I'm Jerry Banfield. It's August 22nd, 2026, and this is my vlog. I had a date scheduled for last night. How do you think that went? Well, I will tell you.
The Cancel Texts
She cancels about two and a half hours early. The first text was, "Oh my God, don't hate me. I'm not feeling up to it tonight. This week completely kicked my ass. Forgive me." Then she follows it with, "Oh, it's been such a long week. I'm not up for it." So I send her a message back. My exact message is, "You've got time to rally and end the week on a high note with me. You can tell me about your week." Four or five minutes after my message, she writes back, and I quote, "Rally, I shall. Fret not." All right. I'm like, great, awesome, you're a trooper. I tell her where we're going to meet and I tell her I'll give her a ride.
Then, an hour and forty-three minutes later, she texts me again. "Oh shoot, I'm sorry, I misunderstood. OMG, I'm not going to make it tonight. I'm so sorry."
I have empathy for her. I've shown you my own ups and downs. But I reviewed my dating for this week, and here's what the numbers look like. I've had about 40 dates scheduled with women in eight months. What does that average out to? About five dates a month on the calendar. Women have canceled or flaked on at least 10 of them. I've canceled two. So that tells you I'm pretty consistent.
One of the two I canceled was because the woman said she didn't find me that physically attractive. She was kind of wishy-washy with the matchmaker. We had a second date scheduled and I said, look, I don't think we're that into each other. No need to take up each other's time. You go on, keep dating. She had a matchmaker too, so I told her, just see your other matches, I'm good. That was five days in advance. The other one I canceled last minute because I had committed to the queen, and my matchmaker had worked hard to set that date up. I canceled it out of commitment to the queen, which was dumb. I would never do that again.
"That's Why I Don't Date Anymore"
So I went to an AA meeting last night, and I saw this woman who looked attractive from across the room. I approached her, she turned around, and I'm like, oh, whoops, she doesn't look that good up close. But she made the mistake of asking how I'm doing. I said a woman just canceled on me. What is with women being so flaky? I don't act that way. If I say I'm going to do something, I do it. If anything, I need to be careful about saying I'm going to do something, because sometimes I'll commit to something I shouldn't have said I'd do, and I'll go through with it anyway.
She says, well, men are like this too. Men are so avoidant, and that's why I don't date anymore. This woman is probably 50. And I'm like, you don't date anymore? That's ridiculous. This whole thing of not dating is insane. This whole self-love thing. Yeah, you can love yourself, absolutely. But life is much more fun lived with other people. Dating is some of the most fun you can have on this planet. And so many people have been tricked into thinking that dating is not worth doing, especially as a man, because dating as a man is brutal.
The 10 Percent
I've been listening to Owen Cook, and he talks about how 10 percent of men are sleeping with 58 percent of women. And I realized I've actually been in that 10 percent most of my life. I've had sex with 20 women at this point. The mother of my children is beautiful, very attractive, easily able to find another guy she liked. And there have been a number of beautiful women in my past as well. Fifteen or twenty years ago it wasn't skewed as much. Now it's gotten even crazier, because this has turned into a woman's world where women don't need men for income. The old system of patriarchy has, in a lot of ways, been dismantled. And the women I'm encountering now are all about self-love and their own life, but they don't see what they're missing. They don't see that self-love and sitting at home at night swiping and scrolling Instagram is a hollow, shallow, sad existence compared to having an awesome, fun experience with somebody else.
I've had to relearn this new dating environment, which is crazy to me, because there was a different dating environment before. Owen Cook was talking about how you could basically be a beta male and still get laid and have a great wife. These days I've got to crank up the alpha male. I need to have this unshakable frame, and I'm making those adjustments. Yes, you've got the woman last night canceling, but at the same time I've had some beautiful women who have really liked me. I'm still amazed at how different the dating environment is, though.
Or maybe I'm different. I didn't used to pay that much attention to a woman I was dating. I might talk to her once a week. When I went out with my ex-wife, we'd have one phone call a week between dates, and that seemed natural to me because I was drinking and playing video games and watching porn and doing grad school. If I was dating a woman, the only thought I had about talking to her was that talking to her should facilitate having sex with her. I don't need to talk to her if we're not setting up the next time we're going to go on a date and escalate toward sex. The old me was like, I don't see why I would spend my time on that when I could be playing video games or doing my work or making money or getting drunk. I didn't see the point.
And it's funny. The more I got to be nice, especially in Alcoholics Anonymous, be nice, be agreeable, treat people right, ironically it's made me pick up some of these beta male characteristics. I can still get a woman that way, but it's a woman I'm not excited about who's excited about me. If I want to get a woman I'm excited about, it's crazy these days.
