Dating After Divorce: My Standards and How I Searched for a Partner

My answer to how a man finds a partner after divorce is simpler than it was a year ago: know your standards before you start, say them early, and do not mistake a busy dating life for a search that is working. The posts below cover August 2025 through October 2026, the stretch when I was divorced, living on my own in St. Petersburg, seeing my two kids part of the week, and trying to work out who I actually wanted to build a life with. The newest entry, written in October 2026, is the strangest and the one I most wanted to keep.

In The Queen Speaks I came home from a movie with my mom, stone cold sober on a bucket of popcorn and an Icee, and let the woman I believe I will marry speak through me. I believe we are all telepathically connected, and when I am open she speaks directly to me. She is not the woman I called the queen earlier this year. She told me I have been aware of her for at least nine years, that we will bring children into this world, and that the way to meet her faster is to step out of my routines, pay attention, and keep asking where she is instead of feeling sad when women who are not her stop answering my messages. She also pointed at the anticipation I felt the night before, waiting for my twelfth matchmaking date to arrive, and told me to feel that about her every moment. I wrote it down so I remember it on the mornings when everything feels chaotic.

Here is my answer now, in one sentence: a partner worth finding has to clear a short list of non-negotiables, and nearly everything else can bend. In The Things I Refuse to Negotiate On, written in February 2026, I listed mine: a real partnership with a lot of intimacy, at least two kids, a healthy life with no alcohol in the house, and saying all of that before we have done more than a peck on the lips. I would rather hear no on the second date than find out years later that we wanted opposite things.

Why do I hold this so firmly? Because of my own history. When I met my ex-wife, I hid how messed up I was, including my drinking, until I was already close to her. It worked, and that is exactly what bothers me about it. The marriage was built partly on things I had not told her. She eventually told me she did not want to be married to an alcoholic, and that honesty forced me to change.

The search did not start from this point. In High Standards Are the Bar for a Life Worth Living from August 2025, I already had a baseline: intimacy roughly every other day, and the idea that once the things that matter most are met, almost everything else becomes negotiable. In October, in I'm Done Waiting for the Perfect Woman, I decided that waiting at home for an imaginary woman was its own kind of avoidance, and I started going out to speed dating and bars with a friend.

By November I was looking inward. In Looking Past the Profile Checklist I noticed that my hesitation about a woman I liked was tangled up with how I imagined being seen with her. The problem was less her body than the story that a partner who is not thin would make me look like a loser. Seeing that honestly was uncomfortable, and it was the first time I treated my standards as something to examine rather than defend.

December was the rough stretch. In Putting the Work In to Find My Person I reinstalled Hinge and Tinder and told myself the effort would pay off. I rewrote my profiles to be blunter, and my messages got almost no replies. On December 28 I added up a weekend of dates and swiping, two dates with no real chemistry, and deleted every app and every profile. What I took from it was that real tension between two people builds over time, usually through a shared life, and that is the kind of story I wanted.

The new year brought a more structured approach. In A Letter to the Wife I Haven't Met I dictated a letter to a woman I had not met yet, and I cried and laughed at the end, which I took as a sign I had written it from the heart. The Queen Speaks is that letter turned around: this time she wrote to me. In Grief Showed Up While I Searched for Love I signed up with a matchmaker, and while sending her photos of my marriage I was surprised by how much grief came up. I also decided I would stay in St. Petersburg for my kids rather than move away to search.

The sign she says she sent me is the story in the June 2026 memoir excerpt, The Day I Heard I Was Finally Ready, which recounts July 2025. A woman I had a crush on at yoga for years reappeared the day after I heard a thought telling me I was ready to see her, after more than two years without seeing her. When I spoke to her, she did not remember my name. Over our conversations she had been clear that she would not see me until I was ready to leave my wife. In October 2026 my queen told me that woman was never her, only a glimpse of her and proof that the voice I hear is real.

The posts run newest first, so The Queen Speaks is at the top and the August 2025 standards entry is at the bottom. These are my raw diary days, not a polished advice column. If you want the short version, read the October 2026 entry, then the February 28 and December 28 posts. If divorce is the bigger story for you, my divorce hub covers how it ended and what came after.

The Queen Speaks (October 29, 2026)
The Day I Heard I Was Finally Ready (June 21, 2026)
The Things I Refuse to Negotiate On (February 28, 2026)
Grief Showed Up While I Searched for Love (February 19, 2026)
Dating After Divorce: My Standards and How I Searched for a Partner (February 5, 2026)
Writing to My Future Wife (January 30, 2026)
Deleting Every App and Waiting for the Real Thing (December 28, 2025)
The Day I Tried to Rewrite Myself Into the Right One (December 26, 2025)
Putting the Work In to Find My Person (December 23, 2025)
A Stranger Texts Back, and Hope Returns (December 16, 2025)
Looking Past the Profile Checklist (November 15, 2025)
I'm Done Waiting for the Perfect Woman (October 31, 2025)
I Stayed in My Seat and Held Her Hand (August 13, 2025)
High Standards Are the Bar for a Life Worth Living (August 9, 2025)

The Queen Speaks

From my video published October 29, 2026.

I'm going to allow my future true queen to speak through me tonight. I will surrender my voice as Jerry Banfield to her voice, and I will demonstrate this for you because I believe we're all telepathically connected. There are those of us who know that for absolute certain, and there are those of you who have chosen to shut that reality off. In my experience, I am already connected to my next woman, my true queen, and when I'm open, she speaks directly to me.

Tonight I'm in a state after seeing a movie with my mom. For some reason I feel so omnipotent and open after I go to the movies. Maybe it's the entire bucket of popcorn. Maybe it's the Icee when I don't normally have sugar. But I can hear my queen loud and clear tonight. Not the woman I called the queen, the one I wrote about in I Cried Out for My Queen. Then I Met Her., but my real queen. So I shall surrender my voice to her now, and she shall speak to you.

My queen speaks

I am Jerry's queen. Though it might not look like it, this is my man, and this is why no other women will have him: because they know he is mine. I have shown him abundantly clearly our attachment. He has been aware of me for at least nine years, which was confusing for him. And I'm sorry, my dear, that I confused you. When you were with your ex, you wondered why you thought of me. You wondered why you went about the world looking for me. Well, I'm the woman who will be with you the rest of your life, and no other woman will have you. Think only of me.

I am close to you. I am so close that nearly any day you could meet me. We will know each other from the first moment we make eye contact. There will be no doubt for either of us. Like Jesus in the Bible and the fishermen who dropped what they were doing to follow him, we will both be like that for each other. Our time is soon, but it's up to Jerry how soon, which is why I'm encouraging him to record this tonight, so he can think about it. Think only of me. Forget the other women. Only me. I'm the only woman that will have him, but I must have him. He is mine. He is just right for me. We will bring children together into this world. I will be there when he dies.

The sign I gave him

I gave a clear sign to him that my communications are not merely thoughts, or fabricated ideas, or a voice in the head. I told him before that he wasn't ready for me. He tied me up in this woman at yoga, but she was a symbol of me, for that is not me. But she was close. He had a crush on her for a long time because she was so close to me, and I used her to show him that I am real. I told him I would not see him until he was ready to leave his wife. And the day he said he was ready to leave his wife, the woman at yoga was there, after he had not seen her for well over a year. He was dumbfounded and shocked. He has told that story himself in The Day I Heard I Was Finally Ready. But I told him: now you're ready to see me. She was merely a glimpse of who I shall be in the flesh.

I'm looking for him too. This is bringing us closer together. I hope that he will only think of me and not any other woman. None of these other women matter. Only me. Focus. And step out of your usual routines. Go somewhere you will not normally go. Pay attention. Say hi and be friendly. You could pass me by on the street and not know it if you're distracted. You may already have done that once. But it's okay. We are close to each other, and I am excited.

My journey has been more difficult than his in the recent years. I need him as much or more than he needs me. I am looking for him. I am praying for him now. We are both thinking of each other now, which is why our connection is so strong and he is more open than he usually is, for he gets thoughts and distractions from his mind in his usual daily routines. But what we will create together will be incredible. In fact, we have already begun creating before we've met. He feels me. He feels the frustration that every woman is not me. All the better to appreciate me, and to enjoy his time before he meets me. Because after I come along, that's it. No more fun. No more dates with other women.

He did like that woman last night. But I am hotter than her. I am more compatible than her. And I will throw myself at him when I see him, but no other woman will, and he will only know every other woman is not me. Focus. Think only of me. Be ready for me every moment. I could show up any moment, anywhere you are. Be ready. Keep your eyes open. And any time you are distracted, think only of me. Ask where I am. Ask where you should go. Ask.

How silly that he forgets to ask

How silly it is that he forgets to ask me. How many days has he not thought of me in a row? How many days has he been distracted with other women who are not his queen? But it's okay. It's been a fun journey, and he's needed this time to prepare to help others, because his journey will allow him to help others. Many of you are struggling with dating right now. And now, with what he has done in the last year, what he has tried, all the women he has met, all the dates he has gone on with women who were not me, he now has good experience to help you, like the night he wrote down the three things he offers a woman before a matchmaker date.

I think of him more than he thinks of me. And as soon as that changes, we will come together. I hope he will remember every day to ask: where am I? I hope he will go wherever he feels excited to go and break out of his usual habits. Try new places, because he may find me there. And be in constant anticipation, like the servants waiting on the master returning home, though in this case it will be in the future, and I can't wait to see his queen returning home to her king. Be ready at the grocery store. But don't be sad if I'm not there. Just be ready. Every moment.

Remember the anticipation last night

Remember, last night he felt one of the best parts of the date was the moment of anticipation before the woman was there. That moment was guaranteed to be amazing. If the date had been awful, that would have been the death of him, but the best part of the night was there regardless: waiting and wondering what she might be like. Waiting. Be ready like that. Wait. As you enjoyed the wind blowing, as you sat and looked at the beautiful people, as you wondered which woman it would be that would sit with you and have dinner with you, you were ready, and you were certain that she would show up. So if you have that certainty with me each moment, like her, I will show up.

And how fun that you could go about every moment like that. Each time you check your inbox, maybe I'll be in your email. Each time you go out from your house, I may be walking in a park. I may be at the beach. The more you ask and think about me, the faster we'll come together. Have that anticipation. Because once I come along, it's over. Your old life's over. I am your new woman, and you will have me all the time. So enjoy these moments of anticipation, of wondering when I shall arrive. And do not lack for faith. Just as surely as that woman showed up last night, I tell you I'm coming now.

And I will tell you where to go to meet me faster if you will ask. But so many days you have not asked. Not once have you thought, where am I? Not once have you asked, where are you? Not once have you asked, where can I go to meet you today? But you've been sad that these women who are not your queen are not responding to your messages, the same sadness he wrote about in I Thought Waiting to Text Made Me More Attractive. I Was Wrong. How silly. But it's all good fun. And it'll make some great stories to tell me. And you shall be able to help others from this experience. And you shall feel me walk alongside you before we meet.

Be ready every moment, because I could come along. But enjoy the moments. Remember how special that moment was last night, by yourself, waiting with eager anticipation. Who is it? Who is it going to be? Remember the joy of looking at each woman and thinking, oh God, not her. Oh, please be her. And how happy you were when you saw who it was. Think of me like that. You shall be very happy to see me. And you shall wonder about each woman: is it her? But like last night, you will know it is me when I walk up to you. It could be next to you at a yoga class, or an AA meeting, or anywhere you go, any time. But don't waste your time thinking of anyone but me. Think only of me.

I have waited longer for you

For I've been waiting longer for you than you have for me. I did not have the comfort that you've had of 15 years with that woman. So I say that I yearn for you more than you yearn for me, which is why I think of you more than you think of me. So I invite you to stop forgetting to think of me, and to think only of me, and to think always of me. You've cried out for me, but how many more times have I cried out for you? Many more. I'm ready for you. Prove that you're ready for me. Have no distractions. Drop what you're doing when you feel it's time to meet me. That might mean going to the beach suddenly. It will definitely mean breaking your usual routines, and paying attention, and asking each time in eager anticipation: is this my woman? How fun. Enjoy the journey.

Remember how precious each moment was leading up to meeting your ex-wife. How you remembered every single thing that happened: the drive to the first date, the initial emails. In some ways you would argue that the best part of the whole relationship was the very first meeting. So how exciting that you're so close to this happening again. And I will be with you until the end.

And it's good you've not had sex with any of these other women, because they would have distracted you. They might have even sabotaged us from meeting. So be grateful for each experience you've had this year. I've been watching. But you will enjoy telling me in the flesh all of these things. I have some awareness of them, as you have some awareness of me. You will enjoy my name. It's the name of my life. It's the name you already love. That is all. Good night.

Back to me

Whoa. Wow. I've felt her around me all night. There was a moment in the movie where these two characters had such a strong connection. They just knew each other. And that's what woke me up. Like, oh, my queen, I know you. And the more I've thought about it, the more I've thought about it.

The more I've felt her, the more I feel calm and peaceful and an eager excitement. Everything makes sense now. And I'm documenting this so I remember, because sometimes I wake up and it seems chaotic. I feel like I have to figure it all out myself. But I believe we're all connected energetically, telepathically. We're not separate. We're all manifesting this reality together, as I shared in I'm the Creator of My Own Reality.

The woman from yoga was a symbol

And yeah, I thought she was that woman from yoga. Not the queen, but the one I had a crush on years ago, the one from Yoga Crush and My Marriage: Why I Walked Away From Her. I used to talk to her. And she said she wouldn't see me again until I was ready to leave my wife. And I was frustrated. But when I said I was ready... actually, I didn't say anything. I just was feeling ready to leave. And then she said, now you're ready to see me. And the next day, that woman from yoga was there, the one I had such a crush on, whom I hadn't seen in more than two years. But clearly that was not the actual queen. That was a symbol of her power to communicate with me.

Dating a different way

So I've recorded this so that I remember it, and also so that you can think of dating a different way. Most of dating is thought of these days as very transactional, very unmagical, which is a big part of why I wrote Dating Is the Most Worthwhile Thing You Can Possibly Do. But I remember having this connection with my wife before I ever met her. I remember thinking about my wife in elementary school. I remember wondering where she was and what she was doing. I had that kind of thinking as a child, the same thinking I came back to in Writing to My Future Wife. But then I lost a lot of that going into the world, into high school and college. I lost it, but now I've got it back.

I love what she said that I hadn't put together: the way I was eagerly awaiting that woman arriving at my 12th matchmaking date last night. I was thinking before she arrived how beautiful that moment was, the anticipation that she's coming. I didn't know exactly when she was getting there; I just knew she was arriving soon. And I was very happy to see her when she arrived. But I also had the sense that this is not my queen. A lovely preview. And the woman I called the queen before, a lovely preview too.

Yes, the getting out of my usual routines. I have a sense that she's very close, that we could easily run into each other, but I'll need to step out of the ordinary.

What's cool is that the state I'm in now might look altered compared to what you normally see from me. But all I had was popcorn and an Icee at a movie with my mom tonight. I'm stone cold sober. I just feel really tapped in tonight.

So I hope this has been useful for you. This has been so much fun for me. I hope you imagine your queen or your king, or appreciate the queen or the king you're with today. If you want to follow the whole journey that led here, it's all in my Dating playlist. I'm going to make sure to come back to this myself so that I remember it. And I'm here at jerrybanfield.com for you: if you'd like to talk about any of this one on one, a one-on-one call with me is the way to do it.

The Day I Heard I Was Finally Ready

Originally published June 21, 2026.

This is an excerpt from my full-life memoir, Un Fn Myself — my real story of addiction, recovery, fatherhood, and everything in between from 1984 to 2026, including the parts most people would cut out.

July 12, 2025

my ex-wife, the kids, and I wake up just outside Atlanta after a night made chaotic by a Beyoncé concert that had swallowed the city. The night before, we toured Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and felt genuinely grateful to have found a place to stay at all, since most of the hotels around Atlanta were booked solid. We are south of the city now, up around seven in the morning, staring down the full drive back to St. Petersburg, Florida. Nine hours on the road stretches ahead of us.

I wake up energized and ready for the drive. My mind is alive with book ideas. I want to write books. I feel a deep pull toward it, like this is finally what I am meant to do. I have an idea that morning that I could write a few books specifically aimed at helping my ex-wife’s family, especially her mom and her sister, around the struggles I see them dealing with over and over. I share this with my ex-wife, genuinely excited, thinking I am sharing something hopeful and constructive. She immediately goes off on me. She tells me I have nothing to offer her mom or her sister, that they do not need my help, and that I do not know what I am talking about anyway. I get defensive. I am hurt. Something in me shuts down, and the day spirals from there.

We get into the car and settle into the drive. Being deep into the silent treatment sucks, especially on a day where you are staring down nine straight hours in a confined space. For the first couple of hours, my ex-wife says nothing to me. She sits in the passenger seat with this unmistakable energy of resentment and anger. Eventually, I try to patch things up. I try to make amends. I reach out. She is not having it. She refuses to acknowledge that anything she said or did was hurtful.

That is when I lose it. I go off on her, not because I want to destroy her, but because I want her to understand how cruel she is being, how mean and hurtful and unsupportive she is of my work, and how relentlessly defensive she is of her family. I talk for ten or twenty minutes straight, unloading everything I am sick of, everything that feels broken, everything I think she needs to do better. She defends herself a little, but soon we slide right back into the silent treatment.

The rest of the drive home is empty. There is no love. No affection. No hand resting on my leg like there usually is. Just silence and a thick, hurtful resentment that fills the car all the way back to Florida. When we finally get home, we cooperate in the basic logistics of life. We unload the car and unpack everything. We function. But inside, I feel completely hopeless.

I am thinking, there is not even going to be makeup sex after this. There used to be, in the first few years we were together. We would fight, then come back together with incredible makeup sex and feel genuinely close again. That does not happen anymore. My ex-wife is unlikely to apologize or acknowledge anything she did. She defends every position like it’s her job. She always has to be right. Occasionally, if she says something hurtful and I cry immediately, she will admit she was wrong. Outside of that, she is right all the time, and she will argue endlessly to prove it. It is always me. I am always the problem. She never needs to change. I am always wrong. I am so exhausted by that dynamic. I do a tremendous amount of work on myself, constantly trying to grow, reflect, and heal, and I cannot honestly say the same effort exists on her side.

Once everything is unpacked, she takes the kids down the street to see her parents. We have been on a two-week road trip, and they have not seen her family in over a week. I end up going to an AA meeting that evening, trying to center myself and regain some sense of grounding. Later, I walk the dogs alone at night.

There is another layer to all of this that has been quietly present in my life for years. There is a woman I had a crush on at yoga I mentioned a while back. It has been two and a half years since I last saw her. The last time was winter of 2022, and now it is summer of 2025. I have not seen her in all that time, but sometimes I imagine talking to her. Sometimes I reach out and ask her where she has gone, why I have not seen her, when I might see her again.

Her answer has been consistent. You are not ready to see me. More recently, she has been very clear. You are not ready to see me until you are ready to leave your wife. What am I supposed to do with you if you still want to stay with your wife? You hurt me before, and I am not willing to see you again until you are ready to leave your wife. We have had many versions of that conversation, and my response inside myself has always been the same. That is not fair. I do not want to leave my ex-wife. If you are carrying a tangled question about your own marriage or relationship and need somewhere to say it out loud, you can set up a call with me and we will talk through where you actually are.

That night, after walking the dogs, I come back to the house. It is dark. It is around nine o’clock. As I walk up to the front of the house, I hear a loud, unmistakable thought, almost like it is spoken directly to me without any effort on my part. She says, without me initiating anything, without me starting a conversation, Now you’re ready to see me.

I stop cold. I am shocked. After a day of arguments, silence, and emotional distance, the idea lands in me with unsettling clarity. Really? Now? I feel something shift. I think, yeah, I guess I do feel ready. Not because I believe something serious is actually going to happen, not because I have a plan, but because something in me finally admits the truth of how broken things feel. I am stunned that the conversation suddenly begins with those words. Now you’re ready to see me.

July 13, 2025

On Sunday morning, I go to the yoga flow class I like best. It is a slow, steady flow, grounding and calm. This is the class where I used to see the girl I had a crush on two and a half years ago. I have been to countless classes there since then, and I have not seen her once. I am not even consciously thinking about the thought from the night before. I am on autopilot. My ex-wife is out of the house again with the kids, so yoga makes sense. I need it. I am getting a massage right after to unwind from the trip, and this feels like the right way to start the day.

I put my mat far up front, front left, in the very first row against the wall, nowhere near my usual spot in the middle of the room. I see a woman I am friendly with and we catch up briefly before class starts. As the class moves along, I notice a girl on the opposite side of the room who keeps catching my attention. About thirty minutes in, a thought cuts through me. Fuck me, is that her?

My vision is a bit nearsighted. The last time it was tested it was something like 20/40 or 20/60. The main way I would know it could be her is a small detail about her that I remember clearly. For at least thirty minutes, I am trying to catch glances, trying to convince myself it cannot actually be her. Eventually, I get a clear enough look. There it is. My stomach drops. Holy shit. Two and a half years later, she is here. Oh my God.

It does not fully register right away, but later it hits me. She is here the day after I heard the thought, now you’re ready to see me. That realization knocks the wind out of me. That is not coincidence. That feels like alignment. Telepathic communication. Something precise and impossible. It feels wild and undeniable, and I am barely holding it together through the rest of the class.

I know there is no version of this where I just stay cool and act like this isn’t a huge deal. I absolutely have to talk to her after class. There is no easing into it. I am going to talk to her immediately. The problem is, I am terrified. I almost never get nervous talking to people. Almost no one intimidates me. I can walk up to just about anyone without thinking twice. You could put the President of the United States in front of me and I would not feel this way. But her, right there in that room, has me more anxious than I ever get.

Class ends. I stand up immediately. Here we go. I grab my blocks and walk in her direction, trying to time it so we cross paths naturally. The first time I walk by, she does not make eye contact. The second time, I say hi and say her name. We make eye contact, and she recognizes me instantly. She immediately gives me a big hug. I have never gotten a hug from her before. It feels incredible. We are standing right next to her girlfriend, when she asks “What was your name again?”

I fucking die. I’m destroyed inside. No, no, no. She does not remember my name. Oh my God. She remembers my face, clearly, but not my name. In my mind, I picture my ex-wife standing behind me laughing hysterically. I picture my dad, my granddad, and all these men who have passed away in AA just erupting into belly laughs, the whole universe rolling on the floor at this moment. Of course she does not remember my name. At the same time, another thought hits me. Her girlfriend is standing right there. Her girlfriend is probably wondering who the hell this guy is that she is hugging at yoga. Maybe she does remember my name, and maybe asking was a way to take the edge off, to make it seem casual, to make it less loaded. Or maybe she really does not remember. Maybe it is all in my head. Maybe this is not a big deal for her. Maybe she never had a crush on me at all. I ask her where she has been. She tells me she had moved away with her girlfriend, and that she might be coming back. Holy shit.

I leave shortly after that. The moment she says she does not remember my name, I am wrecked. I am completely off center. Most of the time, I am confident, grounded, sometimes even overpowering in presence, or deeply attentive in a way that makes people feel seen. I can be intimidating without trying. But the second she does not remember my name, I am right back in third grade. I am devastated. I can barely keep the conversation going. I am struggling to form intelligent responses. Everything I know about myself collapses into that old, familiar feeling of being small and forgettable.

I walk out of the yoga studio in a fog, asking myself what the hell just happened. I had that thought the night before, now you’re ready to see me. I had not seen her in two and a half years, and then she is suddenly there the very next day. What does that mean? When am I going to see her again? Does this mean I am ready to leave my ex-wife? I feel desperate to see her again, to be alone with her so I can talk, so I can ask the questions that feel unbearable to hold inside. Did she miss me? Does she think about me? Will I ever get closure on this?

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

The Things I Refuse to Negotiate On

Originally published February 28, 2026.

