I just learned a hard lesson in dating that I want to share with you so you don't have to learn it the hard way like I did. Let me give you the full story so you can understand each individual element of it — and if you want to share your story with me, join the Jerry Banfield Family, and I'm available for you. I met this woman at yoga two and a half weeks ago. Absolutely gorgeous. Extremely attracted to her. Very strong. I heard her talking about being a content creator, so after the other woman she was talking with walked away, I went up to her and did a very confident, strong approach: "Hey, I heard you're a content creator." I even talked in a different tone of voice — real, grounded. I came up, asked about her being a content creator, and then I told her why I'm a YouTuber and started asking her all these questions about her content.
Then she got very interested in me. She started asking a bunch of questions about me. We took it outside and talked for like twenty minutes after the class ended. While we were outside, she dropped her phone, and I said, "I think your phone wants my number in it." I was being playful, having fun. She gave me her number, and I said, "Let's set up a date right now, so we don't have to screw around on the phone trying to figure out each other's schedules. You've got your calendar, I've got my calendar — let's schedule it." We scheduled a date right then, on the spot. And then we talked for thirty more minutes. She told me everything she was looking for in a man. She said she wanted a man who was authentic and who wanted a family, et cetera. I realized we were extremely compatible. I was texting her, being flirty and fun, right up until our date.
The First Date and My First Big Mistake
She rescheduled our date to a few hours later, and we went for a walk in the park. One thing she said was, "I want to take it slow. I haven't dated anybody in a while. I haven't even been out on a date in months. I haven't had a relationship in years. I want to take it slow." So I said, "Got it. I'm happy to take it slow with you." And then I asked, "Well, can I hold your hand?" So we held hands. It was magical. I was so proud to be out with this beautiful woman, and I was so interested in her. I started to invest emotionally very heavily, and she seemed to be investing emotionally too.
Now, one mistake I made is that I told her I was dating other women and that I'd be happy to stop dating them for her. Big mistake. I would never do that again. Never will I commit to dating one woman until I am having lots of great sex with that one woman. Never again would I turn down dates with other women and stop texting women I've already been out with. Never would I do that again. But I got really excited about this woman because it seemed like we had so much in common — it felt like a perfect match. I even started doing vlogs talking about how she changed my life, which was true.
Doing Everything Right — Almost
So we had our date Thursday. Friday she was working all day, so she wasn't available. Saturday, I met her first thing in the morning and picked her up at her house — she had let me walk her home after our date, since we live within fifteen minutes' walking distance of each other. Really nice date. Saturday I picked her up first thing in the morning and I was doing everything right. I was crushing it. We did yoga next to each other. I was showing off doing my crow pose; she was showing off doing her handstands. She was turned on physically by me, I was turned on physically by her. We were complimenting each other, laughing. We went to the coffee shop, got coffee, and were having fun.
We went and sat down, and I held her hand. I sat next to her and I opened my heart. I was really vulnerable. I said that I learned in my last relationship that I have unconditional love to offer, and that I failed at offering it toward the end of my marriage. I told her I felt really bad about that and I was looking forward to the chance to do it again. She was very turned on. She leaned into me. Now, remember, she had said she wanted to take it slow — but she put her head on my chest, she put her hand on the middle of my thigh. She was very turned on, and she cried and said she loved that I have emotions and that she really wants that unconditional love.
I went to drop her off at her house, and it got kind of awkward when I went to hug her, because she was almost leaning in like she thought I was going to kiss her — but I didn't. So it just turned into a little bit of an awkward hug. That was maybe my second mistake in this scenario. I should have at least asked her if she wanted to kiss. It seemed like we were very connected — we had just cried together — and I should have at least asked for a kiss or gone for it, but I didn't. Me in my twenties would have absolutely jumped on a chance for a kiss right there. But for some reason — I don't know how the hell this happened — I was thinking, "Oh, she said she wants to take it slow." What if she didn't really mean that? What if that's just what she's done before? What if she was open to a different experience? What if that's how she felt before, but she didn't feel that way anymore? Her body language did not seem like she was trying to slow anything down.
The Couch, the Almost-Kiss, and Standing There Like a Statue
That was Saturday. Sunday, she came over to my house — and here's another mistake I made. I told her, "Oh, don't worry, I won't try anything on you. You can come over here and we'll take it slow." Another mistake. I would never, ever, ever promise that again. If a woman comes over to my house, having sex is definitely a possibility. Not that it's definitely going to happen, but I would never try to take that off the table again, because I do care about what I say. If I promise a woman I'm not going to try anything with her at my house, then I don't feel good going against that.
