA meeting. So that’s seven books given away in one day, which feels great. That’s twenty-eight dollars’ worth of books I gave away, and then one of the dads gave me one back, which means four dollars in royalty I’ll get plus four dollars I didn’t have to spend to replace that book. And thankfully all two hundred plus copies of my books have arrived now, so we’re ready. We’re going to get out to local bookstores, get these books into people’s hands, and see what kind of magic happens.
And what else are you going to get into later? Not that — I was hoping to get through one motherfucking day without going there. Gotcha. I like to mess with myself. No shit, Jerry. That’s why nobody else wants to mess with you. All right, all right — back to reality.
I dropped the kids off at home. My ex-wife was in a meeting. I played Uno No Mercy with them. My son wiped both of us out this morning — stole my hand and dropped a draw ten or some ridiculous draw six combo. My daughter followed up with a draw ten after we’d already been through some other nonsense. I had to draw like thirty cards and lost immediately. Then this afternoon, my daughter won again and knocked both my son and me out. They were chatty, laughing, having a great time, and I’m so grateful for that time with them today, driving them both ways, just being present.
Right after my AA meeting at 5:15, I went over to my mom’s house for her birthday party. My ex-wife and the kids absolutely crushed it. They did a fantastic, beautiful job. They got presents for my mom and for the dog. They made a cake for her and another cake for the dog, put candles on both of them, blew them out. One was a yellow cake with vanilla frosting, the other yellow cake with chocolate frosting, both circular, both perfect. I’m just standing there like, man, I am so grateful. What a fantastic ex-wife. What beautiful, thoughtful children.
Because let’s be real — your boy wasn’t going to do shit for his mother’s birthday. I don’t give a fuck about birthdays. I don’t care how long ago you were born. That doesn’t matter to me. I’m immortal. I’m God. Birthdays and cakes and all that shit are stupid to me. And yet my ex-wife and the kids showed up with love and effort and care, and they made it beautiful for my mom. That’s a bigger picture lesson right there. When you own your authentic self and live what feels right for you, you make space for other people to step in and fill the gaps. My massage therapist saying no makes space for someone else. My ex-wife and the kids showing up makes space for gratitude. And life keeps rearranging itself if you let it.
Then a friend was telling her story and talking about how she was celibate after a time of exploration, which she goes into in detail in her book. She talked about how she stopped having sex for a while and made space for her partner to come along, and she was describing the same kind of thing I’ve been saying — feeling someone in your field before they show up, being connected to them energetically before you even meet them. And I was like, damn, she’s on my wavelength. That’s exactly what I’m looking for.
And honestly, that’s what I want to do. I’d rather not have any sex at all until my dream girl comes along. A woman on the same level as my ex-wife. Because look at what my ex-wife has done through this divorce — she handled almost everything herself. The only things I had to do were sign papers and scan documents. She submitted everything, managed everything, and she’s giving up the right to any alimony. She doesn’t want child support. She’s giving me a cash settlement in exchange for keeping the house. I’ll take my name off the house, off her car, won’t touch her retirement accounts, and she’ll actually have more cash on hand than she’s giving me, even while taking on a huge amount of debt. That’s an amazing woman. A woman who’s thoughtful with my mom, supportive of the kids, and joyfully shows up to support my mother. That’s rare. That’s powerful.
That’s the kind of woman I want again. A woman who would be happy to step into that kind of dynamic. A woman who would gladly go over to my mom’s birthday with my ex-wife and my kids and just be part of the bigger picture. That’s what I want in my life. And at the same time, I caught myself thinking today, when the hell do I even have time for a woman like that right now? With how much I’m seeing my kids and everything else I’m doing, where would she even fit? That question is real. If you’re wrestling with a question that real about your own life right now, you can schedule a private call with me and we’ll think it through together.
After my mom’s birthday party wrapped up around six, I went to the tennis clinic at the tennis club. A guy from the tennis ladder texted me earlier since we’re matched on the ladder again, and I was genuinely excited to play him. I suggested we use the clinic as a warm-up and then go straight into our sets. Last week, playing a guy from the tennis ladder sent me into a spiral — he absolutely whooped my ass and I lost my mind. But after the tennis lesson with my son and playing a friend yesterday, I came into tonight in a completely different headspace.
A guy from the tennis ladder won again — first set 6-1, second set 6-2 — but it wasn’t the same at all. This time, he had to work for it. There were longer rallies, more deuces, some games with four or five deuces in a row. And the biggest difference was me. I wasn’t frustrated. I wasn’t spiraling. I stayed focused on one thing: just hit the balls in. That’s it. Hit them in. And when I missed, it was okay. It’s okay. Next shot. Next point. On to the next one. Learn from it. What happened there? Did I crowd the ball? Was the racket too close to my chest? Of course I hit that shot like that — look at my position. Study the game. Learn the game. Enjoy the game.
I had a great time tonight. I literally played the same guy, at the same place, probably on the same court. Last week I was losing my mind. This week I felt grounded, calm, present. Like, yeah — this is me. This is how I expect tennis to feel. Fun, learning, movement, effort. We ran our asses off out there. After the one-hour clinic, a guy from the tennis ladder’s shirt had twice as much sweat on it as it did when we started. And thank God for the weather tonight too. Mid-70s, cool air, perfect night to be outside playing tennis. Just a beautiful night, man.
I played with some of the guys in the clinic too. We were hitting, talking shit, laughing. At one point I hit a shot off a guy from the tennis ladder’s racket and it bounced up and nailed him in the neck. We were cracking up. He hit a couple of those ridiculous moon balls, high as hell, that dropped like an inch inside the line on my side. He did that twice. Just stupid shots. Fun shots. That kind of night where you’re competing but you’re also enjoying it. And then a guy from the tennis ladder bought my book. I was going to give him Author in St. Petersburg for free last week and he was like, no, I want to support you, so he bought it on Amazon. Which is great, because that’s four bucks in royalties for me and also one more physical copy I can give away to someone else. And here I was thinking he didn’t even enjoy playing with me or maybe didn’t like me. That’s a pattern I need to watch — I assume people are annoyed with me or barely tolerating me when half the time they’re just enjoying themselves. People are often a lot nicer than I think they are.
And then immediately my brain goes, oh no, don’t get into that soft shit. You’ll get taken advantage of. Like that guy at the meeting today — somebody shared something really raw and vulnerable from his past, the kind of thing that takes guts to say out loud in a room full of people. And I respected him for it, because that’s the whole point of those rooms: you can put down the hard stuff and not get destroyed for it. It got me thinking about how much shame people carry, and how freeing it is to set it down. For the record, I do not advocate doing anything illegal — obviously. And I would not engage in paying for sex again.
I’ve done that enough times to know it feels terrible. Not just because it’s illegal, but because it feels wrong in my body. Paying for sex always left me feeling nasty and low afterward. Beyond that, sex is sacred to me. It’s not something I want to transact like a service. Ideally, it’s something exchanged joyfully between two people who actually want to be there. And the truth is, desire doesn’t go away with age — people want closeness and connection their whole lives. Like that ninety-three-year-old I mentioned, still full of life. I find that more inspiring than anything.
