The Man Women Want—and Stay With
I'm going to tell you today how to be the man that women want and stay with, because this is what you really need to learn. A lot of people are teaching you just to be the man who attracts women. What they don't teach you—and what a lot of the stuff they teach actually does—is leave you unable to stay with a woman the way you attracted her. Then a lot of guys are nice guys who, when they actually get a woman, can really love a woman and keep a woman, but they have a hard time getting anyone in the door.
The beautiful combination about me, despite what the haters would say, is that I'm a whole man who can do both. How do I know I can attract women? I attracted a woman that I'm just blown away with today, a woman I have a date with later this week and that I'm very excited to get to know. And I kept my woman. My ex was a woman I was extremely attracted to and really wanted to be with, and we had an awesome—most of it—15-year relationship together. Even the divorce was kind. She's rooting for me to find the woman of my next dreams, and she's been super supportive in this entire transition. That's a whole man. That's what most of dating YouTube is not teaching you. They're teaching you to be a spark man.
And if you feel like you're neither right now, I'm going to give you some hope right here, because I've been a neither at some points in my life—where I couldn't attract a woman, and I couldn't keep a woman even if I could attract her.
The number one way that I am available to help you is in the Jerry Banfield Family, where you can have a call with me one on one every week. It's insane—I feel like I should be charging a fortune for that. But I am just starting this community up and I want to listen to you, because these videos are one-directional. People comment, but that's not that meaningful of communication. I want to get to know you and your story. The way you'll really transform your dating life is talking to someone like me—particularly me, because I don't know a single other coach on YouTube who talks about dating who would let you have one-on-one calls like this. If you really want to be a whole man, you need to talk to another whole man.
I am a whole man. I am good at attracting women, and based on my history, I'm good at keeping a woman, at least for a long-term relationship. Now, my ex and I grew apart, and that can happen. One of the big things is that I wanted more kids and she didn't, and neither of us could compromise on that. But my next woman—we're staying together forever. We are not growing apart. And that's what you need to be able to do.
I've packed this post with information that I'm practicing myself and that I've lived. I have so much experience with both dating and relationships. Maybe not dating-app hookup dating like some of these people have now, but I've actually had a 15-year relationship, and I've done a good bit of dating in my twenties also. And I got the wife that everyone was jealous of by applying this stuff myself.
The Four Quadrants
Let's talk about these four quadrants. What you need as a man is to be able to both attract a woman and keep her. A lot of attraction stuff will not work to keep her, and a lot of what makes you a great man to have a relationship with will not get a woman to actually feel a romantic spark with you. What most people are teaching is one of these two things: either how to attract a woman or how to have a relationship. But it's hard to put together all this stuff into one package that brings attraction and connection together in a way that's authentic. That's my superpower. I challenge anyone—anyone—to try and present it better than I do.
And if you're in the neither category, there's hope that you can move straight up to whole man. You just have to first be honest and say: I'm not good at attracting a woman, and even if I do, it's not going well. The first step is acknowledging it—an awareness of, huh, I think I could do better. I want to be a whole man.
How Women's Attraction Works
Let's explain women's attraction first, and this is general. Dating is so complex. There's so much depth. There's magic, there's God, there's all the stuff you want to put into it. So it's not as simple as breaking things down simply, but I'll break it down as simply as I can—understand it's a big, complex picture. It's the energy you're putting out. It's so much more than I can cram in here. But basically, women have a kind of short-term romantic spark: "I'm physically or socially attracted to this man." That's the kind of attraction people are teaching a lot of on YouTube. If somebody's telling you to optimize your dating photos with high-quality photos, talking about hypergamy and all that stuff, that's what they're talking about. They're talking about spark—getting a woman to want more time with you. And there are tons of people who do a good job with this. They'll tell you all the things you can do to get that spark.
