A 16-Minute Video Instead of a Text
I'm Jerry Banfield, and this is my vlog for Tuesday, July 28, 2026 — a real, raw, authentic vlog coming from my studio. I traveled yesterday, so I didn't even have time to film a vlog. Where we're at currently — well, let me tell you the most interesting thing I did this morning. I sent the woman I've been dating for a few weeks a 16-minute unlisted YouTube video saying, look, I love you. I think you're amazing. I'm sorry for not kissing you when you came over. That might have left you feeling subconsciously rejected, and you've been pulling away from me ever since. You've been saying you want space, but I don't think you want space. I think you want love and connection — that's what you really need in your life, love and connection. You've had space your whole life.
And I laid out how she says she feels pressured by all these expectations. I'm like, look, you have all these pressures and expectations you've been putting on yourself — that you want to have a husband and kids, so based on your age, your body's putting pressure on you, telling you it's time to get moving on that. And based on what you did with your career, you've put pressure on yourself to make money. I can help you with both of those things. I can come into your life and relieve pressure for you. Each time I'm reaching out for anything, it's an opportunity to connect and enjoy love. It's an opportunity. Stop thinking of it as pressure — it's an opportunity.
I quoted some from the Bible, too. I got my New Living Translation Bible, the Life Study book, and it is awesome. And I prayed this morning. I woke up at 4 a.m. and was thinking about her for a couple of hours, thinking about all the stuff I need to say. I'm supposed to pick her up from the airport tomorrow, but I'm thinking she's going to cancel. I think she's going to say she needs more space, that she's overwhelmed, and that she'd rather take a ride home from a stranger than have me pick her up. So I decided to just go ahead and preempt that. And if that wasn't going to happen anyway, I wanted to polarize — either we're looking forward to seeing each other and I've warmed things up before that conversation in the car, or I've helped her make the decision. If she does want to cancel, she'll really want to cancel after this video.
I told her, look, I love you. You're amazing. And at the same time, if you want more and more space and this isn't working, I want to date other women. I felt really good about that. I was afraid to say it, so I just put it in the video — 16 minutes, unlisted — and sent it to her at 6:40 in the morning. It's 3 p.m. now and I haven't heard back yet. If I don't get a response by tomorrow afternoon, I'll figure that no response has become a response — that she's switching over to ghosting me. And that's fine.
Why I'm Done Taking It Slow
Because while I love her, I also said I should be leading this relationship. I should be leading our dating and the pacing. And I don't want to take it slow. I'm tired of taking it slow. There's no reason we need to take it slow — and honestly, you don't want to take it slow either. Your actions indicate that: she's at my house ready to kiss me within a week of meeting. She didn't want to take it slow, and I shouldn't have either. I told her I regret that I didn't kiss her. From now on, I'm going to be clear with women: I don't want to take it slow. Taking it slow might be fine if you've never loved before, if you don't know what you're doing, if you're really scared. I'm not really scared. I do know what I'm doing, despite what some people might say. I've had a 15-year amazing relationship, and I don't need to take it slow. Life is too short at this point to take it slow. If we feel something, let's go for it. I'm not saying we need to jump in bed on the first date, but let's open up our hearts and keep progressing constantly, not slow down. We don't need space. To me, that's dysfunctional.
And I felt really good saying, look, if you want to be a Christian wife, you should be comfortable taking leadership from a man. I want to get back to leading this. I feel like she's been leading it for the last week, and it's just been suffering and withdrawing — nothing good has happened. So I sent that message, and I felt really good. I said what I needed to say. If she's the queen I think she is, she'll respond well. And even if she's not, maybe I've delivered her some useful information that will help her on her journey. I did say, how crazy is it that you'd rather say no to this love from me and face going on dating apps and praying to God for a man — and maybe a man will come along, maybe not — and you'd rather get a ride home from a stranger? That's crazy. But if you want to, that's your choice.
To set that up: after I did my last vlog, she texted me yesterday once at 12:30, all lowercase, totally withdrawn, barely able to send this low-energy kind of text. And I waited eight hours to text her back, because she wanted space — I didn't even want to text her right away and then wonder why she's waiting so long to reply. Then she texted me three hours later, after I'd already gotten in bed. She reacted to a couple of messages and said three words. I'm just like, this has got to stop. We had such a good thing going, and whatever this has turned into, it either needs to end or we need to get back to where we were before. This is ridiculous. I'm not interested in space. We don't need space — we need human connection. That's what we need, not space. All these narratives about space are crap. I realize that's how some people function, but think about it like this: if I offered you a hundred million dollars, would you need space, or would you jump on it? Even if the hundred million dollars might potentially ruin your life, I think most people would jump on it. If you have something awesome in front of you, you jump on it. You don't sit there going, oh, I don't know about this. Go for what you want in life. It's so crazy to sit around trying to play it safe — you only have a limited amount of time here. Go for it.
