Dating Is What You Make of It — and It Is Worth Your Time
I've went out with at least 20 women in 2026, and I'm going to share the key things I've learned here that I hope will help you in dating. I'm going to give you the number one most important thing right up front: dating is what you make of it, and it is worth your time. One of the main things I've gotten talking to women especially is that they don't think dating is worth their time. For example, I just talked to a woman last night, and she said she was putting in so much effort with this guy. She flew across the country to see him. It ended up being a horrible trip, and she would have been better off hanging out with her girlfriends. And I said, yes, but you're looking short term versus long term. In the short term, yes, you could have avoided that pain, saved some money, and had a great time with your girlfriends. But in the long term, the best thing you could possibly put your time and energy into is dating, because there's nothing else. There's nothing else you're going to do in your life that's going to mean more, develop deeper love, and have the chance for family, kids, or just a really long, deep partnership with someone.
For example, my mom was an officer in the military, had an amazing career, had me and my brother, dated a bunch of guys, and then she met my dad. Then she was with him over 30 years, and he passed away, and she hasn't dated anybody since. And yes, my brother and I are a big part of her life still, but she misses my dad all the time. Her relationship with my dad was one of the top three relationships in her entire life, and that was also the relationship that gave her me and my brother. You could argue that by far the most important relationship my mother had in her entire life was with my father, because my father led to me and my brother. Without my father, there are no children. Him dying was one of the hardest things my mother's ever been through, and yet when she talks about her life, it's very often about my father. That's the thing that's hard with dating. In the short term, it often is humiliation and pressure and scary and annoying and confusing, and it can look like it's all failure. But in the long term — when you get to the end of your life and look back — dating is one of the most important things you could have put time and energy into.
Dating Shows You Who You Really Are
If you've learned anything in dating, it should be that dating gives you a chance to really get to know yourself and to get stronger. Dating is one of, if not the hardest thing I do in my life, because I can get away with being a weak man. I can get away with losing control of my emotions. I can get away with so much just doing YouTube videos, parenting my kids, and surviving. But dating really brings out the depth of my character, for better and worse. It helps me get to know myself better than anything else does. And dating gives me a chance to experience a unique kind of joy and pleasure that I'm just not going to get anywhere else.
I was talking to a woman on the phone — that same woman last night — and she said, if we date, I don't want to give up time with my girlfriends. I don't want to just get lost in my life with a man and miss out on what I'm doing right now. This really goes with the video I made recently called "your single life sucks, you're just used to it." I remember dating in college, we always used to joke about how men and relationships with men are more important than women. But look at the long term. My relationships with my guy friends in college hardly mattered that much. Yes, I still talk to some of them once a week. They're still great friends. I still love them. But I didn't get to have any kids with them, and it is very easy for us to get separated.
Dating gives you somebody that's a ride or die, because in my experience your girlfriends and your guy friends are almost never going to be a ride or die for you — where they're going to move if you need to move for your job. Almost never. If you need to take a job in another part of the country, is one of your best friends going to move to be a ride or die for you? But through dating, you can find a husband or a wife who is a ride or die person with the potential to stick with you through everything. Almost none of your guy friends or girlfriends are going to come take care of you if you're sick or if you've injured yourself. But somebody you're dating has a lot higher probability of doing that. Plus, you're generally not going to be sleeping with your guy friends or your girlfriends, and sex is such a unique, joyful thing that you generally only get to do in a dating environment. That's why I love dating. I love the relationship context. Sex is one of the greatest physical joys and experiences of pleasure and connection — a felt sense that you're a part of something bigger and you're not all alone. It's one of the greatest joys out there, and it is worth giving up a lot of the other things that aren't as fun to make time for it. I'm grateful I know that.
Why I Date Many Women at Once
The problem with dating and knowing that, though, is I've learned I just have to date as many women as I can until I have one that's very emotionally invested in me, so that her level of investment matches what I'm capable of giving. I've found that if I try to date one woman at a time, I know how much joy I can have in a relationship, so I'm ready for it. But most of the women I've dated — especially the ones who have been single and not had long-term relationships for most of their lives — are just so locked into their single lives that you've got to really take your time. And I can take my time with several different women at once. But it is agonizing to take my time with one woman as she barely has any availability for me all week. That doesn't work for me. I can deal with 10 women who may each be available once a week, and then I could have several dates on the weekend with all of them. That, combined, is essentially the level of attention I will have to give in a relationship. I just need to date a whole bunch of these women who all need to take it slow at once. One of the biggest mistakes I made all year was too quickly cutting off my other options.
