This is my journal entry from October 27, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Book 5 — Daily Autobiography — my real, unedited days, published in order.
What a day in the shitter—at least for the first half of it. I woke up already sad, still carrying the feeling from two nights ago when I got a couple of small hours talking to a girl and then had to face the fact that she doesn’t like me back. That quiet letdown lingered into the morning. I picked the kids up, took them to school, and headed to yoga with my spirit already cracked and dragging. I kept telling myself it was fine, because that’s my default, but it wasn’t. I put my mat down in the front left, second row, trying to ground myself and do the thing that’s supposed to help me reset.
Then the woman from yoga shows up. She lays her mat down in the third row. I barely notice her before class starts, but of course I notice her. I know she’s there, and I already know what I’m not going to do: I’m not saying anything to her. Fuck that. I grab my mat and blocks and bolt. A yoga instructor says, “Hey, hey, don’t get up too fast,” but I’m already gone. I’m out. She didn’t say anything to me when she came in, tried to stay hidden, didn’t show up to class before, and now suddenly she’s here. Fine. I throw my yoga mat in the trunk and immediately call myself out. You’re a petty bitch. That’s what you are. You could have been nice. You could have said good morning. Instead, you’re choosing to be petty, and you know it. And then I justify it anyway: fuck it, I’m going to be petty this morning. Fair is fair, right? She didn’t show up, now she’s here, and she doesn’t even want me to see her. Fine.
That’s when it lands how lame I’ve become. I see it clearly for a second. I realize I need to get back on the dating apps. I fucking suck right now. I feel desperate and sad, and any girl who smiles at me or talks to me for two seconds, my brain jumps straight to, oh, marry me. Oh, fuck. That’s not good. So I tell myself I need to get back into the apps—not because I want to, but because I have to. I just need to use them better, not be such a crackhead about it. Do my swipes and get out instead of spiraling.
So I open my mind and get back on the apps, and one profile immediately delivers something wild — a woman whose profile basically announces she’s a freak and wants a partner who’s open to all kinds of things. I’m sitting there processing it, a little out of my depth, and then catching myself: who am I to judge what someone’s into? I’ve always thought people are way more varied in their desires than they admit. Then I start trying to be funny about it, because every profile says she wants a guy who’s funny, and I’m like, I’m fucking funny, listen to this shit, this is funny.
Then I shut myself down again. No, Jerry, this isn’t funny. This is just you being a lame asshole. And then I laugh at how my brain runs off the rails the second I let it.
That’s when I realize these journals are actually helping. I’m not censoring myself here. I’m just being honest. If people don’t like it, then fuck them. This is me telling the truth about my day as it actually runs through my head, not some cleaned-up, respectable version. I’m not going to sanitize it or pretend it’s something it’s not. This is just me, rationalizing and spiraling like I do every day, fully aware that some people are going to leave a one-star review and say it’s too much, ew, I’m out of here. Fine. Suck it.
After yoga and fully realizing what a petty bitch I’d been, I go home and feel… oddly satisfied. There’s a little hit of vindication in it. I’m like, yeah, that’s right. You had too much of me. Fine. You don’t get any of me today. Now we’ll see if she’s there tomorrow. I sit with that for a moment, then go straight into stuffing my face with hummus and carrots and celery and whatever else I can find, because I’m a plant-based bitch. I think about those dating profiles where the very first photo is some goddamn steak, and I’m like, yeah, me and this woman are not about to date right now. We’re not aligned. I head off to my AA meeting after that. My sponsor’s there. Nobody calls on me, which feels intentional, like they can all see exactly what kind of sad, petty bitch I am this morning. I imagine what it would sound like if they did call on me: yeah, I met the woman I met, talked to her for two hours, fell in love, she doesn’t want to talk to me back, my marriage fucked my whole life, thanks for listening. So yeah, nobody calls on me, and honestly, that’s probably for the best.