A normal reaction from a child is to run towards love and affection, and yet so many adults today are running away from love and affection. It's up to me to be the leader and say, no, we're not running away from love and affection in this relationship. When you're turning space into not communicating, withdrawing feelings, and dysfunctional behavior, that's not healthy. I'm not going to support that, and I'm not going to act like it's okay. Yesterday it felt completely inauthentic that I took eight hours to respond to her when I'd responded to a bunch of other people in the meantime — my whole page, all these other people got responses. I'm like, if this is what she wants, I'm not doing it. It's up to me as a man to say: you want to take it slow? No, I don't want to take it slow. That's a valuable learning lesson going forward. If you want to take it slow, go take it slow with somebody else — or I'll date three to five women at once and I can take it slow with all of them. Those are the basic two options with me: either be one of a handful of women I'm dating, or take it fast. At least if you take it fast, it's going to end up in a relationship, and if it doesn't work out, you find out quickly, which is nice. The stupid thing with taking it slow is you can waste so much time with somebody. If it doesn't work out with this woman at this point, I put two weeks in — I've got 50 more weeks left this year. To me, the worst thing you can do is take it slow and then it doesn't go anywhere. What a waste of time. Taking it slow does not guarantee things turn out well. In fact, her pushing all this space has almost completely sabotaged the magic we had in our first week.
Turning the Matchmaking Back On
I also emailed the matchmaker yesterday morning to say I want to go ahead and turn my matchmaking back on. At this point, I feel most probabilities are that she's gone — she's run, this is finished — and I'm dating other women. I noticed I felt bad emailing the matchmaker, even though the matchmaker was very happy to hear from me. I'm like, I need to address this with her directly: either commit to me and let's have an amazing life together, or I'm dating other women. Now I'm being honest. It didn't feel good to tell the matchmaker while this woman might think I'm just dating her. And I did offer to be exclusive too soon. I learned so much from this — it's funny, I was thinking, oh, I can't be okay if this doesn't work. And now I'm like, I'm so okay if it doesn't work out. I'd love for it to work out, but I'm okay if it doesn't. That's a great, great place to be in.
I had a smooth trip home from the airport with the kids yesterday. I felt so glad to be restored to sanity, feeling better and enjoying the day. At the same time, I was sad to witness my withdrawal from this woman — my heart pulling back, going, whatever. It was such a beautiful thing to put my heart out to somebody and love them. I know I can do that again, and I will do that again, but I will not be using all of my heart right away. I will not be using all the language right away. I already said that in the last vlog. I really like, too, that I'm delaying these vlogs a couple of weeks now.
Why I Delay These Vlogs Two Weeks
That way, nothing that's happening in the last day or two is out there yet. If I'm dating somebody new, they can't watch the vlogs I've made for two weeks. I wish this woman had not been able to see my vlogs in the days right after I first started dating her. And this way I have at least two weeks to think about whether I need to edit or censor something before I put it out, and re-record if needed.
Doing Better With the Mother of My Kids
I'm so grateful I got home with the kids yesterday, but I was pretty cold with their mom on the phone. She's like, hey, I got a water bottle, can I come over? And I said, nah, we're good, the kids are playing video games, my mom's coming over, we'll see you tomorrow. Then I thought about it and realized that was kind of rude. She was reaching out for love and connection. She was reaching out to see her children, and I was cold — I used my position of power. And I was hurt last time when my ex didn't make any accommodations after she took the kids on a week-long trip. She didn't make any effort to help me see them the day they got home and basically told me, well, you can just see them tomorrow. I'm like, I've got to do better than that. With this woman I've been dating for a couple of weeks, I can let her go without much attachment — be sad, but let her go. The mother of my kids, though — that's not getting let go. Even that relationship needs to be taken care of. So I called her back, had about a seven-minute call, and said, I'm sorry for being so cold with you. You're welcome to come over if you'd like. It was a hard trip, there were a lot of emotions, and the kids were so good in supporting me. And of course, right when I'm having all these hard emotions, the woman I'm dating pulls away at the same time. That sucks, right? Well, if she's hot and cold, maybe she'll get hot after seeing this message. I figured it's good — this message is a test. Either she fails the test and she's done with me, or she passes the test and she's ready to come back and have something awesome with me.
