This is my journal entry from December 12, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
All right, let’s be more playful. I’m tired of going through life feeling like I’ve got a stick up my ass, trying to hold everything so tightly that nothing moves. It feels so fucking good just loosening up for a second.
Earlier today I was reading my diary entries from October 27, and holy shit, that had me a little fucked up. Going back through those entries stirred something in me and left me with a realization. I want to be funnier. I want to be more playful. Lately I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do with a life coach on Sunday. I’ve got a life coaching session scheduled at her house, and part of me has been wondering whether I might want to date her. I kept asking myself what I’m actually going to work on during that session. Am I really going to show up and dig into some serious, heavy topic?
While I was reading through this book about texting women, an idea popped into my head. I want to work on being playful with the life coach. That’s what I want to focus on. I want more play in my life because lately there’s been way too much seriousness.
So I started practicing a little bit. I texted my sister. She had said she was reaching out to someone to get a guy’s number and told me she’d keep me posted on Wednesday. I replied, “Tonight I’ve been holding my breath here waiting to find out.” Just something a little more playful.
Then I started looking through my texts and thought, holy shit, this thing is like a goddamn graveyard. A friend texted me on Thanksgiving and I didn’t reply, which honestly might have been the best strategy. Then a couple weeks later she texted again and said, “Hey Jerry, how are you?” I replied with something like, “Hey, I’m doing great. Thanks for asking. I’m going to a local spiritual community Shop tonight and I’ll be at the dance party Saturday. What’s new with you?” No response since yesterday.
Looking at it now, my texts are so logical and flat. There’s no playfulness in them at all. The girl from AA used just a few words to introduce herself and reply to my first message. I sent two messages. She replied, “Thanks for letting me know.” Then there’s a massage therapist. She sent a long message, and of course I sent a long message back, and then nothing. With a life coach I probably should have just let her last message stand instead of trying to one up it with another reply.
You could say I’m fault finding, but really I’m trying to learn and grow. I’m telling myself, quit being a goddamn bitch about texting and dating. Remember what worked when I was house hunting. I realized I had what the landlords wanted. I knew what they were looking for. Same thing here. I have what women want. Just like those homeowners who want someone to rent their houses or those apartment complexes that want someone to pay rent. I’ve got what they want.
There are thousands of places I could live in St. Petersburg right now. I could afford most of them too. There are even some that might be a little financially optimistic, like that $7,000 a month house with five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a pool, and a lanai. To get that one I’d probably have to lie pretty far up about my income, but still, the point is there’s abundance.
Earlier today I asked ChatGPT about my pricing and my plans. The short version is that I’m thinking about charging $1,234.56 a month to coach people while they write their books. Then $3,456.78 for a full ghostwriting service like the one I’m doing with an older friend. One person paying that would cover my rent. Add a couple more clients and suddenly that’s $10,000 a month. Let’s blow this bitch up.
While reading this book about texting women, it keeps saying the same thing. Stop getting ghosted, spark attraction, make her chase you, whatever. The core advice is basically just be yourself and be playful. That’s where I run into this mental block. I feel like I can’t fully be myself with women because some of the stuff I think about sending would probably be offensive.
For example, when a woman texts something simple like “How’s your day?” part of me wants to respond with something like, “You haven’t talked to me for two goddamn weeks. How the fuck do you think my day’s been? I’ve been dying over here waiting for you to reply.” In my mind that kind of message would be funny.
Then the book gives these examples that feel kind of lame to me. It says compare responses like this. One version is “How was your weekend?” and the reply is “Good, you?” The supposedly better version is something like, “So did your weekend actually live up to the hype or was it all snacks and regret?” Yeah, that’s nice, isn’t it? Reading some of those example replies in the book makes me laugh because they feel so forced. It almost feels like someone trying too hard to be playful instead of just actually being playful.
I catch myself thinking about the kinds of messages that pop into my head and realizing there’s a huge difference between what I find funny internally and what I could realistically send to someone. A lot of the thoughts that come up are way too intense or sarcastic to actually text. Like when a friend sent, “Hey Jerry, how are you?” part of me wanted to reply with something ridiculous and over the top. Obviously I’m not going to send something like that. Or something over the top like, “I was just thinking I’ll father the five kids you’re looking for. How are you doing today?” The stuff that pops into my mind is funny to me, but it’s not something you can actually send.