Then my massage therapist texts me and says she had a fucked-up night, isn’t feeling well, and can’t do the massage. I’m like, bitch, it’s thirty minutes before we’re supposed to meet. I’ve got no time to arrange a substitute. I still text a friend just in case—hey, you got anything?—and she’s like, no. My massage therapist says she can see me tomorrow, and I’m like, fuck, I hope you’re actually there. So no massage today. I go home instead and install Hinge. I’m officially back on the apps. I even ask ChatGPT to go over my dating profile, and honestly, it does a good job. I realize Hinge lets you sort by women who are online today, which feels like a small mercy. At least I’m not wasting time on dead prompts and abandoned profiles.
The best part is this one prompt. Hinge asks, “Dating me is like…” and I screenshot my whole profile, dump it into ChatGPT, and let it go to work. It knows a lot about me at this point from all my audiobooks, so it spits out: Dating me is like yoga—sometimes intense, sometimes silly, always worth staying for savasana. I laugh out loud the first time I read it. I’m like, shit, that’s actually good. That’s funny. So I swipe on all these women today. Want to guess how many matches I get? Zero. It’s fine, though. I swipe left on a lot too. I know I have a real preference for someone who shares my active, health-focused lifestyle — I live on a plant-based diet, I do yoga and tennis every day, and I used to weigh 250 pounds myself, so I know firsthand how much that lifestyle matters to me. That’s just honestly what I’m looking for in a partner.
It’s a little sad, too, because you can tell some people are presenting a version of themselves that isn’t quite current — the first photo is the most flattering and the rest tell a different story. I notice it and judge it, and then I catch myself doing it, which is its own thing to sit with.
And then my brain spins off into some ridiculous business idea about coaching people on the stuff that’s worked for me — a whole plant-based diet, The Body Keeps the Score, that kind of thing — and I immediately laugh at how that would never fly as a dating-app opener. Still, not bad brainstorming for a guy who isn’t making much right now, living off his soon-to-be ex-wife, writing books, and trying to figure himself out on dating apps. This really is good material, though, right? See, I am funny. Listen to how much I’m making myself laugh right now.
I have this moment where I wonder how well this is even going to transcribe, but then I’m like, ChatGPT can figure that shit out. Do what you’re told, bitch. Take out all the fucked-up stuff I said and turn this into a nice politically correct book so it doesn’t sound like I’m insane. Which is hilarious, because that’s exactly the opposite of what I want. This is me, uncensored. This is the real material.
Later, after I pick the kids up from school, I go to my AA meeting. I tell my ex-wife straight up what a sad, petty bitch I’ve been today. Right when I pick the kids up, they ask to go to McDonald’s. I’m like, no. Fuck McDonald’s. I’m tired of McDonald’s. We’re not going. And they get pissy and start ripping on me, and I finally snap a little and say, listen, I’m already in the shitter today. You don’t need to pile on right now. I’ve already had a shitty day. And weirdly enough, the whole thing turns around when I tell them about how petty I was with the woman from yoga at yoga that morning. I even think for a second, what are the odds the woman from yoga ever listens to this? Like zero, right? Maybe one percent. Whatever. This is just what it looks like from my point of view. Just show up when you say you’re going to come to a yoga class. Don’t try to sneak off from me. If you’re done, just tell me to my face. Say, listen, you’re too old, get away from me, or whatever. No one would actually say that, because I don’t look old in person. Maybe the four and the one on my profile scare some people off. But still—you can’t handle it. You can’t handle the truth. Every day, that’s what this is.
For a second I think this should be a podcast. Then I shut that down immediately. Fuck podcasts. I’m not doing that anymore.
So I go to my AA meeting after my ex-wife basically confirms, without saying it directly, that she was absolutely right to divorce me. Yep. Good call. You nailed that one. At the meeting, I bring up emotional sobriety as the topic. I tell them, look, to me, emotional sobriety is the actual goal of this whole program. It’s not about becoming some flatlined, dead zombie who doesn’t feel anything. Emotional sobriety, to me, is being able to feel the full range of emotions and not completely lose my mind when they show up. Saying that out loud feels good. That’s when my day really starts to turn around.
I share in that room the same way I’m sharing here—maybe with slightly fewer of the crudest comments, but honestly not by much. Plenty of swearing. Plenty of honesty. Talking about what I’ve been doing, what I’ve been thinking, and where I’m at. And it works. It actually works.