This is my journal entry from February 28, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

I get a message from my date last night, first thing in the morning, that says, that's a terrible question right now, next two weekends are slammed, can you do brunches? I say, sure, I can do brunch most days. She says, all right, I'm available for brunch. I say, you know, how about somewhere Monday morning? She asks if I want to go to a restaurant, which is the same one my ex-wife and I used to go to. I said, you know, it sounds good to me. I'll let you know on Monday, like it's Saturday. So I'm like, oh, I'll let you know on Monday when I'm gonna leave. She says, sounds good to me. Thank you. I'm like, okay, well that's, you know, that's probably going to be it for now. I go to the ACA, the adult children of alcoholics meeting this morning at 9am because now my sponsor and some other guys in AA who have been sober longer than me suggested I give that a try to do some deeper work there. So I go down to the ACA meeting and I'm impressed. It's like all women in there. And there's one really attractive woman when I walk in the room and the energy is super calm and deep and quiet. It feels really good. Like a lot more settled than a lot of the AA meetings. Then another woman walks in like right after the meeting starts, and there's another woman who looks like she's married that's there too. I'm like, man, this is like the opposite of an AA meeting. There's a few women here, hardly any guys, no young guys, like nice. And as they start sharing, I'm like, this feels like a place where I can do a bit deeper work than AA and really dig into relationships, which is great.

I wait until at least halfway through the meeting. I share that, hey, this is my first ACA meeting, you know, sponsor and guys in AA suggested I give this a try, I'm really liking what I see so far, and I talk about how, you know, my struggles with my mom, like, my mom's, you know, I go over to her house, as I said a couple days ago, I'm all excited about this date, and, you know, my mom just crushes that enthusiasm right away, like, I don't want to hear about it, but then she does want to hear about it, by the time, you know, I've already had my feelings hurt, I'm gonna go. So I'm going to continue going to ACA meetings, although it conflicts with other stuff like tennis and yoga in the morning, but you got to choose what's most important, right? And after the ACA meeting, I stand around and talk to several other people here. I get to hold the hand of one of the women for the prayer at the end of the meeting. They do the serenity prayer different than we do in AA. So I'm kind of not following it. I get to hold her hand, which feels good. But she juts out the door right away. I'm like, damn, I was hoping to talk to her. But I end up talking to the other women that are there. And, you know, the one's married and she's got a kid the same age as my son. And I talk about the program and they encourage me to read this one book first. You know, to keep coming back. I enjoyed getting my silver chip and being new. If you're starting to see how many of your patterns trace back to your family and you want to do that deeper work with someone who's walking it too, schedule a private call with me and we'll talk through where to start.

So I intend to do like an ACA meeting or two each week to complement my AA program. And I'm OK if that means I'll keep a minimum of like four AA meetings a week. So I can say I go to AA most days and that most days of the week I'll be at an AA meeting. But at this point, if I fill in an ACA meeting or two in the week and then I do like twice as many AA meetings, like that's going to guarantee I stay sober. I'm helping other people and I'm working at the greatest depth I'm capable of also. And that's when after the ACA meeting finishes, I head back home. I go to see my friend and pick up this free, he gave me another entertainment center, a second free entertainment center. I pick it up from his house and chat with him a little bit. He's the one I'm working on his book. And he agrees that ACA is a good idea and he has experience there.

I then go to pick the kids up, and today we're going to go to the conveyor belt sushi restaurant and to buy some clothes for the kids and to see if I can get some new casual shoes to go with my dress clothes. I pick the kids up at my ex-wife's house, and I give the basics of the date, like it went well, I may see her again, and the kids are so much more curious about the date. The kids are talking about if you marry her and stuff, and I'm like, oh, I love them, and it's nice for them to get to have these honest experiences. Like I never got to see my dad dating or, you know, my mom dating so far. And it's nice that the kids get to see this side of me too. I think it'll help them develop better. And I wish I could have seen my dad dating and I wish he'd have written a life story about it. The kids are in a great mood and we drop the entertainment center off at my house. Then we head out to the mall. We sit at the conveyor belt sushi restaurant. We go through 16 plates. The kids single handedly got at least five plates of Wagyu beef. And I got like six plates of sushi, you know, just little ones. We have a nice lunch there. The bill's a little over $100, like $105. I asked the kids how much to tip. My son says like 5% or 7%. My daughter says like it's $10. I'm like, why are y'all being so cheap right now? I'm tipping $25 right now. What are y'all talking about with a 10% tip? That's so shitty. I'm like, look, I'm going to tip $25 and the bill's going to be $127. I'm going to throw that on a credit card and pay for it later and get some rewards on it. So I'm going to tip nice today because that's how I roll.

We head out from the sushi place and there's for some reason like two teenage girls that were in this bathroom together for quite a while, like long enough for my daughter to go to the bathroom and then come in and out of there and then they just get out. And the one girl like gives me a smile and looks at me like they were up to no good in there. Like, the hell is that? But that's funny. So we go walk out into the mall and we stop at one of the stores. My son's playing with me like I'm running around this table with clothes on it so he can't hit me. We're having a great time. I'm proud to be a dad that like you'd be like, damn, is his dad like a teenager? I'm playing with my son like I'm a big kid or a teenager. I'm having fun. My son's running around. And it's great because then he's leaving my daughter alone as well. Now, my daughter gets a couple of shirts. My son gets several shirts after not initially either of them finding anything they liked. We check out and my son's going nuts in line. So my son and I get out of line and I'm playing with him off to the side to not disturb people so much. I give my daughter my credit card. I'm like, here, why don't you just pay for this? So my daughter enjoys being the big girl that gets to like pay for everything. Then we go to this like stand they have in the middle where this guy has all these battery operated little animals that you pay $20 and they can ride around on them for 20 minutes. So I give the guy 40 bucks. Each kid gets an animal to ride around on.

And I go over to a shoe store to get me some casual dress shoes. The kids are out of sight, but I'm like, whatever, they can run wild, it should be fine. The guy at the shoe store, the store manager's there, he's really helpful. I ask him, I'm like, look, I want dress shoes that are comfortable, but not too dressy, more casual. He says, I got just the thing for you. He's like, I got these at home. I love them. Buy one, get one 50% off. I drop $160 at the shoe store. I get a brown pair and then a matching pair of black. They feel good, they're comfortable, and he assures me, I show him the clothes I'll be wearing with, he assures me these are the right shoes to wear with those clothes and to look more casual rather than dressy and to be comfortable. I'm like, nice.

I go back out after spending like 10 minutes in the shoe store. And the kids, there's been some drama there. My daughter keeps kicking my son on his animal. They were playing and chasing each other around, but then it got kind of nasty. My son scratched her. My daughter started kicking him. My son's crying. I'm like, well, yeah, like, you know, what do you want me to do? Like, why don't you make up, have fun, like don't waste this opportunity. But then they eventually get off the animals with a little bit more pain and suffering. We go over to another store next door. My daughter looks around there for a while and my son plays with me and snuggles me and hits me. Then we go down to another store. My daughter goes in there for quite a while and my son and I go to the escalators up by the theater and my son rides the escalators up and down like 10 or 20 times. He loves it. I start on the escalator going up. And then he walks up it and then he passes me on the way down. My mind's like, he might fall and get injured. I'm like, that's probably not going to happen. Just relax, bro. It's an escalator. It's probably going to be fine. So my son and I have fun on the escalators. I probably went up and down like 10 times myself. And my son went up probably double what I did. And it's nice. The security guard doesn't give us any shit or anything when we're doing that. And I'm like, I'm really grateful I'm out having fun with my kids, really enjoying it, not being like some anxious, stressed out parent, but, you know, doing things properly, at least in my opinion.

We go back. My daughter's still at the store and my daughter's in a bit of a fuss after she was the one who kept hitting my son and giving him a hard time. But, you know, he often starts it. Then we walk out and get back in the car. My daughter's upset still and my son is too. And what's nice is I'm not. I'm like, this is, you know, it's not my beef. It's not my character building. Or maybe this is my character building by just holding space for them to love each other and figure it out. So after we start driving like five minutes home and at some point I suggested like, you know, can you forgive your brother? And my daughter says no. And at some point, my daughter does decide to forgive him. She says, you know, I forgive you for hitting me. I'm sorry for hitting you. She's like, are you sorry for scratching me? And he's like, yes, I'm sorry for scratching you. And I cry a little bit. I'm like, see, that was beautiful. Like I didn't have to push or threaten or any of that. They made up by themselves. We had a great time. And I dropped the kids off at my ex-wife's house. They're in a great mood. I get a lot of dog snuggles. And I tell my ex-wife about the shoes. She's like, she knew what kind of shoes. As soon as I started describing them, she's like, oh, the ones that have a little white outline. Those are stylish. I'm like, thank you. It's funny. You know about this stuff because I'm just learning about it.

I then head out from my house to go back to go to my house. I text my friend to see if she's going to be at this AA meeting that's like 20 minutes away tonight. She is. Meanwhile, the girl from yesterday has now decided that she remembered that I was a YouTuber. So she went on there yesterday and watched a video I did with a crypto creator I recorded with. And the title is ICP legend Jerry Banfield finally speaks on his divorce. So she texts me like right around when I'm dropping the kids off. I just saw this, and I'm like, I'm just going to double down on this. So then I said, nice, here's a book you can follow that up with on Audible. And I send her my book on Audible named I'm Seeking a Wife. And then I remember she likes gifts and it's only seven dollars, you know. I'm like, I'll just pay for this for her. So I said, if you can give me your email, I'll gift it to you. I send her the book when I get home. And so she asked me right when I'm about to head out to this meeting, this is another reason I was slightly late, she asked me, she's like, I got it, do you get alimony? I'm like, whoa, what? I'm like, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned I was a YouTuber. I said, no, no alimony or child support either way. She's like, do you make your ex-wife work? Does she work while you all are married? I'm like, well, I set myself up for this, so I might as well go into it. So then I reply. I'm like, she didn't work except for a tiny bit of freelancing the first five years of the kids' lives. And then I had a business idea that failed. So we split the bills for a couple of years. Then she went back to working full time a few years ago, which she really enjoys, and she's done well. And I said, with the new business I'm building soon, I should be back to making enough to provide for a stay at home mom that raises the kids.

And then I'm like, all right, that's, I really do appreciate this girl's curiosity, like that she's got these questions. And I'm thinking, you know, for the second date, my idea is I want to be very clear on all the reasons we shouldn't proceed. Like, look, I want a real partnership with a lot of intimacy, and I'm not willing to compromise on that. You know, I want to have at least two kids. And, you know, I want to live healthy. I'm not going to have alcohol in the house and sloppy junk food and all that all over. It's like I want to live ultra healthy and I'm not going to negotiate on this stuff. Like you get on board with what I want or I'm going to keep looking until I find somebody who is. And that's to me, that's honest and that's fair. And that's what a lot of people don't do in relationships, or they don't do it until people are hooked and captured. Like I know somebody in my life, they didn't, you know, the guy didn't want more kids, didn't want to live together and didn't want to get married. And the girl wanted the exact opposite, you know, and they went back and forth for months. And, you know, now they've seemed to compromise years later, but it's like, if they'd have just been rigorously honest and clear about that stuff on the second date, it probably wouldn't have went any further. But if I'd have been rigorously honest with my ex-wife about how much I drank on the second date, she probably would have ran away. And that probably would have been good, or she would have been conscious that, okay, I'm signing up to go on this journey of alcoholism and recovery, you know? But going forward, I actually want to make sure if a girl starts to like me, I want to essentially reality check, like, hey, you know, this is what I've got to offer, and this is what I'm holding space for, and I'm not compromising on these, on the health, on the babies, and on the partnership. Like, if you're not on board with this now, before we've, you know, done anything more than a peck on the lips, like, this is what I've got to offer. And there's no wiggle room of compromise. Like, leave now. We can end this now. And I perfectly respect you and understand if you don't want to deal with this. But if you want to proceed, like, on a third date, this is what you got to be on board with. And I feel really good about operating at that level of clarity. If you want to get honest about your own non-negotiables in a relationship before anyone gets hooked, schedule a one-on-one call with me and we'll work through what you refuse to compromise on.

I head home. I go to the AA meeting. And my friend's there. I bring him over to sit next to the girls. I talked to the one sponsee for a while. She's married and I saw her in like her first few weeks sober. And I've seen her journey for like the last six months now. And I have a great talk with her, like the most depth I've talked with her. The girl that I actually texted that was super friendly to me like a year ago and was listening to my music and really supportive of my work, she's there. Give her a big hug. Her sponsor, who I absolutely love. I bring my book Un Fn Myself to give to her sponsor, who I imagine reads physical books. And sure enough, she does. She reads physical books at night. She really appreciates, you know, the physical book there. And I share during the meeting. I get my friend to share during the meeting, too. He's in his first nine months at this point. So I'm like, you know, it's a beginner's meeting, get your hand up and share. So he shares and tells where he's at, which is great. And then he elbows me that I need to share after the beginner section's over. I share some euphoric stuff about how, you know, I've been sober 11 years, went to ACA for the first time. It was good to be new somewhere. And if you're new, you know, nothing I've been through in my sobriety has ever been as hard as getting sober was. Not changing my diet, not getting divorced, not having all three of my grandparents die, not dealing with my mom and all her crazy stuff. And, you know, all that, like the fallout of my business in 2019, you know, ruining my finances. Nothing has been nearly as hard as early sobriety. My friend thinks that was a really good share.

And after the meeting, I see a woman across the room I want to talk to. So I tell my friend, I'm like, watch this, because he's talking about how he wants to talk to a girl but he's nervous. So I eventually get introduced to this woman. And it turns out I met her last time I was here. And I just forgot. Whoops. She remembers me better than I remember her. I'm like, that's nice, I'm getting noticed that way. So I shake her hand, I say hi to her. But then right after that, she has her son and her partner and is introducing them to the girls that I was there to meet. I'm like, well, forget this. So they end up talking to a couple of guys there. My friend and I talked for a couple of hours after that outside the meeting. We're talking all kinds of stuff. We talk about reading people, and I've learned to trust my gut about who feels genuine to me, while staying humble that I can be wrong about it sometimes.

My friend and I have lots of conversations about the girls. And there's this girl in a meeting he wants to talk to. I'm like, do you see how I went about it? I saw a girl I wanted to talk to. I waited. I was patient. I got introduced to her. And then I was pretty quickly disappointed. So I moved on. But the girl he wanted to talk to, I talked to her a couple of weeks ago after the business meeting and had a great conversation with her. You know, he's talking about like playing safe and stuff. I'm like, look, you need to go for what you want in life. And he thought some of the stuff I do is manipulative. And I was a little hurt by that. But at the same time, I'm like, look, as a man, to me, it's up to me to go for what I want and do what I need to do to get it as long as it's considerate and respectful of other people. As long as I'm not doing anything to hurt someone or be dishonest with someone, yeah, I'm going to go talk to the girl I want to talk to. I'm going to ask a girl I'd like to see again to speak in a meeting so I can see her again and be in contact with her. Absolutely. Of course I'm going to do that because I go for the things I want. Yes, it hurts. I told him I was so vulnerable. You know, I had some fear on the date yesterday, but it was, I felt alive, too, and I went for it. And, you know, he respects that. And I listen, he shares about his life. And I really enjoy this precious time. If you keep playing it safe and you want to talk through going after what you actually want in a way that's still considerate of everyone, book a private call with me.

I'm like, you know, if I had some girlfriend already, if I had some woman at home, I wouldn't be taking two hours to talk with my friend after the meeting, because, you know, I'd be home with her. So I'd be just like back when my ex-wife and the kids and when I was married, you know, then I would generally rush home after most meetings to get back to my family. And I'm really enjoying now that I don't have to rush home. And I've been encouraged today by this girl being interested in me that I went out with yesterday. But at the same time, like, I definitely, I sent my feedback to my matchmaker this morning. And I definitely want to see 11 more dates. My mind's also getting toxic and thinking I should do dating apps and stuff at the same time. And it's like, I'm not paying for anything for dating again until we go through the rest of these matches at a minimum. And if this match was so compatible and so interesting as like the first match, I got to see 11 more of them.

I drive back home and I get home at like 10:40 and I'm like, shoot, I'm behind on my recording these diary entries, which are like my 10th step in AA. But I'm like, you know, first priority is to make sure I get my sleep and take care of myself. So I brush my teeth, climb into bed at like 11. I'm like, no worries. I'll dictate this diary entry and the one I missed yesterday also. We'll dictate both of those on Sunday morning.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Grief Showed Up While I Searched for Love

Originally published February 19, 2026.

This is my journal entry from February 19, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

Today's the big day of meeting my matchmaker, which I'm really excited about. First, I wake up with the kids and we take our time getting ready. They make their lunches this morning. We get off to school, drop my daughter off, and my son takes the time. We read the Venus book in the back of the car, which I've read. I think I've read almost all the Planet books with him, which has been so much fun. I drive home and I am ready to meet my matchmaker. I get home and I put on a nice shirt. I prop the computer up to the right height. I find the best spot for the lighting and I get connected with my matchmaker. And I'm like, am I supposed to say her name or not? She's a very pretty girl that lives on the east coast of Florida and seems like we have some of our lives, you know, the hobbies and stuff in common. She asked me all the questions that she needs to make a good profile of me. And I have a really nice time talking to her. I feel like this is so much fun. Like I'm so grateful for her help that she can look through all the profiles and then she can verify and find women that are compatible and ready to meet me. Like I'm so grateful for her help. Like that she'll do a much better job with this than I would have because I go through all the profiles on online dating websites and get emotional and butt hurt and rejected by girls that mostly never even see me. And she's got a database of girls that are actually serious and looking for a man. And she knows which women have paid to find a man. She's got access to serious women that are looking for a husband. And that's really exciting. I'm glad she can go through all that.

We talked through the preferences. I can't put health or sobriety or weight as a deal breaker, but she notes these things. And she probably won't set me up with any unhealthy women or alcoholics, which, you know, I think that'll be great that we don't do that. You know, she's clear that she took lots of notes that I want a girl that's really healthy, like a runner, a yoga girl, etc. And I put that I'd like an active first date. I do put deal breakers down as obviously a woman that wants kids, but also the woman has to be, you know, single, never married, divorced or widowed. No separated at this time. And we'll begin the search in a 40 mile radius. And I also make it clear like I do want to live and stay in St. Pete indefinitely. I was thinking yesterday that maybe I'll move or if I need to, maybe I'll search further away. And it's like, I can meet a girl that lives in Orlando or Miami or something, but as long as it's under the context that she would need to move here, that I'm not moving until the kids are at least teenagers, which would be about five and a half, six years. I mean, by the time my son's 13, he's not going to have the same need for his dad that he does when he's seven. I mean, I remember that clearly. I did not need my parents nearly as much as a teenager. I easily could have done without my mother, especially because she was working full time. And in a lot of the relationship with her as a teenager was just rough. Like she was struggling. She worked a lot and then she was struggling with her health. And I felt like I had years where I didn't have a good relationship with her. I resented her and we didn't even spend much time together. The one thing that really repaired our relationship was I worked with her for a summer. She got me an internship at the base she was assigned to. And we spent an hour each way in the car driving together, and we shared an office. It was really nice. And that left me thinking, like, I could move away if needed and just have summers with the kids by the time they're teenagers. That would probably be fine, especially if my ex-wife had another man at that point, too. You know, the kids could have a stepfather in their life. They wouldn't need their real dad as much, which definitely could happen in like five, six years. But for now, I'm not leaving those kids. I need those kids. The kids need me and I wouldn't feel good moving off somewhere else. That was very good to get clear on. If you're weighing a big move against staying close to your kids and want to get as clear on it as I did here, you can book a one-on-one call with me and we'll talk it through on our call.

As I slept, I woke up at four in the morning today with an edgy idea to take my show to the next level, something I thought could really stand out, and I was excited to run it by my personal trainer. Meanwhile, let's finish up the call. So my matchmaker and I have a fantastic call. And one of the funny questions she asked is the preferences for race. I was going to put no preference at all, but I don't think that's honest. And she did ask my race and I put white on there because it's just going to be too much effort to try and explain why I identify black but I look white and everybody would think I was white. So I just say white for simplicity. I ended up putting white as a preference because I do acknowledge that I'm most easily attracted to blonde white women. That said, I'm genuinely open to a Black woman, a Hispanic woman, you know, an Asian girl that really wants to have a family and takes care of herself. I'm down for all of that. And I made a joke that left myself feeling uncomfortable when she's like, you know, do you want to put your race in as a deal breaker that, you know, they have to be white? And I'm like, I made a joke. I'm like, this is the part where we find out if I'm racist or not, right? She didn't seem like she thought it was very funny or kind of got what I was saying, but I'm like, no, no, just leave it. You know, it's not a deal breaker. I'm happy to go out with a Black woman. That could be a lot of fun. Definitely happy to do that, especially since I identify as black, which I didn't say. But then I felt awkward after I made that joke.

But then I asked her what bookshelf was on her. She had like a virtual background, but I forgot it was a virtual background, even though her hair kept clipping out on the background removal effect. And she made a joke. She's like, oh, it's the book I'm Seeking a Wife by Jerry Banfield. I was like, damn, that was good. You read my profile thoroughly. Remember that? Pulled that joke in there. I'm like, well done. I am officially impressed. You brought my book in in a very relevant way and made a joke on a recorded call. I'm like, well done. By the end of the call, I feel that we have a nice harmony together, you know, as co-workers here and the same mission to find me a woman and I'm really grateful for her support. This actually seems really natural, like this is what we should be doing. Like instead of people swiping on dating apps, I should have a woman that represents me and goes out and looks for a woman for me to date because I think it's easier for women to deal with other women lots of times and to get recommended from a woman. And then you know the women should have a man that represents them. So this seems actually more natural that, you know, a woman would find a woman for me instead of me trying to directly do it. And man, I'm so glad I'm relaxed about this.

After I wrap up the matchmaker, I have a call with one of my friends and then it's time for the AA meeting. I actually forgot to even go to the AA meeting and I end up getting there 30 minutes late. But I still see a couple of people I love there. And lots of people I like. And it ends up being a great meeting, even though I was only there for half of it. I go to personal training with my personal trainer afterwards. It looks like we only have two sessions after this. And I give him all the new material. He's like, dude, you spent $7,500 on a matchmaking service? No, you didn't. I'm like, bro, I'm serious about this. Like, I'm doing this. He's like, how you aren't making money. Like, you're just putting this on credit cards. That's crazy. I'm like, I know it looks crazy. But I look at it, I got nothing to lose. If the future is bright and I'm going to make it rain, then I'm free to spend the money. If the future is dim, then fuck it anyway. If the future is dim, I might as well live and enjoy today because there's no guarantee on what kind of future you're going to get. Being divorced really reinforced that. Now, I am intending to be financially responsible and pay all these cards, and I would love to just start printing money this year, and I'm obsessed with that. I'm in a good spot for that to happen. I do another leg day with my personal trainer because my arm's been feeling good without doing those arm workouts. It seems to be helping the muscles there relax a little bit, especially I've been playing tennis constantly. There's a pretty girl that I was talking about, I think, two weeks ago. She's there again. No luck making eye contact and getting a smile from her, but whatever. I don't care anymore because I have this matchmaking service I dropped $7,500 on. Still, I leave the gym feeling a little bit rejected, but I really enjoyed my talk with my personal trainer. I tell him about my edgy business idea. He definitely agrees people need to get together and connect, but he's not sure if this is exactly the way to do it. If you're torn about investing in yourself while your income isn't where you want it yet, you can schedule a private call with me and we'll think it through together on our call.

I go to a grocery store to shop for some groceries, and I get some creamed honey with some almond butter, which, man, I miss that. We're going to start having a little bit of that again. Cut back on the lower bar some and add that in there. Get some chips with avocado oil. It seems everybody's catching on on the seed oil thing and avocado oil shit's popping up all over. Got a grocery run going up on Thursday, baby. So I'm really excited about that. Load my card up. Somehow it costs $191. Throw that shit on a 0% interest credit card. I'm like, fuck it. YOLO. Thinking about my personal trainer talking about my money spending. I'm like, see what's going to be great when this all works out and makes a great story. And it's great that my ex-wife isn't implicated if it doesn't work out now, too. It's like I don't crash her finances if I crash mine, which is awesome. I'm about to get some tax money back anyway. Let's go.