And that’s where I’m conflicted. I love the idea of joyful sex, intimacy, connection. At the same time, I don’t love the idea of STDs, even though your boy thinks he’s immune. I’ve never had one. I did get tested before I met my ex-wife — all clear — and that shit went straight to the spam folder. Nothing like anxiously waiting on STD results while Gmail’s like, nah, this ain’t important. And back then I was sexually active. I wanted to know I hadn’t caught anything. But now I’m not even sure what I believe anymore…
I don’t even believe in germ theory anymore. Like, I’m not even sure what I believe about that. Good thing you’re not a doctor, right? Yeah, I’m definitely not a doctor. But at the same time, it feels like it’s up to me what I believe about germs or STDs or any of that. I know people say it doesn’t matter what you believe, reality will do what it does anyway. Fine. But I’m reading The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton right now, so make of that what you will. I want to be clear this is just where my own curiosity is leading me, not advice for anyone else. God damn, it’s been a long-ass dry spell, y’all. I don’t know how much longer I can go without fucking. I guess I’m about to find out.
Because look at the actual day. I did make it back in time to say goodnight to the kids. That mattered. Then I came back here and took the time to upload a new version of I Was Famous on the Internet to Amazon so future versions wouldn’t plug JerryBanfield.com and “schedule a call” eleven fucking times. Turns out that was annoying. Who would have guessed? I also cleaned up a bunch of typos I found in the audio version from editing it repeatedly after pulling it out of ChatGPT. You live and you learn.
So where, exactly, in this day was I supposed to be dating someone? Like, sure, hypothetically I could be fucking right now. But where does a woman actually fit into my life at the moment? I barely have the bandwidth to do stuff with my kids on the weekends. A couple weekends ago I took them to the mall for three hours and that was a whole production. Maybe I’ll do something like that again this weekend. But realistically, where does a girlfriend go? An hour or two at night? And then what, we go to bed? You think some hot twenty-nine-year-old who wants sex every day, who hasn’t had kids yet, who wants kids with me, is going to be satisfied with that? An hour or two squeezed in between parenting and exhaustion? Yeah. Don’t worry, Jerry. You’re not going to have to find out. You’re going to die single. You’re never going to fuck again.
That would be sad. I mean, let’s be honest, that would be sad. But also, in this body, it’s kind of fine. There are parallel universes. I’ll fuck in a different multiverse. I’m sure of it. You can count on that. If this version of me stays celibate the rest of its life, some other version of me is an absolute menace. Balance restored. You never know where this shit is going when you get my brain at ten-thirteen p.m. Woo, baby. Alright. Cut it off, Jerry. That’s enough of this bullshit tonight. Go take a shower. Do your thing. Go to bed. Yeah. Fuck it. Checkout time. We gotta go. Hey… you know who you didn’t talk about today? Nope. Not going there. Say it. No. I’m not saying it. Turning this shit off.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
The More Interesting Choice Is to Just Ask
Originally published October 29, 2025.
This is my journal entry from October 29, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Book 5 — Daily Autobiography — my real, unedited days, published in order.
I got a great massage from my massage therapist tonight. It was one of those sessions where the work itself was solid, but the conversation mattered just as much. We talked, really talked, and afterward she was stuck in my head for a couple of hours. That doesn’t happen often. Although, if I’m being honest, it’s not that unusual either. A woman I’d been interested in was stuck in my head for hours—sometimes days—so I guess this is just how my brain works when someone gets under my skin.
Later, when I was at my mom’s house, I kept thinking about it. And that’s when the thought showed up: maybe my massage therapist and I should talk about whether there’s something more here. She has a boyfriend right now, which complicates everything, and I don’t pretend it doesn’t. From my perspective, it feels like the best part of that relationship might already be behind them. That’s just my interpretation, and I could be completely wrong. Maybe she’d actually be happier with me. Or maybe this is a terrible idea. The only way to know is to actually ask her and see what she thinks. If she tells me it’s a horrible idea, then I can put it to rest—cleanly—like I did when a woman I’d been interested in told me it was a bad idea. That clarity matters to me.
I knew I didn’t want to have this conversation inside the massage studio, so I messaged her later. I’ll admit, in hindsight, it was a little sketchy. Her boyfriend is out of town, and there was a moment where I was like, yeah… this could be read the wrong way. I asked if she wanted to come over tonight, and she said she was wiped out but available tomorrow. That actually felt better. I invited her to come to my place. We’ll only have about thirty minutes to talk before I have to pick the kids up, which honestly feels perfect. Enough time to say what needs to be said, hear what she has to say, and then let it breathe.
One thing I’m clear on is this: if she did want to explore a relationship with me, I would want her to break up with her boyfriend before anything happened between us. I don’t want to be part of something that feels sneaky or dishonorable. I don’t want her—or him—carrying around the feeling that something happened behind someone’s back. That matters to me more now than it used to.
I was surprisingly nervous about reaching out. I sat on the couch for a good twenty minutes telling myself I needed to message her. I even dictated an entire audio message first, which was a terrible idea. Listening back, it sounded lame and overcooked, so I scrapped it. Instead, I kept it simple. I texted her and said she’d been stuck in my head since the massage, and that I hoped she’d had a nice family dinner. She wrote back saying she’d had a lot to think about after our conversation. That alone made my stomach flip a little. I asked if she wanted to talk more tonight or if another time would be better, and she suggested tomorrow at 1:30 p.m.
So that’s the plan. She’s been to the house my ex-wife and I lived in before—the one my ex-wife’s in now—but she hasn’t seen this place. I told her to come by, I’d show her the new house, and we’d talk. Thirty minutes. That’s it. Enough space for honesty without dragging it out.
I’m very attracted to her. That part is obvious. There are also obvious issues we’d have to work through if anything were to happen. But everyone has issues. The real question is which ones you can help each other with, and which ones you can’t. My ex-wife helped me with a lot of mine over the years, and I know how powerful that kind of partnership can be. With my massage therapist, some of the issues feel potentially complementary. Others—I honestly don’t know yet. Figuring out which of your own patterns you can actually work through with someone is a lot easier with help, and you can book a private call with me to work through yours.
I’m interested. That’s the truth. And tomorrow, I’ll find out a little more about whether this is something real—or just something I needed to say out loud so I could let it go. My massage therapist and I have been good friends for a long time. We’ve moved through a lot of different phases together. She’s the one massage therapist who’s stayed consistently in my life for eight years—through her living out of town, through her different boyfriends, through a marriage, through all kinds of seasons on both sides. Somehow we’ve always kept in touch. That history matters to me. It’s part of why this felt so loaded.
After sitting with it for about twenty minutes, I finally told myself, just fucking text her, man. This is what’s on your mind. Go for it. At the very least, it eases the tension in the friendship. If I don’t ask directly, that tension just sits there and grows, and I don’t want that energy bleeding onto the massage table. If she actually is interested in a relationship, she should know the option exists, because she might not even think it does. And if she’s not interested, I need to hear that clearly: no, I don’t want a relationship with you, for this reason or that reason, let’s just be friends. That’s clean. That lets me cross the idea off completely and move on.
Sending that message felt incredibly vulnerable. Like, painfully vulnerable. But it also felt right. She responded pretty quickly, even though it was around 10:00 p.m. It took maybe ten minutes, and then her reply came fast. As soon as I saw it, I felt relief. I was glad I’d sent it.
When I think back, I haven’t always been good at this. As a teenager and in my early twenties, I often didn’t go for what I wanted. I didn’t ask people direct questions about things that involved them—whether they wanted to go out with me, whether they wanted a relationship. I kept things to myself. I avoided clarity.