And the day really did start to turn around. I find myself thinking, you know what, I’m actually proud that I can feel this much. I think back to Saturday—two days ago—and how high I was then. I remember how I sounded, euphoric, riding that wave, telling myself, oh my God, I’m going to find the hottest twenty-nine-year-old, have some kids with her, and that’s going to be really good. Then Sunday shows up and corrects the story. No, you’re not. Not that one, at least. Maybe another one. Maybe that one later. Who knows. Maybe she’ll see me at the next ecstatic dance, realize she was totally wrong not to date me, feel deeply sorry, and suddenly need me immediately and want me every day. That’s possible. I’m not saying it’s probable, but because I just said it, there’s some universe where that’s exactly how it plays out.
Either way, the AA meeting is genuinely therapeutic. I keep coming back to this idea that emotional sobriety is being able to handle life without acting insane or becoming a pain in the ass to everyone around you. That lands for me. I feel proud of that. After the meeting, there’s a girl there—she’s hot—but we’re not compatible. A friend already tried dating her and it turned into a disaster, so that’s a hard no. She’s nice, she’s a friend, and she’s been very supportive of my work. I’m not mentioning her by name because she might actually listen to this. If it’s you, you’ll know it’s you. And if it’s not you—which is pretty much everyone—you’ll know it’s not you. She was going through her own obsession with dating a guy, and I find myself thinking how similar our situations really are. We’re not on different sides of this. We’re in the same adventure, the same mess. It doesn’t matter whether someone’s genitals are different from yours or not—you’re operating in the same basic emotional environment.
After that, I have a tennis lesson with the new coach, and it’s great. He helps me see that I’m doing a lot of things right, while also pointing out where I need to improve. I need to stay more on my toes, pay closer attention to where my legs are going, and set myself up for easier shots instead of getting lazy and just standing there whacking at the ball without giving it real attention. That clicks, and it connects to something I’d been thinking about: presence. The idea that instead of checking out and fantasizing my way through things, I should actually be present — embodied, paying attention to what I’m doing while I’m doing it.
And then I immediately think, oh goddamn it, Jerry. I thought I could handle how raw this is, but my mind keeps pushing it further, because that’s what it does — toward curiosity about what I’m actually open to, what I haven’t tried, what I’ve assumed about myself. The principle underneath it stays the same: practice the way you want to play. Be present. Be aware. I crack myself up chasing these thoughts down, thinking, see, I’m funny.
I start wondering if this is dark humor, because the more fucked up it gets, the more I laugh. The more inappropriate it is, the funnier it feels to me. ChatGPT keeps trying to give me these clever little prompts for my dating profile—dad-joke energy—and I’m like, I swear to God, if you put dad jokes in my goddamn profile again, I’m going to shove this fucking phone up your artificial asshole.
My dating profile says I’m forty-one and I’ve got two kids, and yeah, this is probably why you’re divorced, isn’t it. So you can be in the house at 10:55 p.m. telling non-dad jokes—the real jokes, the kind of shit teenagers would laugh at and say, oh, this motherfucker’s sick, I love it. I start imagining this turning into something else entirely, like I’m going to end up on tour reading this stuff out loud, the audiobook stand-up comedian. It’s funny because this is exactly the kind of material you don’t hear at comedy clubs. It’s too nasty for that. Then I lose my place for a second and have to rewind mentally, because I just bulldozed through about five different thoughts at once.
Back to that idea of presence. The reason it keeps coming up is the principle: you have to practice the way you want to play. You don’t go out on the field throwing footballs into the sidelines during practice and then expect to magically hit a receiver in stride during the game. You practice exactly how you want to perform. So I’m thinking, I don’t want to keep checking out and picturing someone who isn’t there, because then when I’m actually with a real partner, my mind is somewhere else entirely. I already know I’ve done that before — even in my marriage — and it left me feeling like shit. That’s what happens when you practice your sexuality that way for a decade or two. You train yourself into it.
I think about how early all this started for me — basically from the moment I learned how everything worked in sex ed. Once I figured it out, I was like, this is something we should be doing every day. It’s like a completely legal thing that works every time. That thought spirals into a memory of someone recently telling me they were having trouble sleeping, and me thinking that putting the phone down and getting that release before bed would probably help them more than they’d expect.