The problem is—and this is where my information is superior, this is where I am the whole man—a lot of the stuff they tell you will not work to keep a relationship. A lot of the stuff they tell you about looksmaxxing, to me, sabotages a relationship. Now, sure, you can wear nicer clothes, you can cut your hair and things like that. But there's a line you cross where it says that you don't actually think you're attractive, and your looksmaxxing is concrete proof of that. Now, you do what you want. I'm not telling you what to do—I'm telling you how I think, because these are my thoughts. If you want to tell me what you think, you can join the Family, and I would love to listen to your thoughts in your unique situation, because dating is so important, and every situation is different.
Spark Versus Love
A lot of people are teaching you how to create spark. But if you want to be a whole man, you need a spark that translates to love. Lots of times, what gets a woman in the door—like, for example, having big, huge, broad shoulders and being ripped and fit—that stuff can absolutely attract a woman. Same with all these pickup lines and all these social cues, these guys cold approaching. I'm totally against cold approaching. It's warm approach, or she approaches me. That's it. That's my way of looking at it, because a cold approach is often not going to last. You might get a spark, but you just don't have the chemistry there. What you need is to be able to convert the spark to love and to keep it alive. I successfully did that for quite a while in my marriage, and I know what lets a marriage go downhill—when both the romantic physical spark and the love element slip.
If you think you're a nice guy, in the love-only quadrant, you're probably watching a lot of spark content about how to attract a woman. But the problem with that is a lot of that crap will pull you out of being able to offer a woman a real long-term relationship. What you need to be a whole man is integration. You need to be able to authentically show up and turn a woman on. And then, when you are continuing to spend time with her, you need to be able to really deliver love to her. You need to really be able to be a kind man who is able to show up and unconditionally love her all the time. That's the difference.
So I'll give you some of the different signals between spark-only and love-only so you can see what a whole man looks like—one who attracts and keeps a woman. The goal of dating is not just to rack up numbers and see how many women you can get. A lot of the dating coaches, that's all they're teaching from: body count. And that's what a lot of the love guys are watching. You need to learn from a whole man. So let's break down some of the different signals and differences between love only and spark only. Putting these together in a way that unifies them and keeps them authentic is the secret to being a whole man versus being stuck in one or the other. And if you're a neither, identifying all these things can take you straight over to whole man, because you might have more blank space to work with.
Confidence: The First Signal
First, the initial signal. One of the biggest things you can have that will turn a woman on is confidence. I literally, successfully did that today. And that's what happened with my ex. My ex was the most attractive woman I could imagine. She turned me on so much with her physical appearance, and her personality also, I thought was beautiful at the time. We've both made some changes since then. Still, I find it very easy to co-parent my children with her, which I'm super grateful for.
Now, how did I build a whole bunch of confidence? Well, one way I built confidence was connecting with other women that were very attractive. Before her, I ran into this dispatcher, which I talk about in my book, Officer Banfield, if you want the full story of that. This dispatcher was a perfect ten. I couldn't imagine a woman more beautiful than her. She was 20 years old; I was 24 when we met. And I'm a police officer. I've got my gun, I've got my badge, and she's in the dispatch office. What got her attracted was my confidence, my strength—all those characteristics of a police officer, all those things you cultivate intentionally as a police officer, made me very attractive to women.
Being a police officer is all about being confident and projecting strength—if not physically, then mentally and emotionally. You've got that gun, badge, bulletproof vest, taser, baton, pepper spray, handcuffs. You just put that police officer uniform on, your confidence soars, and your strength is obvious to everyone. Decisiveness: as a police officer, you have to be ready to make life-and-death decisions, does-somebody-go-to-jail-or-go-free decisions, pull-somebody-over-or-not decisions. Independence: I'm in a patrol car by myself, trying to take on everything on my own. And then ambition—I've always had a lot of ambition.
The Spark Signals in Action
I remember when I was working as a correction officer for $20,000 a year, writing a plan to be president of the United States. Then there's social status—having a badge and a gun gives you some social status. And then the sexual energy. I've always had huge sexual energy. I barely have less today than I had as a teenager. These are things that work for spark.