People Often Say the Opposite of What's True
Another big lesson I've learned is that people — not just men and women, but people — often say the opposite of what's true. For example, a woman told me she really wanted to take things slow, and she wanted a man who was authentic and really valued communication and didn't want to play games. My experience with her was that she did not want to take things slow. She was ready, within a week of meeting me, to start getting physical. And she did not appreciate the authentic showing up of me. She essentially would have appreciated me playing games much more. Now, she doesn't view it as games. But from my point of view, if I have to modify what would be my authentic loving behavior, then it's playing a game to me. For example, my authentic loving behavior is to show up consistently, which often women say they want. And I'm not making this a blanket thing about women, because often men are very bad about saying what we want too. I have gotten into the trap with women of trying to say what I think they want to hear, and I've learned: don't do that.
For example, I told a woman I was dating that I'd be willing to be patient. But I'm not, if I'm dating one woman. If I'm dating one woman, we need to constantly be escalating and moving forward, and I want some attention. If I'm dating several different women, I'm not that attached to what's going on with any one of them. And it depends on what kind of experience you want with me. If you want me to be patient, great — I will deal with several women all wanting me to be patient, and then whoever's in the mood to see me and have the best time, I will focus on her. And it may change each day.
Attraction, Push-Pull, and Holding My Ground
For example, in that same conversation last night, I described how I've found that attraction and building a long-term relationship are often in tension, because attraction says that between two people, a bit more unpredictability and anticipation is going to be more fun and build more attraction — especially for a woman. I think a lot of guys can just be attracted. I'm very easily attracted. You don't need to do push-pull games and fake stuff with me to try to get my emotions going. If you're beautiful and you're intelligent and you seem to have a sweet, kind heart and give me attention, that's it. And I just want that every day. I don't need any kind of games or push-pull mechanics or any of that other stuff. But it seems most of the women I've met do need those mechanics, do need me to be a little bit avoidant. Women will say they don't want a guy who plays games, but in my experience, if a guy doesn't play, then they're not going to be that interested. And yet I'm looking for an exception. I've not found an exception yet so far this year. Out of all the women I've talked to, most seem to operate the same basic way, where I've learned you need to constantly be building attraction and anticipation. From my point of view, it's playing games, because what feels authentic to me is to show up and consistently love — every morning, send a text: good morning, how are you doing — to be there all the time, and if you're busy, I'm going to be there all day because I'm working anyway.
Some women I talk to, if I bring that up, say, "I'm different. I don't want that. Especially at my age — mid to late 30s — I don't want that. I did that in my 20s and I don't want that." And I used to believe that. Now, by default, I don't believe it unless I see some evidence of it, because what I've seen is that you need those push-pull mechanics. You need it to be unpredictable, especially as a man. And I need to hold my ground as a man too. If a woman says something I don't agree with — and I'm not trying to have an argument constantly — but for example, a woman on a date recently told me that she thinks the honeymoon period is only a few months. I stopped her right there.
The Honeymoon Period Is Not Just a Few Months
I said, that's ridiculous — I had years and years with my ex-wife of a honeymoon period that were awesome, where we had so much fun. We were just out doing stuff and going on dates and having sex every day and just madly in love with each other and loving our lives. That's a honeymoon phase. If you haven't experienced that before, it's reasonable that you think it only lasts a few months — but I have, so I know that's not true. The woman I was talking to said, oh, well, I guess I haven't experienced that before. Maybe you're right.
Persistence Passes the Test
In my experience, women generally want a man who's going to demonstrate strength and pass her tests. I didn't realize, in dating many of these women, that lots of the resistance they were offering was exactly that — no woman all year told me to stop talking to her or anything like that. But I often very quickly would give up on a woman as soon as she gave even a little resistance. Like, "Hey, are you free?" "Oh, no, I'm busy." I'd think, well, I guess she's not interested, and give up. I have not persisted. Many of the women I've talked to find persistence to be one of the most attractive qualities in a man — to where she says no five times, and then the sixth time you ask if she's free, if she wants to go out, she actually says yes. I'm applying that more now. I was also way too sensitive: if a woman didn't reply to my text, I'd just figure it was over, that she wasn't that interested. And sometimes they're not interested.