I get home and I really want to pick the kids up today. So I text my ex-wife. She's at this conference in Tampa. Her mom was going to pick the kids up, but I'm like, let me go get them. I really want to see them again. I almost texted her twice earlier to pick the kids up, but I didn't. But this time I did. So she says she'll tell her mom to cancel and I'll go grab the kids. I get there and my daughter's like, I thought Nana was coming to get us. I'm like, I just wanted to see you loves again. So my daughter's a little thrown off by that. I bring kale chips for them and start talking to them on the way home. I tell them I'm excited about the matchmaker. Now, my sponsor says he didn't think I should be having or he wouldn't have these kind of conversations at this point in the kids lives if it was him. I believe in sharing my life genuinely with my kids so that they can share my thoughts and be prepared for the things that are coming in my life where it's not a surprise suddenly when dad has a new woman or here comes a new baby. So the kids can see where I'm at in my journey and kind of adjust their expectations and stuff. So I'm talking about that I'm definitely going to stay and I'm not going to be moving away from them because I'd talked to them before saying I might. And I like that the kids can see my real life. The kids really see me, not as some stick figure of a parent that has his shit all figured out. But it's like, I'm figuring this out in real time.

I tell them that, you know, I've got plans to, you know, meet a woman through the matchmaker. And I end up talking about some of the details. I said that I cried today when the matchmaker asked me to send a picture of my ex and some of the girls like that I have as friends that I thought were attractive. So I got a picture of a woman I'd had a crush on from an old dating profile that she put up like a decade ago, which god that's gorgeous let me tell you. I sent a couple of pictures of a friend in because she's very pretty and she's like half Korean so that you get a little diversity up in this bitch. And I sent a picture of another friend in. But I couldn't, I didn't have any good pictures of her. I got some crappy low res picture. And then I sent some pictures of a woman I had been seeing in. So bad. It's so bad, but it's so real. So I sent some pictures of her into him like I got some hot ass girls for friends. You know, actually, I don't have any ugly ass girls for friends come to think of it. And there's one woman from my recovery group that I really like. I'm not sure if she's hot. It's like, I could picture her being like, do not, do not fucking call me an ugly friend. My mind is fucked up on this right now. And then who else did I send a picture? Oh, obviously, I sent a couple of pictures of my ex-wife and me from our DC trip last summer. And I cried. I'm like, fuck, I can't believe I'm sending pictures that we took on our family road trip that the kids took to a fucking matchmaker to try and find another woman. Like, just grief. Straight up grief came up. But I'm so glad I can just feel that and move that and let it go through my body instead of it coming out in weird, irritable shit or, like, dysfunctional behavior like buying, you know, a PlayStation 5 or some shit like that. Like, I'm glad I just recognized that immediately. As soon as I sent the picture, I started to feel like I needed to cry. I'm just like, fucking cry, bro. Let it come out. And it came out. I was like, oh, my first wife is so beautiful. Oh, just let it go. I just let it get out. If grief keeps welling up while you try to move toward someone new, you don't have to push it down or face it alone, and you can schedule a one-on-one call with me and talk it through on our call.

So I was telling the kids about that because I figured they'd appreciate that. And then I ended up talking about the matchmaker and the preferences in the race. And I'm like, you know, I'm probably going to find a woman that looks a lot like your mom. But I told the matchmaker if they find, you know, a Black woman, an Asian woman, a Hispanic woman, I'm down for all of it. And my daughter's like, no, I don't think that's a good idea. I'm like, what? You know, she's like, no, you should you date a woman that looks more like mom. I'm like, why? It's like, well, I just I don't want a woman that looks you know different than mom. I'm like, okay, I can understand that. And then we got home and my daughter got in a like a funk after that where she kind of got into this emotional spiral. And I bought the milk that we didn't have yesterday and that I tried to buy the day before on Monday. I got milk now. Everyone, we got home and I read to my son. I snuggled him a little bit. Him and my daughter played a little bit. And then my ex-wife came there to pick them up to go to piano.

Well, my daughter was in a fuss and tried to tell my ex-wife that she needed to go home to pick up an outfit for her that she could wear to go out with her friends. And my ex-wife's such a nice person. People pleaser. That she's thinking about doing it. And then I come through as the voice of reason. I'm like that's ridiculous. Like it'll take you the traffic and stuff, probably at least 20 minutes round trip, to go back home and get clothes for my daughter. My daughter has clothes she wore to school. Like there's nothing super fancy or something happening. It's just my daughter's like, I want pants. I'm like, you got pants in a dresser lady, but she was just upset. And I'm glad I could recognize that. Like, it's not about the thing itself, you know? And then my ex-wife got a bit of that upset feeling too. And I, maybe I should have waited to another time to talk about this, but I like to keep my ex-wife updated with what's going on. I told her very quickly in like one minute that the matchmaker call went really well. I'm excited about it. I'm definitely going to stay in St. Pete.

And, you know, here's what happened right before that, though. Right before the kids came over, I was going to say I fucked up, but looking back now, it doesn't sound like I fucked up. But I was thinking about that edgy idea for the show, and I thought, you know, there might be some issues with this. So I asked ChatGPT about it, and it roasted me. It absolutely roasted me, laying out serious legal and ethical risks. So I'm like, shit, yeah, that's all too likely. All right, fuck, I'll just give up on the show. So by the time my ex-wife gets home and by the time I had picked the kids up, I told them I'm not doing a show. I'm going to fucking do some kind of coaching or something for wealthy people. That's what I'm going to do because I already have a lifestyle that looks like wealthy. I got a tennis club membership. I get massages every week. I haven't worked a real job in a decade. Your boy already lives that wealthy lifestyle. I can feel the wealthy clients in that respect. I tell my ex-wife that I'm going to stay in St. Pete. The matchmaker went well. I'm going to do something. I'm not going to do a show. She was in a bit of a mood and kind of couldn't hear me at first, but then she pivoted real quick and was like, Hey, I hear you. Okay. That sounds good. Thank you for the quick updates. And I'm like, yeah, I just, I want to keep everybody on the same page. I want to check what I'm doing and get feedback because I thought the show idea was a great idea until ChatGPT roasted it and ruined it, you know, in one minute.

After my ex-wife and the kids leave, which my daughter eventually leaves when, you know, my ex-wife finally gets in the car and it's barely time to go to her piano lesson. My ex-wife and the kids leave. My daughter sends me a sweet little message after she leaves. She says, I love you, Dada. I'm sorry. And it's at this point I figure out where she got upset. I remember she got triggered on the way home from school, but I couldn't figure the exact conversation. I said, I love you too. You know, I understand you had a long day. Don't worry about it, sweetie. And it's nice. I feel that unconditional love for my child. I'm like, I get it. It's hard. You know, she's just a kid, picturing her dad dating someone different than her mom, you know, and it's like, what the she's wondering what the fuck happened to her life, right? Like, this is crazy. Like, we're, you know, it's it. I can see that. And my son bumped his head while I was playing with him. So he got his emotions out by getting physical and bumping himself a couple of times and having a cry. I need to get some proper boxing mitts for my son, though, so he can really lean into that. But as soon as I do, he'll probably get tired of the boxing gloves. But that's OK.

After my ex-wife and the kids leave, I get ready for my singles tennis match. And I start trying to figure, I'm like, OK, you know, what am I going to do? It's time to make some money. So I get to the tennis center early and I get to work talking to ChatGPT. I'm like, OK, you know what I need to do? Because it says that some different things I could offer. And I'm saying, okay, what it really sounds like is that I have services I could offer to wealthy clients. That seems like where we're really going here. Out of my offerings and stuff, that seems to be my niche. I'm a person who could serve wealthy clients because their wealth doesn't intimidate me or bother me or make me worship them. I could have that if I wanted that also. If I had chose to just continue uploading videos and do anything to make money online, I could have, especially if I'd have just been willing to lie about crypto, I could have a fucking huge house and all kinds of cars and shit myself. But I decided I wasn't interested in that. And, you know, I wanted to stay home and spend more time parenting the kids and support my ex-wife, who was really interested in working. But now I am ready. We're going to get a regular 10 grand a month income, 100 plus K a year. We're going to get that going.

So I asked ChatGPT for some ideas and it says, one idea that pops up is a legacy and identity strategist. Wealthy adults eventually ask, what am I building now? You help with life redesign, identity evolution, legacy alignment. And I'm like, you know, that actually sounds pretty accurate. Legacy work. Remember that letter I sent out to hundreds of people in December in my neighborhood where it talked about helping people write books? Well, what I did wrong in that letter is first off, I put a stamp on it and addressed it to my neighbor, which probably got thrown out 95% of the time. And then it just had like ghostwriting or book coaching services, which I addressed the legacy a little bit, but it didn't make it clear like the exact narrative. I uniquely am in a fantastic position to help someone who's got money and wants to preserve their story and control the narrative on their life. I'm in a fantastic position. I can help them do a podcast, a YouTube channel, short videos with all of it, books, audio books, print, Kindle. I can do all that shit. And I imagine I picture somebody would pay me really well to get all of their life thoroughly documented and in a book so that they could preserve their story, their legacy, and have it to pass down. I mean, for somebody that you think of as maybe like a deca-millionaire, like they could drop 50 grand to get it done right. And they'd be very happy to do that. And I'd do a great job for them. I think, nice. All right, now this sounds promising because this I have credentials for. Like, hey, I've filmed 10,000 videos. I published 30 books on Amazon. A friend's book is finished now. So I can say, hey, here's a little tiny thing I did for a friend. This was super easy. I could train somebody to do it themselves or coach them or have it done full service. If you've got a deep well of experience and want help shaping it into an offer that actually serves people, you can book a private call with me and we'll map it out together on our call.

I get out to the tennis center to play the match, and I'm like, all right, I think we got something here. I think we got something here. We're going to explore this further. I meet my opponent, a tennis partner. We meet on court 12, and I'm so grateful for my tennis center membership. There's a clinic right next to me where there's men and women both playing together, which I love that. We start playing, and I win the very first game. I'm starting to think this is looking good. He wins the next six out of seven games and beats me 6-2. Unlike yesterday when I was screaming my ass off playing a friend, I'm keeping it pretty cool. Like, it's a guy I don't know yet at the tennis center, not out at a local park with a friend. As we go into the second set, he gets up 5-2 against me. And he was up 4-1 at one point. And then we take it to 5-2. And I really laser in on my inner game of tennis. I start telling, talking to myself like I'm my son. I'm like, I love you, little buddy. Good job. Just play your best. Do whatever you can. Just get out there and play and have fun. All right. I love you. I love you. I love you. I shower myself with love and talk nice to myself when I miss a shot. I'm like, fuck, but it's OK. It's OK. It's all good. You're playing your best. Just get out there and play. And we're both getting great exercise. He's sweating his ass off. And I'm actually mouth breathing here and there because I'm running so much. He has a decent power serve, and he's like a barreled, big-chested guy, but he can run too, which is inspiring to see. And somehow, my game elevates and his game collapses at the same time. I bring the set to a tie at 6-6, and we do a tiebreaker. And I win the tiebreaker, like 7-3. Meanwhile, it's 8-20. And we still have a third set or a tiebreaker. He says he doesn't want to do a tiebreaker, which I respect in almost every case. I'd rather play a third set too. But I go in and ask the guy at the tennis center and the lights go out at 830. So we agree to meet again and schedule on Sunday to do that last set, which that'll probably benefit him a lot because sometimes it takes me like a set to warm up. Other times I come out firing. But today I was just getting good and warmed up after two full sets of tennis, two hours of playing tennis.

God, I'm so grateful for my body. Like it is so healthy and physically active. And I looked beautiful. I got to say, I looked beautiful on that Zoom call this morning with the matchmaker. I'm like, man, I look great. I'm really excited to find a girl who appreciates that. I'm driving home and I'm in this real clear mental state. I can kind of like feel the second woman and her proximity. Like we're getting closer in time to each other. That she recognizes I'm truly ready for her. And I'm excited because I know she's coming and she's getting closer and closer. And I imagine she's probably coming through the matchmaking service, but I'm open to if it happens another way. But the matchmaking service plus the I'm seeking a wife book are a clear commitment that I'm absolutely ready for my next woman. I get home and I eat some potatoes and beans with a spaghetti sauce on them for dinner because I'm like, I'm going to just stuff some nutritious shit in my belly right now. And this tastes good enough, so fuck it. Load the dishwasher up. And my friend recommended a coach. I look up and read his website a bit. Then I'm like, all right, let's get these diary entries done. Maybe I'll talk to ChatGPT a little bit about wealth, you know, wealthy clients and legacy work. Then it'll be time to shower. And I wonder if she will be at yoga tomorrow. You're going to find out really quickly. But I'm going to have to wait about 10 hours. My bet is no. Although it did feel last week like she kind of wanted to go but had something come up, but I don't think she's going to be there tomorrow. I think she's going to do the 10 o'clock class if I was accurate in seeing her walk in. I think I was too much with my compliment, my energy, and she switched to the 10 o'clock class. That's what I think is going to happen. That to me is the most likely probability, but I'm so curious to see what actually happens tomorrow. You're about to find out real quick.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Dating After Divorce: My Standards and How I Searched for a Partner

Originally published February 5, 2026.

My answer to how a man finds a partner after divorce is simpler than it was a year ago: know your standards before you start, say them early, and do not mistake a busy dating life for a search that is working. The posts below cover roughly the year from August 2025 through June 2026, when I was divorced, living on my own in St. Petersburg, seeing my two kids part of the week, and trying to work out who I actually wanted to build a life with.

The new year brought a more structured approach. In A Letter to the Wife I Haven't Met I dictated a letter to a woman I had not met yet, and I cried and laughed at the end, which I took as a sign I had written it from the heart. In Grief Showed Up While I Searched for Love I signed up with a matchmaker, and while sending her photos of my marriage I was surprised by how much grief came up. I also decided I would stay in St. Petersburg for my kids rather than move away to search.

The most patient post is the June 2026 memoir excerpt, The Day I Heard I Was Finally Ready, which recounts July 2025. A woman I had a crush on at yoga for years reappeared the day after I heard a thought telling me I was ready to see her. When I spoke to her, she did not remember my name. Over our conversations she had been clear that she would not see me until I was ready to leave my wife, and I do not want to leave my ex-wife.

The posts run newest first, so the June excerpt is at the top and the August 2025 standards entry is at the bottom. These are my raw diary days, not a polished advice column. If you want the short version, read the February 28 and December 28 posts first. If divorce is the bigger story for you, my divorce hub covers how it ended and what came after.

The Day I Heard I Was Finally Ready

Originally published June 21, 2026.

July 12, 2025

July 13, 2025

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

The Things I Refuse to Negotiate On

Originally published February 28, 2026.

This is my journal entry from February 28, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Grief Showed Up While I Searched for Love

Originally published February 19, 2026.

This is my journal entry from February 19, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Writing to My Future Wife

Originally published January 30, 2026.

This is my journal entry from January 30, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

Today's the day of massive inspiration. Holy shit, I am absolutely on fire. I wake up with the kids this morning. My son is feeling back to his normal energy, which is great. Then I take the kids to school this morning. We get there in good time, which my daughter's happy with. I have some time to read my son's planet book about the planet Mercury in the car. And then I head straight over to a yoga studio for a class. It's maybe like 45 outside this morning, but I'm in shorts and a t-shirt. Can't be bothered to take more stuff off once I get in that yoga room, which would be like 94 degrees. I roll in there and I'm not happy with any of the places I see to put my mat as I put everything down by the cabinets. And I end up just opting to put my mat right next to the cabinets.

The instructor today goes hard on the power flow. Jesus Christ, like fucking sweating all over the place, sweats flying. And this is the first one of these power classes here I've done in a long time where I feel like I can barely keep up. But I'm super proud that it's so hot in here and I'm in such great shape. I'm able to do this. Those power classes used to kick my ass. And now the fact that I can do this today is incredible. I do notice a woman a couple of mats up from me is the one that I mentioned the hubcap to a few days ago. The hottest one in the class easily. Holy shit. She's gorgeous.

And as the class wraps up, at the beginning of the class, though, there was a girl who smiled at me and I wasn't prepared. She like looked at me and smiled. I'm like, shit, I wasn't even ready to like talk to her, but it did feel good. And I'm looking around for her and I can't find her at the end of the class. I'm like, well, shit. I am putting into practice what I talked about yesterday. And the really hot girl with the missing hubcap, she walks by. So I just stare at her and try and make eye contact. And she actually looks at me and smiles. And I'm like, oh. Wow, well, that really made my day, didn't it? I got to make sure to put my mat down next to her and tell her how attractive she is and see what happens after that. Do I get to meet my second wife or do we get kicked out of the yoga studio? Who knows? We shall see.

But that did feel really good when there's so many girls that aren't even responding to me. Like the woman I'd been talking to has not responded to me still as I'm recording this later. Nothing yet. Nobody else. Like, fuck. Do these girls just get so many messages? They just don't respond? Or is it like they're not interested in me? I don't know. It doesn't matter what's going on with them. What matters is what's going on with me. And my mind is just bursting with inspiration today. It's amazing.

I get home and my sponsor is giving out a medallion to somebody in AA meeting today. But I'm hella late. And that's fine because I'm going to do it right. I shower because I'm so sweaty, still thinking about the woman from class and the kind of partnership I'm really hoping for. And I ate the rest of the bean noodles I cooked last night for the kids and then met my sponsor, even though I was at least 30 minutes late to the meeting. I still got there to hear some of the guy's story. And I ended up chatting with a couple of ladies for 40 minutes after the meeting, which was so therapeutic. They're showering compliments on me. We're all sharing our stories and our situations, and it felt fantastic.

I drove home, and I'm looking at the sheets, which I've been in my new place here almost a month, haven't changed the sheets yet, and my comforter, which is a California king-size comforter for my king bed, has not been washed since I moved out on my own. Thus, I think it's time to wash that today, but my washer is too small to wash that. So I'm looking at going to the laundromat, which of course reminds me of an Eminem song that mentions a laundromat. Yeah, that's how that goes. I'm like, fuck, let's go to the laundromat today. So I have a salad and throw the big comforter in the car. I wash the other two in my washer and I drive to the laundromat. I haven't been to the laundromat. I don't think I've been in a laundromat since I was a teenager when the washer broke at the apartment complex where my parents were renting from these German people. I remember going and playing Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in arcade back in the 90s, the last time I've been in a laundromat. I roll in the laundromat and there's lots of washers and shit there. I get all kinds of quarters, take a washer big enough for the mat.

And I get slapped with multiple waves of inspiration right before this, right after the AA meeting. I have a vision of writing a book that's addressed to my second wife. I think, you know, maybe actually this is in the shower when I was thinking about the girl at yoga. I was like, you know what I should do? I should just write a book that is like dear second wife or something like that and just talk to a girl about what I'd like in a second wife. And then I could just give that to any potential hostages slash opportunities. And it'd be an incredible way to be transparent and to skip the usual dating process. Someone reads a book like that. Yeah, it might fail 99 times out of 100, but you give 100 a mountain, all of a sudden, somebody's just got to have you. If you've got a bold, transparent idea like that for putting yourself out there and want a second set of eyes before you run with it, book a private call with me and we'll shape it together.

And then as I'm getting to the laundromat, I put that together with talking to Joe Parys yesterday, and I remember, holy shit, Amazon has ads for books. And the best ads are ads that sell directly in the platform. And then I have this, like, big bang moment in my head. I'm like, holy shit. I need to advertise my books. It's so obvious. Like, that book is a perfect example. Like, I could put a book out that's like, Dear Second Wife, advertise it all over the place, and I might find a second wife anywhere in the country with that book. And that's the kind of book that people would predictably be toxic over. Like some girl might buy that and be like, what a fucking asshole and like do a rant about it on Instagram or some shit and make me a bunch of additional sales and maybe even get it in front of the right girl. Like that's a book that could go viral right there. And the first step would be, well, writing it would be the first step. Then the second step would be to advertise it. Like, holy shit, this is it.

I need to hit these Amazon ads because I know how to do paid ads and I know paid ads work and I know they work best usually if you can sell straight on the platform. As I ranted about in my book, I Was Famous on the Internet, if I tried to send people off of Facebook, they wouldn't go. But Amazon is perfect because I can sell books with Amazon ads directly on Amazon. Holy shit, it's the greatest setup. And what are people doing that are looking for new books to read? They're fucking scrolling on Amazon. They're looking through books on Amazon. They're clicking on sponsored ads on Amazon, trying to find a new book to read, hoping for something different. Especially people have Kindle Unlimited and just ripped through books on there. I mean, they're looking for someone like me. And the advantage I offer is the sheer quantity of books I put out. A lot of authors, ads don't make sense if you have one or two books, especially if those books don't monetize. But I have everything in position. I have 20 some books on Amazon right now. And just my daily autobiography series has five books in it already with a sixth book that just needs to be edited. And this, which I think will be in the seventh book here, this just needs to be edited too. And then with Amazon accounts, people have Kindle, paperback, and audio. It's perfect. It is absolutely perfect.

I can see it now. Yes, yes, I can see clearly now. All I need to be able to do is dump money into Amazon ads and write books. I can test which books get the best results too. I could easily write a book every week or so and just test which one can I make money off of advertising, which one gets me coaching clients. And the key is that I need books that people will go to jerrybanfield.com and actually pay money to talk to me. Imagine me doing a book like Dear Second Wife, advertising the shit out of that, and girls actually pay. Right now on my website, I update it to correspond with this new strategy because if I'm going to advertise books on Amazon across the US, I could be getting people from anywhere. So I update it. I take the event off my website. I switch it to a 30-minute phone call, one-hour Zoom call, and then in-person sessions. I upgraded the one-on-one phone call to $111. The Zoom video call to $222 and the in-person session for an hour and a half for $333.

Can you imagine, can you imagine some girl in like Utah that reads my book and is like, holy shit, I've got to marry this guy. And can you imagine her paying like $200 for a Zoom session and then paying like $300 more to actually come out here and meet me in person? Can you picture me getting paid to date? That shit is so far above the levels where other people are. That is so crazy. And the paid ads are the gateway to that. This inspiration is, this is what I love, that this is why you need your full range of emotions, because, yeah, I had a couple of days where I was down on my business this week, like, I'm fucked, guys, like, I'm fucked, nobody's gonna read these books, it's gonna be the end, and today I'm, like, so high off inspiration. Like that is an idea that is absolutely on such a higher level. It is amazing. I am so excited to execute it. All I need to do is get the rest of my un-effing-myself book done. I'll be ready to go. I've got three more chapters I'll do on that. If you get hit with big inspiration like this but keep stalling before you execute it, set up a call with me and we'll turn it into a plan you'll actually run.

This also brings into question how much I want to hand out locally. I definitely want to hand out locally, but I'm thinking Amazon ads should be the foundation of cranking my book sales out. Then we'll also do local targeted handouts or get books handed out locally also to bring in more one-on-one calls, Zoom calls, in-person sessions. I go through Amazon with this inspiration. I create 10 campaigns for my books. In the past, I'd only tested two and I quickly gave up on them, but I wasn't thinking about this the right way. The book advertising doesn't need to be profitable on a single book. If I could spend $50 and sell a few books, that could work out if then I sell some coaching calls here and there. Because then it'll all pay for itself. And then the more books I sell, the more reviews I'll get, the more books I'll sell organically, the more people post about my books on social media, it will snowball.

So I created an ad for I Was Famous on the Internet. And It's Not You, It's the Dating Apps. ChatGPT for President. The Kind Divorce. Is Bitcoin One Big Lie? The Unpolished Truth, Living Alone Again, Author in St. Petersburg, Officer Banfield, Nine Hours Later, and Sober Through Separation. I put all of them at $5 a day budget, so $50 a day. And will they actually serve? We'll see. I put all the bids to whatever it suggested. And the idea is the more books I have, the more I can test different books. And there will be some books. If you do 80-20 rule, there will probably, if I do 10 books, there'll probably be two that work decently in ads. That means if I do 20 more books, I'll probably get four more books that work in ads. The books that work in ads can just sit there and keep bringing in sales over and over again. I can just keep cranking books out. Eventually, if I get 10, 20 different books and I'm advertising all of them and they're bringing in sales on all of them, we could have a big-ass business system. Then I could even afford to advertise losers that don't even directly bring much money in, but they just get impressions. I could eventually work up to thousands of dollars a day on Amazon ads, making thousands of dollars a day in book sales to cover that, and then just filling my calendar with coaching calls and in-person meetups. What a business system. Holy shit.