A lot of the stuff with looksmaxxing—which I'm often critical of, because it makes everything so superficial—to be fair, looksmaxxing absolutely makes sense on dating apps and as a content creator. But I don't looksmax. I guess some of the looksmaxxers would say, hey, I do some of the things: I'm lean, I'm very careful with my diet, I don't drink. I probably do 60 percent of the stuff the looksmaxxers talk about, and that's why I look good in my videos—I take great care of myself.
For being a whole man, you need to have that spark down. When I approached this woman this morning, I came in with confidence and strength, ambition, and sexual energy. We try to keep that from being too much directly on the surface, but it's there. And I'm talking about dating and social status—I'm very proud of who I am and what I do.
I have standards too. There are certain women who are never going to get me to see them in a sexual way until they do some looksmaxxing—and it's mainly get lean and get your body working really well. That's not to put anybody down; that's my personal preference. You can be however you want to be. For my attraction, lean and strong is one of the best starting points in a woman. But everybody has different standards. I was just watching a woman saying how she likes really thick guys. My ex actually preferred me being fatter. She liked when I was like 50 pounds overweight—I weighed about 50 pounds more than I do now. If you find my old videos in the Jerry Banfield Family, you'll see my face looks better to me now than it did ten years ago. But she liked that kind of pudgy, fat little baby face better than she liked the current lean version of me. So it's nice to know there are a lot of different ways to attract the spark.
A big part of being a whole man is owning your lane instead of just trying to attract and then losing the relationship on the back end—or not even being capable of one. When I was focusing mostly on attraction, I was incapable of even having a relationship. You ideally need to be a nice guy who can also turn women on.
Turning Spark Into Love
Those initial signals need to translate over time to love and to being a nice guy with your woman. Because with a lot of the attraction stuff, if you're projecting confidence just by being ripped and going to the gym, you're probably not going to be that great in a relationship a lot of the time, because you're so obsessed with yourself and your appearance. What happens if that goes? What happens if you can't work out for a little while? If you're faking or acting or putting on a show—and some of these spark teachers, that's exactly what they're showing you how to do, to put on a persona—then if that persona can't be maintained over time, the persona turns women on, but the more they get to know you and see through that persona, they don't like you anymore.
The thing is, you want to attract women with authentic confidence and authentic strength. My body is strong. I can play a four-hour singles tennis match in the middle of the day in the Florida heat. I can do a hot power flow for an hour. That's why I talk about fitness classes being one of the best places to meet women: those are the kinds of bodies I'm interested in, and the personalities that bring their body to a difficult fitness class are the kinds of personalities I connect with. Also, a woman who's strong herself, who's able and cares about taking care of herself—when I show up in the same environment, we're automatically on the same page.
Now, you can do things that will create spark with confidence, with all this pickup-artist stuff and all these other things people are teaching you. But the problem is when your deep-down personality doesn't authentically embody confidence or strength—when you're really a weak person, but all you do is go to the gym a lot and use steroids, which to me is insane. Some of these looksmaxxers are encouraging their followers to do things that are utterly unsustainable in the long term, and that look dangerous to me. I would never take steroids to get bigger. I don't even believe in drinking off-the-shelf stuff like creatine—I take care of my body naturally. That's the difference between just attracting and doing anything you can do to attract, versus asking: how can what I'm doing today be completely sustainable for the long term?
We've talked a lot about the spark so far, because if you're just a loving, nice guy, you've got to put yourself in the right position. Often the difference between being a whole man and a loving, nice guy is a little bit of positioning. I think it's actually easier to go from a nice guy who has a hard time attracting women to a whole man than to go from the spark-only guy—who's always picking girls up, who cleans up on dating apps, but struggles to make a real connection with women.