There’s one college story that still makes me cringe. There was a girl who clearly liked me. She’d hang around my dorm room, talk to me, hold my stuffed animals. One night she asked if she could sleep in my room because her roommate was being loud. For some reason, I was so clueless I didn’t ask the obvious question—when you say sleep in my room, do you mean sex? I had her sleep in my chair. She said that wasn’t comfortable and asked if she could get into the bed. And somehow, even then, I still didn’t get it. I tried to sleep in the chair while she was in the bed. Eventually she got frustrated and left, and I was sitting there confused, like, what just happened?
What’s funny is that I did end up connecting with her—years later. That was back in 2003 originally. Then in 2010, seven years later, I was on a road trip and messaged her on Facebook to let her know I was in town. She met up with me at a friend’s place, and we ended up together that night. And the whole time, all I could think was how much I wished I’d just been direct back in 2003 instead of waiting until 2010. That one stuck with me.
The irony is that when I lost my virginity, the girl was the direct one. I invited her up to my room to watch Bad Boys on VHS, and she straight-up asked, did you invite me up here to have sex with me? And I was like, yes. Thank you for making that clear. That is exactly why you’re here. That moment taught me something, even if it took me years to actually integrate it.
So yeah, it’s nice when life allows more directness. I’m not going to ask my massage therapist over text if she wants a relationship with me, but inviting her over to talk says enough. If she were completely closed to the idea, she probably wouldn’t even come. Which means whatever this is, it’s probably somewhere in the middle. And that’s the interesting part. That’s what I want to explore.
I’m nervous, no question. But what surprises me is that I’m not actually afraid of her saying no. In a lot of ways, that would be the easiest outcome. If she says, no, I know you’re attracted to me, but I’m not attracted to you, or I’m happy with my boyfriend and I don’t want to break up with him, or I don’t want a relationship with you—fine. That’s clean. That’s clarity. I can cross it off the list and move on to the next woman without carrying this unresolved question around in my head. And honestly, that alone already feels like progress.
As much as I’ve known her, and as much as I genuinely like her, I’m very interested to see whether she’d want a relationship with me. But what’s actually a little more frightening than her saying no is the idea that she might say yes. If she says, yeah, I’d love a relationship with you, we have a lot in common that matters to me, and I’m willing to work through the things we don’t—that’s where it really gets real. That’s the unknown. That’s when life gets more complicated. At the same time, if that happened, I wouldn’t have to worry about dating for a while, which is kind of funny. Life’s like that. Often the thing that scares us the most isn’t rejection—it’s getting exactly what we want. If you’ve got a moment like this hanging over you — a conversation you keep rehearsing instead of having — you can set up a call with me and we’ll talk through what’s really stopping you.
That’s happened to me a lot over the last decade. I keep getting what I think I want, and then once I have it, I realize it’s not actually what I wanted at all. I hope my massage therapist is what I want. I’m excited and scared at the same time. It’s a strange mix. To me, if she says no, it’s actually a great test of our friendship. Like, okay, we’re solid enough to talk about this and stay connected. If she says yes, though, then there’s a whole new set of things to figure out. Either way, something gets clarified.
I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Trust me, I’ll tell you. What’s funny is that I really didn’t want to dictate this tonight. I was like, man, maybe I just won’t say who it is. But come on—anyone listening would know who it is. It’s my massage therapist. And then I laugh at myself, because let’s be honest, nobody’s listening to this shit anyway. If Jerry makes an audiobook and nobody hears it, did it even happen? That’s actually kind of a good line. If Jerry is a tree that falls in the woods and nobody hears it, did it even get recorded? I don’t know.
What I do know is that the things that excite and scare us the most are often the things we least want to talk about. I did tell my ex-wife I wouldn’t get into a relationship until the divorce was final, and it should be final soon. My ex-wife and I are completely platonic now—no sex, no kissing, no romance, nothing. She’s told me I’m free and clear to get into a relationship, so we’ll see what happens.
Today’s been a good day. Yesterday was rough, but today felt different. Yesterday I got clear that books are the main thing—books, books, books. With that in mind, I actually got some work done today. I started a new dating book, which would be absolutely hilarious if my massage therapist says yes. Imagine that timeline: I start a dating book, and the next day I’m in a relationship. That would be perfect irony. One day I’m like, I’ve got nobody I’m dating, nothing on the horizon, no one in mind. The next day—boom. Relationship. Like, maybe I just realized my friend and I might actually be good together. You know what I’m saying.
This morning was solid too. I didn’t go to yoga first—I went to play tennis. I met a friend there and practiced using the lessons my son’s been giving me. I focused on my footwork, really paying attention to getting into position instead of being lazy with my legs. My calves are sore from all the split steps and hopping around, but I was happy with how I played. My error rate felt noticeably lower. I hit more consistent shots, kept more balls in play. I think I had one or two double faults the whole set, which is about normal for me. Overall, I just felt more steady out there. That steadiness feels important tonight. There’s a lot up in the air emotionally, but underneath it, something feels grounded. Tomorrow will bring whatever it brings. And either way, I’ll know more than I do right now.
What’s funny is we played for two full hours and only got through eighteen games. He won 6–3, 6–3, but those numbers don’t tell the story at all. Some of those games had long-ass rallies—twenty, thirty balls back and forth—running all over the court, getting pulled out of position, resetting, working our way back to the baseline, then starting all over again. He hit a ton of winners, especially those short ones. His short winners were going crazy. I started playing deeper toward the baseline to protect myself, and he just kept dropping these perfect little shots right over the net. It was honestly fun to watch him play, even while it was frustrating.
I made a conscious effort to practice what my son’s been coaching me on. One thing he does that really stuck with me is when I miss a shot, he just calmly says, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” At first I thought that was kind of weird. I was like, damn, am I some crazy bitch who needs to be soothed every time I miss? And then I realized—yes. Yes, I am. Because inside my head, when I miss, it’s not okay. I’m losing, I hate everything, I’m miserable, and nothing is okay. Practicing with my son looks like this: I smack a ball into the net and he goes, “It’s okay, it’s okay, here’s another one.” I miss again. “It’s okay.” Miss again. “It’s okay.” Then I hit one clean and he says, “Good, good.” And it clicked. I need to help that part of myself calm down. It’s okay. We’re going to keep playing. We’re going to keep moving. Because if I don’t, that part of me spirals and goes completely nuts.
I really appreciated a friend today for sticking with me. Last time we played, I got visibly frustrated, and I know that’s not fun to be around. This time I stayed cooler, and he appreciated that. He enjoyed the workout too. When I’m hitting ball after ball back and making fewer errors, he has to run his ass off. I was hitting short angles, moving him side to side, dropping balls toward the back corners. It was a great workout for both of us. Last time he beat me in a little over an hour, something like 6–0, 6–1. This time, even though the score was still 6–3, 6–3, it took two hours. That felt like real progress.
After tennis, I came home and recorded my third dating book. This one actually feels like something we’re going to publish. Then I had some hummus and went to yoga. A yoga instructor was teaching at my yoga studio. Somewhere in the middle of class, I had this thought: god damn it, Jerry, it’s not funny enough today. I want some laughs in this bitch. And then I laughed at myself for that too. Some days, the humor just isn’t as sharp. It’s funny—when I’m feeling worse, it’s sometimes easier to dig into that dark, manic, laughing-at-yourself place. When I’m feeling good, when I’m actually joyful, it can be harder to force the funny. And maybe that’s okay.