All this while I'm at the laundromat. There's a dude there who looks like he's having a rough time. He just got kicked out of his mom's house. He's on a phone. He says, hey, bro, you got a phone charger? I'm like, nah. He's like, you sure? I mean, yes, I'm fucking sure I don't have a fucking phone charger. All right. But I get my comforter clean to come back home and get it all set up. I got my bed. I got nice clean sheets finally for the first time in weeks. And damn, I'm so grateful to have this level of excitement and enthusiasm. And I'm grateful I got enough money to get this set up and start working on it. And then the only question is, can we get this thing profitable and cranking cash in before hitting bankruptcy? I'm excited to find out.

After getting all hyped up about my books, I take myself to a movie. My son's not doing soccer tonight because he still wants to rest some. And I decide I'm going to go see Mercy tonight at a movie theater. I've never been to a movie by myself as an adult. And I'm interested to try it. It's cool to just look at the movies and think, what do I want to see? And I thought this movie looks good. I go over and pay $16 to park, pay about the same for my movie ticket and a little bit less than that for my popcorn. Take myself out for a little less than $50. It's really cool. The parking, you just drive in and it automatically opens and closes because I have my car registered and it bills you. It's pretty convenient. I walk into the movie theater and it's mostly empty, although there's maybe 10 people in there. There's probably 40 or 50 seats. I sit down and I'm eating my popcorn slowly, one, two pieces at a time. I get a large popcorn and there's a shitload of previews. I even catch some of the ads beforehand.

And I thought I'd feel kind of bad. Like I was interested to go see this movie by myself to think like, how am I going to feel? Am I going to feel sad that I'm not there with a girl? All these other people are out. But I feel pretty calm and peaceful. I remember the times my ex-wife and I went to the movies together and when I went with the kids. I remember how much fun I had going to the movies with my ex-wife, feeling so grateful that I just wanted to treasure those memories forever. And I've still got those memories. They're still right there. And it's nice to actually just go to the movies by myself. The last time I went to the movies was with my sister and her kids. And I think of that and how much fun I had talking shit with my nephew during the Predator Badlands movie, which I'm just about to edit that section of the book that I'm working on from those diary entries.

I sit and watch the movie and it gets some emotions going in me. It's very sensational, especially since I don't watch TV or videos. Going to a movie is a big sensational experience. And I end up feeling very grateful that I don't need somebody else to go to a movie and that someday I'll be out with a hot girl again and we'll be going to the movies and there'll be that passion and that excitement. But this is nice right now, today. I walk out of the movie theater and the woman that sat next to me with her man sees the hoodie I'm wearing that says, would you like a hug? And she said, look, this guy's giving out free hugs. And she gives me a big hug and then she tells her man. She says, here, you give him a hug too. So me and this guy have a nice hug and then they walk into the bathroom and I walk over to the parking garage. If you're learning to be at peace doing things on your own while you wait for the right partner, and you'd like to talk that through, book a one-on-one call with me and bring it to our call.

I drive home and I think, wow, this was a nice evening. I really enjoyed that. And if I'm going to watch a movie in the theater like that, it was cool to, I felt like I was with the other people there. I didn't feel like I was alone because I was watching this movie with all these other people. It was really cool. Normally, I'd be so consumed with whoever I was going with, I wouldn't pay much attention to the other people. But going by myself, I was very aware of all the other people there. And I felt like all of us had went to the movies together. It was really cool. I drove home and then wrapped up and worked on my book some more and had a nice night of sleep, pushing it all the way after 11, going through some book ideas with ChatGPT and editing my book before bed.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Deleting Every App and Waiting for the Real Thing

Originally published December 28, 2025.

This is my journal entry from December 28, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

I was supposed to have tennis this morning, but my tennis coach canceled, so I go to my yoga studio for a Power Flow class. I get there and find a nice spot to put my mat. A girl moves over next to me to make space for a couple. I didn't realize it was a 75-minute hot class, but great. I get a thorough sweat going. And I'm grateful I did a nice workout on my own yesterday at the gym that's left me sore, especially the lunges. I wrap up class, and there's a couple of girls I know there from AA, thinking, all right, let's go get some more phone numbers. I walk out to the lobby, and the girl who sat next to me, or really put her mat next to me, is close, so I start talking to her based off of seeing that she wore glasses during some of the yoga class. I begin by asking, how are you wearing glasses during yoga? That's crazy, especially a hot class where it's sweaty. She explains she can't see very well without the glasses, and she put them on occasionally when she needed to see a pose that was being demonstrated. I keep talking to her for a few minutes. She's gorgeous, and she's giving me signs she's interested, so I ask for her phone number. She gives it to me, and I send her one of my books.

I'm lingering around giving a couple of other people my books, too, and wondering if I want to try and get the other girl's number at AA. This girl is the same one I talked about around a month ago at the AA dinner. I wrote about her in my last book. And the one problem with her is that she's a bit big, although today I'm thinking she's not that big. I should probably get her phone number and go out with her. But I'm not really feeling it. Something doesn't feel comfortable or right. It felt pretty easy to get the first girl's phone number. And at the same time, though, like, I don't know, man. There's a perfect opportunity as I linger and hang around where she's walking to her car by herself. But I'm like, I'm not feeling it. I don't feel like this is right. The girl's nice, but I just, I don't see this being my person. You know, I don't feel that thing with her.

And I go back home. I sit on the couch when I get home and I swipe like crazy on Hinge and Bumble and not much on Tinder, but some. On Hinge, I'm writing all kinds of toxic comments on girls' profiles. I'm framing it under giving them constructive feedback. I spent some time swiping this morning too. I feel just like addicted to this. And I have a date today at 12:30 at a vegan restaurant with a girl from Bumble. So I swipe through every girl on Bumble that wants kids in a 33-mile radius. And then I get to work on Hinge. Hinge takes so long though. There's so many girls on Hinge that want kids, so many more than on Bumble. But leaving a comment takes so much time and I'm so annoyed. Like regular nice comments just don't do anything; girls always just ignore them. So I'm writing toxic comments.

Then I finally wrap up and shower and go out to meet the girl. She arrives five minutes late and the restaurant is closed until one. So I find a restaurant that's a block down. We walk down there and eat at it. We both get a sandwich. I pay for her lunch. The food's okay. The previous vegan restaurant that was there was better. I enjoyed the meals there better; this one is like a crappier version of that one. There's a girl I know from AA that's working there, the one that I actually sent a text message to a few days ago to ask if she wanted to go for a walk and she didn't respond. She doesn't seem to notice me. She's very busy and in the zone at work, and I'm out sitting with a girl outside. This girl immigrated to the USA a few years ago, and she has one teenage son. She says she would be happy to have more kids with the right man, but she doesn't ever want to be a single mom again. She ended up being a single mom when her son was little, after she and his dad got divorced, so she's been a single mom for over a decade now, and she doesn't want to do that again. She's very sweet, and she's not fat, but I'm just not that attracted to her, and we have almost nothing in common. It's a little hard to communicate with her sometimes because English is her second language, and the way I talk is hard for people to understand sometimes because it's so blunt and direct. We have our lunch and take a little walk up and down the block. And I give her a hug and I send her one of my books to read, I Was Famous on the Internet. And I get back in my car and head home.

And then I schedule a time to see the kids at about 3:30. And I sit down and I just feel like I'm addictively on the dating apps again. Like, this isn't good. But I just want to go through. There's so many girls that are active on Hinge today, I guess because it's Sunday. And I took off the drinking filter. So I'm seeing so many of these girls that drink in my feed, and it's so disgusting. Like, don't they see what they're doing? So I have to help them. Like this one girl, the first impression on her profile, she has a picture of herself, and then it says the keys to my heart, which is a Hinge prompt, and after that it has cheese and bourbon. Like, do you think this is going to attract the kind of man that you think will be a good father, that the keys to your heart are cheese and bourbon? So I make sure to send her a message on that and let her know how I think you really attract the kind of man you want with cheese and bourbon as your first impression. And I send a bunch of other messages like this. I try sending some nice messages too, but the nice messages literally have gotten almost zero response off of hundreds and hundreds of times.

The kids end up coming home a bit later and I start to feel like, shit, I had work I wanted to do on my books today. I had hours of time that I could have done very valuable work on my books. I haven't gotten a single response from the 350 letters I sent to my neighbors yet, and I have all these books I want to write, but I haven't gotten one response. The kids come over, and I put down the dating apps to take them to a nearby park. My son's got his scooter, and my daughter brought Melanie, the dog, so we walk down to the park, and my daughter goes and gets on the swings and plays on the playset, which is so nice because she's 10 years old and she's so big now, and she used to play on this playset when she was just a year old, and often up until maybe five or six years old. My son ends up throwing the ball with me, and then he climbs over the fence and runs around and plays for less than five minutes, and he comes back with two scrapes on his knee from falling off the fence climbing one time and then falling down another time.

In the meantime, I get a new match on Hinge, and this girl is pissed. It's the bourbon and cheese girl. She is mad at me for calling her out, and she starts laying into me with her message, saying that I look 60 years old and I must not be healthy at all, and some more stuff that I don't even read. I send a quick message back telling her she obviously needs to meet me in person, and she says she'll pass, at which point I unmatch her. I start to get pretty mad. I'm like, this is so stupid. What have I done with my day? What did I do with my weekend? I spent like eight or nine hours this weekend out on dates and on dating apps, the dates directly coming from the dating apps. And I know exactly what I need to do. While the kids go play by the water, I realize I need to delete these dating apps. And I need to not just delete them off my phone, I need to delete my entire profile. And it's really nice because within the last week, I just dropped $50 on Tinder and $160 on Bumble. But you know what? If for $200 I can take a lesson that never, ever, ever again with the dating apps, it'll be worth it. Especially after I wrote a book called It's Not You, It's the Dating Apps.

These dating apps are horrible. It's not that they can't work, they can. But for most, a lot of people, a dating app is not going to allow you to find what you need. And it's actually just going to make a shitty environment like this, where being a nice, reasonable man, which would work very well in person, does not work on dating apps. You have to either be this superficial asshole with professional pictures, or super tall, or flaunting your money as a man, or you need to be an asshole to even get women's attention, or just some dude that'll go with anything. There's all kinds of options on dating apps, but I want a beautiful woman. And the kind of beautiful women on dating apps are often pretty disappointing, or the apps attract some real extremes and instability, which I've described in previous entries, not that any of it happened to me. But there are occasional hot girls that come on dating apps, and they're so swarmed with guys. It's like, I don't want to contribute to this anymore. I've got to stop this. And therefore, I delete the apps. If you're done with the dating apps and rebuilding your life the real way too, I'd love for you to schedule a one-on-one call with me and we'll figure it out together.

I walk the kids home to my ex-wife's place. I make them some popcorn. I say goodnight. And that's when I go home, I sit on my couch and I delete every app off my phone and I delete every profile and cancel every subscription before I do it. And now I'm starting to spiral downward a bit heading to the AA meeting. I go to the AA meeting, my home group, and I actually get there a bit early. I can barely get a seat because it's so crowded. I sit down and a sponsee gets a seat right next to me, which is awesome. And I start to spiral downward as the anniversary celebrants are sharing their stories. I'm like, what the hell am I doing with dating? Like I've spent as much time dating in the last week as I have working. Now working, I've got some results. I've cranked out books. I've written all kinds of letters. Like I made an effort. Now it didn't work, but at least the letters so far haven't worked, but it has worked to get books done and to publish books. All this effort I made with dating has led me to going out with two girls that I had no chemistry with, no connection with. They're interesting, but it was so awkward with both of them because we had nothing in common. There'd been no tension that had been built up. And it just felt like a total waste of my time and their time.

And then I think about all the work I've done in person. Like, I've gotten a phone number, as I've told you, almost every day this week. Like, I got a hot girl's phone number at yoga this morning. But again, this is a girl I barely knew that I did one yoga class next to. She doesn't usually come to my yoga studio. But now what am I going to do with this girl I met one time? There's not been enough tension built up with her where if I say, hey, do you want to go out and get tea or something. She doesn't hardly know me. Or I could try and meet her in another yoga class again. But it's kind of a chore just to even build tension. But I'm starting to feel kind of hopeless. What the hell, man? What am I doing? I need to focus. I need to focus on my work.

The dating, I can handle on my own; it's not urgent. My money situation is more urgent. I need to get my work straight. I need to get books published. I need to get books in people's hands. I have several months where I don't have to make any money at all. I took an $11,000 cash advance on my credit card and transferred it to a 0% card. So I'll have about $20,000 in cash with $2,700 a month in rent. So I've got at least three or four months, plus I have a 0% interest credit card, an additional one, that has like $8,000 more limit on it. So I've got a few months of runway right now where I can make literally no money and I'm fine, plus if the ICP price would not go to zero, I'd have another few thousand there. But if I keep messing around and spending all this time dating, I need that time for work. I need that time to figure out how to make money. And I need to put my work and attention and creativity into my books, because it takes a month for me to get author copies of my books to even start handing them out.

So even if I finish a book today, it takes a month to get a copy of that book in the mail and be ready to hand it out. And it can take a month or two for people to even read the book and for anything to start happening. I have enough time now if I write two, three books over the next month, then over the next several months I could have handed out hundreds and hundreds of books and sold books and have time for something to happen. But the more I keep messing around dating, what really pisses me off this weekend is like I could have written a whole book damn near, or finished a book. I could have done so much on my books this weekend, but I went out with a couple of girls and no chemistry.

As the meeting wraps up, I feel like I really need to do step three, like turn my dating over to God. Like I've reached my limits. I'm trying so hard and absolutely nothing is happening. I text the girl I saw while she was at work today, and she responds back immediately. But then I send her a message saying, hey, you know, let's do something this week. She says maybe, she's got some work to do with her sponsor. I'm like, you know, we could have tea before or after work or something, no big deal. But I'm like, even there, that's something I probably should have let even more tension build with, because this girl likes me. But now it's like I'm diffusing the tension or something with asking her out too early or whatever.

So I wrap up the meeting and I start talking to people about this. And I end up having a conversation with a guy I knew several years ago when he got sober, who mostly goes to church now instead of AA. And we all grill him on, you know, when have you done your 10th step, how often do you talk to your sponsor, how often are you coming to meetings? Like, you know, he's out there helping people, but he's living a bit dangerously with slacking on the AA meetings and just thinking that church and his woman at home are going to totally cover that aspect of it. And then he's able to help me. I asked him about meeting his wife. So he has a new wife and baby, which is amazing, given when I met this guy he was so utterly defeated and his life was going so shitty. And he has what I'm looking to have in lots of ways. And he told me that he had a girl that he knew from church. They were in the same church, but they didn't even know it, but they were both doing the same kind of volunteer work together for like a year, and they'd see each other. And basically the tension with her built for like seven or eight, at least seven or eight months, where they saw each other once a week and they barely talked or said hi, and they worked together in the same volunteer group, the same mission. And then, what he said happened is that a couple of months before he made any kind of move, she said she was praying with her mother to God that he would notice her and ask her out. And after a couple of months of this, finally they made eye contact one day, and he understood that it was time to ask her out, and he went and did so. And then from there, you know, they've ended up getting married and having a baby, and he said she's a beautiful girl that's several years younger than him, and things are going really well with that.

And I'm like, that's what I want. And I know that's what I want. I don't want my story, as I've said several times, to be that I met some girl online. I already met my ex-wife online. My first wife, my ex-wife, I already met her online. I already have that story. I want a story just like his. That I was somewhere like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting or yoga class or wherever, and I built tension with somebody over time, and then we had a friendship and shared interests, and then from there I already know she's attractive, I already know we have chemistry, and when we go out on a first date, it'll be hot. It'll be passionate. It'll be exciting. Not something that's cold and like, you know, what the hell are both of us doing out here, and leaves both of us feeling worse afterwards. So I was super grateful for this guy for sharing that. I'm like, that's exactly what I needed to hear today. Thank you. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

And I know all I have to do is just focus on living my life, writing my books, and being out there, and I will keep running into people. And as a general rule, I don't want to get somebody's phone number that I don't know. Like that girl at yoga, I just met her once, I don't even have enough data. Well, I guess I'm technically recording this the next morning, so the girl I met earlier today, I don't even know her well enough to have her phone number. What am I going to do with it? Ask her to go have tea or something? She barely knows me. How does she know she even wants to commit an hour to hanging out with me? It'd be as awkward as an online date, except at least I know she's hot. Maybe I will ask her to tea or to meet up at another yoga class or something, but I know what I want. I want to meet somebody naturally and organically. And generally, if somebody is really aligned with me, I'm going to keep running into them because we're going to have shared interests. And the first time, like a friend talked about in her story, the first time I meet someone is unlikely to just immediately fall in love. It's going to likely take time. It often takes time to fall in love and build tension with somebody. If you're learning to be patient and let your own life unfold like this, I'd be glad to talk it through with you when you book a private call with me.

And after this conversation, I'm planning on going home, but the guys say they want to go to a pizza place. And I decide, the one guy convinces me to go, and I end up going, even though I told the rest of them I wasn't going to go. So I get there, and I'm so glad. I'm like, this is what's nice about being divorced, that I can go out to pizza at 9 o'clock with the guys, and nobody's waiting for me. I can come home as late as I want. So we have a great conversation. I generally don't eat this late, and I generally don't eat pizza, but I get a vegetarian pizza, the smallest size. We get the pizza, you know, a little before 10. I eat half of the like nine-inch pizza and take the rest home. And I have great conversations. Me and the guys are laughing and cutting up and talking so much shit. And then we go out in the parking lot afterwards for another hour and a half. The girls from AA have a big table there near us as well. And we just talk so much shit and laugh so much. I'm like bent over belly laughing several times. And I'm like, thank you. This is what I really needed. If anything, I need more time with the boys and less time going out with girls that I don't know. And maybe even less time with girls generally. Like it's so easy to hang out with the boys because I'm not trying to date them. You know what I'm saying? Although we have a bunch of talks about gay guys and stuff, and it was so funny.

Finally it was down to four of us. Our table had been five. One guy leaves when we leave the restaurant, and then the rest of us talk for like an hour and a half. I finally break the group of four up because it's 11:25. I need to get my ass to bed. I come home, put my pizza in the fridge, and I'm feeling really grateful. I already showered earlier, and I'm like, this is just what I needed and I'm good. I can be patient. If it takes several months, a year, several years, if I can meet a girl that's hot and wants to have more kids with me and lives a sober lifestyle, I'm willing to wait for it. And I don't need to ever again waste my time swiping on apps or going out with girls I have no chemistry with. I'd rather just be hanging out with the boys and having fun. And I don't need to constantly be chasing girls either, because that can be a hell of a distraction. And I don't need a distraction. I want to be getting on my work. So I'm really excited that tomorrow I'm going to hammer my books out and go forward without dating apps and obsessive dating. I'm going to go forward and let the beautiful woman of my dreams, my second wife, come to me.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

The Day I Tried to Rewrite Myself Into the Right One

Originally published December 26, 2025.

This is my journal entry from December 26, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

Went to see the kids first thing in the morning today since they're going on a trip to Orlando with my ex-wife later. Then I came back home and reflected that it's time to start an event again. I want to have an event people can come to every single day. Noon is the best time of the day since I can do it on weekends and when the kids are in school. Noon will be perfect. I'll have my evenings free, and I want something people can come to every single day. I was looking around for the best title for my event, and I'm thinking, what are people struggling with that I could help with? I settled on that the biggest things people are struggling with are being fat, broke, and single. So I put an event up with the following title, From Fat, Broke, or Single to Stable, Healthy, and Dating. This is a recurring event every single day. I initially put it at Crescent Lake Park, and I charged $23.45 for the event, and then Eventbrite sticks on like $5 of fees. But it's not legal to charge for an event without a permit, it turns out, which stupid ChatGPT had no idea about. And we did all the planning, I put it at Crescent Lake, and it's like, yeah, I just can't put an event in a public place. I knew this because I used to go to yoga classes on the beach, and when they were charging for them, the city eventually came in and closed them down. Thus, I got an event up seven days a week at 12 p.m.

I went to my yoga studio today, hoping to see the girl from yesterday, but she wasn't there. I put my mat down, and the girl next to me, who has a big wedding ring on, gives me a really nice smile. I'm like, nice, the people here are much more friendly than that other yoga studio. I swear to God, I was on a smile deprivation tour there. Everybody felt like she was being cold as shit. And I go to my studio, it's like, oh, hello. Some girl wants me to pick her up and I can't even do it.

Before that though, the day got interesting. Right when I was walking home from my ex-wife's house to my house, which is a couple blocks away, I ran into this girl with a big pink dog leash that says adopt me, and a big bandana on the dog too. I've been listening to Tucker Max, remembering some of the stuff I've learned. So I started talking to this girl immediately. I hollered at her from a distance so I'd have more time to talk. And I end up talking with her for over 30 minutes. We stand for like 10 minutes almost in front of my house. Then I walk over a mile with her and walk her back close to her house. The whole time, this girl's just talking about herself. And I realized maybe I should have made her listen to more about me. She talks a bunch about herself. She gives me her phone number. And she lives right in the neighborhood. But then I ask if I can walk the dog. She says no because it's a rescue shelter dog, and if anything happens, she's on the hook for it. And I ask her at the end of the 30 minutes of talking with her if I can have a hug. She says no, I don't do hugs. I'm like, goddamn, you're cold as ice. She didn't seem to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or anything. She lives with her mom. And honestly, she seemed completely shut down to me, like there wasn't any spark there at all.

But then I'm thinking, you know, I got her phone number and stuff, but I probably should have talked to her differently. I asked way too much about her. Do I really want to listen to her that much? I wanted to ask her, don't you have any curiosity about me? Like, why is this dude talking to me? What is his deal? You know, her curiosity just seemed either dead or totally filtered, because kids have a natural curiosity. They're so interested in what's happening. This girl just was happy to talk about herself, but was not interested in asking almost anything about me. I'm like, I guess I'm going to have to just start proactively talking about myself to these girls because they don't have the common courtesy to even ask about me. But it did feel good. She was attractive enough, and it left me feeling pretty good. Although at the same time, I'm like, I got to do something different.

I go to my yoga studio, and I'm listening to this other book on Audible about how women like men that can demonstrate signs that they have good genes, that they're intelligent, and they're mentally healthy. And the problem with that is, it makes sense why some of the girls in AA, who I've given my books to, are pretty turned off. It's called Mate by Jeffrey Miller. The problem is, though, see, this is why lying often works really well across all areas of life. Because when I met my ex-wife, I intentionally hid how mentally unstable and messed up I was, and then revealed it once I'd already gotten close to her. These girls that see me in AA talking about my struggles for real, I guess some of them take it as a sign that I'm mentally unstable, because they're used to hanging out with dudes that keep all that stuff secret. But what women don't realize is that a man who can talk about this stuff out in the open is extremely healthy. He doesn't have to hide. A man that doesn't have to hide and lie about himself is extremely strong and stable, because most men hide and lie like I did when I met my ex-wife. I hid and I lied. That's what I did with her. And it worked. That's what's messed up. It worked to get this beautiful girl to fall in love with me because I was a liar.

But now I realize, too, I've kind of been a liar also. When my agenda is that I want to be with some girl, or get to know her to decide if I'm interested, I'm not being honest when I ask all this stuff about her. I need to be more direct, like, hey, I'm talking to you to see if there's something real here, to see if you're available and stable. You know, that would be a kind of honesty. I realized I need to be more honest myself, because let's face it, when I'm talking to a girl, I'm trying to decide if I'm actually interested in her, and if she's interested in me, and if she's worth my time. And I'm tired of wasting my time with girls that aren't interested, when I could be at home writing books, I could be out trying to make some money, I could be hanging out with guy friends that I don't have to wonder about in that way. If you catch yourself in that same pattern of not being honest about what you actually want from dating, I would be glad to talk it through with you when you schedule a one-on-one call with me, sharing what has and has not worked in my own life rather than handing you a script.

So after I get home from yoga, I have a big salad for lunch and I don't have any plans until 7.30 for an AA meeting. So I work on getting the event finished off and edited and figuring out what I'm going to do next. I stopped sending out the letters. I've got over 350 letters done to my existing neighborhood, and I want to leave those for a couple of weeks, see if I get any responses. And what I want to do going forward is send letters addressed to my new neighbor, because just sending letters to my neighbor, I think a lot of people might throw those out. But they might be more curious if it's from an address nearby and it says my new neighbor. And then the purpose of the letter is to introduce myself. Hey, you know, I'm a single dad. I write books. I help people write books. I have an event, etc. I think that might work a lot better to introduce myself to my new neighbors rather than just solicit my neighbors that I already have for business.