We went to the grocery store, and I'm happy to get back to all the healthy eating. I can't stand all the junk eating. I did have a little of the ultra-processed foods on the trip — some cookies and potato chips and a brownie. But what's really important to me is being ultra-disciplined at home, where I spend most of my time. I'm also not looking to take a trip anytime soon again, either.
A Massage, a Nap, and a Different Narrative
I had a great massage today with Lindsay. At the end, I got so relaxed I kind of fell asleep, and when I woke up, I didn't know where I was — which was kind of a cool sensation. I'm like, am I at home in bed? Is this my daughter next to me? And then, oh no, I'm in the massage room. It's cool when you relax so much that you just instantly fall asleep like that. We had a great conversation, and Lindsay was like, you might need to take it slow with her — her nervous system needs to calm down. I'm like, these are all narratives. You can process life a lot of different ways. To me, what she's done over the last week looks like self-sabotage. And maybe it started with me hurting her feelings. In my experience, women can often be ultra-sensitive to rejection, which is why they want men to do the pursuing and the chasing — because if you reject a woman, you can really pay for it. If I had to say what I did wrong, I should have kissed her. And I'm not going to make that mistake again. Anytime I even think a woman might want to kiss me and I want to kiss her, I'm going for it. I don't care if she said she wants to take it slow. It's nice to get authentic with myself: I want that connection. Why am I acting all prude? I want that connection, and it's up to me to go for it.
I did a livestream of Blockchain Pill this morning, and it's funny — somebody said, man, we need a dating update video. I kind of did leave it on a bit of a cliffhanger, and I'm happy I did that at this point. I'm happy people care about the stories, and this is really good for me, sharing all this stuff. I shared some amazing insights with her that might be too much — she might be overwhelmed — but I can't control how she reacts. It's clear, though, that whatever woman I'm going to be with should be able to handle everything I have to say, and I should be able to share authentically from the heart with love. This woman said she really wanted a man who's authentic, that she didn't have to pretend with. Well, she's got one. Now we'll see how she handles it. We shall see.
Kids, Camps, and My Mom
I dropped Jack off at his camp this morning, and it was so sweet to see him there. It's way out in Tierra Verde, and he's excited to go. I'm proud of him — he's going somewhere brand new, getting dropped off by himself, and he's excited about it. I dropped my daughter off at her new middle school for a boot camp this morning too.
My mom was a little hurt last night. I guess she was upset that I'm paying all this attention to this woman, wishing this woman would notice me, and then here I didn't call my mom. Well, my mom always gets weird when I go to Michigan, because she's from Michigan and she's got a lot of history up there. Almost every trip I take to Michigan, my mom gets weird. And maybe I should have been seeking some connection from my mother instead of from this woman — good learning opportunity. But at this point I've taken inventory of myself: I'm a man, I like a lot of attention, and either I need a woman that's all in, or I need several women who want to take it slow at once. There's not a middle ground. I can't do one take-it-slow woman at a time — that's not going to work. I was telling my mom how I got all excited, and she's like, you always do this. I'm like, maybe I'm not going to get quite so excited next time. She's like, you've said that before and you never — and I'm like, all right, mom, that's enough, good night. I'm not trying to argue with you right after I put the kids to bed when you're obviously hurt.
I love my mother. At the same time, it can be hard for people to just acknowledge, "I'm hurt that you didn't call me." I think I've figured out that my mom wants a little more attention. But mom, I saw you an hour before we left. I came to your house and sat and talked with you for an hour the night before we left. I invited you over to my house, and you spent a couple of hours here the day after we got back. That's in-person time — much higher quality than the phone. And I didn't have a whole lot of good opportunities to call, because my mom's a night owl. I absolutely would have called her at 11 in the morning on Sunday when I was suffering, but she's not available then, and at night I have many more people and things to do, so I don't have as much time to talk on the phone. And I can relate it to this woman I'm dating wanting to see her family — she acts like I'm a nuisance. If you feel like I'm a nuisance, don't date me. If you feel like me wanting connection, wanting to hear about your life, is a nuisance, a bother, pressure — don't date me. Because I want someone who cares about my life. I want someone who wants to talk to me. Now, I don't want to talk 24 hours a day, but if I just met someone and we've had an amazing connection, yes, I want to talk with you every day and nurture that connection — not be all avoidant and act like it's totally normal that we're not talking at all after we spent 12 hours together the week before. That's not cool.