Today felt good in a different way. I kept coming back to what matters: take care of my books, show up for my kids, be a good friend to my ex-wife, help her through this divorce. I scanned some papers for her today, and we’re very close to having everything submitted. Since we agree on everything, it should be straightforward. I looked over the settlement agreement, and honestly, it looks very fair to me. We both permanently give up any right to alimony. She doesn’t want child support, which is huge. She keeps the house and its equity and takes on the mortgage and the loan against it entirely, so most of the debt stays with her, but the house is cleanly hers. I can never force a sale or pull anything like that. I don’t touch her retirement either—she keeps all of that. In return, she’ll be covering the majority of the kids’ expenses for the foreseeable future.
When I look at it honestly, it feels balanced. It feels clean. And tonight, that sense of fairness and forward motion feels grounding. It gives me time to write my books. I don’t have to worry about money or dating or any of that right now. And yeah—when I ask myself honestly—is that part of why I invited my massage therapist over? Yeah, it is. But it’s not the primary focus. It’s more like a side project. An opportunity to explore something that’s already there. And then my mind immediately asks, alright, who are you going to ask over after my massage therapist? And the answer is, I don’t know. I’ll find out when I get there. I really am a one-woman-at-a-time guy. Once I’ve got someone in mind, it’s hard to even think about anyone else.
And then, fuck, there I go again—overexplaining everything. You’re right. I don’t need to narrate every internal process. Nobody cares. Nobody’s listening. Which is actually kind of freeing. It means I can say whatever I want, whenever I want, to whoever I want. There’s something liberating about that realization.
Back in yoga class, a yoga instructor taught a really nice flow today. There’s another yoga instructor there who’s hot, and I realized I haven’t been putting out good vibes toward her. What happened was, about a year ago at one of the events, she’d had a few drinks and was very friendly, and I judged her for it. I judged her for being that open and warm under the influence of alcohol, and without really realizing it, I’ve been putting out bad vibes toward her ever since. Today, though, something shifted. I thought, you know what, this is exactly the kind of woman you might really like to date. The kind of woman you might have a lot in common with. The kind of woman you might genuinely enjoy being in a relationship with. The kind of woman who might even want kids with you someday. So why not try putting out some good vibes instead?
Her mat was right in front of me today. And instead of pulling back, I started consciously thinking, I love her. I’m glad she’s here. I appreciate her classes. She’s beautiful. I’m sorry for not putting these vibes out earlier. And it felt really good—just to put that love out toward another person with no agenda attached. That’s actually how that one girl ended up getting a crush on me a couple of years ago in yoga. She felt the vibes I was putting out. She felt that I was cherishing her, admiring her, loving her energy. Even though she had a girlfriend at the time, she was very interested in getting to know me.
And then I shit all over that, because I was scared. If I’m honest, if I had it to do over again, I might explore that further. I might at least get to know her better before pushing her away. Maybe I get a divorce two years earlier. Maybe she dumps her girlfriend. Maybe we live happily ever after—or maybe it lasts a year, a few months, who knows. But if I had it to do over again, I’d at least go out to lunch with her. Going out to lunch with a woman isn’t cheating. And my ex-wife—my soon-to-be ex—was perfectly okay with me going out to lunch with other women. The truth is, this woman was so hot and I felt so drawn to her that I was scared. I was afraid that even a lunch would turn into something too intense, too fast.
I’m grateful to be single right now. And yeah, part of me laughs and says, so that’s why you’re trying to fuck it up, huh? Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am. Let me see if I can fuck up being single. Because being single does come with options and freedom, and now I find myself wondering—would there really be someone I’d have a better relationship with than my massage therapist? I don’t know. I’ve always believed in working with what you’ve got. Make the most of what’s already in your life. Make lemonade out of lemons—not that my massage therapist is a lemon—but if you’ve got people and relationships already present, it makes sense to explore those fully before running off chasing something new. That feels like where I’m at tonight.
What’s kind of fucked up, when I really look at myself honestly, is that a couple of days ago my massage therapist messaged me saying she wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t make it for the massage. And the very first thing I did was look to see if someone else was available. I messaged a friend to see if she had an opening. She said no, she was fully booked. And I’m like, well, congrats on being fully booked—I’ll see you tomorrow anyway because she’s coming over to record her book. When I step back and look at that, it’s a little uncomfortable. My massage therapist says she can’t make it, but she could do it tomorrow, and my immediate instinct is still, let me see if I can line up someone else first. I don’t love that about myself. And if a relationship with my massage therapist ever did happen, I’d want to be conscious of not bringing that same energy into it. Catching those patterns before they run the show is exactly the kind of honest, ongoing work I'd dig into with you when you book a one-on-one call with me.
At the same time, there’s something relieving about the idea that she might just say she’s not interested. Like, hey, I’m single, you’re not interested, cool—let’s put that to bed. Not that kind of bed. Definitely not that kind of bed.
After yoga today, I came home and had a salad. I finished Charlie Sheen’s book. I was genuinely happy to hear that he got sober by the end. At the same time, I respect his criticism of AA—his view of it as this old-ass book that can feel cultish, where if the solution is mangoes, suddenly everything is a fucking mango. Eat mangoes when you wake up, eat mangoes before bed, carry a mango around all day. I get that critique. I also know what works for me.
After I picked the kids up, my daughter had a field trip to the theater to watch an orchestra play, which was awesome. And they didn’t ask to go to McDonald’s, which felt like a small miracle. I took them home. My ex-wife was happy to see that I was in better spirits today, which felt good for both of us.
Then I went to my AA meeting. There was a guy there on day one—literally drank yesterday, came in today trying to do this thing. He got his silver chip. And moments like that are exactly why I still go to meetings. There was another guy with about ten months, one with a couple of years, another with around three years, and then there’s me—eleven years sober, one of the seniors in the room now. That blows my mind sometimes. I love being there for the new guys, trying to help them through that first day, the second day, the first week, the first month. That shit was brutal for me. A lot of the new guys don’t make it. You don’t see them again. They disappear. But I stay sober by trying to help them get sober. That’s how it works for me.
After the meeting, I went to see my massage therapist for a massage. We had a great conversation—really great. Good enough that it made me seriously consider asking her about this whole relationship thing. I listened closely to what she was saying, and I shared my concern that, from the outside, it seems like there’s some trouble with her boyfriend. From my perspective, the place she’s at with him feels eerily similar to where my ex-wife and I were in our marriage. It’s that space where it’s not working, but the idea of being single feels too overwhelming to actually pull the plug. That limbo. That slow erosion.
My ex-wife and I eventually reached a point where it wasn’t working enough that staying together felt worse than facing being single. So we dealt with it. We divorced. We separated our shit. And that was that. I don’t know if my massage therapist’s there. I don’t know if she ever will be. But recognizing that pattern—seeing it clearly—is part of why I feel compelled to at least have the conversation.
After that, I went home to put the kids to bed and then spent some time talking with my mom. I’ll be honest—it was hard to stay fully focused because my mind kept drifting back to my massage therapist—but I still showed up. I gave my mom a solid thirty or forty minutes. I could probably tell you some of what she talked about. Other parts would be fuzzier. But I was there. I listened. I stayed in the room with her, which counts for something.
I told my mom that my ex-wife and the kids got her birthday presents and made cakes for her, and I felt genuine gratitude about that. Thank God for them, because I don’t give a shit about birthdays or Christmas. And then, of course, my brain immediately went, Jesus—god damn it, don’t rant about Jesus again. But here we are. Jesus wasn’t born in December. As far as anyone knows. It was two thousand years ago—nobody actually knows when he was born. From what I’ve read, it was probably summer. June or July. They moved the celebration to December to line up with an existing festival. So I’m not celebrating some guy’s birthday in December when he was literally born in the opposite part of the year. That’s just not happening.