Real Confidence and Real Strength
This is why you need to have authentic confidence. Confidence is based on a true love of yourself, truly being impressed with yourself, and strength that is sustainable. And strength isn't just how much you can bench press. What kind of cardio endurance do you have? What kind of strength do you have when people are coming at you and criticizing you? Do you fall apart when things don't go exactly according to plan? Your decisiveness, your independence—these things can be shown off easily in person. But in a real relationship, confidence should turn into emotional security. And often nice guys are great with emotional security: they'll really love you, they will not go anywhere, they will be there, and they'll be loyal no matter what. But if your whole persona is built on this showy, dominating confidence, you can get women in bed, but they're not going to want to keep dealing with that over the long term. Real confidence should come from emotional security—that I know who I am, I know why I'm here, I know I have a very valuable offer for a woman. I'm confident because I love myself, because I'm emotionally secure in myself, because I'm strong enough to handle violent waves of emotion going through my being—and yet I maintain, I hang on, I get through it, I ask for help, and I love other people.
The guy that's walking around the gym trying to pick women up with strength—in a relationship, that can often turn into control, domination, and threats. One of my friends I talked to recently, that was her experience: she'd be attracted to these big guys, but then get in a relationship with them, and they might protect her from other people, but they were the biggest danger to her. Real strength should come from character—from going and doing a hard thing for the purpose of building character. Strength comes from building a body that hasn't just got big bulk and muscles, but a body that's flexible, that can handle being moved in different ways, and that doesn't get injured very easily.
Decisiveness, Leadership, and Independence
Women want a man to lead, and decisiveness can be a very attractive factor. Today, I'm a perfect example. I met this woman in person and I got her number—I know what I've said about that elsewhere, but I just had to make an exception here. And then, decisively, I said: look, I've got you here in person, let's plan the date right now. Let's do it right now. We've got our schedules, we've got our calendars—let's plan a date. That decisiveness was an attraction. That was a spark: wow, look at how confident this guy is, look how decisive he is. That's what women are attracted to, often. But in the long term, they don't want to be in a relationship with a man who tells them what to do all the time. That kind of confidence, that kind of leadership and decisiveness, can be great to take someone you just met and turn a concrete date out of it. Over time, what you really want as a whole man is leadership with consultation.
Nice guys struggle sometimes with offering leadership. And I struggled with this sometimes in my marriage, where I let the leadership slip and even made her the leader. I've learned from that. To me, as the man, I am the leader. But what's really important is consultation—that I know my woman so well, I know all her desires, that I am basically leading in the direction she already desires to follow. That's what the whole man does.
Some of these attraction guys teach all these superficial tricks, like ordering a whole bunch of food to signal abundance. It's so cheesy, man. That's not real strength or confidence. That's faking it. That's putting on a show, a performance for someone. I'll go out and order a tiny little meal, because that's independence, which is attractive: this is all I need to eat right now. I'm not going to put on a show of ordering a bunch of stuff and then throw the food out or take it home. That's silly.
Independence as a man is really attractive, and this is where nice guys often struggle a lot—really maintaining independence. This is where I ended up struggling in my marriage, especially at the end, feeling like I depended on my wife for everything. And it was so bad. When we first got together, I was very independent, and that turned her on. I knew I didn't need a woman. I wanted a woman, but I didn't need one. I had my video games, I had my liquor, I had my guy friends, I had my school, I had my football games, I had my parents and my brother. And I was like, I'm good. I don't need a woman—I want a woman, but I don't need one. That's attractive. And nice guys kind of struggle with that. I struggled with that after getting divorced, putting out this "I need a woman" energy. Now I've gotten to a place—and women seem to be responding really well—where I don't need a woman.
Independence Without Emotional Distance
Now I've got my video games, I've got my Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and I've got all of you lovely followers on YouTube. But at the same time, too much independence in a relationship can turn into emotional distance. This is why a lot of that independent, "I don't need a woman" energy can be hard to convert into being a whole man: when you've got a full life, you can start having emotional distance where you're not really present for your woman anymore. Being a whole man and having independence also means that when I have a woman who wants to be with me, I open my heart and there's no emotional distance. I connect with her. I share. I don't depend on her, but we lean on each other. We help each other. I connect deeply. I share what I'm feeling. I share what I'm thinking.