Corinthians and Not Taking It Slow With God
I'm really grateful I was reading the Bible, and I shared the section from Corinthians. It's nice — the New Living Translation study book I have explains the big theme in Corinthians: when Jesus comes along, you've got to leave your old life behind to follow him. And that's what I was telling her: you've been single most of your life, and this is an invitation to leave your old life behind, follow me, and have an amazing life with me — like the people did with Christ. I wish I'd used the example from the Bible where Christ literally walks by and says, follow me, and they drop their job, drop everything they're doing, and follow him immediately. They're not taking it slow. If your Lord and Savior walks by, you're not taking it slow — I hope you don't take it slow. And if the man of your dreams or the woman of your dreams walks by, I hope you don't take it slow either. I hope you're ready to drop what you're doing and have an amazing life with them.
Because sometimes I look at this woman and think, it might be years before she has another opportunity like this. Maybe not — maybe some guy will pick her up next week, or she'll get on dating apps and have five dates because she's mad at me. But she hadn't been on a date in months before meeting me, and some guy had just canceled on her. I also addressed that directly: look, you canceled a date, and that hurt my feelings — but I forgive you, and I'm ready to move forward. Maybe you feel bad about how you've acted with me, but I forgive you. Let's move forward. So I did everything I could, and that feels good. I've shared it here honestly with everybody, and I hope this is useful for you in living an authentic life yourself.
I'm also questioning my business system. I'm thinking I'm going to change back to focusing on Skool. I think I'm going to make Skool $9 a month at the minimum instead of $96, and then do $96 for a tier that includes a call with me every month.
A Bigger, More Affordable Community
And then maybe there'll be a higher-level membership too. But yeah, I'm going to work locally, and I think we're going to move toward making a bigger community that's more affordable. I really appreciate your love and support. And the call to action is this: if you want to talk with me and have me read your comments, join the Jerry Banfield Family on Skool. I'm not reading YouTube comments anymore. They're too toxic, too hurtful, too attention-seeking, and I don't need to hear from people who aren't supporting me.
And I would think this woman I'm dating would want to hear from me, even if it is hard to hear. You've got to think about it — I shared all of that with love, with hope that she can have the most amazing life, that she can get clarity, that I can mirror and show her. And then I can lead and offer myself completely to her, and also offer her freedom: look, you don't have to have any pressure. Let me date other women. I'm out of your life. Don't worry about it.
Depth Beats a Billion Impressions
One of the other things I said to her was about depth. You go around trying to help all these strangers and do all these videos for people, but the relationships that are life and death — the ones that keep people wanting to stay here and do anything to live — there are often only a handful of people like that in our lives. And I told her, loving me is something where the depth is so much more than doing things for thousands of strangers. I would know, as someone who's gotten over a billion impressions on things I've created online. Creating stuff online for strangers doesn't matter that much. But really loving someone deeply, really being in person and showing up with somebody and having an amazing relationship — that can be the difference between somebody wanting to stay here and somebody wanting to move on.
I'm thinking of someone who moved on recently, and I can identify what happened: they didn't have a supportive enough relationship in their life, and therefore it's not surprising they wanted to move on. They felt lonely, life was difficult, and they had sabotaged their relationships through hundreds and hundreds of hookups. That sabotaged their ability to have a close, intimate relationship. So when they got lonely and life got difficult, they didn't have enough depth in their life. And this woman knows the guy I'm talking about. You need to understand how important depth is in life. Doing shallow stuff for validation and numbers — no amount of that will replace having one deep, loving partner, a handful of family members and close friends who really love you and really show up for you. No amount of videos or views or any kindness to strangers will make up for having people that you'll do anything for.
I really hope this woman wants to stay in my life. I'm willing to do almost anything for her. But I'm not willing to deprive someone else of the chance to love me and for me to love them — someone who might be more compatible with me — if this is not working. I'm not willing to just keep dealing with avoidant behavior and calling it okay. I'm not willing to go along with the narrative she's put out about pressure. I'm not willing to follow her. I am the leader, and I hope she'll follow me. If you want to see how this whole story has unfolded from the beginning, it's all in my Dating playlist.
So thank you for following me, and I appreciate your time.