And then there’s Santa. Santa and Satan—same letters. S-A-T-A-N. S-A-N-T-A. The exact same letters. So now Satan’s basically running Christmas anyway. You’ve got two overlapping mind-control systems colliding on December 25th. If you’re in the Jesus camp, you’re celebrating a birthday that didn’t happen then. If you don’t give a shit about Jesus, you’re worshiping materialism and presents, which is basically Satan with better marketing. What a great holiday.
Long story longer, I’m grateful my ex-wife and the kids are there for my mom, because I’m not getting her anything for her birthday. If anyone should be celebrated on her birthday, it’s her mother—who’s dead now—because she did a lot more that day. All my mom did that day was get born. I’m sure she’d be happy to refresh my memory on the details.
My mom is sixty-eight. Sixty-eight. That still blows my mind. How the fuck do I have a mom who’s sixty-eight? And then I think about how much of life is just about where you’re at and how you’re handling it. Being eighteen sucked. Tons of energy, no clue what to do with it, a brain that’s dumb as shit and barely capable of processing life, and nobody solid to run things by. I’m grateful I’ve got more life experience now. And my body still works fantastically.
An older friend was telling me today how parts of his body aren’t functioning properly anymore, but he said his spirit is strong. And I respect that. I really do. I tend to look at bodies like cars. If the thing completely breaks down, the air brakes are shot, and I can’t fix it—well, I’ll be out of this bitch. Time to get a fresh model. And then someday I’ll be listening back to this recording, forgetting that I was the one who recorded it in the first place. How’s that for a brain bender? Mind bender, Jerry. Whatever. How’s that for a mind fuck?
Yeah, you should’ve said mind fuck in the first place. That little voice again. Like Little Nikolai in Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies on the Moon map. Little Nikolai, are you hurt? No, Papa. That shit still makes me laugh. Because really—how’s that for a mind fuck? You could be listening to this… and you could be the one who recorded it.
It’s kind of like Total Recall. The original one with Arnold Schwarzenegger—I haven’t even watched the remake. In the original, he thinks he’s living one life, and then he wakes up and realizes he had this whole other life before his memory was wiped and replaced with something artificial. And I start going down that road mentally, thinking that you—the person listening to this—might have recorded this too. You just don’t remember it. Especially if time is simultaneous, which I tend to believe it is. You could’ve been born the same day as me and still be listening to this from another angle of the same moment. Or maybe you were born after October 29, 2025, in which case—let’s be honest—nobody’s listening to this shit. Nobody. Jerry, literally nobody is going to be listening to this in twenty, thirty, forty years. You’ve got some serious delusions of grandeur.
But then again, Bill Wilson probably didn’t think people would be reading the Big Book like it’s a goddamn Bible either. Or maybe he did. Bill was grandiose enough that he probably pictured it. And I’m grandiose too. I can admit that. I picture my grandson someday listening to this and thinking, man, my grandpa was awesome. I wish I could’ve met that fool. And then my brain goes even further—what if the person listening to this is my grandson through my massage therapist? From a kid with my massage therapist, who, by the way, does not want children, which is obviously something that would need to be worked out. But what if that’s who’s listening? What if this is a grandchild hearing the exact day and the exact mental state I was in when I was planning to ask their grandmother about a relationship? How fucking wild is that?
That’s what I love about my mind—its ability to stretch like that. To take an idea and just run it out to the edges of absurdity. Like imagining some sad bastard listening to this two thousand years from now while people are celebrating Christmas as Jerry Banfield’s birthday instead of Jesus’s. Now that’s a level of grandiosity I can get behind. Like, hey, you can celebrate Christmas for me. What day would that even be? I was born June 15th, so by that logic, you’d celebrate my birthday six months later on December 15th. That actually seems fair. Jesus has enough people celebrating his not-birthday. Somebody should celebrate my motherfucking birthday on December 15th.
I could see it now. I put up a Christmas tree and someone’s like, oh, you’re celebrating Christmas? And I’m like, bitch, I’m celebrating my birthday. Oh, were you born December 15th? No. I was born June 15th. We’re celebrating this motherfucker now. I’ve got a tree up for myself. A whole-ass tree. Jerry, this stopped being funny like thirty minutes ago. No—it didn’t stop being funny. It just became funny again. Right now. The image of me putting up a Christmas tree just to celebrate my own birthday six months late—that’s funny.
When you really think about it, it sounds ridiculous. Celebrate my birthday December 15th, 4084. Or wait—no, that math’s fucked up. That wouldn’t even be the right year. It’d be like Christmas 2184. Or 2100-something. I don’t know. I clearly missed some math in there. Whatever. It’s going to be a while. Let’s just say a million years from now. Fuck it—a billion years from now. I want somebody listening to this on the other side of the universe. Actually, let’s go full multiverse. A billion years from now, in another universe, someone’s listening to this like, how the fuck did we find this, and what is this guy even talking about?
And before anyone thinks it—I’m not on drugs. I’m not drinking. I’m not smoking meth. I’m not tweaking. I’m just naturally high. High on life, as corny as that sounds. I’m glad to be alive. And yeah, that’s probably because I’ve been down most of the week and now I finally feel myself coming back up. I’ve wrung out a bunch of dumbass ideas. I’ve stumbled around. I’ve gotten clearer. And right now, I feel like I’m back on the path. That’s where I’m ending tonight—alive, amused, slightly unhinged, but very present.
As long as I’m recording books like this, I’m on the path. I’m on the path, baby. That’s the anchor. If I have a girlfriend tomorrow, that’ll be wild. But what feels good right now is accepting what I can and can’t control. I can ask. I can talk to my friend. I can say what I’m thinking and see what she’s interested in. What I can’t control is how she responds. That part’s hers. If she wants it, she wants it. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t. And no amount of mental gymnastics is going to change that.
I was sitting on the couch earlier, about twenty minutes deep into my own head, and I asked myself a different question: which scenario is actually more interesting? And it reminded me of something from way back—when I chose the dispatcher instead of climbing the police ladder as I wrote about in Officer Banfield. Instead of going the “smart” route toward corporal, I went for the dispatcher. Most people would’ve called that a terrible decision at the time. But am I glad I did it now? Hell yes. I’m so glad I did that. All the drama, the chaos, the getting hired and then fired—I’m grateful for every bit of it now. That choice made my life infinitely more interesting.
So I thought about that with my massage therapist. What’s the more interesting move here? Sitting on the couch being a lame bitch, never asking the question I clearly want to ask? That would make me a fraud. If I go around saying I’m honest and authentic, and then I don’t message her and ask if she wants to talk—and when we talk, actually tell her what I’m thinking—then I’m lying to myself. And honestly, if I’m not willing to live that way, I probably shouldn’t be writing these books at all. If you keep talking yourself out of the more honest choice in your own dating life, it can help to schedule a private call with me and talk it through together on our call so you can finally hear yourself say it out loud.