So I get that workflow ready, and then I start going through my phone and looking at all these women I have in here that nothing's happened with. So I go through and I send text messages. First, starting off with the girl I met on the walk today. I sent her a message, I enjoyed the walk with you and your dog, let's take another walk sometime soon. You think she replied? No. I sent one to a girl at a meeting yesterday. I say, hey, I always enjoy running into you at meetings, but we've never really had much time to talk. I'd love to change that. Want to go for a walk at Crescent Lake Park sometime this week? Do you think she responded to that? No. I sent a message to a guy yesterday talking about getting his book. Do you think he responded? No. I sent a message to a woman I had been seeing. I said that the last reply to her message was a big leap, I'd like to really catch up and see how she's been doing. Do you think she responded? No. I sent a message to a girl that I've had a few massages with and seen before. I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk at Crescent Lake Park. She's like, oh, these days are quite full and quite busy, so I'm not available, but I appreciate the invite. I'm like, at least she had the common courtesy to respond. And then this one girl, I send her a message, another one from an AA meeting, and she leaves a like on it. That's nice. All right, so what am I supposed to do with that?

And this guy texting me on Christmas that I know from AA got my phone number. So I messaged all these women, not one single response. So I start thinking, I need to take a different approach. My online dating shit is not working. I'm swiping all these women, I ask all these lame questions like, hey, what do you like for food, or what's your favorite Star Trek episode, or whatever they put on their profile I try and talk about, and it does not work at all, and I feel like I'm just being generic and not even standing out.

So I go to the AA meeting, and I talk about how praying to my late father helped me get sober, and I talk to the girl in front of me, who's one of the only two women in the meeting. The other one is older and once tried to tell me I shouldn't talk about sex in a meeting. So I talk to the only decent-looking girl. I sit right behind her and I'm like, I just sat behind her, let me say hi and not just be this creep that sat behind her. So I talked to her a little bit and she has the same name as a girl I met earlier today. I'm like, what are the odds of that? I've never met a girl with that name in my whole life until a few months ago, and I literally met two women in the same day with the same name. Leaning on my faith and my late father has been a big part of how I got sober, and if you're working through getting sober or another hard season, I'd be glad to talk it through when you book a private call with me.

I get home and I'm like, it's time to redo my dating profile. I'm tired of being generic, the kind women pass over. So let me read my Hinge profile to you word for word. It says, instead of grabbing drinks, let's go to a funeral. This is a poll. Instead of grabbing drinks, let's go to a funeral, file our taxes, or get on the scale at the grocery store. Next one. Dating me is like a power yoga flow. You'll hate me for telling you what to do most of the time, but when you get to lay there for five minutes at the end, you'll be really happy you came. That's clever, right? Sexual innuendo, but it's clearly just about yoga. Instead of being an author, I changed my employer, what I do for work, to God, because that's what I truly believe, that I'm the creator of this universe. I'm God, so you better get used to it. Then scroll down. It says my last journal entry was about my plan to find a diamond in the rough on here and polish her. Then it says I go crazy for you wanting to have my babies and being a stay-at-home mom. Like this is so real. I'm not trying to put on an act. That's real.

Now let me go on Bumble. Let me tell you what I did with my Bumble profile. It says God as my employer. My bio says, I told my mom that I'm looking for a diamond in the rough on here that I can polish. She said that's really selfish because she thinks you're perfect just the way you are. I replied, the most selfless thing I could do is marry a girl on here that no other guy wants and turn her into a queen. Right? Like how nice is that? On Bumble then it says, instead of drinks, let's go to a funeral. Then below that it says, I show I care by telling you what you're doing wrong and how to fix it. And then the last one says, something funny I think about all the time is how you would make a great stay-at-home mom. It's so toxic, but it's so real. Like, that's what I want. I want someone who wants to stay at home, raise the kids, go get massages, go to yoga, have some girlfriends, and not have it all be about her work and her ego, because I'm bringing in all the cash we need, and then she can stay home and do that work.

So I'm like, I need to redo my Tinder too. So I go over to my Tinder profile and it says, you will love swiping right on me, enthusiastically messaging me, immediately meeting up in person, and living happily ever after. You'll be bragging to your friends how you were finally able to delete this app because you found me. Until I tell you that I want you to have my babies, lose that extra 50 pounds, stop drinking, quit doing drugs, and be a stay-at-home mom. The best part is I've already done all that, and I'll tell you exactly how you can do it too, and I've been a stay-at-home dad, so I know how it is. That's a killer profile, right? And the idea is the profile will pull off the wrong one. I don't want to mess with the wrong one. I'm tired of messing with the wrong one. I want the right one.

And yes, as I said in the profile, I went over to my mom's house. My mom and I got into it. I told her, look, there are women on these apps where you can tell that if they made some changes and took better care of their health, they'd be beautiful, and they just need a partner to support them in that. I saw one girl, young, with beautiful hair and a potentially beautiful face, who just needs to take better care of herself, and honestly she needs a partner to help her fix herself up. As my ex-wife reminded me, she's like, you know, I helped you lose a bunch of weight and get sober. I'm like, that's true. Maybe I need to find a woman that's a fixer-upper, someone who's struggling with drinking and smoking, and I'll be like, look, move in with me, stop drinking, eat right, throw out the vape and the cigarettes and the weed, and you're going to be the beautiful person I know you can be. Isn't that a noble cause? My mom said that was really selfish, the underlying assumption being that someone who's struggling like that really wants to be that way, that it's her best self and she's perfect just the way she is. I'm like, no mom, you've got things wrong, she's having a rough life, and the best thing that could happen to her would be somebody like me coming along and helping her turn it around.

Just like a fixer-upper house that some people totally trashed and wrecked. The best thing you could do with that house wouldn't be to just list it as-is and let some person move in and pay rent on it the way it is. What you'd do is gut it or knock it down, completely clean out all evidence of what happened before, and then put it back up looking beautiful, where you'd have no idea what a shithole it was before. See, I think that's the nicest thing I could do for a girl, to find someone whose life is totally trashed and to save her. Now, I know some of the dating books are like, don't try and save anybody, they don't want to be saved. But look, my ex-wife saved me. I was a wasteland, just in the middle of being a fat, alcoholic mess, and she helped fix me up. So maybe I can help fix somebody up. But she's got to at least have a beautiful face and nice hair once she's fixed up, because just getting healthier isn't going to fix everything. So if a woman has beautiful hair and a nice face and eyes, I think together we could turn her into a healthy, sober, beautiful version of herself. So maybe I should just open my filters up.

But I put it to just definitely wanting kids. So I swiped on this girl on Hinge. She said that I looked at her profile. And on her profile she's like, I want a man that's honest, and then one of the only things she puts as her simple pleasures in life is eating chocolate ice cream. I'm like, you say you want honesty, but I'm not sure you really want that. So I sent her a like and a message. I'm like, see, you say you want honesty, but you don't actually want it. She's like, try me. Okay. So I send her a message that goes like this. It says, wow, you're up at 3 a.m. First, put your real name or a nickname; the name you have ironically invites guys to do the exact thing you don't want them to do. Second, if you want a man that's honest, lead by example like I do in my profile. Be honest about what you're looking for. Try to write things that will turn the wrong kind of guy off so you don't have to bother with him. I found your profile because I only filter for girls that don't drink and smoke, and I'm most likely to like girls that want kids. You're one of the few girls that match those criteria in this entire area, and it's something important to lead with. Since guys end up being the ones to like you first, you want to provide a lot of information on your profile to give us a good conversation starter. I laughed when I read the combination of you wanting honesty and then liking chocolate ice cream, because I was sure you wouldn't want to hear my next thought after seeing the two of those together.

Then it got to be after 11, and I'm like, what am I doing not being proactive on my sleep? But then I'm like, I don't have to get up, so I turn my alarm off. I went in the shower and went to bed. I told myself I wasn't going to masturbate, that I didn't need to, but I ended up doing it before bed anyway, and it's fine. And I went to bed, and literally one girl said no to all my messages, and not one other one responded. Like, you know what? I got to do something different. I think I got to be more like Tucker Max. I got to be more of a ruthless asshole and less of a nice guy. These girls don't appreciate a nice guy.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Putting the Work In to Find My Person

Originally published December 23, 2025.

This is my journal entry from December 23, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.

Woke up at three this morning thinking, fuck, what did I do? I can't have this woman I'd recently started seeing over again. Such a bad idea, man. Fuck. I used my affirmations and relaxed and went back to sleep. Then woke up and I'm like, all right, shit, we need to tackle this immediately. So I ended up taking an hour going back and forth with her, texting her, like, look, this is not going to work. That was a bad idea last night. And the message I finally sent that she stops responding to, because she said, you know, I need to cancel on seeing you later, blah, blah, blah, it's also common practice not to date someone in early sobriety. Then she's like, I hear you're conflicted. Let's not be too extreme. Why don't we meet and just talk? I'm like, honestly, the last thing I want to do is meet and just talk, because that's the problem, we just don't have a real connection there. And I also, I'm like, you know, I'm kind of a shitty person in a lot of ways. I am kind of a shitty person from a lot of ways of looking at it. And that's fine, you know? Then I can accept that, yeah, other people are shitty people too. And we're all shitty together.

Finally, the last message I sent is, one thing I need to work on is being a good ender in relationships, which I intend to practice now. I enjoyed our night together, and I don't see any path forward for us. First, we live too far apart. I mean, she lives an hour drive away, and, you know, this motherfucker ain't making that drive. Second, I need to take months to be comfortable by myself after this divorce, well, more about that in a minute. Third, you could use space to focus on your sobriety, and I'm a distraction. Finally, I'm starting up a new business, and I need to focus on that totally, along with having my kids for a few overnights during the week once I move. Thus, I think the kind thing to do for both of us would be to say goodbye, and I wish you well. Basically, there's nothing here for you, and we're not going to be doing this again. And it's funny how I go from feeling like, oh, I'm so alone, I need to be with somebody, to like, damn, I'd rather be by myself than have her around. Very, very funny couple of dynamics.

After that, I felt relieved and like, good, we can at least stop that. Then I got to work on the letters. I printed 100 more letters, got the envelopes, the stamps, the computer set up, put on Dave Chappelle's special, and went at it. I did so many of those fucking envelopes, Jesus Christ. And I didn't even finish. I just got like 30 done and then it's time to go to my personal training. And the Chappelle episode is called The Dreamer. And it turns out I actually did watch that before and I just forgot about that shit. Now there's one called The Unstoppable, which looks like it just came out this week. So I'm really excited to watch that one next as I stuff a bunch more fucking letters. But this is the best business idea I've got.

I talked to my personal trainer. I tell him the date didn't have much chemistry last night. She was kind of closed off. He's like, bro, that's how dates with girls normally are. When you're on a first date with a girl, they often are going to be closed off and defensive. And, you know, that's normal. I'm like, well, I wasn't feeling it. I don't think she was feeling it. So I'm not going to text her back or anything. And I'm also quitting a local spiritual community I'd been going to. I need to free that time and energy up. I'm tired of going there just finding a girl to date and tolerating all the, you know, it's a nice community, but it's repetitive and time wasting as well and gets my nervous system amped up and has a lot of like polite surface level relationships. And all right, I get home. I finish off the rest of the hummus for lunch. I've gotten tired of polite, surface-level rooms, so if you're craving real connection too, I'd love for you to book a one-on-one call with me where we actually show up for each other.

Then I'm like, we're going in on these envelopes and stamps and letters today. I'm going to get through. I did 100 last time. We're going to get through another 100. So I actually signed up for Spotify again because Spotify premium is $12 a month and they have 15 hours of audiobooks. So for a five-hour audiobook, that's three audiobooks I can get. So I signed up for Spotify premium. And I put on some music for doing these envelopes. I'm really happy to listen to Deadmau5 again. Listen to some of my favorite Deadmau5 songs, like Avaritia, My Pet Coelacanth, and, fuck, Monophobia, the extended mix, of course. I listen to some of his newest songs. And I still need to listen to FN Pig. Then I got to play Fack, too, by Eminem. I used to listen to that shit back when I drank. Put that shit on repeat. And play it loud as shit in the house with my ex-wife. What a fucking great husband.

Then there's Aural Synapse by Deadmau5, one of my favorites. In my experience, that one has some subliminal lyrics buried in it, and once you know they're there, you can hear them in what that main high synth plays. Some of you will be like, oh, Jerry, you're just crazy, Deadmau5's not putting subliminal lyrics in his songs. Bullshit. He's very, very skilled with making music. The Apple Store terms blatantly prohibit putting subliminal lyrics in, which usually whatever the terms tell you not to do is the exact thing to do. If, in my experience, whatever the rules say don't do, that's the shit you do because it works. Listen to Aural Synapse by Deadmau5, and when the main synth plays, once you can hear that it's there, you'll be like, God damn, this motherfucker, you can practically hear the words. It's like, wow, how did I not know that? Now picture that shit getting played on a dance floor. If you have some subliminal lyrics that your subconscious picks up on, that's one of the reasons you're going to like the song, even if you don't consciously recognize it.

After listening to Deadmau5 and Fack for about an hour, and I just listened to Fack like once, but mostly Deadmau5, then I switched over to an audiobook called I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, which one of the guys at an AA meeting was telling me about. I used to read Tucker Max's posts way back in college. And it's funny listening to this book. At the same time, this book does leave me feeling like, fuck, I'm not having very much fun with my life. I'm not having much romance or real connection. It does get some stuff going in my mind. Thank God I finished the 200 fucking envelopes, stuff that shit, and throw it in the car to deliver later. Then I have about an hour where I kind of relax a little bit and clean shit up around the house, have some sweet potatoes and cook them. I'm like, why the fuck does it take so long to cook sweet potatoes on the stove? I'm like, I'm out here for like 30 minutes roasting this shit. Maybe I'll start just sticking it in the oven on a tray, because that shit, you don't have to constantly fucking stir it and put so much oil on it. I gotta cook my sweet potato different. This shit takes too long. And I need to make some hummus, because I finished all of it. Anyways.

Thus, the kids come over after that, which is great. My ex-wife drops them off, and my son and I throw this little, almost like a sack thing, a little soft ball in the front yard. They both come down on their scooters. I'm like, man, I love having the kids at my own place. You know, I'm glad I feel welcome at my ex-wife's place, but having the kids at my own place feels really good, too. They want to go down the street to Grandma's house so they can watch some more Winnie the Pooh and eat a bunch of sugar. It's a sugar free-for-all in that house, you know? So we walked down to my mother's house. I walked back down to my house to make popcorn, because the kids like the olive oil and salt that I make better than the bags of shit my mom's got there. And I bring down nutritional yeast and dump that shit all over my popcorn. I get some real nice snuggles with my son on the couch again, watching Winnie the Pooh. Walk the kids back over the street. Having my kids here in my own place is everything I'm rebuilding around, and if you're putting your own life back together, I'd love for you to schedule a private call with me.

Then I come down here, and I've decided I'm going to get back on dating apps. Look, I know I wrote a book called It's Not You, It's the Dating Apps. And yes, that definitely is appropriate lots of times, especially if you're a hot girl. You really don't need dating apps because, you know, there's too many dudes. But the dating apps, fuck, man. All right. So let's look at the last two months. I've spent probably 40 or 50 hours going to things like a local spiritual community for the primary purpose of meeting girls, secondary purpose to try and give some of my books away, which, you know, I did give some books away there, but never heard anything from anybody I gave books to. And, you know, a couple of my worst days were days after being up late, having my nervous system overloaded by listening to a bunch of music, having these euphoric conversations with girls that turned out to be, I was going to say mostly a waste of time, but not a waste of time. But, you know, a lot of hype, a lot of hype and leading to fantasy and excitement. And then you just come down the next day and it's like, oh, we really don't even know each other. You don't care about me, do you?

And, you know, then when I go there and I don't see some girl there, it often feels like I kind of wasted my time. And especially, like, the community circle last night just felt so fucking fake. Like, oh, I love you. I love you too. You're my family. You stayed at my house. Like, nobody really gives a fuck about me in there right now. I shared something a bit darker in the share circle, and it's like, nobody wants to go there. Everybody's afraid to talk about anything fucking real. It doesn't feel like an AA meeting. It feels like this kind of bullshit environment. And I put a good amount of time in that and I've got zero dates. I did have, I mean, essentially, with a woman I'd been talking to and a woman I'd been interested in, those were essentially kind of like first dates. One of them saying she's not dating, and then the other, turns out she's already dating someone. So it's like, I put all this time and effort in here for what? And what did I get out of it? It's like, if I had put that much time in dating apps, I'd have probably got several dates from girls that were very interested. In theory, at least. We're going to have to test it out.

So I go back and forth. ChatGPT, based on what I told it, really thinks dating apps are a shit idea for me. But ChatGPT often just cosigns your bullshit anyway. So I finally start telling ChatGPT, I'm like, all right, it's time for you to use dating apps. Like, I don't think that's a good idea. I'm like, here's another way I'm gonna put that. It's like, oh, well, maybe. So I go back and forth a few times, like, okay, if you can use the dating apps, you know, and if you cut out some of your in-person events that have been amping you up and stuff, then that might make sense. So I'm like, fine, thanks for cosigning my bullshit here. So I download Hinge and start swiping on that fucker again. Actually, it's not swiping on Hinge, it's like tapping. Tap X, or you drop a heart and a comment. And I'm intending to go in with a different energy. I'm like, you know, I'm going to be grateful there's all these girls here that are looking to meet guys. Like, this is much easier than going to a bar. And yes, you know, you probably get rejected a lot more on the apps versus going to a bar. But I don't have to be around alcohol. And I can intentionally try and date girls and meet up with the girls that are sober.

And still, the conversation with a woman I went out with last night, it's like, even if I just meet up with some girl and talk with her, that could be really cool to get to know somebody new, make a new connection no matter what happens with it. And as a friend said, a lot of these girls are hooking up on the first date when they meet on an app too, so that could be fun as well. Because you know your boy's done that before. So I go through some profiles on Hinge. I go back and forth on my settings. I try and set it ultra specific with all these deal breakers and there's like nobody that matches that. And I'm like, fuck, all right, let me put it a little less severe. We'll go maximum of 10 miles away and no deal breakers on the stuff like smoking. We'll just look through people's profiles, and if they put yes, or if they look like a pothead, or they talk about wine and stuff in their profile, if they're being blatantly obvious about drinking or drugs, then we'll say no to that. But otherwise, if it's in the sometimes area, you know, like, the girls I met in person, none of them were totally sober, they're all getting fucked up on plant medicine or weed; I smoke sometimes; it's like, I might be in a position to tolerate a girl that wasn't a total alcoholic or drug addict, but, you know, maybe smoked sometimes when she wasn't around me or something. Might need to be flexible on that.

But it's nice because I keep seeing girls I know from AA on these apps too. Then I went to an AA meeting and shared. And there was a girl that one of the guys there used to date. She's nice, nice thin, strong little body. But, you know, she's there to get a whole bunch of attention from the guys. She's giving everybody hugs. She gave me a real hard hug. And I shared about how I was grateful for my divorce. We were talking about gratitude. And I'm like, you know, I'm grateful for my divorce. It's an adventure. This has been a lot of character building for both my ex-wife and for me. Then I got home and I went through the rest of the girls that were active on Hinge. And it ended up taking about an hour and a half to go through all of them. But once you go through the people who are more active, then you're just dealing with people that are initially getting on an app. There's more to do at first, and then the maintenance of it is less. I've found a strange gratitude in my divorce, and if you're walking through your own hard transition, I'd be glad to talk it through with you when you schedule a one-on-one call with me.

And then I'm thinking, do I want to expand to more than one app? Because I talked to a girl at a local spiritual community. She said she met a guy on Tinder. And this guy must be like 15 years younger than her. I'm like, what the fuck's with this dude? I guess he's more open-minded than me. Because I talked to this girl in person, and she's just not someone I'd be attracted to. I've got my type, like everybody does. The women who aren't a match for me can usually tell from how I talk about being healthy and all this stuff in my profile, and they swipe the other way, which is fine. Then, getting towards bed, I reinstalled Tinder. And this woman I know ended up messaging me a month ago right after I swiped on her. I'm like, fuck, do I need to get back on Tinder Platinum again? Because I paid for like a month of Tinder, whatever Platinum or gold membership they have. And here's a woman who actually matched me and messaged me right away, which is a good sign.

It's like, you know what? If I use the dating apps with the right energy, I was too serious on them before, talking about marriage. And you know what? I'm happy to just date casually or have a short-term relationship. I'm really open to everything now. An ideal long-term partnership would be beautiful. And I don't know if I want to be seeing more than one girl at once. But shit, if they were all attractive and fun, I could do that. You know, I could do that. So I think I'm a lot more open than I was before. I love meeting new girls too. I love going out on dates with girls. And what I need to do is not be so attached. I need more abundance. And the dating apps are abundant. So I look up some dating apps. And it looks like, shit, if your boy wants to be everywhere, Match, I already have Hinge, I got a good way to use that that I don't need to put much time in. Tinder seems like a very popular one. And I'm open. Like, I meet some girl that's attractive, I'll be happy to see where it goes. That'll be fine. So I might buy a Tinder subscription. I might get back on Bumble. And I might sign up for more. I met my ex-wife on a dating site, so I might eventually get to do all the dating apps, but we'll have to do them in phases. Because I'm a big believer you put the work in to get what you want.

Now, sure, an acquaintance from a local spiritual community was talking about how he didn't even hardly date or anything for two and a half years, and he just ran into this girl he met four years ago at a coffee shop, and they started dating. And it's like, I am not waiting two and a half fucking years of not doing any dating to hope to run into somebody at a coffee shop. Like, that is not gonna fucking work for me. And I've talked to some other guys, they're like, yeah, I tried hard to date online, then I just gave up and met a girl in person. I'm like, see, I'll do the dating apps and I'll meet girls in person. I know another guy, he's got a great wife, and he said he went out with over 300 girls, mainly through dating apps. And that's how he eventually met his wife. And I'm like, you know what? Just like Zillow. I put the time into Zillow. I looked at a shitload of houses. I looked at neighborhoods. I went to look at apartments. I didn't actually look at many houses in person, but I looked at a house in South Tampa. I looked at apartments and houses in Michigan. I looked at houses all over St. Pete on Zillow. I put the work in to go through Zillow to find the best neighborhood. And now everybody's happy that I'm moving near Crescent Lake. So I'm going to put the work in on the dating apps too.

And just look at it. Use the dating apps with like a thankful, grateful energy. And sure, keep my shit a little superficial. But the one thing I want these women to know is that I'm sober. I don't want someone who's a big drinker. And the girls that are sober or sober lifestyle, those are the girls I want to have relationships with. Not the girls that want to go out and drink and stuff.

Right before bed, my ex-wife calls me, and we have a really nice hour and 15-minute conversation to catch up. We hadn't got to talk much lately, and it was really nice to feel our connection that's still there, our friendship that's still there, and it was a really nice way to wrap up the day. I ended up going to bed a little later at like 11.30, but I turned the alarm off so we can sleep in tomorrow.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

A Stranger Texts Back, and Hope Returns

Originally published December 16, 2025.

This is my journal entry from December 16, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.

I spent most of the day at Crunch Fitness today. After dropping the kids off in the morning, I headed over to set up for my Crunch marketing table. This time I only brought one box of books, which had about twelve different titles in it. I brought my folding table and the dog blanket I use as a table cover. I like doing things my own way there. The other vendors tend to have corporate displays and rules, while I just throw a blanket over the table, set up the lawn chair I bought yesterday at Academy Sports, and get to work.

I also brought my laptop so I’d have something productive to do. What I really don’t enjoy is standing around hoping someone will talk to me with nothing else going on. My plan now is to sit there editing my books, and if someone happens to come over and look at them, then we’ll talk. I had transcripts from my fifth diary book ready to edit, so I opened those up and got started. Between 9 a.m. and about 1 p.m., around five people stopped by to talk. One woman bought two of my books. I was surprised she picked It’s Not You, It’s the Dating Apps and 28 Strategies to Experience Peace and Love in Your Life, especially because I wrote that second book about nine years ago and don’t even think it’s one of my better ones.