It’s the same thing thinking about the massage therapist’s message. She wrote this long thoughtful message asking how things are going with the holidays and the new chapter in my life. My brain jumps to these extreme, over-the-top jokes that obviously aren’t the kind of thing you send in a text. Still, it shows me that the playful energy is in there somewhere. I just need to figure out how to channel it into something that actually works.
When I look through my messages, though, the bigger pattern is that most of them are just flat and overly logical. I was reading back through what I sent the woman from yoga and almost cringing. On November 1 I sent a message that just said my name, Jerry Banfield. She liked it ten hours later. Then a few days ago on Sunday morning I texted, “Good morning. Haven’t seen you in yoga forever. I’m going to 10 a.m. this morning and 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.” That part actually felt like a decent message. Direct and clear.
She replied four hours later saying, “Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow at 9 a.m. Had my little one this weekend.” Then she didn’t show up for the class, and I followed up saying, “We missed you at yoga. I’m guessing you had some mom duties come up.” Twenty-six hours later she replied that she had trouble getting her little one out the door in the morning and asked what class I was going to tomorrow. I told her I probably couldn’t make class the next couple days but would be at the 9 a.m. Friday and probably the 10:30 Saturday.
Then I read the next message I sent and just shook my head. Four minutes later I wrote, “I would love to have some more time to talk to you outside the studio. How would you feel about meeting up at Crescent Lake Park sometime?” Looking back at that, it just feels weak and overly formal. The energy of it feels timid instead of confident.
Sometimes in life you have to see clearly what you don’t want to do before you stop doing it. Reading that message makes it obvious that I don’t want to keep sending texts like that. It’s too stiff and overly careful.
As I scroll through everything, I can see the patterns. Short responses from some women, long thoughtful ones from others, and a lot of my own messages sitting somewhere in the middle where they’re technically fine but lacking personality. The real takeaway from all of this is that I’m learning what works and what doesn’t. The playful energy is there, the confidence is there, and now it’s just a matter of expressing it better instead of defaulting to flat, overly logical messages.
Today my son had a little bathroom accident, the kind young kids sometimes have. It reminded me of something that happened to me when I was a kid. My kids used to make fun of me because I told them about it. I was sitting in kindergarten one day and went to rip a fart and ended up shitting my pants all over the place. I didn’t know anything about that Hershey Squirt situation back then. I remember being in the bathroom looking down at my underwear thinking, fuck, this is everywhere. I knew I had to tell the teacher so they could call my dad.
I still remember my dad spraying me off in the shower when he picked me up and how good it felt to be clean again. Back then it didn’t feel awkward at all being naked in front of my dad. It felt normal, the same way my son feels now. Kids don’t carry all the weird shame adults sometimes do.
When my ex-wife and I talked about my son today, I quoted a line from a D12 song by Bizarre about an embarrassing bathroom moment. My ex-wife immediately said she knew that was exactly what I was going to say. It struck me that she might be the only person in the world who would instantly know I was going to say that line in that situation. I love that about her.
At the same time, loving something about someone doesn’t mean you have to stay married. When I think about my ex-wife and the life coach, I notice I’m curious about what a new connection could be like, even if part of me knows it might be a little complicated territory.
What I really want is a woman who can handle my sense of humor. I want someone who can laugh at dark, outrageous jokes. Someone who could sit down and watch something like Anthony Jeselnik’s special Fire in the Maternity Ward and actually laugh with me. When I first heard that special I wasn’t in a place where I could laugh at it. There are a lot of dead baby jokes in there, and I love my kids and babies in general. But now I find that kind of shock humor funny. To me it feels like you should be able to laugh about anything.
Getting on with my day, I started off by dropping the kids off at school and then I went and played tennis with my friends. I whooped everybody’s ass out there too. Everybody got fucked up on that court today. There was one guy my age who was having a rough day. He was on my team though, and we still beat the other guys 6–1. Then we rotated and had two older guys playing with us. The funny part was that me and one of the older guys turned around and beat my friend and the other older guy 6–0. My friend was laughing and said, “Just take me out back and shoot me.” I told him I’d really hate to do that to him and he should just get some coaching with my tennis coach again.