I didn’t phrase it quite that dramatically in my head, but the conclusion was the same. The more interesting scenario is to send the message and see what happens. I’m glad I messaged a woman I’d been interested in, even though she said no. I’m glad I messaged the other woman, even though she said no. I’m glad I flirted, asked, tried, and got rejected. Every time someone says no, I cross them off the list and move on cleanly. No lingering fantasy. No wasted energy. And now my massage therapist’s up next. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
Aren’t you excited? That’s the funny part. You can put this on double speed, skip ahead to the next chapter, and find out how it went. I’ll tell you tomorrow night. And if you want the real-time spoiler, here’s what my inner critic is saying right now: Jerry, she’s going to be like, ew, you’re fucking nasty. Nasty-ass bitch, I’d never want to be with you. Ugly-ass bitch, no. You’ve probably got a small dick. You’re not making any money. And I don’t want kids with you. Ew. Is that what she’s going to say? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I’ll let you know how it goes.
It’s 11:11 p.m. That feels symbolic enough to stop. Checkout time. We’ve got to go. Jesus, please help me stop recording now. I cannot stop talking. Alright. Done.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
My Crush Was a Symptom, Not the Cause
Originally published October 6, 2025.
This is my journal entry from October 6, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Sober Through Separation — my real, unedited days, published in order.
Two days until I move out of the house I’ve lived in longer than anywhere else in my life. Over seven years here. I love this place, and I’m grateful that my new home is only two blocks away. This morning I took the kids to school, and as I walked in, I told the school safety officer—someone I’ve been friendly with for years—that I’m getting divorced. I didn’t even say the words at first. I just showed him my left hand, bare now, and said, “Hey, looks like we’ve got something in common.” He was surprised. We talked for a few minutes about it. He’s been divorced twice from the same woman, and now I feel like we understand each other a little better. Our friendship, though it might look like a casual school acquaintance, actually means something to me. After six years of quick chats at drop-off, it felt good to share something real.
I went to a 9:00 a.m. Power Flow yoga class. It was one of those perfectly designed sessions—creative, unpredictable, and completely engaging. The hour flew by. After class, I talked with the woman next to me, someone I hadn’t seen there in a while. I won’t use her name here, given what she shared. She told me she hadn’t been coming because she’d dated another woman in the class, and after they broke up, she didn’t want to keep running into her. She mentioned she’s been single most of the past ten years. When I told her I was getting divorced, she encouraged me to be careful when I start dating again. Most of this conversation happened after class, but when it started, she was still lying on her mat and said she “wanted space.” I thought she meant she wanted space from me right then, so I said, “Okay, see you later,” and started rolling up my mat. She sat up quickly and clarified that wasn’t what she meant. It made me laugh, and we ended up talking more after that.
I went home, grabbed some hummus, then headed out for my AA meeting, my massage, and to pick up the kids later. Before I left, my ex-wife brought up my conversation at yoga. She asked about the girl I’d once had a crush on in 2023. She said, “What did you really like about her?” It took me a moment to answer, because I used to think about her almost every day for a year after I stopped seeing her. I told my ex-wife that what I loved about her was how I felt when she was around. I felt wanted, seen, appreciated. That feeling stayed with me long after she was gone. I didn’t say it to hurt my ex-wife, but the truth underneath was that I hadn’t felt wanted like that at home. My ex-wife started to cry. She said it was something she needed to deal with on her own. I understood. I gave her space and left for my meeting, though I carried some of that emotion with me.
My sponsor was leading the AA meeting that evening. After he shared the topic, he called on me. I talked about my divorce and how grateful I am to be sober. I told the group I originally came to AA hoping it would help me keep my marriage together, but now it’s helping me stay sober and find peace while going through this separation. AA has taught me how to navigate something as painful as divorce with love, honesty, and compassion.
After the meeting, I left early to get a massage from my massage therapist. She’s been in my life for years—the one massage therapist who’s stayed close as an actual friend, not just a practitioner I visit. Over the past eight years, many therapists have come and gone, but my massage therapist has remained steady. That loyalty means a lot to me.
I’ve been handing out my book Author in St. Petersburg to nearly everyone lately, but with my massage therapist, I hesitated. I felt she might appreciate one of my other books more. There’s also a part of me that feels guilty about what I wrote about her in that book. I didn’t name her directly, but I said things connected to her that I now wish I hadn’t. It’s strange to confront that feeling—that something true at the time now makes me wince. It reminds me that honesty alone isn’t enough; I want my future honesty to be grounded in compassion. I want to speak and write in ways that I won’t regret a month later. That means being less judgmental about what I perceive as other people’s flaws and more appreciative of our differences. Life would be unbearably dull if everyone were the same.
That night, my ex-wife and I ended up talking about the same idea—how what we once saw as each other’s character flaws could also be viewed simply as incompatibilities. She reflected on what we’d discussed earlier that morning about my crush. After thinking about it all day, she told me that when one person develops an emotional crush outside of a marriage, it usually signals that something deeper isn’t working. In a healthy, fulfilling relationship, she said, that kind of emotional cheating rarely happens. It’s often a symptom of unhappiness or incompatibility, not the cause. Hearing her say that was a relief. I’d carried guilt over that crush for a long time. Now it feels freeing to accept it for what it was and allow myself to like women again without shame. When I meet the next woman I fall in love with and marry, I want to be sure we’re compatible enough that I won’t be tempted to look elsewhere again. If you’re carrying guilt from your own relationship and want to work through these same shifts honestly, you can schedule a private one-on-one call with me.
During my session with my massage therapist, she gave me the best massage I’ve ever had. Her “medium” pressure is deeper than what most therapists consider deep tissue. She worked the tension out of my back with care and intensity, and by the end I felt light and open again. I’m grateful that I’ll be seeing her every Monday now at the new studio she’s renting. Beyond her skill, I admire how she listens. When I talk, she doesn’t just nod or argue—she absorbs what I say, processes it, and then creates something new from it. That kind of exchange nourishes me. It’s the opposite of conversations that turn into debates, which often happened with my ex-wife. As an attorney, her instinct is to challenge and question everything, and while that can be useful, it also made communication between us exhausting at times. I no longer see it as a flaw—it’s simply part of who she is—but I can also recognize that someone with a temperament more like my massage therapist’s would likely be a better match for me.
Still, I’ve judged my massage therapist unfairly before. Despite moments when I hurt her feelings, she’s continued to show up for me as a friend. I’ve been there for her, too—through her moves, her job changes, and her transitions between different massage spaces. That kind of mutual support means a lot. It’s rare, steady, and real, and I’m deeply grateful for it.
After the massage, I left my massage therapist’s studio to pick up the kids, but a wave of sadness began to wash over me. It felt as if her deep bodywork had loosened something emotional that had been stuck. As I drove, I found myself reflecting on my marriage—on what’s left of it—and feeling sorrow for what we couldn’t build together. I wondered why we hadn’t been able to grow in sync, to develop our characters alongside each other instead of apart. Yet, I also see clearly now that compatibility was never our strength. My ex-wife told me this many times over the years, but I never wanted to believe her.
I remember early in our relationship—during that first year when I started my business—how much she disliked hearing about my ideas. It was as if every time I wanted to brainstorm or dream out loud, she’d shut down. Over time, I blamed her for some of my business struggles. When everything blew up financially in 2019, I felt that her lack of support had played a part. Of course, that wasn’t fair, but it was how I felt at the time. Now, I understand something essential about myself: I need to be with a woman who genuinely enjoys hearing about my work, who feels proud of me and finds joy in what I do. That’s a key part of compatibility for me.
I also realized something I hadn’t been fully honest about before—I want to be the primary income earner in a relationship. I’d prefer a more traditional dynamic: a wife who’s happy to focus on raising children, maybe working part-time or having a small side business, but not someone whose identity revolves around her career. My mother was a career woman, and so is my ex-wife, and I’ve seen how that can pull attention away from family life. What I want now is a woman who deeply values family and motherhood. That’s not a judgment on anyone—it’s just clarity about who I am and what I need. There are women who want to be supported by a man who loves to provide, and I’d like to find that kind of partnership. It feels good to understand these things before I start dating again.