But I also noticed this — and men certainly go up and down too; I'm sharing what I've observed going out with at least 20 women this year — often, women are much more hot and cold than I am. I'm pretty consistent with my temperature. Women often will be very hot or very cold. I'll message one day, no response. I'll message a few days later, very warm, enthusiastic response. From my point of view, I get it, but that's not how I normally live. I'm normally warm or I'm normally cool. There's not as much of this wide variation — the women in my phone would generally get about the same response texting me today as they'd get texting me yesterday or tomorrow. But I've noticed timing is huge. Sometimes maybe a woman's distracted with another guy, or she's upset about work, and I text her that day. She's overwhelmed and not in a space to receive something joyful or fun, so she doesn't respond to my message. But a couple of days later, I try again, and that day she is interested. She is ready to meet up or go out.
Flaking, Double-Booking, and Never Canceling First
I've also noticed flaking is surprisingly common, and I used to take it more personally when it happened last minute. Now I've gotten even a bit of a negative attitude about it. I will sometimes offer to have a date at a time I already know I'm doing something else, because I figure she's going to cancel anyway. And I don't usually even have to reschedule — I just throw things out there that I'm not actually planning to be available for, and then they cancel on it anyway. I'm probably going to wind up in a situation at some point where I double-book — I'm willing to double-book two women for the exact same time slot. Then if one flakes, I've still got a date. If they both flake, oh well. To me, it's less likely that they'll both actually say yes, and if they do, then I'll have to cancel on one of them. And I've noticed, for me, I hate canceling on dates. I canceled on one date to try to focus on dating this other woman, and that was such a mistake.
No More Offering Exclusivity First
I am never again going to offer to be a woman's boyfriend, or to be exclusive, or to not date other women. They will have to offer that first. There's no reason I should stop dating other women when I like dating women so much. I was married and with my ex 15 years — 13 years married, two years dating exclusively. So there's no reason for me to ever say no to dating other women and to depend on one woman, until one woman makes it very clear that she wants to be my girlfriend. And then I have a reality check: look, if you want to be my girlfriend, I expect you to fill the space that I have to offer. I expect consistent attention. I don't want to do weird push-pull mechanics. And if you need space — that's breaking up, and I'm going back to dating other women. You don't get to just take space from me. You've got me, and I'm here, and I show up. But if you don't make the relationship good on your end, I'm going back to dating other women right away. Maybe I won't say it quite like that. But I've been way too eager to get into a relationship, and I'm glad I haven't gotten into one.
I Was Too Insensitive to Red Flags
Because right now, I've noticed I didn't vet the women enough that I went out with. I was way too insensitive to red flags. So many women that I've went out with, so many red flags. Like: you've never had a long-term relationship over a year in your entire life, and you're only a few years younger than me? To me, that's a big red flag that this woman has no experience truly being a teammate with someone. That she's likely a lone wolf. That she's too independent to be a cooperative partner. And in that scenario, that's not a woman you'd want to invest everything in until she demonstrates that she can be a teammate and accept help and work together, and not just be all about herself.
Want to Talk About Your Dating Life?
These are the main lessons I've learned in dating this year. If you want to talk with me, I'm available on my website, and it's super easy. I have my lifetime chat — just launch this lifetime access, you can get in, and I'm there every day.
Often the help men need is different from the help women need, and I've worked with both. Whatever side you're on, the patterns I've shared here — persistence, timing, red flags, keeping your options open — apply, and talking them through with someone who has lived them makes a big difference.
If you want some more serious help, you can work with me for one month, with four hours of Zoom calls and text messaging support. I'm available to help men and women. For women, one of the easiest things — if you just want to get dates using dating apps — is that you need somebody to help you use these dating apps. You really need a man to go through and use these dating apps for you and just set the dates up for you. Then you just meet the guys in person: you tell me what you want, I'll get you the dates, and then you decide in person if you like them or not. Women often struggle to figure out what kind of man they're actually going to like based on a dating app. Whereas men often need to work on confidence, mindset, cold approaching, getting your stuff together, and meeting women in real life.
Real life is the opposite of a dating app. In real life, everything is in my favor as a man to approach a woman, get a phone number, and set up a date. I meet so many single women all the time, and then I just ask them out. I take phone numbers of the ones that are interested, and then I keep pursuing until they either say "stop talking to me" — which nobody said — or until they don't respond to maybe five-plus messages, or we actually go somewhere and I decide I don't like them. That's happened a few times this year, to be sure.
If you read all of this, I have six YouTube channels, and you may also enjoy watching the Jerry Banfield Show, which has all my vlogs on it, where I talk a lot more about dating in terms of stories — you can find those in my Dating playlist. Videos like "winning the dating game starting to scare me" — you might really enjoy that — and "I asked out 15 women in three weeks, I'm finally going on a date."
I hope to see you again soon on jerrybanfield.com.