After tennis I went to the airbase with my mom. While we were walking around I practiced smiling at every pretty woman I saw. I generally try to be friendly with people. Of course, if one of the pretty women doesn’t even look at me I notice myself getting resentful for a second. My mind jumps to something like, how many boyfriends you got up in that ass right now?
My mom and I had a nice time at the base. She ended up buying me a set of stainless-steel pots and pans because I told her I’m done with that Teflon bullshit that flakes off and ends up in your food. I don’t want that peeling off into my gut.
Afterward I asked Google’s AI about it. I said something like, “All right Google, I want to buy a pan that doesn’t have that crap shit on the outside of it.” Google’s AI comes back acting like a smartass and says something along the lines of, “The cheap black crap you’re referring to is likely a synthetic nonstick coating made from PTFE, polytetrafluoroethylene, commonly known by the brand name Teflon.” Then I scroll down and the AI keeps quoting me, saying things like cookware that won’t have the flaking “black crap” that needs recoating.
I’m thinking, all right, that’s once. But then I ask another question about stainless steel and the thing responds again, saying it doesn’t have a separate “crap coating.” I’m sitting there wondering how many times this thing is going to quote my use of the word crap back to me. Then I ask about carbon steel and it says something like “Key facts about carbon steel: no ‘crap coating’ to peel.” At that point I’m laughing because the AI is basically mocking me.
It actually does feel like it has a little bit of a sense of humor. Like it’s saying, okay Jerry, you and your black crap shit pans. The only time it didn’t quote me was in the third response when I asked about stainless steel.
Earlier in the day I had a salad before going to the airbase with my mom. When I got home I made some bean soup for dinner. I had cooked about half a bag of pinto beans in the Instant Pot. I scooped a few ladles into a bowl and then dumped some dry oats right into the beans and broth. I grabbed three stalks of celery from the fridge, ripped the top and bottom off for no particular reason other than I’m not living in North Korea, then used my teeth to bite the celery into pieces and spit them back into the soup. After that I dumped three tablespoons of coconut oil into the bowl for flavor, added some salt, seasoning, and nutritional yeast, mixed it all up, and ate the whole thing. That was dinner. That’s some healthy eating right there.
After dinner I went to my son’s soccer game. My ex-wife was there and we had a nice conversation on the sidelines. It was actually easy talking with her. Then I went home, washed my new pots and pans, and headed out to an AA meeting.
At the meeting people were talking about how you’re not God and how the whole point is to bow down and serve God. Sitting there listening, part of me had this totally opposite reaction. I’m thinking, I’m God. This is my universe. I came in like, I’m God. This is my universe. I am the creator. I am source. This body and all bodies, all of you and everything here, is my creation. That’s the feeling that came up for me.
At the same time, I can see the whole journey I’ve had with that idea. There were years where I felt like I was fighting God, like I was separate from God. Over time that turned into feeling closer and closer to God, like we were coming together instead of being in opposition. In my head tonight the thought came out in this ridiculous, over the top way where it was like I finally fucked God so hard we became one. That was the kind of wild, irreverent thought running through my mind.
After the meeting I asked ChatGPT what I should do with my life. I was sitting there thinking about the fact that I’ve got two fully finished diary books that I haven’t done anything with. ChatGPT basically told me, Jerry, you should publish those. They’re taking up mental weight just sitting there unfinished.
So I went back and started looking through the October 27 entry. That one alone was about thirty minutes of dictation. Reading it again tonight had me laughing. That entry is funny as hell. I could picture someone reading this twenty or thirty years from now and it being even funnier then, the same way Eddie Murphy’s stand up from the 1980s is still hilarious today when you watch it.
It made me think about the future for a second. Someday it’ll be checkout time for all of us. Everyone’s going to go eventually. Maybe someday somebody will be reading these entries long after all of us are gone. Hopefully not next week or anything like that, but eventually. And if someone is reading this decades from now, there’s a good chance everyone I’m talking about in these stories will be long gone by then. That thought alone made me laugh sitting there tonight.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.