Ambition That Becomes Shared Purpose
The ambition that creates attraction—what you really need over time is sharing it. It becomes stability and purpose. Some nice guys struggle with that ambition element, feeling like, I just want to get by and survive and have a family. You should have an ambition to have the most beautiful life you can possibly imagine. With dating, I have an ambition to have a relationship that I would just die for—a relationship with a woman where I just worship her, and at the same time, I don't need her, but I am so grateful for the opportunity to be with her. That's what I felt most of the time with my ex for 15 years, and that's what I intend to feel with my next wife. I'm out here dating for a wife that I'm just super happy with. I'm not out here dating to just have a one-night stand with somebody. I'm not out here dating to find some woman I can just father more children with. I'm out here dating to have my dream fantasy life. That's what I'm going for, and I'm trying to help you. I'm leading by example, showing you what I'm doing.
That's the problem with a lot of the content online: people are not being authentic. They're telling you one thing and doing the opposite, or they're so all over the place themselves that they can't give you information that's led by example. To me, a whole man leads by example. My ambition in a relationship turns into a shared purpose—we work together—and I'm stable, because my ambition brings stability.
Sexual Energy With Patience
And of course, for the whole man, sexual energy definitely turns a woman on. Some of the nice guys have been encouraged to tamp down the sexual energy and to not flirt. When I was dating in my twenties, that sexual energy was palpable. You couldn't miss it—my sexual energy was just extremely obvious and literally in your face. I had the spark on sexual energy. But one thing I had a hard time with—one of the hardest places I had integrating—is in a relationship, maintaining that desire while having patience and consent. One of the things I would never do again, that I did in the marriage with my ex, is that I felt like because we were married, she just had to put out all the time. It's unattractive to act that way. And then nice guys, by comparison, have a hard time even turning their woman on sometimes, and their own sexual energy gets so frustrated that there end up being dead bedrooms. I most fit into spark-only on the sexual energy, and I'm really excited, in my next marriage, to lead with this constant desire for my woman—but also to be very sensitive about letting her open up and provide it when she's damn good and ready, when she's really in the mood, while I do my part.
I remember, for about the first decade I was with my ex, I had a dating course on Udemy that actually sold. One of the things I said in it was that I tried to keep my wife turned on all the time—which I absolutely did. I tried to do everything I could imagine to keep her turned on. But in the last few years of the relationship, I let that slip. I stopped caring about whether she was turned on and thought she just owed me sex for being married. And that doesn't work out. That's the difference, and that's how you can see all these different energies.
Becoming a Whole Man
So I'm here to teach being a whole man. I'm here to lead by example. I'm here to show how to be strong enough to create attraction and secure enough to have that turn into a relationship that lasts the test of time—a relationship that leads to family and to having a beautiful partnership.
If all this sounded good and you've made it this far, you are unusual in the best way, because a lot of people don't make it to the end of something this in-depth. And if you did, I am extremely confident that you will love talking to me—where you get to talk most of the time, and you can play with my ideas and share what's happening in your life. Then I can give you a very specific thought process. You could tell me, "Hey Jerry, here's my life," and go on for twenty minutes about your life, and then say, "Jerry, what's the number one thing you would work on right now if you were me—the number one thing to add to my life?" I might say: start going to some fitness classes. Then you might look at it and say, "Well, if you were me, what's the number one thing you would stop doing in my position?" I might be like: stop drinking alcohol—you're putting on weight from that, and you're getting into situations that are leading to drama and stuff you don't want. And in my experience, if you're not an alcoholic, stopping drinking is usually pretty easy; but if you are an alcoholic, stopping drinking may seem easy, but it turns out to not be so easy the longer you keep trying to do it. That's the kind of thing I can do on a call. I don't offer medical or legal advice or anything like that, but I will process your life with you. Or, if there is something like that, I'll share from my own personal experience—like what really helped me after my divorce—and give you a very specific story told in more detail than I would tell it publicly online.
If you want to see more of how I'm applying all of this in my own dating life as I go, everything I share on this topic is collected in my Dating playlist.
You've made it here right now, so get in the Family. Getting in could be one of those little things you do that transforms the entire rest of your life in a positive direction.
Being a whole man who's able to attract and keep a woman and have a beautiful relationship is one of the best outcomes you can possibly have for your life.