So she came over, and we sat on the couch for three hours, and the physical contact kept escalating. We cried together again. We were holding hands. We had our legs over each other. She was clearly very turned on. Then she stood up, and she started rubbing my hand — she was getting very turned on. We were clearly working up to making out, or we should have been. She gave me this long, hard hug, then pulled back and looked me in the eyes. And then she started to lean in to kiss me — but I didn't lean in to kiss her. I froze, because she had said she wanted to take it slow, and I had said I wouldn't try anything. So she leaned in to kiss me, and I just kind of stood there like a statue. And then she said something like, "I think this is moving too fast," or "I'm not quite ready for that yet." But I think if I had met her where she was, she would have gotten over that resistance and we might have had a fantastic kiss.
Instead, we sat back down. Then we went out to dinner, and I asked her to be my girlfriend. I would not do that again. She said no, it's too soon. Then we came back to my place, sat on the couch again, escalated things again — and I didn't even make any move in that scenario either. And then she went home. And from there, the entire thing went downhill. The entire thing slowly and painfully unwound over the next week and a half.
What I Actually Did: I Rejected Her
At first I didn't see what I had done. Even if I had gone for the kiss and she'd said, "No, we need to slow down," at least I would have offered. But what I ended up doing was rejecting her. She was trying to get through her own resistance to having love and joy and connection and making out. In my experience, women often carry a lot of resistance — especially if you were raised religious, there's been all this shame and guilt and programming. She was trying to break through that, and she reached out, and I was in a perfect position to help her get through it. Instead, I left her hanging and left her feeling like crap. I even acknowledged that — I sent her a video the next morning saying, "Look, I'm sorry I didn't kiss you." But by that point she had been in her head for a while.
Lots of times what happens when we get our feelings hurt is that we start trying to hurt the other person, and we may not even realize it. I don't think she realized that she felt hurt and rejected by me not kissing her. At least if I had tried to kiss her and she'd said, "No, this is too fast," she doesn't feel rejected. But when she tries to kiss me and I don't lean in — I knew. I used to be a police officer. I've dated enough women. I've been married. I can read body language pretty well. She was very turned on and very interested. The last time I saw a woman that turned on and that interested in going to the next level with me was the last woman I actually had sex with. And here I was, standing up all straight, trying to act like a nice guy. I am a guy who has a lot of love to offer — and you can be a nice guy who also wants to experience the joys of the human body with a woman. And obviously this dynamic can play out in any relationship, gay or straight, and it could play out the opposite way in a hetero relationship too.
I've come to believe it's ideal to always be escalating. Over the next week, I suffered, and I made so many more mistakes. All the learning comes down to this: I don't want to take it slow. If we're not constantly escalating, then I'm out. I will find someone else who will constantly escalate, because if we have chemistry, we should be constantly ramping the chemistry up — not getting stuck in resistance. Now, that doesn't mean you need to sleep together on the first date, although in my opinion there's nothing wrong with that — and I used to say there was something wrong with it. At this point I look at myself and think: bro, you have not gotten laid in nine months. If you want to sleep with a woman on the first date, then why not, right? Use protection, have fun, relax.
Why was I taking this so seriously? But I was taking it so seriously. In my mind, this woman was going to be my next wife and I'd have the perfect love story. Well, it would have been a better love story if I hadn't left her feeling rejected. And subconsciously — I don't think she sat there thinking, "Well, he should have kissed me." I think she thought, "I'm a bad girl. I shouldn't have been trying to kiss him. This is going too fast. We need to slow it down. I'm out of control. What am I doing?" She got it all in her head.
The Slow, Painful Unwinding
So here's what happened next. The next day, Monday, she said she didn't want to see me. Tuesday, she said she would see me and scheduled a time. And then she canceled — with a bunch of crying emojis and a paragraph-long text. I sent some whiny text back asking her not to cancel and to spend time with me. She sent a text back affirming her original decision and got cold with her next message. And I made another big mistake right there. When she sent me that first long canceling text, I should have been out right there. I'm out. See ya. If you send me a text like that canceling a date, that's a sign of very low interest. That's a hurtful thing, and I'm not going to give you any attention if you're acting that way. I'm pulling back, I'm withdrawing, I'm giving up on this. And then she's in a position where, if she really is interested in me, she just did something pretty hurtful — and it's up to her, if she wants to continue with me, to make it up and offer an alternative.