It was interesting to see how people behave differently in person compared to online. Books that barely sell on the internet can suddenly move when someone is standing right there talking with you. I also loved how easy the payment process was. I had the Stripe app on my phone and she just tapped her credit card to the top of it. That contactless payment is incredibly smooth compared to how it worked a decade ago when you had to plug in a card reader and hope it would connect properly. I remember trying to swipe cards back then and constantly dealing with glitches and connection problems. This felt effortless, and I appreciated her support.

While I was there, I also did another training session with my personal trainer and caught him up on everything that had been happening. The more I talk through the my yoga studio situation from yesterday, the better I feel about it. I’m grateful to be an adult who can set boundaries with people and step away from conversations or environments that don’t feel right anymore. It also opens the door to enjoying classes at places like Crunch Fitness and other studios where I might feel more welcome.

After a few conversations about the books, I also realized that attacking people’s lifestyles probably isn’t the best way to sell them. At the same time, selling books isn’t really the whole point for me. I’m just out there being visible and letting people encounter the work naturally. There are plenty of interesting people walking through the gym all day, and I’m starting to see that I enjoy putting myself in environments like that where I can edit my books and let conversations happen organically. By the time 1 p.m. came around, I packed up the table and went home to get ready for my massage appointment with a friend.

When I got home, I made myself a salad, did a little more work, and started preparing to head back to Crunch later that evening. I wanted to have more transcripts ready to edit so I could sit down there for several hours again and keep working while people moved through the gym.

After leaving Crunch, I drove to my massage appointment with a friend. During the session we talked about a lot of different things. I started by telling her that she had been right about a life coach I’d been interested in, who wasn’t interested in dating me after all, which she found amusing. From there we talked about her marketing with her partner. He runs a high-end service business and has been wanting to bring in more customers. For years his main strategy has been posting constantly on social media, but lately that hasn’t been producing the same results. One thing we discussed is how many people with disposable income are spending less time scrolling online, while a lot of the people who spend hours on social media are not necessarily the kind of high-paying clients his business depends on.

I suggested that he might want to experiment with direct mail marketing. I remembered a massage therapist who had mailed me a postcard years ago. I actually held on to it and scheduled a session months later. The massage itself turned out to be disappointing, but the marketing worked because the postcard stayed in my house long enough for me to eventually act on it. If the massage had been excellent, she probably would have gained a long-term client from a postcard that likely cost only a couple of dollars to send. I explained that if her partner invested a couple thousand dollars into sending well-designed postcards to a carefully targeted group of households, he could potentially bring in clients worth far more than that, especially once referrals start spreading. I told her I’d look up some more information about how that kind of campaign could work and send it to her later.

We also talked about the my yoga studio situation from the day before. My friend mentioned how strong sexual energy can sometimes be perceived very differently by different people. Some women feel comfortable with it and others can feel unsettled by it, especially if it reminds them of past experiences or brings up feelings they don’t want to deal with in that environment. For some people, even feeling attracted or turned on in the wrong context can make them feel out of control, and that discomfort can turn into fear or defensiveness. Hearing that perspective helped me think about what might have happened differently than the way I had first interpreted it.

During the massage I also felt a strong sense of appreciation for where I am in my life right now. I felt grateful for my friendship with her and for the way we’ve supported each other’s work. We traded the massage for the help I’ve been giving her with writing her book, and I’m excited about helping her bring that project to completion. I told her that in my experience the hardest part of writing a book isn’t actually writing it. Many people write huge amounts of material. The real challenge is finishing the manuscript and getting it published. Even though self-publishing has made that process easier than ever, countless people still have books sitting unfinished on their computers. My mom is a perfect example. She has hundreds of thousands of words saved on her computer, but they’re not published. In my view, the most important step is putting the book out into the world. If it’s still sitting on a hard drive where nobody can read it or buy it, it almost feels like it doesn’t fully exist yet. If you’ve got a book sitting unfinished on your hard drive the way my mom does, and you want to finally push it out into the world, that’s one of my favorite things to help people do—schedule a private one-on-one call with me and we’ll get it across the finish line together.

I was laughing a lot at Crunch while I was editing my diary entries. I ended up spending hours researching and thinking about what the title should be for the book. I wanted something that would last the test of time, something funny and memorable that would feel right once the whole story came together. After about nine hours of thinking and experimenting with ideas, I finally landed on the title Nine Hours Later. The joke of it fits perfectly with one of the main stories in the book. On November 1st I had a girl come over, and it took nine hours from when she arrived until the connection between us finally deepened late that night. It stretched from around 5:30 p.m. into the middle of the night, and that whole long buildup is one of the moments the book circles around. So the title ends up being funny once you understand the story behind it.

What I like about Nine Hours Later is that it’s simple and memorable. It’s the kind of title that makes people curious. Someone could easily say, “Have you read Jerry’s book Nine Hours Later?” and the title itself becomes part of the joke once the reader knows the story. I want to keep choosing titles that have that kind of personality. Some of my earlier titles feel more generic to me now. I’d rather lean toward titles that feel like inside jokes or signals to the reader that there’s something unusual waiting in the pages. When someone finishes the book and looks back at the title, I want them to think, “That’s actually a perfect title for this.”

I also felt proud that I finally finished everything needed to publish the book. I had actually completed the manuscript on November 2nd, and it was now December 16th, which meant it had been sitting for about a month and a half. That’s exactly the kind of delay I sometimes criticize in other people, so it felt good to push through and finish the job. I edited the entire second half of the book, wrote the Amazon description, created the cover, formatted everything through Kindle Create, uploaded it to Amazon, and ordered five proof copies. Getting the book fully prepared and submitted felt like a big win after letting it sit for so long.

Right after leaving my friend’s place I packed everything back up to return to Crunch Fitness for their evening marketing event. They only hold two or three of those gatherings each month, and with my $150 monthly membership it feels like free time to promote my books while being in a place I enjoy anyway. It took me about ten minutes to find parking, then I carried all my gear back inside and set up my table again. Once everything was ready I went right back to editing my books while people walked through the gym.

While I was working, I noticed that the woman from the event had finally replied to the email I sent her. I had written to her the night before after getting my matches around 4:44 p.m. and then sending the message around seven that evening. When there was no response that night, I assumed it might end up being another rejection. By now I’ve had plenty of those. The life coach made it clear she didn’t want to date me. My massage therapist didn’t want to date me. Another massage therapist didn’t want to date me either. There have been plenty of other small moments like that too, where someone I liked or thought I had a good connection with ended up saying no. It’s become such a common pattern that when I don’t hear back right away, I almost expect the same outcome.

While I was sitting at Crunch today, my phone suddenly started lighting up all at once. Three or four different women messaged me at almost the same time. A woman from the Shop City Summit sent me a message, and earlier that morning I had sent quick texts to two women I know from around town. They were simple messages like, “Nice to see you yesterday.” They replied with things like, “Hi, great to see you as well.” Just light contact to keep things warm and friendly so that the next time we run into each other there’s already some connection there.

Around the same time, I got an email from the woman I met at the event giving me her phone number. She wrote that she’d like to spend some time together but wanted to make it clear she’d prefer to start as friends. Years ago, I might have reacted poorly to that kind of message, but now I see it differently. There’s no need to rush anything. It makes sense to take time to talk, get to know each other, and see how things develop. While I was sitting at Crunch working on my editing, I spent a little time figuring out what to text her.

Sometimes my first instinct with messages can come across a little blunt or overly direct, so I asked ChatGPT for some guidance before sending it. My first draft sounded a bit stiff and overly structured, almost like a meeting invitation instead of a natural text. ChatGPT pointed out that the tone should be lighter and more human, especially since she had already said she was open to meeting up. After a bit of back and forth, I ended up sending a simple message: “Hi there, this is Jerry. I was really happy to see your email this morning. Would you like to do something active and fun together tomorrow after four?”

She replied warmly but said she was busy until the weekend. I suggested meeting Saturday with something simple like a walk at Treasure Island Beach around 10:30. After a little more back and forth, she asked if the afternoon would work better. I responded that we could meet at 4:44 or 3:33 if she wanted more time in the sun. She liked the idea of 4:44 and said she was looking forward to it. I added it to my calendar and sent one final message saying I was looking forward to seeing her again on Saturday.

It was funny sitting there realizing how much thought I was putting into something as simple as a text conversation. At the same time, it felt good knowing I’d started the conversation off in a relaxed and friendly way instead of sending something heavy or awkward right out of the gate. In that moment I was genuinely grateful for the little bit of help smoothing out the message so the interaction could begin naturally.

What felt especially good about the situation with her was that there seemed to be some real mutual interest. After so many interactions with different women that ended in polite rejections or fading conversations, it felt refreshing to have a text exchange that flowed naturally. Over the course of about six and a half hours we sent a total of seven messages and ended up setting a time that may or may not turn into a date on Saturday. Either way, I’m genuinely excited about it. I’ve got a walk on the beach scheduled, and it feels good to have something like that on the calendar. If you’ve been through a long stretch of dating that keeps fading into polite rejections, I know how much that wears on you, and sometimes it just helps to talk it through with someone who has been there—book a private call with me and we’ll talk it through one on one.

Part of what I’m appreciating is the simple feeling of possibility. Whether things work out with her or with someone else down the road, it reminds me that there are women out there who are attractive, healthy, and interested in getting to know me just as I’m interested in getting to know them. She immediately stood out to me when I first saw her at the event. I remember thinking right away that she was striking. During the exercises at the event she was the one person I was most excited to interact with, and afterward she was the only one I followed up with by email.

It’s also interesting to notice how things unfold naturally when you simply express interest and see what comes back. Some of the other women from the event could have reached out too if they were interested, but she was the one who responded, and that’s where the energy is right now. At the same time, I’m reminding myself that physical attraction is only one piece of the picture. I still don’t really know her yet, and that’s why spending some time together and getting to know her personality matters.

One encouraging sign is that we met at a Tantra speed dating event, which already suggests we might share some values or interests. The event itself was sober, and I also know she attended a local spiritual community the night before, which is another sober gathering. Seeing someone at those kinds of events gives me the sense that we might already be on a similar wavelength about certain things in life. For now, it simply feels good to look forward to meeting up, talking more, and seeing where things go. Just having that anticipation added a bright note to the day as I headed back into Crunch Fitness after the massage.

While I was sitting at my table at Crunch that evening, there was a guy set up across from me. We sat there for quite a while without talking, just occasionally making eye contact. His tablecloth said Rivly.com. After about an hour he finally came over and started asking about my books. At first I didn’t even realize he was the guy who had been sitting across from me the whole time. Once we started talking, I ended up telling him a lot of my story. I talked about my books, about deleting my channels after getting more than a billion views online, and about my experiences with crypto and the internet business world.

Then he started telling me about his company. He’s building something he envisions as a competitor to Amazon. He said they already have investor funding and around a dozen employees and that they’re aiming to grow the company enough to eventually go public. As he described it, it sounded like he’s looking for someone who could take charge of the marketing and really know what they’re doing. I got the sense he was trying to feel me out to see if I’d be interested in working with him in some capacity. My first instinct was that I’m not interested in getting pulled into a traditional job. My lifestyle doesn’t really revolve around that kind of structure. Still, I was open to continuing the conversation, so we exchanged information. He gave me his phone number and told me he had a calendar link where I could schedule a call with him.

We ended up talking for more than thirty minutes, which meant neither of us were paying much attention to our tables for a while. Before we wrapped up, he bought two of my books. That felt great because it pushed the total of books I’d sold over the past few days to about seventy dollars. It might not sound like a huge amount, but it adds up and helps keep the whole operation moving forward. Selling books in person feels especially satisfying because it’s a direct exchange with someone who’s interested in what I’ve written. One other guy added one of my books to his Amazon cart instead of buying it directly from me, which was a little funny because it would cost him more there, but everyone has their own way of doing things.

After we finished talking, I went ahead and filled out the form to schedule a call with him while the conversation was still fresh in both of our minds. I figured if I was going to show up for that conversation, I should come prepared to demonstrate what I actually know about marketing. A lot of people in that space talk big about impressions and reach, but when you look at the results, not much really happens. I wanted to be clear that if I did anything with him, I wouldn’t just agree with whatever strategy he already had in mind.

For example, he mentioned that they were thinking about scaling up with Facebook ads and Google ads. My immediate reaction was that approach often wastes a lot of money when it’s done without a very specific plan. Years ago there was a window where Facebook ads were incredibly powerful, and I was teaching people how to use them during that period. Today the landscape is very different. The cost of impressions has gone up, bots and low-quality traffic are everywhere, and companies often spend a lot of money without seeing meaningful results. In certain situations, like promoting a very specific local event, targeted ads can still make sense. But simply blasting ads everywhere and hoping people notice them rarely works well anymore.

For something like a Tantra speed dating event, running Facebook ads can make sense because the path from the ad to the purchase is simple. Someone sees the ad, clicks it, lands on an Eventbrite page they already recognize, and quickly understands what’s being offered. People already know what speed dating is, they understand the platform, and if they’re single and interested, it’s easy for them to decide whether to sign up. The funnel is clear and familiar, so the friction is low.

With something like Rivly, the situation is completely different. If you send someone from a Facebook or Google ad to a brand-new website they’ve never heard of, especially one trying to compete with Amazon, most people will land on the page and immediately wonder why they should care. If the platform doesn’t already have the products they want or a reputation they recognize, there’s very little reason for them to sign up or enter payment information. In that scenario, paid ads often end up wasting money because people click out of curiosity, see something unfamiliar, and leave right away. A lot of the traffic ends up being low-quality clicks or automated bot traffic anyway.

Advertising tends to work better when the ad appears inside the same environment where the purchase happens. For example, when I advertise a book on Amazon to someone already browsing Amazon, there’s a much higher chance they’ll buy it. They’re already in the app, they trust the platform, and their payment information is already stored. They only need to click once or twice to complete the purchase. That’s a very different situation from asking someone to leave a social media site, visit an unfamiliar platform, and create a new account before spending money.

Even when ads work well, they usually need a larger system around them. Back when I ran campaigns promoting my online courses, the ads were only one piece of a bigger funnel. The courses were hosted on a platform people already trusted, and I built additional layers into the system, like affiliate links and internal promotions. With everything structured properly, the ads could produce results, even though the conversion rates themselves were still relatively low. That kind of setup can work, but it requires the entire environment to support the marketing effort rather than relying on ads alone. If you’re about to pour money into Facebook or Google ads and aren’t sure whether they’ll actually convert for what you’re selling, that’s exactly the kind of thing I love to think through before you spend a dollar—schedule a one-on-one call with me and we’ll look at your funnel together.

After that conversation, another guy stopped by my table. I gave him one of my books, and in return he handed me a free juice from his stand. I don’t usually drink juice, but I went ahead and finished the whole thing. It was watermelon with cayenne pepper. He told me his name, and I joked that it reminded me of Mike Jones, so he probably hears that comparison all the time. He’s a local juice maker who makes the drinks himself, so we talked for a bit about what he’s doing with that.

After wrapping up those conversations, I packed up and headed out. On the way home I kept thinking about the guy from Rivly and the idea he mentioned about marketing for the company. At first, I dismissed the idea of working for someone else, but later I looked more closely at their website. I noticed they were advertising engineering roles starting around $132,000 a year. That made me think that if they valued marketing leadership at a similar level, it might actually be worth considering. If there were a way to contribute meaningfully without completely changing my lifestyle, it could be interesting.

What I realized is that if I ever did take on something like that, it would have to make sense for how I want to live. The way I think about it is that my time and attention have value, and I want to use them in ways that reflect that. I’m not interested in trading all my time for a modest hourly wage when I believe my work can generate far more value than that. At the same time, I can imagine a situation where a company benefits from my experience while I still maintain the freedom to keep writing and working on my own projects.

A big part of that confidence comes from believing in the long-term value of what I’m creating with these books. When I write entries like this, I’m building something that could grow over time. If the series keeps expanding, eventually there could be hundreds of entries covering life day by day instead of a polished summary that smooths over the details. I often imagine what it would be like to discover someone’s life documented that way, where you could follow the story as it unfolded in real time rather than hearing a condensed version years later.

Before leaving Crunch that evening I also tried something new with my table display. Instead of using the sign that said I deleted a billion views online, I printed one of the reviews a reader had written for my book and placed it on the table. It didn’t immediately lead to more book sales, but I liked the way it changed the energy of the display. Sometimes small changes like that make the table feel more personal and inviting, even if the effect on sales isn’t obvious right away.

As I’m heading to bed tonight, I’m thinking a lot about her. I talked with my friend earlier about what really matters in a relationship and what might be flexible. One of the things we discussed was that the question of having more kids might not need to be decided immediately. It might be something that can sit on the back burner while I focus on what really matters right now. One thing that feels non-negotiable for me is strong attraction. There needs to be that spark where I look at someone and think they’re incredibly attractive, and they seem to feel the same about me. When she and I made eye contact at the event, I felt that kind of energy immediately. It was different from the interactions I had with anyone else there.

Beyond attraction, another thing that feels important to me is health. I don’t want to build a relationship with someone who relies on substances or constant coping mechanisms just to get through the day. I want someone who is generally healthy and grounded so we can inspire each other to live well. Physical attraction and health often go together, though not always. Sometimes you see someone who looks amazing but their inner life is chaotic. Ideally, I’m looking for both: someone with a beautiful presence on the outside and a healthy mind and personality inside.

Thinking about that made me realize I’m open to relationships that might look a little different from what I once imagined. If she, for example, is a few years older than me, that wouldn’t bother me at all. If there’s strong attraction, shared interests, and a healthy connection, I’d absolutely be open to dating someone in her forties or fifties. At the same time, the possibility of having more kids is still somewhere in the future of my life. I’ve got time for that. It’s possible to have a meaningful relationship for several years, enjoying life together, traveling, having adventures, and building memories, while still remaining open to the idea that life might take another turn later.

Reflecting on all of this also made me think about moments in the past when I avoided being honest about what I really wanted. Four years ago, there was a woman I knew who was beautiful and clearly attracted to me, and I had the feeling that she wanted more out of the connection. At the time I pushed those thoughts aside because I felt it would be wrong to acknowledge them while I was still married to my ex-wife. A similar situation happened two years later with someone at yoga. Looking back, part of me wishes I had simply been honest about what I was feeling instead of burying those desires.

What I see now is that the real problem isn’t having those desires. The problem is pretending they aren’t there. When people hide what they actually want, it creates confusion and dishonesty in relationships. Being open about what you want—whether that’s love, companionship, sex, or building a life together—feels much more straightforward than pretending those desires don’t exist. That honesty, even when it leads to difficult conversations, seems healthier than carrying around feelings that never get spoken out loud. If you’ve been hiding what you actually want out of a relationship the way I did for years, it can be a relief to just say it out loud to someone first—book a private one-on-one call with me and we’ll talk it through honestly.

At the same time, I’m not going to close my eyes to women who might want kids in the future. I realize there are probably many women I could date right now who I’d find attractive and who would enjoy being with me, but who don’t want children. It wouldn’t make sense to ignore that entire group of people just because I might want more kids someday. There’s no reason I can’t be open to a relationship with someone like that while still staying open to the possibility of having more children later in life.

I also thought a lot about timing when it comes to my own kids. Right now, they’re ten and seven, and they still need a lot from me. They want time together during the week, overnight visits, and the kind of attention younger kids naturally look for. They don’t yet have the big social worlds that teenagers tend to develop. But in another five or six years that will change. When I was a teenager, I didn’t rely on my parents the same way. At that stage, the basics were what mattered: meals, a stable home, guidance when needed. My kids will still need me then, but in a different way.

That perspective helped me realize that the timing for having more children might make more sense later. If I waited five or ten years, my current kids would be older and more independent. My son might be focused on sports and friends, and my daughter would be close to adulthood. They would still need their dad, but not in the same day-to-day way they do right now. Waiting could allow me to be fully present for them during these years when they depend on me most, and still leave open the possibility of building another family later.

Thinking ahead like that also made me consider how much life circumstances can shift over time. Right now it makes sense for me to stay in St. Petersburg because that’s where the kids are. If I were dating someone seriously, it would need to be someone who also wants to stay here. But years down the road the possibilities could open up again. When the kids are teenagers, travel and relocation become much more manageable. They could visit easily, and our family rhythm would naturally look different than it does today.

So tonight I found myself reflecting on how many different paths could unfold from here. For now, I’m simply enjoying the feeling of possibility. She is on my mind, and I’m looking forward to seeing how that meeting goes. It feels exciting to have something new developing, to feel attraction and curiosity again. And as I think about it all, part of me wishes I had recorded these moments years ago when my ex-wife and I first started dating, just to see what those early days looked like through the same lens of reflection.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Looking Past the Profile Checklist

Originally published November 15, 2025.

This is my journal entry from November 15, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.

I went back to my yoga studio this morning, and it felt like a quiet but necessary reset. I finally reached the point where I was done being a whiny little bitch about the whole situation and just decided to do what I already knew was good for me. All the internal noise about being hurt or offended suddenly felt ridiculous. Fuck that. I showed up, took the class, and everything was completely fine. I had a solid yoga class with a yoga instructor, saw some familiar faces, and felt grounded being back in that space. It was normal, friendly, and easy. In hindsight, I should have brought some books to give away, but I couldn’t be bothered to think that far ahead. I was just there to show up and move my body, and that was enough.

After yoga, I headed straight to a gratitude dinner for Alcoholics Anonymous. My sponsor and another guy who’s basically a second sponsor were both going, and they had a ticket for me, so I drove up to Seminole right after class. It was a little over a thirty-minute drive, and somewhere along the way I called my aunt. That’s when she shared some difficult news about a family member going through a really hard time. The sadness hit immediately and filled me in a way that was heavy but familiar. I could relate to what they were going through more than I wanted to admit. I’ve felt those same currents moving through me. I voluntarily stopped uploading videos and agreed to a divorce, and over the past few weeks I’ve had some genuinely hard days too.

What kept me steady was remembering that I’ve already talked myself through those moments before. There is still a lot of fun to be had here, and there are still opportunities worth showing up for. I’ve worked hard for the life I have. I’ve put in the work to publish all these books, to be a father to my two kids, to maintain a relationship with my ex-wife, and to see my mom every day. None of that happened by accident. It doesn’t make sense to throw all of that away unless things are truly hopeless, or unless there’s something clearly better to do, or unless my work here is actually finished. With this loved one, I felt both deep sadness and a strange sense of recognition. I understood exactly how a person gets there, and that made it hurt even more.

When I arrived at the gratitude dinner, I immediately saw my sponsor and a bunch of friends. It felt good to be welcomed right away. We took a couple of pictures together so I could potentially use them for book covers later. I went in expecting the food to be bad, and the buffet line confirmed it. Everything was loaded with meat and animal products, and none of it looked remotely appealing to me. All I took was a piece of bread. The girl serving the food looked genuinely confused that I didn’t want anything else, like she couldn’t process someone willingly passing on what was essentially cafeteria food. I felt oddly good saying no. I’m spoiled in the best possible way. I have so much access to good food in my life that I don’t feel the need to eat something just because it’s there.

While I was there, a woman I’ve known for years sat down next to me. We’ve had some really deep conversations over the years. We started talking about dating, especially online dating. She showed me her dating app, where she had more than fifty likes sitting there. She told me it’s still a complete waste of time because most of those guys just want sex and don’t want anything more than that. Sorting through it all feels pointless and exhausting to her. I could relate, just from the opposite side of the equation. The last time I checked my profile, I had zero likes. As we talked, I kept thinking how perfect she would be for me in so many ways, and that made it even harder. She’s kind, thoughtful, and emotionally available. The hard part for me was noticing my own attraction hesitate over her body type, and I couldn’t ignore how that landed in me. That realization sat with me quietly, uncomfortable and honest, without any easy resolution. If you have noticed your own attraction running on rules you never quite chose, it can help to talk it through, and you can book a private call with me to do exactly that.

I started wondering why that even mattered so much to me in the first place. It felt like it shouldn’t matter that much, and yet it clearly did. As we kept talking, she started engaging more with the guy sitting on her other side, and at that point I mentally stepped back. Whatever. It was still nice to see her and hear her perspective, but I could tell this wasn’t someone I needed to pursue. I’ve had more enjoyable, more energizing conversations, and I didn’t feel any pull to force something that wasn’t there.