I sleep like a baby, though. I get all this crazy shit out of my head, take care of myself, and I’m out cold. The irony is that I’m actually starting to dread the routine of it. And then I catch myself again — if I don’t want to be checked out, fantasizing about other people, when I’m with a real partner, then maybe I shouldn’t be practicing that every night either. So what am I supposed to do with that?
My half-serious solution is that maybe I should just put my phone number back on my website and let people give me advice. And then I immediately imagine how badly that could go — some random text months from now referencing this exact rambling monologue, long after I’ve forgotten I ever recorded it. Right. That.
Somehow that thought reminds me of something else entirely. There are a lot of beautiful Black women on these apps, and I notice I’m drawn to them — and that’s probably where I should stop for the night.
I haven’t dated a Black woman before — I tried once and it didn’t work out — but I saw some beautiful Black women on the apps today and caught myself genuinely interested. There’s nothing wrong with finding someone attractive. It’s one of those moments where I realize my riffing sounds better out loud, because on the page my brain just looks unhinged. That’s the tradeoff.
I try to remember if anything else even happened today. Oh yeah — I got on Bumble after the meeting, because everyone keeps telling me Bumble is where it’s at. Not much luck. Then someone actually liked me back — one of the women I’d noticed. She wants kids, which I appreciate, though she’s around forty and clearly put it off for a while. Then I see she lives in Orlando, and that’s the dealbreaker — I’m not trying to date two hours away. So that was that.
And speaking of Jesus, I’ve been meaning to go off on this for a while. I see these profiles where the first line is “follower of Christ,” and I think, that guy lived two thousand years ago — how are you still following him? People who followed me online last year stopped because I deleted everything, so I genuinely don’t get the staying power. Why do people care so much about a figure from that far back? To me it feels like one of the most obvious mind-control stories of all time. And then I hear myself: okay, Jerry, now you’ve really crossed a line, going off on religion. But this is honestly how my mind works.
I genuinely struggle to understand how people take this so seriously. He lived two thousand years ago, and I’m supposed to organize my life around how much he loves me? Even if he’s still around in some form, I can’t imagine he’s thrilled with the state of organized Christianity or the way a lot of people practice it. That’s my honest read on it.
I remember when I was getting sober, how desperate I got — desperate enough to pray to Jesus, which tells you how bad it was. I’d pray not to drink, and my mind would just keep chanting drink, drink, drink anyway. Eventually I figured the program and the people around me were doing the actual work, not the prayers. That experience is a big part of why organized religion doesn’t land for me. I’m just being honest about where I am with it.
I see these profiles where women say they want a man who goes to church, and I think: I’m old enough now that I don’t need someone telling me how to live my life. I don’t need to sit in a room while someone explains what’s good and bad and threatens me with hell. The one that gets me is the profile covered in Christianity that also has a drink in every single picture. So it’s fine as long as you believe the right things? That contradiction is what I can’t get past.
At some point even I hear myself and think, alright, this rant is getting tired. Half the audience probably doesn’t care about this one. Still, I swipe on some of these religious women anyway, because part of me just wants the chance to say: if you want church, sit and listen to me talk for an hour — I guarantee I’m more interesting than the sermon, because I’m talking about real life instead of droning through a passage of scripture. I know that’s a lot of attitude packed into one impression.
So I reset again and pull up my Hinge profile. I’m thinking, alright, this is getting matches from out of town, but can I get someone closer to home? I look at my bio and start explaining it to myself. I went to ChatGPT and asked, what do women complain about most? And it comes back with: men are emotionally unavailable, addicted to shit, bad at communication, only want casual sex, aren’t good listeners, and take life too seriously. Alright. Cool. Watch this.
My profile starts with: Emotionally available. Then: Eleven years sober and a super communicator. That knocks out three of the biggest complaints in the first sentence, in like ten words. Then I add: I see my two kids every day and want at least two more. Very real talk. That’s why I’m here — I’m not on this app just for something casual, I’m on it because I actually want more kids.