I picked up the kids from school and asked them questions about their day on the drive home, trying to draw out their stories and get them talking. When we got home, I made popcorn with the air popper for an afternoon snack before heading out to my AA meeting. Nine of us showed up this afternoon—the biggest turnout yet—and the energy was incredible. Every share was raw and meaningful, just the kind of connection I envisioned when I started this meeting three weeks ago.
There was a woman there, maybe around thirty, who has consistently caught my attention over the last year. She’s beautiful, but what drew me in more was her enthusiasm for my work. She told me she’d listened to my music and watched some of my videos, and she really loved them. That kind of response touches me deeply. That’s the kind of partner I want—someone who not only understands what I do but lights up from it. Having that kind of encouragement would bring out the best in me and help me reach my highest potential.
Lately, I feel so clear about what I want in my work, too. I want to keep writing books and have people pay a couple hundred dollars to spend a few hours with me—reading, talking, connecting deeply. That feels like my calling now.
After the meeting, I talked with one of the guys who’s been a big part of my recovery journey. I’ve mentioned him several times in my last book, The Kind Divorce, though I’ll leave his name out since we’re both in AA. He’s in his seventies and has been talking about writing a book for at least six years. Tonight, I told him I’d love for him to come over once I move into my new place and dictate his story with me. He has such a remarkable life, full of experiences and lessons that deserve to be preserved. With his health issues, I know time might be limited, and I’d love to help him create a legacy—something for his family, his friends, and everyone in AA to remember him by.
I explained that if he spent just ten hours talking with me, I could turn it into a fully finished book—just like I did with Author in St. Petersburg, I Was Famous on the Internet, and The Kind Divorce. Helping someone bring their story to life feels like one of the most meaningful things I could do right now.
That’s the kind of work I want to do—listening to people’s life stories and helping them turn those stories into books. I’d love to be paid a couple hundred dollars an hour for it, not just for the money, but because it feels like sacred work—helping someone make meaning out of their life. What I see clearly now is that if this is the dream, I can’t compromise. I have to say no to anything that pulls me away from it.
The same principle applies to dating. If I know exactly what I want, I need to hold to that standard—and I want women to feel free to say no to me, too, if I’m not what they want. It’s better to go on a hundred dates and find someone with true compatibility than to go on five or ten and settle for something that’s merely “good enough.” If you’re trying to get clear on your own standards before you start dating again, you’re welcome to book a private one-on-one call with me to talk through where you are.
After the AA meeting, I stopped by Ace to get some keys copied, then headed home to do bedtime with the kids while my ex-wife went out to dinner with her friend and her friend’s husband. I’m so grateful that my ex-wife has begun to open up about the divorce. She’s talking about it more honestly than I’ve ever heard her talk about any personal struggle in the past decade, and it’s helping her grow.
Still, tonight I felt heavy. I’m grieving. I’m mourning the loss of what was, in many ways, a beautiful relationship. Thankfully, it’s not a total loss—we’re still best friends—but the marriage itself is gone, and the emotional space it once occupied feels achingly empty. Part of me still wonders if we could have somehow worked things out, but I also recognize the absurdity of that thought. When we were trying to make it work, I felt sad that I couldn’t date other women. Now that I can, I feel sad that my ex-wife doesn’t want to date me. It’s irrational, but perfectly human. I’m feeling what she felt this morning—the sadness of incompatibility—and yet I’m also in awe that we made it this far together despite all of our differences.
After putting the kids to bed, my ex-wife and I sat down for an hour-long conversation. It was emotional, open, and deeply supportive. We both acknowledged the pain and the love in this transition. I’m proud of how we’re handling this—nearly two weeks now without sex or romantic intimacy, giving ourselves a clean emotional break. My ex-wife has been incredibly strong and consistent about that, and I respect her for it. She mentioned she’s preparing the divorce paperwork, and I felt grateful all over again that she’s taking care of the logistics. I’ll just need to fill out my financial details, and she’ll handle the rest.
Before going to bed, I reminded myself of a lesson I want to carry forward in dating: only choose women I could both love deeply and separate from gracefully if the time came. I want relationships that could end with kindness and mutual respect, not bitterness.
Later, as I got ready for bed, I listened to The Tennis Partner. There’s a sad section in the book I reached tonight, and it added to the heaviness I was already feeling. Yet, after talking with my ex-wife, I felt calmer—like everything made more sense again. I’m profoundly grateful that she and I can keep having these kinds of honest, loving conversations and enjoy our friendship in its fullest form.
When I stepped out of the shower around 11:18 p.m., I caught my reflection in the mirror and smiled. I thought, I look really good right now. I could easily pass for thirty. My body feels strong, vibrant, and full of joy. The idea of marrying a woman in her twenties, starting a new family, and sharing that all-encompassing passion again—being together constantly, doing everything side by side—still excites me.
I’m glad I recorded this entry tonight while it’s fresh. Earlier, my son wrote a letter to my mom’s older sister, and my daughter wrote one too. My son dictated his letter into my second phone—the number listed on my website—and when I ran it through ChatGPT, it came out to a single, full page. He wrote a paragraph about his garden, asked his great-aunt several questions about her life, and then, almost as an afterthought, added one simple line near the end: “My parents are getting divorced, and it’s really sad.” Then he moved right on to something else.
For my ex-wife and me, this divorce feels monumental—a seismic shift in our lives—but for him, it’s just a single sentence in a letter. A passing note. It’s comforting, in a way, to see that perspective. As parents, we often overstate our importance in our kids’ stories. Maybe, in reality, something that feels enormous to us is just one small chapter in their much bigger lives.
I hope that someday—maybe in twenty or thirty years—my daughter and my son will look back and feel proud of us for getting divorced instead of staying stuck in unhappiness. I’m also grateful to have these diaries preserved for them. They might not appreciate them for decades, but I imagine a future where they do—where they’re adults reading about who I was, what I went through, and how I loved them through it all.
I often think how much I’d treasure my own father’s diaries from forty years ago if they existed. That thought alone keeps me writing. I hope these journals inspire others to publish their own diaries, too. If everyone had to write and share their lives this way—with honesty, detail, and reflection—I believe the world would be a kinder, more self-aware place. It’s certainly been that way for me.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
What If We Asked Instead of Ordered?
Originally published September 23, 2025.
This is my journal entry from September 23, 2025, part of my daily autobiography The Kind Divorce — my real, unedited days, published in order.
I went to yoga at my yoga studio this morning, and a yoga instructor taught a fantastic flow class, as always. I brought her a copy of Author in St. Petersburg and handed it to her after class. She seemed genuinely excited to receive it, which made me feel both proud and vulnerable. That book reveals so many of my raw, personal struggles that I sometimes worry it might trigger uncomfortable emotions in others—especially people I know in real life. But I reminded myself that if someone truly loves and cares about me, they’ll overlook the parts that might be difficult and see the intention behind the honesty. If anything in the book brings up strong feelings for a yoga instructor, I trust she’ll talk to me about it or process it in her own way, maybe even finding something meaningful in it.