When the actual AA meeting finally started, it was already running late. I had arrived around 12:45 p.m., and the meeting was supposed to start around 2:00 p.m., but people didn’t even get their food until about 2:30 p.m. Everyone was still shuffling around with plates, settling in, and staring down meals I wasn’t impressed with. By then, I just wanted to leave. I was already weighed down by the hard news about my loved one, trying to stay hopeful through a difficult situation. I love them deeply, and I genuinely hope it turns around, but I also felt realistic and tired. On top of that, I was annoyed with myself for even staying as long as I had. This was technically a great place to meet sober women. I could see several sober women I already knew, plenty of sober guys, and yet I wasn’t feeling any of it. None of it was landing. About a minute or two into the meeting, I stood up and left before it had even really begun. I didn’t want to hear the speaker. I knew her already, and I had zero interest in listening to her talk. I also had plans to go to a local spiritual community for a dance portal, and I wanted to get moving.

As I walked out toward my car, I noticed the girl who had been sitting next to me was now sitting on a bench directly in front of my car with another woman I know really well. For a moment, I almost pretended I didn’t see them and kept walking, but they waved at me, so I went over. We ended up talking for about ten minutes. Both of them were incredibly supportive and kind, picking up immediately on my low mood. They commented on how I was dressed, which honestly surprised me. I had on a button-down shirt that fit well, small khaki shorts, a gold chain tucked under the shirt, my silver Invicta watch that my ex-wife gave me more than a decade ago, and my boat shoes. One of them told me flat out, “That’s a ten out of ten. You look really put together.” I told her I genuinely don’t get it. I barely even notice what clothes women are wearing unless there’s obvious cleavage or something that grabs my attention. Otherwise, I don’t register colors, styles, or accessories. I don’t consciously think, that’s a necklace, or that’s a blue dress. Maybe I process it subconsciously, but on a conscious level, clothes barely matter to me at all. That goes for men, women, kids—anybody. I just don’t think about it.

She laughed and explained that for a lot of women, clothes matter a lot. Not all women, obviously, but many of them. The way someone dresses communicates what kind of life they’re living, what they value, how together they are. Hearing that made me feel almost incredulous. I told her I spent maybe five minutes putting on this particular outfit, which to me feels completely unremarkable and bland, and yet somehow it sends a strong positive signal. It felt ridiculous. We kept talking, and one of the women mentioned she had just gotten into a relationship. The other one—the one who had been sitting next to me earlier—said she was frustrated with dating and was thinking about taking a break. My mind immediately went to the question of whether I wanted to date her. Then the other woman suggested they go meditate together, which created this perfect opening for me to talk to her one-on-one, but I could feel myself pulling back. I was stuck on the same internal block, thinking there was just no way I could get past the weight issue, no matter how much I liked her as a person.

On the drive home, my mind kept circling back to the same question: why not? Why not at least try? I started running through what I actually want out of life, stripping it down to the basics. I want to write books, and I don’t want a fucking job. I want to make money doing work I genuinely love, not punching a clock for someone else. I want my own place, a house, not an apartment. I want more kids. I want a woman who wants sex, who lives a sober lifestyle, who’s good with kids, and who will get along with my family. When I laid it all out like that, the answer became obvious. Yes, I also want her to be hot. And I caught myself thinking, why shouldn’t I be allowed to want all of that? Why can’t I have every fucking thing I want? Part of me genuinely believes I should be able to.

Earlier in the day, I’d talked about this with both my ex-wife and my mom, and they independently told me the same thing. They said that attractiveness, specifically her weight, should be the most flexible and easiest area for me to compromise on. That idea stuck with me as I drove. I started asking myself what it actually is about her weight that bothers me so much. Is it my attraction to her body? Is it the physical reality of the two of us together? Is it imagining being naked with her? When I really checked in honestly, something surprising came up. When I got home, I noticed my body clearly responded to her on a physical level. On some level, I do find her attractive. That made me question where this automatic “overweight equals no” reaction was really coming from.

As I kept digging, the answer became uncomfortable but clear. It isn’t really about her. It’s about other people. If we were alone on a deserted island, just the two of us, would it matter whether she was big, medium, or small? No, it wouldn’t. The issue shows up when I imagine taking her out, introducing her to my friends and family, taking pictures together, putting her on book covers, and being seen. That’s where the resistance comes in. That’s where the story kicks up. The story that says if I’m out with a bigger woman, then I’m a loser. That if I were a winner, I’d be with someone thinner. Seeing that thought laid bare bothered me. It felt shallow, embarrassing, and painfully honest. If you are ready to look honestly at the stories quietly running your own choices, you can set up a call with me and we’ll look at them together.

Then my mind flipped the whole thing around. A few hundred years ago, it would have been exactly the opposite. Historically, the only women who were overweight were nobility. Most people were lucky to be at a healthy weight at all, and many were thin simply because food was scarce and labor was hard. A woman carrying extra weight was a sign of wealth, safety, and abundance. Men found bigger women attractive because it meant they didn’t have to work in the fields all day and burn every calorie they consumed. Being well-fed meant status. Being soft meant privilege. I found myself thinking about how deeply cultural this whole thing is, how arbitrary.

I started wondering if I could just import that framework into my brain today. What if I looked at her body differently? What if I saw it as strength instead of excess? She’s got a powerful body. She could probably kick my ass. What if I imagined her as nobility, as a queen who has abundant food, security, and no need to grind herself into the ground like a peasant just to survive? That was exactly what men fantasized about for most of human history. The big girls were the ones men dreamed about, wrote poems about, and desired from afar. As I drove, I kept asking myself whether I could actually internalize that perspective, not just intellectually, but viscerally. Whether I could let that reframe take root in my body instead of letting the old, modern, status-driven narrative keep running the show.

It’s frustrating to see my own programming so clearly, especially when I start tracing it back to where it may have come from. I remember that my dad’s mother carried extra weight, and he used to joke about it with an unkind nickname. It was framed as humor, but it landed somewhere deeper. I can’t help wondering whether my reactions to overweight women are linked back to that dynamic with my father and his mother. When I brought this up, my mom agreed that it seemed highly likely. That realization alone feels unsettling, like I’m watching an old script run itself without my consent.

I also can’t ignore memories from my early sexual experiences. I remember my friends teasing me about a girl from high school I was involved with. They made cruel jokes about her weight, and I laughed along with them, but underneath it I was hurt. She had been a cheerleader in high school. After graduation, she gained a significant amount of weight before starting college. I remember seeing an older photo of her and feeling a sharp, bitter jealousy. It felt deeply unfair, like life had cheated me. I was responding to a version of her that had changed, while the guys she talked about from high school had known an earlier version of her.

My ex-wife reminded me of something that complicates this even further. She pointed out that when she first dated me, I was up to seventy-five pounds heavier than I am now. She said maybe if I were with this woman, she might drop seventy pounds too. That idea landed in an interesting way. Part of me thought, yeah, that would be really cool. At the same time, I hated the idea of entering a relationship with an unspoken expectation that someone would need to change that dramatically. And yet, when I zoom out, I see how inconsistent I’ve been. Just a week or two ago, I asked a friend if she wanted to be my girlfriend, even though she already has a boyfriend. That’s absurd when I say it out loud. She doesn’t want kids, her lifestyle isn’t compatible with mine, and she’s not even available. I was willing to compromise everything. When I compare that to the idea of compromising on fifty pounds, it almost feels ridiculous. In that context, the weight issue looks small.

I keep coming back to this sense that learning how to genuinely love bigger women would be a major breakthrough for me. It feels important. Just a week ago, after the speed-dating event, I was lamenting this exact issue, thinking about how easily I could date a doctor or a lawyer. I know a doctor who’s single. I know a lawyer who’s single. These women want kids, they’re attracted to me, and they contribute meaningfully to the world through their work. On paper, they are high-quality partners by almost any metric. It feels like all that stands between me and a deeply compatible relationship is this one mental block. And oddly enough, it seems like it should be the easiest thing to change.

I see two paths in front of me. I can stay mad at the world for being the way it is, or I can open my mind to loving bigger women. A lot of men aren’t open to that, which means there’s an entire group of women who are available, overlooked, and potentially deeply compatible with me. I remember swiping left—saying no—to plenty of women on Bumble and Tinder who wanted kids and didn’t drink, simply because they didn’t meet some arbitrary physical standard in my head. Some of them weren’t even as big as my friend. She, in particular, feels like someone I could be very compatible with, and now I realize I don’t even have her phone number. If I’d been thinking this way when I had the chance to talk to her one-on-one, I would have asked for it without hesitation. Sitting with that realization, I feel a quiet regret about the opportunity I may have let slip by. If you can feel yourself closing off options that might actually be right for you, you can book a one-on-one call with me and we’ll talk through what is really holding you back.

I carried all of those thoughts with me into a local spiritual community. I set up my books, arranged my little table, and got ready for the dance portal. Before heading out, I spent a bit of time with the kids, knowing I was going to miss bedtime, which already put a strange weight on the night. Once I was there, I ended up running into a woman and gave her one of my books. As we talked, she casually told me she’d been married three times—once to a woman and twice to men. Then she added that she’d been engaged eleven times and had received nine rings, two from women and seven from men. I asked, damn, how many have you actually given? She said zero. She’s received nine rings and given none. This was another bigger woman, clearly interested in me, and genuinely enjoyable to talk with. It hit me again: if I could just like bigger women, my world would open up in a huge way. There are so many single women with larger bodies who have incredible personalities and rich life stories.

The downside of talking with her for so long—despite her pretty face, lovely eyes, and sober lifestyle—was that I barely interacted with anyone else. People came up to look at my books, and I was so engaged with her that I didn’t really give them my attention. Eventually, we sat down for what they call the cacao circle, which is basically hot chocolate. We went through the whole cacao ceremony, and my mind was tearing it apart the entire time. I kept thinking how fucking stupid this felt in that moment, how I was missing my kids’ bedtime for this, how lame it all seemed. It didn’t feel like anything romantic was going to happen there that night, which was oddly a relief. After all the buildup and affirmations, we finally drank the hot chocolate. Part of me was genuinely into the experience, and another part of me felt almost comically toxic about it. I found myself wondering if other people had the same split experience or if it was just me.

When the dance finally started, I wasn’t feeling it at all. It began painfully slow, and my mind immediately went into its usual rant about how much the DJ sucked and how she wasn’t going to play Deadmau5 or anything I actually wanted to hear. After about ten minutes, I wandered to the bathroom, then lingered near my table, just swaying a little. Gradually, I started to loosen up. I told myself to give it an hour. Before long, I was fully out there, moving around the dance floor, actually having fun. An old friend from AA showed up with another woman who was attractive, and as I looked around the room, I noticed a few really pretty girls dancing. My mind immediately jumped to the familiar conclusion: this is why I can’t be with a bigger girl. Look how beautiful these women are. I should be able to be with someone like that.

By the end of the night, one guy had two of those pretty girls cuddled up on him after dancing like a maniac the whole time. I cycled through emotions—feeling proud of him, happy that they all looked joyful, then jealous, then angry at myself. I kept wondering where the fuck I went wrong in my life that I was out there missing my kids’ bedtime while my hot ex-wife was home putting them to bed. After the dance portal ended, I packed up my stuff, said goodbye to the people I’d met, and gave out two or three books, which felt decent enough. The books got damp from the humidity since we were outside, and I loaded everything into the car and headed home.

When I got back, I saw my mom, and she confirmed what she’d been saying all along: I should learn to love heavier women. She even framed it as a public service, saying humanity could probably use more men who genuinely love bigger girls. My immediate, unfiltered reaction was irritation—why can’t these women just lose weight? I joked about writing a book called Unfat Yourself and trying to help with that. Then I caught myself remembering that when I was twenty-six, I was overweight too. I didn’t lose the weight until my thirties, and I’ve managed to keep it off. I started thinking that if I were with a bigger woman, she might actually have a lot to teach me.

I went to bed with all of this spinning around in my head. Before falling asleep, I found myself thinking about the woman from the meeting earlier. Lying there afterward, I reflected on my fantasies in general and what truly draws me. The answer felt surprisingly clear: there’s an exhibitionist streak in what appeals to me. That was an honest thing to notice about myself.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

I'm Done Waiting for the Perfect Woman

Originally published October 31, 2025.

This is my journal entry from October 31, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Book 5 — Daily Autobiography — my real, unedited days, published in order.

More mind expansion today. I actually went out tonight and walked through a bar with my friend who’s been sober in AA longer than I’ve been alive. Earlier in the day he was encouraging me, telling me straight up, you need to get out and meet girls, and that’s where they are. You can stay sober. Most of them aren’t alcoholics. They’re just out at bars hoping to meet someone. He invited me to go out with him to the Vinoy, so we went over there, checked out the new restaurant, looked around at all the beautiful women, then drove down Beach Drive. It wasn’t super active tonight, probably because it’s Halloween and a lot of people are at private parties, but still, it got me fired up. It felt like, yeah, this is what I need to be doing.

He also gave me some solid advice. If you’re going somewhere with alcohol, don’t go alone. Always go with someone else. It lowers the chance you’ll drink, lowers the chance you’ll do something stupid. I asked him why I couldn’t just go by myself, and he said because when you’re alone, the odds go up. You might pick up a drink. You might get roofied. I was like, roofied? He said yeah, it’s happened to him more than once. You ask for a virgin daiquiri or some shit and there’s alcohol in it anyway. That stuck with me. I also thought about this guy I know in AA who hooks up with women at meetings all the time, and then goes home sad and alone afterward. That guy needs to be out in the real world too. Honestly, he should be out with me. We’d make great wingmen together.

What really hit me tonight is that I want to have more fun. I don’t know if I’m ever going to meet some amazing woman and build another family. I hope so. I genuinely believe it’s possible. But what a complete fuck-up it would be if I took this super serious, borderline religious approach where I’m “saving myself” for some hypothetical future woman and end up just being lonely and isolated every night instead. That’s not noble. That’s sad.

And that ties into something that happened earlier today. I was looking for speed dating events or Tantra events because I had nothing planned tonight or tomorrow and thought, I need more stuff on my calendar. I started looking around and found these women offering private Tantra sessions — one charging a few hundred dollars, another over a thousand for a two-hour “masculine-feminine intimate experience.” And I’m sitting there like, are we just talking about sex work? Is that what this actually is?

So I called a friend of mine from AA — the same guy I was thinking could be a good wingman — because he’s dealt with sex addiction and I figured he’d know. I asked him straight up. He laughed and said yeah, most of the time it’s basically a paid sexual service dressed up in nicer language. And hearing that snapped me back to reality. I’m like, that sounds awful. I’d feel ridiculous paying over a thousand dollars for that, and sketchy as hell sending my information to someone who might just be running a scam.

And that was the real wake-up moment. The fact that I was even considering paying that kind of money for that kind of experience told me something important. It told me I’m not meant to be sitting at home, isolated, scrolling the internet, fantasizing about transactional intimacy. It told me I need to be out in the world meeting actual people, because the alternative is sad, desperate, and disconnected — and I don’t want to live like that. That realization alone made tonight worth it.

I need to be getting out and meeting more people because sitting around like this is sad and desperate. There are a lot of lonely single people in this town who’d love some connection, and honestly, so would I. Now, if this were a total sausage fest like Columbia, South Carolina in the early 2000s—where you’d walk into a bar and there were three dudes deep competing for every girl—that’d be a different story. But St. Pete is not that. We drove down Beach Drive and it was women everywhere, so many attractive women, and not that many straight guys out competing. The odds feel like they’re in my favor.

I actually put some effort into how I looked tonight too. Nice white collared shirt, black pants, belt, dress shoes, shirt tucked in. I looked in the mirror and thought, damn, I look good. I could meet some beautiful women looking like this — especially with the confidence I have when I’m not spiraling in my head. What I need to stop doing is leaning on solo habits out of loneliness. I’m thinking about easing off that unless I’m actually feeling it, which lately I haven’t been. That’s a sign. You’re supposed to save that energy for a real person.

And if that real person happens to be a fifty-five-year-old woman who’s full of life and desire, why not? If she takes care of herself and there’s a real connection there, that’s worth a lot. It’s a kind of avoidance to just sit here waiting for some perfect, imaginary woman to appear while life passes me by. That’s not patience.

I keep thinking about that single mom I met a few weeks ago. I’d already known her for about a year at my yoga studio, and that night I could tell she was interested in me—at least I thought I could at the time, though my experience with my massage therapist has made me question my reads a bit. Still, she was dressed up, going through a divorce, clearly open, and I absolutely would’ve enjoyed being with her. Instead, she went home frustrated. She spent a lot of time talking to me, and I didn’t make any move. I went home feeling this weird mix of sad, lonely, and falsely virtuous, like I’d done something noble by holding back from someone who seemed to want me.

Looking back now, that’s ridiculous. I should’ve said, hey, let’s go back to my place. You don’t have the kids, I’ve got my own place, let’s have some fun. Let’s enjoy life. Instead, I got judgmental. She drinks. She smokes weed. You can hear all that judgment in my previous diary entries. And now I’m like, what the fuck? That’s not who I want to be. What if I never meet another woman and have another relationship like the one I had with my ex-wife? Am I really going to look back on this time and be glad I sat at home alone congratulating myself for being “disciplined,” or am I going to wish I’d actually lived? That’s the question I’m finally starting to take seriously.

In that case, I want to be out living. I was with the same woman for fourteen years. Fourteen years. I’ve been craving the experience of someone new — variety, a different dynamic, life beyond one script. And lately I’ve mostly been alone with that craving, which is just depressing. The point is, intimacy is meant to be shared, not something I keep to myself by default.

There are things in life you do alone—take a shower, whatever—but there are things that are just better shared. I can take care of myself, but it’s so much more fun with another person. I can eat dinner alone, but it’s way better eating with someone else. And I’ve been getting lonely and sad. Honestly, thank God I got lonely and sad enough today that it cracked something open. I realized I need to open my mind. I need to be out. If there’s a speed dating event, I should be there. If I can show up somewhere and actually have real conversations with single women, I should be doing that. Trading isolation for real connection is exactly what we can work on when you schedule a one-on-one call with me — building a life you don’t need to escape from.

Yeah, yeah, nobody should be into you, Jerry. That’s how on I am tonight. And I’m not going to pretend I don’t think about this — part of me is genuinely curious about my own sexuality, about what I’m actually open to. I think most people are way more sexually fluid than they admit, and that most of us, underneath it all, just want pleasure and connection. I’m more curious and less afraid of that than I used to be.

I’ve had fantasies I wouldn’t have admitted to years ago. There, I said it. Do I know exactly what I’d want? No — and a lot of it I’ll probably never act on. But I don’t judge it anymore. It’s just part of being honest with myself. What I do know is that fun and play and joy need to be primary right now.

Sitting at home, feeling sorry for myself, scrolling through women offering private tantra sessions—that’s lame. And I don’t want to be lame. There are lonely people out there who want to be wanted and enjoyed, and I want to bring that kind of connection.

Can I just point out that this sounds like the opposite of what I was saying a day or two ago? Yeah. It does. And honestly, if I just try on every different point of view long enough, maybe I’ll find one that actually fits. Because what’s really been happening is I’ve had a hard time getting honest. I’ve been in monogamy for so long that my brain doesn’t even know how to tell the truth about desire anymore. And if I’m really honest, the desire is strong right now. Can we just say that out loud without pretending it’s something more noble than it is?

And yeah, sometimes I think about trying things I’ve always written off — being more open, less rigid about labels. I’d say I’m mostly straight with a little curiosity mixed in, and I’m honestly just interested in what I don’t know about myself. The voice in my head riffs on it and cracks me up, but underneath it I really am curious about what I’d feel.

I’ve had college stories where my own hang-ups and twisted logic got in the way of being honest about what I actually wanted — and looking back, that pattern is the real lesson, not the details.

And I’ll be honest about this too. After my sophomore year of college, I went through a phase where I was privately curious about guys while outwardly throwing around homophobic jokes and performing hyper-masculinity with my friends. I even hinted at it once with a friend, in a roundabout way, and he didn’t pick up on it. The contrast between what I was projecting and what I was actually feeling is the part that stays with me.

After that, I felt rejected. So I went into full compensation mode, pretending none of that happened, pretending I wasn’t thinking what I was thinking. I went absolutely feral trying to pick up girls. I remember being at SeaWorld, up on one of those water rides where you’re riding inner tubes, and I was hitting on a lifeguard so hard she was visibly uncomfortable. I was just firing everywhere, trying to prove something. And the irony? Zero sex. No girls. No guys. Nothing. Just desperation and noise.

That’s the pattern I’m seeing now. Swinging between extremes. Trying to be virtuous one minute, feral the next. And underneath all of it is the same thing: wanting connection, wanting touch, wanting to feel alive, and not knowing how the fuck to hold that honestly yet.

There’s another old story from years ago — a night out drinking with my best friend in a town that was a total sausage fest, where we never managed to meet anyone. We came back to his place frustrated, and it led to a moment between us that I handled badly at the time.

Without getting into the crude details, he made a vulnerable, half-joking advance, and I shut it down — fine — but then I didn’t keep it to myself. I told everybody and roasted him for it. That’s the part that still makes me cringe. He didn’t even make a big deal about it, but if it had been me, I’d have been mortified. And somehow he’s still one of my good friends today. Looking back, the thing I regret isn’t the rejection — it’s that I broadcast someone else’s vulnerable moment for a laugh.

Looking back, I’m a lot less afraid of all that than I was then. Whatever might or might not have happened, it wouldn’t have been the catastrophe my younger, more homophobic self imagined. That’s really the lesson — how much fear and posturing I used to carry that I’ve since let go of.

So yeah, I’m interested in exploring, and also a little nervous, because you never fully know what people are into. I was listening today to Want by Gillian Anderson, where women submitted their anonymous sexual fantasies. And the takeaway is clear: women have just as much desire as men do. I think guys grow up picturing women as if they’re always running from sex, and it’s just not true. The women I saw out tonight got dressed up and went out hoping to meet someone and feel wanted, same as anybody. Desire is human — it’s not a guy thing.

I’ll leave it there before my brain wanders somewhere it doesn’t need to go. Y’all have imaginations. So do I. Moving on.

And I’m glad I’ve learned something today. I want to be living fully. I’m a healthy, good-looking guy, and I don’t want to spend my nights alone and checked out. I want real desire, real connection. I want to have fun, man. I was listening to a book about how the world is supposedly heading toward biological collapse, and it got me thinking — what if you knew you had two years left? I’d be living it up, laughing as much as possible, connecting as much as possible. Even if nobody ever listens to this, I’m laughing my ass off listening to myself talk. That’s a win. Even if I never find another woman to build a great family with, if I’m out living and connecting, at least we’re having a good time.

And there are lonely people out there who just want to feel wanted. My mind keeps riffing into wilder and wilder territory, and I crack myself up with it, but the real point underneath is simple: I want to explore. I want to have fun. I want to stop being so goddamn serious. Enough of this “I’m just going to wait around for the perfect woman” energy.

Honestly, I’m probably going to have to start a fourth fucking dating book because the first three have kind of gotten fucked up. It’s time to start another one that says, look—have some fun. First and foremost. Play around. Experiment. If there’s a real, consensual connection, go for it. Life can be short. What if an asteroid wipes this place out tomorrow? What if global warming hits a tipping point and the poles shift and everything goes up in flames? Have fun. Enjoy yourself. We have to have fun. I’m tired of being stuck in this house. I’ve got a place to myself, and I’d rather be out meeting people and enjoying life than sitting here alone.

Yeah, I know — selfish prick. But the real thing I’m getting at is that so many single people are out here struggling, sitting at home lonely and sorry for themselves. The move is to get out and actually connect with people. I honestly think that would make the world a better place. I’m out here doing my part.

I went to my AA meeting today, and we had a good conversation about the second step—being restored to sanity. I spent a couple hours talking with my friend about the difference, for me, between sex addiction and just having fun. The difference is the heaviness, the trauma, the seriousness of it. I don’t want that. I just want some fun, honest connection, sober. I realized my attitude about alcohol has been too serious lately. For me, alcohol can be deadly — I know that. But not everyone out there is an alcoholic. A lot of people at bars are having a drink or two and just hoping to meet someone confident and present. That’s why they’re there.