Back to my profile. My friends say I’m a great listener, honest enough to say what we’re all thinking, and that I should be a stand-up comedian. And yeah, maybe I should. But I don’t want to just stand on a stage telling jokes. I want it to be real talk. Let me tell you how my day actually went. Maybe I’ve practiced this enough that I could do it. Maybe I really should get up at an open mic and just drop this exactly like this, then say, listen to my audiobooks, and walk off. Drop the mic. That actually sounds kind of perfect.
So let me read the Hinge profile again, because I keep interrupting myself. Emotionally available. Eleven years sober. A super communicator. I see my kids every day and want at least two more. My friends say I’m a great listener, honest enough to say what we’re all thinking, and that I should be a stand-up comedian. It’s 11:07 p.m., so it’s about time to wrap this whole thing up.
I get home, finish setting up my profile on Bumble, fill all that shit out, and then I’m like, yeah, if you could just find me a woman who’s actually hot, wants kids, and will fuck me every day, that would be great. Maybe she’s got some money too, so I don’t have to work and I can just do shit like this all day, along with yoga and tennis. That would be ideal. I think I’ve gotten most of it out at this point. What did I have for dinner? Nobody gives a fuck what you had for dinner, bro. I had a salad, since you asked. I tossed it. That’s it.
I’m laughing to myself thinking, fuck listening to somebody else’s stand-up comedy. I’m just going to see how many times I can make myself laugh doing this. Because really, that’s the bottom line. Those are guaranteed laughs. Guaranteed. And then I can already hear the imaginary critic: you shouldn’t curse so much. Yeah, yeah. Some people aren’t going to want to listen to this, and that’s fine — it’s not for them.
I go down the street and say goodnight to the kids. Put them to bed. Sing to them. Do all that good stuff. I feel like I’m doing good enough as a dad. Then I go over to see my mom, and she helps cheer me up when I’m feeling low. I tell her about the woman I met and the message she sent me. What’s funny is how different people react to the same thing. I show the message to my ex-wife, and she looks pretty put off by it. Then I show it to one of the women at the AA meeting, who’s actually close to her age, and she’s like, oh, that’s a nice message. And I’m like, what is nice about that message? That she doesn’t have time for me over the next month? That maybe she’ll see me later? That our conversation didn’t mean shit to her? That we’re “great friends”? How are we great friends? I have her phone number. I talked to her for a couple of hours one night. How does that make us great friends?
And then I think about how funny it would be if the woman I met actually listened to this. Even funnier if there was some kind of watch party or listening party with the woman I met, the woman from yoga, and everyone else I talk about in here, all sitting around listening to this shit together. Honestly, I’d show up for that. I’d want to be there for that.
Oh—and I’ve been listening to Charlie Sheen’s autobiography today, The Book of Sheen. I’ve actually been enjoying it. At the same time, I’m listening and thinking, alright, Charlie Sheen is interesting, but my shit is funny too. What I’m doing here is funny. I even shook Charlie Sheen’s hand once, which still makes me laugh. I felt dirty afterward, like I needed to wash my hands immediately. My ex-wife and I went to his “Winning” tour right after he got canceled, which I can relate to a lot more now than I could back then. And honestly, I’ll be happy if I don’t get canceled myself for doing such deeply inspiring comedy as this.
At some point I realize it’s checkout time for the day. I also had one of those required divorce courses playing in the background while I was swiping on Bumble. It’s brutal. They start talking about child abuse and domestic violence, and I’m like, I don’t need this right now. I don’t need to hear about kids getting hurt or people getting beaten at home. I’m already fried. Click. Click. Click. I just run out the clock on the course, because you have to sit there for a certain amount of time. Then it makes you write things. Define abuse. I’m like, when something fucked up happens, that’s abuse. I don’t actually put that. I try to clean it up and write something like willfully being an asshole and physically hurting someone. Whatever. Close enough.
By this point, I’m spent. I’ve talked myself out for the day. Maybe one person out there will like this dark sense of humor. One of these profiles keeps saying how funny she wants a guy to be, and I’m like, I’m funny. Listen to this. Tell me I’m not funny.
Alright. I’m stopping. Jesus, please help me stop. Oh fuck. It’s working.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.