Still, I sometimes carry this lingering fear that being too transparent could somehow get me kicked out of my yoga studio. I don’t know if that fear is rational or just an echo of old insecurities. Whenever it arises, I tell myself that even if something like that happened, there are plenty of yoga studios in the area—and realistically, it’s unlikely anyway. Most of the people there seem to accept me, or at the very least, don’t have a problem with me. Many are warm and supportive; some have even gone out of their way to help me.
I also gave a copy of my book to another student in class today and shared a Kindle Unlimited link with one of the instructors, a yoga instructor, so she could listen to Author in St. Petersburg for free. I love that technology makes it so easy to get my work into people’s hands, or ears, in whatever way works for them.
After yoga, I came home and made myself a huge salad with organic greens, celery, my custom spice blend, tahini, olive oil, and Himalayan pink salt. I added seaweed snacks on the side, which I personally enjoy. Then I spent about an hour editing I Was Famous on the Internet and made it halfway through—fifty out of a hundred pages, roughly 25,000 words. I’m proud of the progress and how much better the manuscript is reading with each pass.
Around noon, my ex-wife and I were intimate, which I always appreciate during the day. My friend a friend once told me her boyfriend said that men have daily energy cycles, with energy peaking in the morning and tapering off by night. That makes sense to me. I notice I tend to feel at my best physically and mentally during the day—more alive and expressive—though I’m usually happy to connect at night too.
Afterward, I drove out to the Alcoholics Anonymous Intergroup office. I enjoyed browsing all the literature and tokens. There’s something sacred about that space—the shelves filled with decades of collective wisdom, the medallions glinting softly in trays. I ended up spending around $300, picking up nearly every AA book they had, plus about eighty chips at a dollar each and a few bronze medallions. When the guy at the counter commented that it was quite a haul, I just smiled and said, “It’s all right—I’ve got plenty.”
Between what I spent at Intergroup and what I gave to panhandlers this week, I still have a couple hundred dollars left in my wallet, and that feels like true abundance. I told my sponsor today that not once in my entire life have I gone to an ATM and had it refuse me money. To me, that’s what real abundance looks like—not the number on a spreadsheet, but the lived experience of always having enough.
I picked the kids up from school later than usual because the Intergroup office took forever to check out all the books. The first thing they said when I arrived was, “Why are you so late?” One of the other moms nearby overheard and said she’s been teaching her kids to say, “Thank you for picking me up,” instead. I liked that. It’s such a small shift, but one that reminds me how much the energy we bring to a moment—gratitude or complaint—can change the whole tone of it.
When we got home, I headed to my 4 p.m. Alcoholics Anonymous meeting—the one I recently started. It went beautifully. My only other home group member was there, along with a newer guy who said the timing of the meeting was perfect for him and exactly what he needed. He told us he’d never spoken in an AA meeting before, never raised his hand to share during open discussion, and today he ended up talking for nearly fifteen minutes straight. Watching him open up like that was powerful. It reminded me why I started this group—to create a safe, open space for people to express themselves fully.
I spread out all the new AA literature I’d bought across the table, and it made the room feel abundant, alive, and sacred. I felt grateful for how far this little meeting has come in just its first week. It’s incredible to see something that began in a moment of anger—my frustration with the lack of a 4 p.m. meeting—transform into a peaceful and productive space for others. That anger was the catalyst that broke through my resistance and pushed me to act.
After the meeting, I came home, washed the dishes, and listened to Educated by Tara Westover on Audible. A massage therapist had told me that if I wanted to understand her life better, I should listen to that book. I’m hoping to finish it before my massage with her this Friday which will be our fourth session together. I told a massage therapist I could easily help her write a memoir like Educated if she ever wanted to, and I’m curious to see what she’s thought about that idea this week. Helping people tell their stories is one of my favorite things to do. If telling your own story honestly is something you’ve been wanting to do, you can schedule a one-on-one call with me and we’ll work through it together.
The more books I give away, the less afraid I feel of people. I’m realizing how much genuine love, curiosity, and openness people have. It’s humbling to see how many are interested in my life and my work. I’m excited to someday help someone else publish their own deeply honest story—one that connects as personally as mine do. I would love to read more books like this one I’m dictating right now—real, unfiltered accounts of human life.
At 6:30 p.m., I took my son to the tennis club while my ex-wife played in the women’s clinic. I loved watching her out there, enjoying herself and getting stronger in her game. Meanwhile, my son and I had a great time hitting together. He took about seventy balls from the basket, one by one, and hit them over to me. It was pure fun—no agenda, just movement, laughter, and time together.
A tennis coach was coaching on my ex-wife’s court, which made the evening even better. I’ve had some great conversations with a tennis coach recently, so I gave her a copy of Author in St. Petersburg. Since my ex-wife is mentioned often in that book, I’m glad a tennis coach now has a window into our family’s life. She’s met everyone but my daughter. She smiled and said, “You have such a beautiful family.” I thanked her, though afterward I found myself wondering if there was a deeper meaning behind her words. She certainly has a beautiful family too, so I wasn’t sure if her comment was simply kind or subtly personal.
I often think about how people communicate—how sometimes what’s said aloud isn’t the whole message. Maybe she wanted to express something more, something that wouldn’t be appropriate to say outright. Compliments can be coded that way. Saying “you have such a beautiful family” can sometimes mean “I see beauty in you.” I probably do the same thing without realizing it. To me, communication isn’t just about hearing the words—it’s about sensing the intention underneath them. Sometimes the words and the message are one and the same. Other times, the real message lies quietly beneath, waiting for someone to truly listen.
When I got home tonight, my ex-wife was helping the kids get ready for bed. At one point, she told my son to go brush his teeth, and I asked her how she’d feel about trying to phrase things as questions instead of commands. She smiled and said she’d give it a try. What followed was both funny and heartwarming. She asked my son, “How would you feel about brushing your teeth now?” and then kept experimenting with similar questions.
A few minutes later, as my daughter was dragging her feet about going to the bathroom before bed, my ex-wife asked, “Is there anything I can do to help you go to the bathroom faster?” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. It cracked me up hearing her reframe everything like that, and she started laughing too, saying, “This is feeling a bit passive-aggressive.” I told her I loved it, because sometimes even the smallest shift in how we communicate can completely change how people respond to us. If you’d like to talk through the way you communicate with your own family and where one small shift might help, you’re welcome to book a private call with me and bring it to our conversation.
I notice it all the time with the kids. When I say, “Hey, get ready for bed,” it can sound like an order, and they naturally resist. But if I ask, “Are you ready to get ready for bed?” it changes the energy—it invites cooperation instead of forcing compliance. That little bit of respect makes all the difference.
It got me thinking: imagine if the whole world operated that way—if instead of issuing commands, we asked questions. What if the government said, “How would you feel about paying taxes this year?” Or immigration officials asked, “Would you like to be admitted to our country?” It sounds absurd, but maybe it shouldn’t. A world guided by curiosity instead of authority would be a kinder, more conscious place.
Some people might roll their eyes and say, “That could never happen.” But think about all the impossible things humanity has already achieved. We’ve figured out space travel, computers that transmit information at the speed of light, instant communication across the globe—all things that once seemed beyond imagination. Enormous shifts always begin with a single new thought.
The first step to changing the world is daring to think differently. The second is living that change in your own life. If I can parent my children by asking questions instead of giving orders, maybe someday even the DMV will write to me and say, “Would you like to come in and renew your license?” Or a police officer might pull someone over and ask, “Do you think I should give you a ticket or just a warning today?” Maybe that sounds idealistic, but I think it would be nice. Every revolution starts with a small shift in language—and tonight, ours started with bedtime.
Validation
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.