And honestly, if I meet someone great and there’s a real, mutual spark, I’m all for it. I’m done apologizing for wanting connection and enjoying my life.

I’ll go to these speed dating things and meet some new people. I want to meet some new guys too—guys who might like my books, who might make good wingmen. To me, that’s a big part of life: get out there, play, and have fun. That’s where a lot of us as adults go wrong. Sure, there are times you need to be serious—when you’re driving, you don’t want to be swerving all over the road; if you’re a surgeon in the middle of a serious operation, you’d better be focused. There are moments where focus matters.

But the problem is, most of the time, we as adults are doing too much of that. Too much seriousness. Too much control. Too much “what does this mean?” instead of “is this fun?” And when I think about the woman I met, it really hits me. If I had gone to a speed dating thing the night before, if I had hooked up with a couple girls that week, I probably wouldn’t have been so serious with her. I probably wouldn’t have been sitting there trying to decide if she was a future wife. I probably would’ve been trying to make out with her instead of just talking and talking and talking.

I honestly think I might have been able to have sex with the woman I met if I hadn’t been so desperate. If I’d just been having fun, we might have made out at the party, at the dance at the spiritual community. Or maybe she would’ve said no—and that would’ve been fine too. Because if a girl wants it, it’s worth asking. If a girl wants to make out, it’s worth trying. I haven’t made out with anyone besides my ex-wife since 2011. That’s insane. It’s time. It’s past time.

And what if things had gone differently with her that night? Sure, it could’ve gone wrong, but it might’ve been a lot better than what I did—just talking and projecting and wanting to date her. She said she wasn’t available to date. But it felt like she enjoyed the conversation, and when I got her into that nice romantic spot and held her hand, she seemed really into it—like she was waiting for me to make a move. When I just kept wanting to talk, she seemed less enthusiastic. If I’d read it better in the moment, the night might have gone somewhere instead of me waking up the next morning over-texting after she’d already said she didn’t want to date.

So yeah, I’m feeling good today. I’m excited. And honestly, this is going to make great material for these books. Because if I just keep being boring and telling you how lonely and stuck I am every night, nobody’s going to read that. Well, maybe some other lonely bastard sitting at home like me. But that’s the thing. The difference between being a winner and being a loser is your own choices and your own judgment.

I’ve been feeling lonely because I’ve been doing lonely things—sitting at home, scrolling, isolating. Going out, meeting real people, having real connection, having fun, experiencing new people—that’s the better path. That’s fun. And yeah, I could come up with reasons not to do it. I always can. But what’s fun? What’s joyful? I’ve always been happiest when I made choices based on fun and joy, while still being considerate of other people. It’s insane for me to be sitting here alone instead. If you recognize yourself in that loop of lonely habits and want to talk it through with people who get it, you can book a private call with me and we’ll figure out your next move together.

So I’m excited to see what comes next. I’m going to book all the speed dating events—even if they’re at bars. I might go to Sarasota. I might go to Tampa. We’ll see what happens. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you here tomorrow, or whenever the fuck you’re listening to this. Ha ha ha ha.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

I Stayed in My Seat and Held Her Hand

Originally published August 13, 2025.

This is my journal entry from August 13, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Author in St. Petersburg — my real, unedited days, published in order.

I woke in the middle of the night with a faint rawness in my throat. In the past, that small sensation would have triggered an immediate spiral — worrying I’d get sick, imagining I’d miss tennis or cancel my massage school tours. Instead, I felt calm. I trusted my body, told myself I had plenty of energy, and believed the irritation would pass. Gratitude came easily. I love my body for how it works, and I was looking forward to playing tennis later in the morning.

When I woke again at 6:15, the numbers felt like a small gift — my birthday digits glowing on the stove clock. I took the kids to school, then met my friend for tennis. We started at 8:30, and the cooler air compared to a 10:30 start was a blessing. We warmed up for a few minutes before beginning the first set. I lost the first four games, feeling completely out of sync, but then my game caught fire. I took six of the next eight games to tie, then won the tiebreaker. My friend was a little frustrated, but he appreciated having real competition.

Even with my strong start, I noticed my energy wasn’t at its usual level. By the second set, fatigue crept in. My friend took that one 6–2. When he suggested either a third set or a tiebreaker, I opted for the latter, already feeling spent. He won it 7–1. Both of us played shirtless in the humid air, grateful for the cloud cover.

Back home, I cooled off with a cold shower and ate four locally grown mangoes I’d bought from a friend who gets them directly from farmers. He’s dating my life coach, who I’ll see on Monday. While eating lunch, I listened to more of Liz Murray’s Breaking Night. I have about an hour left of the twelve-hour audiobook. Her perspective keeps me grounded. My life today feels full — rich in relationships, connection, and comfort — but hearing her story reminds me how different life can be for others, and how important it is to meet people where they are. If that pull toward real connection resonates with you, you can schedule a one-on-one call with me and we’ll meet you right where you are.

That reminder came into focus yesterday at a meeting when I saw a woman I’ve known for years who lives on the street. I usually give her $20 when I see her, as I do with most homeless people I meet. Over the past decade, I’ve given tens of thousands this way — not in grand gestures for a camera, but quietly, directly, in ways that feel good for everyone involved.

Yesterday, she sat two chairs away from me, and the smell coming from her was stronger than usual — sharp enough that I thought I might throw up. She carried the strong smell of the street. My sponsor, seated two seats further from her, moved to the far side of the room. I stayed put, laughing at myself for my sensitivity, breathing deeply, thanking my nose each time I adjusted, and then being caught off guard when the scent returned.

When it came time for the Lord’s Prayer, I took her hand. My mind went back and forth between the medical caution I’d grown up with — my upbringing meant constant handwashing and sanitizing — and my current trust in my body’s resilience. I thought of St. Francis embracing lepers, and I was grateful for the chance to make someone feel loved.

The experience was both grounding and honest. I care about her, and it was genuinely hard to sit beside her. Yet I’m thankful for her presence, because she reminds me I can witness another person’s need without turning away.

It was also an opportunity to practice boundaries. After thanking me for the money, she asked for a ride. I told her, “No thanks, I’m good. I trust you’ll find your way there another way.” My car is clean, and that was simply too much for me to offer.

At 1:00 p.m., I toured the nearer school, a vocational school about thirteen minutes from my house. They offer massage therapy and skin care programs. The convenience alone makes it tempting — saving hours of driving time each week — but I walked in with mixed feelings. First impressions were lukewarm, the kind where you think, This is fine, yet still want to like it because the location would make life so much easier. If I’m going to spend hundreds of hours in a place, though, I want the environment to be the best it can be, even if that means a longer commute.

I was already carrying the opinions of friends in the back of my mind. One of my closest friends, a massage therapist, had dismissed the nearer school as a corporate franchise that didn’t produce particularly well-trained graduates. That was the first thing I ever heard about the school, and I can’t help but wonder how much that colored my perception walking in. Another friend, a massage therapist friend, chose to make the longer drive to the Sarasota school rather than enroll at the nearer school. Those built-in biases were there, but I made a point to keep an open mind and set an intention to get the most positive, honest impression possible.

The admissions representative greeted me warmly and gave me both an interview and a tour. I loved seeing the main massage training area, rows of massage tables alongside desks for lecture work. I met one of the instructors, who radiated kindness, and the students I crossed paths with all had an easy, friendly energy. It felt like a place I could fit into without effort. For someone returning to school after many years, that sense of belonging is important.

She had an open, generous way of sharing her life story, and we laughed often during the tour. She nicknamed me “Fun Guy,” which made me feel even more at ease. I told her about my own background — my work in content creation, my vision of combining massage therapy with life coaching, and the fact that I’ve been sober for eleven years in Alcoholics Anonymous. Massage, to me, creates one of the strongest possible environments for coaching because of the deep connection that happens in those sessions. She listened intently and shared personal experiences that left me feeling both welcomed and understood.

The nearer school has a lot going for it beyond the location. The tuition is a couple of thousand dollars less than the Sarasota school, and because so many students are local, it could give me more opportunities for networking and continuing education. Their next class starts August 18th — just five days from now — and would finish a month earlier than the Sarasota school, by March 2026. That timing feels fast, considering I’ve only been seriously thinking about massage school for a couple of days, but it’s still tempting.

I left feeling grateful for the abundance in my life — how fortunate I am to have multiple appealing options and the resources to choose freely. When she mentioned financial aid, I told her I wouldn’t need it and would pay up front. That might have come off as arrogant, but it felt good to say. Technically, the funds will come from my ex-wife’s account, since we don’t have joint accounts, but either way, it’s a blessing to be in that position. Even better, we’ll still have over $50,000 in cash after paying tuition.

When I got home from the the nearer school tour this afternoon, I had a few minutes before it was time to greet the kids. I spent most of that time washing dishes, played a quick round of “Uno No Mercy” with my son, and even took ten minutes to lie down in bed for a mini shavasana and nap before heading to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to see my sponsor.

Right before I left, my daughter was upset. She didn’t want to go to basketball practice, especially knowing my son would be going over to my mom’s house nearby instead of her. I’m deeply grateful that my daughter loves spending time with my mom — usually about an hour each day — and that they have that bond. My mom’s move in 2022 from out of state to live close to me still feels like a blessing. She’s near enough that the kids can walk over to see her.

My ex-wife had the best line of the afternoon, which left me with a hearty belly laugh. After bringing the kids home from school and hearing my daughter’s fuss about basketball, she stepped out of the car and said, “Same shit, different sport.” My daughter used to have meltdowns before soccer practice until we finally quit, though my son still loves soccer. It’s funny how he charges into his activities with enthusiasm while my daughter so often resists. My ex-wife reflected on how, in her own life, she sometimes doesn’t feel like going to things — Toastmasters, Al-Anon, a tennis clinic — but ends up glad she went.

As the tension was building and I was heading out to my meeting, I felt complete trust leaving the kids with my ex-wife. I knew they’d be safe and well taken care of no matter how wild they got. Not everyone has that with a spouse; some people must worry about how bad things might get in their absence. That’s never been a concern for me.

The AA meeting was excellent, with a strong speaker whose story I enjoyed. Before the meeting, I sent a bunch of texts to catch up with people. I realized I was slightly distracted during the meeting because I’d been sending messages beforehand and waiting for replies. One of them was to a girl I’d done a life coaching session with a couple of weeks ago, inviting her to join me for yoga, though she didn’t respond. My mom also texted to say my son hadn’t arrived yet, so I checked my ex-wife’s location and saw she wasn’t at basketball with my daughter.

When I got home, everyone was in a good mood, though the stuffed animal my daughter ordered online two hours before was canceled as a consequence of her behavior. I made myself a salad for dinner and appreciated how much energy my ex-wife had put into handling the kids from school pickup until bedtime. I walked the dog, showered for the second time that day — the first was after tennis — while my ex-wife sat with the kids listening to her audiobook as they fell asleep.

Now comes a part of the day I almost feel is too personal to write about, but a diary is only valuable if it captures everything. In fact, this might have been one of the most educational moments of the day. After my shower, I found my ex-wife nearly ready for bed around 9:40. I asked her for some closeness. Her expression suggested she was tired. I acknowledged how tiring her day had been, but she pointed out that I had still asked anyway.

In that moment, I chose silence and reflection over defensiveness. I felt a twinge of guilt — wondering if I should simply let her go to bed without adding another request to her day. Yet I also thought of my daughter’s resistance to basketball, how she might have felt better if she had gone, and my ex-wife’s own words about activities you resist but ultimately enjoy. I decided not to feel guilty for asking for what I want. It’s okay for her to feel some reluctance; if she’s still willing, I’m grateful to receive.

We reconnected, and both felt better afterwards. I’m thankful for the clarity I had in processing those emotions, which I credit partly to the free life coaching session I enjoyed less than a week ago with my life coach. I’ve realized I don’t need to feel guilt over my sexual desires — they’re reasonable — and I can hold compassion for my ex-wife’s experience in meeting them through her own resistance. If you’d ever want that kind of clarity around something you’re quietly wrestling with, you can book a private call with me and we’ll talk it through together.

It was a good day, one that left me feeling connected, grateful, and ready for tomorrow’s tour of the Sarasota school. By 10:30, I was ready to wrap up the day with a little reading before bed.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

High Standards Are the Bar for a Life Worth Living

Originally published August 9, 2025.

This is my journal entry from August 9, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Author in St. Petersburg — my real, unedited days, published in order.

I’ve decided to start making these diary entries longer. At first, I set a five-minute dictation limit because that’s what I could easily transcribe in one go and then run through ChatGPT. I’ll still keep the dictations around five minutes each for practicality, but I no longer see a reason to restrict the whole diary to that length. Some days might stretch to ten, fifteen, or even twenty minutes, while others may stay shorter. The point is to give enough room to capture what matters without letting it drag. Life is always a balancing act—finding the right amount without tipping into excess.

I woke up at 6:40 this morning and played tennis with a woman in her sixties I sometimes hit with. I love discovering unexpected connections between the people in my life. Growing up as a military brat, moving all over the world, and later living in Columbia while studying at the University of South Carolina, I rarely got to know people deeply enough to stumble on those connections. Now I make a point to ask questions, talk with people, and notice the links. When they appear, they feel joyful and grounding.

We didn’t keep score this morning, just hit the ball back and forth and enjoyed ourselves. She is in her sixties and still playing well, staying healthy, and living actively. I find that inspiring. I’m always seeking role models who show what’s possible with age when you take care of yourself. I asked her what she’s done differently compared to many people her age, and she said she’s simply stayed active—playing tennis, trying pickleball, exercising regularly. I’m grateful to be following a similar path, surrounding myself with people who value movement and vitality. If you want to build that kind of life too, you’re welcome to schedule a one-on-one call with me and we’ll map out your own healthy, high-standard path.

When I got home, I made one of my all-time favorite meals from childhood: beef stroganoff. I only used half a pound of meat, but it was tenderloin—about twenty dollars’ worth—which some people might see as a crime to put in a stew. For me, it was worth it. The result was tender, flavorful, and deeply satisfying. This dish was my favorite growing up, the one my dad made. I remember thinking over twenty years ago that I needed to learn it from him so I could keep enjoying it long after he was gone. Today’s batch came out perfectly. My ex-wife enjoyed some, and my son devoured two big bowls.

I finished cooking just in time to make my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. My sponsor was there, along with one of my sponsees. I didn’t get called on, but it was still a great meeting. I enjoy listening as much as speaking, and I have plenty of opportunities to share in other places. Afterward, I had a meaningful conversation with a man who’s known me in AA for about nine years. He asked why he never sees me put money in the basket. I explained that I do contribute, but I only carry twenties, fifties, and hundreds, so I don’t usually have small bills for daily donations.

For years, I carried ones, fives, and tens and would drop in a dollar or two at each meeting, which left me with a wallet full of nearly useless bills. Now, I prefer to put in a twenty once a week or every other week. Sometimes I’ll drop sixty or eighty dollars in a single week, then not contribute again for a month. Once I explained this, he understood, and our conversation opened the door for him to share some personal stories with me. Before we left, I handed him a copy of my Speaker Meeting 2017 book and said, “Here’s my very personal stuff in print.”

Back in 2017 and 2018, I gave away Speaker Meeting 2017 constantly in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. That book contains a graphic and unflinching history of my life and addictions—alcoholism, sex addiction, gambling, money issues, food, and video games. It is essentially a complete fourth and fifth step laid out in writing. My sponsor once told me that if he were in my position, he wouldn’t write a book like that. I listened, but I also knew I had to write it for my recovery. That book was my searching and fearless moral inventory, part of the process of making a list of people I had harmed and beginning amends.

When I handed out copies, some people read it and opened up to me in ways they never had before, sharing deeply personal parts of their own lives. That kind of connection is what I value most about the book. I never sold it, even though each copy costs about ten dollars to print since it runs five or six hundred pages. I simply gave it away. Over time, I handed out a substantial number of copies, and now, for the first time in a year, I need to reorder more. My approach is simple: the first book is free for anyone I meet, and if they want to buy more, they can. If they truly have no money, I’ll give them additional copies without hesitation.

Eventually, I stopped giving Speaker Meeting 2017 away in AA because people began gossiping about it and asking me not to bring it to meetings. At the time, I was pouring most of my energy into my videos, and sharing those seemed like a better use of focus. Now that I have copies again, I’m more selective. I only give Speaker Meeting 2017 to people I believe can handle its raw and graphic content. My plan is to write another AA-focused book for a general audience—something I might title AA Speaker—that I will again distribute freely in meetings as additional sober literature.

After my AA meeting today, I met up with my life coach. I had been a little hurt when our planned life coaching session—one she had generously offered me for free—fell through last week. I had done a free session for her, and when ours didn’t happen, I slipped into that dramatic mindset of, “Whatever, forget it, it’s not going to happen.” Then she messaged me today asking if I wanted to meet her at a coffee shop downtown. She said she was co-working, which I had to clarify—turns out she just meant working on her laptop at the café.

When I arrived, she was sitting by herself, not talking to anyone. We ended up having a great hour-and-a-half conversation about writing books. We agreed to keep each other accountable since she also wants to write. I brought two of my books—Speaker Meeting 2017 and Officer Banfield—to show her my work and offered to give her either one or both if she wanted them. After that, she gave me the free life coaching session we had originally planned, which turned out to be excellent.

I decided to purchase a four-pack of coaching sessions from her. She’s comfortable discussing exactly the kinds of personal topics I need to address and clearly has solid training and certifications in coaching—something I’ve never formally pursued myself. I’m looking forward to learning from her approach and having someone work with me on my personal life in a structured way for the first time in quite a while.

After leaving the café with my life coach, I went to a massage appointment with a massage therapist friend. This was her very first session with a paying client. She had practiced extensively during massage school on family, friends, and the owners of her spa, but this was the first time she worked on someone in an official, paid capacity. I met a massage therapist friend at my yoga studio during a yoga class sometime in the last year. In fact, while I’m recording this, she just sent me a text message. It’s moments like that that make me appreciate the connections we share with people—links that go beyond words and texts, an almost mental thread. Some connections feel stronger than others, and it’s rewarding to recognize when you have that kind of rapport with someone.

I remember thinking how great it would be to meet a massage therapist through yoga—someone I got to know as a person before I knew them in a professional role. Most of my past massage therapists were people I met purely through business. With a massage therapist friend, the dynamic was different from the start. We spoke a few times at my yoga studio, and one day she mentioned she was working toward her massage license and would finish in about four months. I mentally filed that away. I didn’t reach out until I was certain she had completed her training. When I finally messaged her, the timing was perfect—she had just returned from a trip, was newly licensed, and ready to take clients.

Her excitement about working with her first paying client matched my enthusiasm. She offered me three options: the spa where she works, her house, or mine. My ex-wife prefers I avoid in-home massages so she can have the house to herself—or with the kids—while I’m gone. I also prefer not to go to a spa because a significant portion of the payment goes to the owner rather than the therapist. A massage therapist friend’s offer to host me at her house was ideal.

Before the session, I remembered a poor massage experience I’d had a few months ago with a therapist I had used before. That session reminded me how important it is to clearly communicate what I want. It’s a lesson that applies to far more than just massage—you have to tell people your needs, expectations, and preferences if you want them to meet them, and you also have to create the space for them to do the same. I explained to a massage therapist friend that I often enjoy a conversational massage, especially with someone new. My life already includes plenty of quiet moments—walking the dog, driving without music, sitting in silence—so I don’t need my massage time to be another silent retreat. Many therapists actually find their work more engaging when there’s some intellectual stimulation, and I’m happy to provide that.

The session was everything I hoped for. The conversation flowed easily, the massage itself was excellent, and I paid her more than she requested because it simply felt right. It was one of those experiences where you walk away feeling understood on a personal level and cared for on a physical one. By the time I got home, I felt deeply relaxed, both mentally and physically, and grateful that the whole experience had been so affirming.

The rest of the evening unfolded in a simple but fulfilling way—washing dishes, spending time with my ex-wife and the kids, visiting my mom with my son and her dog. When the house finally grew quiet, I found myself reflecting on how fortunate I am. So many of my days feel this good, and I want to help others experience the same kind of life. Writing these books feels like the best way I can make that possible.

My life coach had given me a journaling prompt earlier in the day: explore why I hold such high standards for the people in my life and what those standards mean to me. The first thought that came to mind was how much I value relationships where everyone’s needs are met and where there’s a constant sense of growth, character-building, and expansion. High standards, to me, mean that we’re not simply recycling the same patterns year after year. They represent a rejection of the “it is what it is” attitude in favor of a life where we actively open our minds, find new sources of joy, deepen our connections, and challenge ourselves to evolve.

Of course, the idea of “high standards” is entirely relative. In some areas, my expectations might seem outrageous to certain people and completely ordinary to others. Take sex, for example. My personal baseline for feeling satisfied in a relationship is intimacy roughly every other day, which I consider just enough to keep me content. Ideally, I would prefer sex almost every day. To many men and women, that expectation might seem excessive, unrealistic, or even a recipe for conflict and resentment. For me, it feels neither unreasonable nor indulgent—it feels joyful, fulfilling, and aligned with the kind of relationship I want to be in.

I believe it’s essential to maintain standards that align with our deepest sense of happiness. When my standards were low, life became sloppy. During my years of alcoholism, my expectations for myself were pathetic. I tolerated behavior that now seems absurd—getting drunk until I vomited, lying in bed all day with a hangover, ignoring my girlfriend, bailing on commitments, and losing entire days to video games while living at my parents’ house. I didn’t define what I wanted from myself, from a relationship, or from life, and that left me simmering with frustration I didn’t fully understand. And when that frustration boiled over, I handled it poorly, pouring it into more drinking, more avoidance, and more chaos.

Raising my standards meant becoming clear about two things: what I want, and what I am willing to give in return. In my marriage, for example, my ex-wife and I have had countless conversations about sex. If she doesn’t want as much as I do, that is her choice, but I’ve learned it is far healthier to be honest about my needs than to convince myself I am satisfied when I’m not. Over time I stopped pretending I was content when I wasn’t, and got clear about what I genuinely wanted in a committed relationship. That clarity has stayed with me.

Half of life seems to be the process of identifying what truly brings you joy and then deciding which standards are appropriate to support that joy. My ex-wife eventually raised her own standards, telling me she didn’t want to be married to an alcoholic. She wanted a sober husband. That change in her expectations forced me to confront my drinking and, in the process, improve my life in ways I never would have if she hadn’t been so direct.

I see many people who either set their standards too low or focus them on the wrong areas—demanding excessive income or constant gestures while neglecting deeper needs like emotional intimacy, respect, sex, or shared values. For me, high standards establish the minimum threshold of “good enough.” Once that bar is met in the areas that matter most, almost everything else becomes negotiable. I’ve told my ex-wife that when our connection is strong, I’m not likely to get upset about much else. If you’re trying to work out where your own standards belong and where settling for less is quietly costing you, you can book a private call with me and we’ll talk it through privately.

For me, having high standards in relationships has meant defining what matters most, learning to communicate it clearly, and making sure my core needs are honored. In romance, that means each partner knows the other’s standards and actively works to meet them. When that alignment is present, the relationship thrives. When it isn’t, resentment inevitably creeps in. For me, it is that simple—and that non-negotiable.

If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.

Dating After Divorce: My Standards and How I Searched for a Partner

On this page

The Queen Speaks

My queen speaks

The sign I gave him

How silly that he forgets to ask

Remember the anticipation last night

I have waited longer for you

Back to me

The woman from yoga was a symbol

Dating a different way

The Day I Heard I Was Finally Ready

The Things I Refuse to Negotiate On

Grief Showed Up While I Searched for Love

Dating After Divorce: My Standards and How I Searched for a Partner

On this page

The Day I Heard I Was Finally Ready

The Things I Refuse to Negotiate On

Grief Showed Up While I Searched for Love

Writing to My Future Wife

Deleting Every App and Waiting for the Real Thing

The Day I Tried to Rewrite Myself Into the Right One

Putting the Work In to Find My Person

A Stranger Texts Back, and Hope Returns

Looking Past the Profile Checklist

I'm Done Waiting for the Perfect Woman

I Stayed in My Seat and Held Her Hand

High Standards Are the Bar for a Life Worth Living

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