But instead, I told her, basically, that I had prayed and remembered Jesus's example on the cross, and that I was willing to suffer for her. What does that communicate to her? It communicates that she can treat me however she wants. That my attention isn't valuable. That I'm not a man who respects himself. And over the next week, she proceeded to hurt me over and over again and withdraw further and further. Thankfully, I did at least have the decency to make a video saying, "Look, either let's get on the same page, or I'm going to date other women — this has gotten bad." But I suffered so much over that next week as she slowly continued to pull away and I kept being in denial. By Sunday I was just miserable. And honestly, I wasn't as miserable over her as I was over feeling like an idiot — over feeling like, man, I'm going to have to show back up on YouTube and talk about all these mistakes I made.
The Beauty of Looking Stupid
But the beauty is that now I have this to teach. And I've realized I need to be teaching people this stuff in person, because there's only so much you can do online on a Zoom call. For example, with men, I need to be taking men out to the yoga studio and showing them how I am able to connect with these beautiful women, get phone numbers, get dates. That's something guys would pay very good money for. It's like: I'm going to tell you exactly where to go, exactly what to do, exactly what to think and how to feel that sets things up — and then I'm literally going to show you and get you started. And then you're going to keep doing this on your own, and you will meet amazing women in person who are interested in you.
And I know some hater will have something to say — but I'll never read the comments again. If you want to comment, you have to be a member of the Family. I'm never reading comments people post for free again. My attention is too valuable. That's exactly what I learned with this woman: my attention should be treated like gold. I'm not giving my attention out to people who just say whatever they want on the internet in response to my videos.
What I learned, though, is where I really felt bad: I looked stupid. That's where I really felt bad. It wasn't as much about her as it was that I looked stupid. But the benefit is that when you acknowledge, "Duh, I'm an idiot," then you're in a position to learn. When I go around thinking I'm smart and I know it all about dating, and then my experience brutally shoves in my face what I'm dumb about, I'm like — okay, I'm an idiot, let me see if I can learn a thing or two. And then I learn all these things. Sunday I was just in agony thinking about all the stuff I had said on YouTube that I would never say again.
Where I'll Actually Take It Slow From Now On
Here's where I'm going to take it slow from now on: with any fantasies or expectations about a woman. Maybe besides "it might be fun to have sex" — other than that, I don't need to be thinking this woman is going to be my next wife and we're going to have a whole life together. I'm going to take it slow on investing my emotions. There's no reason for me to be investing my emotions until I've gotten laid. No reason. Because until then, I haven't gotten the attention I want, I haven't gotten what I want, and there's no reason I should be giving my heart to a woman before I've had sex. That's how I thought in my twenties, and it worked fantastic. And once I did have sex with a woman where I was so in love and it was perfect, then I did give my heart to her.
I'm sad to say, though, that I withdrew it. But it does make sense. She didn't want to keep having kids. She wanted to be in charge and just dictate very important things in our lives, like having kids, rather than having a discussion, exploring, really understanding, and coming to a shared conclusion. If I had it to do again, I'd probably have gotten divorced in 2018 instead of 2025. But I got to have lots of nice times with my kids, and I wouldn't go change anything in my life.
I'm so excited to see what happens with everything I just learned and everything I just did wrong. Because last night I was giving out a whole bunch of attention, even reaching out to some women I'd messaged before — and I caught myself: bro, you don't need to go back to those women. You already know those are seeds that are not sprouting. You're not going anywhere with that. Meet some new women. So I'm so excited to get out there and meet some new women. And I'm so grateful I learned all these lessons, even though it was so painful — about as much emotional pain as I've experienced since getting divorced, ironically at about the same level. And yet I've expanded my emotional capacity. I've learned what not to do. And that's valuable.
If you want my personal feedback on your dating life, join the Jerry Banfield Family — hop in there, post your story, post your dating profile, and I'll give you feedback. I will jump in there and give you my attention. You give me money, I'll give you attention. That's how this works.
If this story helped you see something in your own dating life, there's a lot more where it came from — I share every win, every mistake, and every lesson as I live it in my Dating playlist. Learn from my mistakes so you don't have to make them yourself.