The Leaderboard
What I'm learning from this is that what pissed me off last night was how my frame just collapsed, how my mood collapsed. I made a dating video about this that just came out on my dating channel called "I made a leaderboard for the women I'm dating." To me, this seems like what we've got to do these days. Getting obsessed and excited about one woman just doesn't seem to work at all anymore. Maybe it will with some woman somewhere. But I basically have a leaderboard in my mind of all the women I'm talking to and trying to date: who's number one, who's number two. This woman that canceled last night was number three on my leaderboard, although she might have slipped up to number two since we were about to have a date and maybe I could have gotten laid. But now she's off the leaderboard. I'm not putting up with that. That's the second time she's canceled.
What really pissed me off, though, was how my mood spiraled and dropped and fell right down into the toilet. I got home last night after the meeting, and that woman I was talking to had gotten uncomfortable talking about dating. See, this is how you know you're not actually happy. So many people are withdrawing from dating and saying, "I'm not dating." You're not happy, because if you bring up the subject of dating, they get all sensitive and butthurt and don't want to talk about it. And that shows that all the stuff you're saying is a lie. You are unhappy being single, and you're delusional. You want to be with somebody and you've given up, which is a pathetic state to live in. Being in a state where you've given up is a pathetic way to live.
To me, the thing I treasure the most about myself is that I keep trying. I don't quit, I don't give up, I don't surrender. I relentlessly do what I need to do to get what I want, to be happy, and to make the contributions in the world I want to make. That's what I'm proud of. And this woman just started to crumble after she said, "and that's why I don't date," and I pushed back. I said that's ridiculous, life is much better with other people. Then she's like, "Well, I don't know how we got into this conversation." I'm like, nice meeting you, bye. I get people triggered and then walk off.
I just felt kind of bad last night. I was like, man, how did I get in this position? Why do these women keep canceling? And what I realized is that what I really need to investigate is why it bothers me so much. And practically, I should start booking two dates at once if I can and just figure one will cancel. If they both show up, I'll cancel on one of them.
"You're Really Pretty"
So I was walking around the park last night, around 9 PM, thinking about all this cold approach stuff. And what's funny is that when you lose, or when you're down, you should be more willing to experiment and more willing to say, fuck it, I'm going to totally go for what I want. Because if you're not getting what you want doing what you're doing, then you probably should try some other approaches.
Now, this is not one I would try again. I was walking by this pretty woman, and she walks up and says hi first. Remember, it's 9 PM, it's dark, and she says hi to me first. She's walking her dog. So I say hi to her. Then I slow down, turn around, and say, "You're really pretty." She screams at me. She screams, "Get away from me!"
I started laughing. I'm like, this is really sad. You are perfectly safe. I was dumbfounded. How sad that someone is living in that kind of fear. What a sad reality when you're that scared. Someone who's in a healthy spot would say thank you and keep moving. If she wasn't interested in talking to me: thank you, and keep walking. If some big, huge gay guy walked by me and turned around and said, "Hey, you're really pretty," I'd say thank you.
That guy certainly could be dangerous to me, but I'm not walking around in fucking fear all the time. I'm walking around in courage, ready to conquer life. How do I get what I want? How do I help people? How do I make the world I want to live in? What are y'all doing being so scared all the time? And it's not just women. I've certainly experienced my share of fear. But so many people are so scared all the time.
Fear Is the Weakest Thing I've Done
I realized that when I didn't escalate things with the queen, that's what that was. That was fear. Stinky, old, nasty fear. How disgusting is fear? If she's trying to kiss you and you go to kiss her, what are you afraid of? That's some of the weakest shit I've done in my whole life. You've got to live life strong.
I spiraled last night after that interaction with the woman at the meeting and the woman canceling on me. I texted like five other women to see if they wanted to go out. They all said no. And the one who's number one on the leaderboard is out of town right now. So I'm like, fuck, how did I end up with no date tonight? I played some video games. I think it's called Soras, S-O-R-A-S, on PlayStation 5. And I went to bed in a shitty mood. I was literally cursing people out. I made sure to curse out that woman who didn't come out on the date, cursed her out for damn sure. Like, what is wrong with you, that you live like this? I would hate to be the kind of person who has an opportunity to have fun and flips out about it at the last minute. "Oh shit, my life's been so difficult, I can't show up for this date." Jesus Christ. That's pathetic.
And what I most dislike is when I'm pathetic. When the queen wants to kiss me and leans in and I'm like, "Oh, you said you wanted to take it slow," that's pathetic. That is pathetic. And it's up to me to define what is strong, what is impressive, what is something to be proud of, and what is weak, pathetic behavior. No more weak, pathetic behavior. And weak, pathetic behavior is letting my emotions be influenced so much by what someone else does.
The Moment Before the Ego Loads
I went to sleep pissed off. I had all these dreams. Lots of times I have dreams where I'm totally somewhere else, someone else. I set clear intentions last night before I went to bed, like, fuck this shit, I want to wake up and do something else. So I had all these dreams where I was totally somebody else. And then I woke up, and there was this moment where I was wide awake and fully aware, but I hadn't opened my eyes, and none of this ego or this life had loaded. And I felt so much bliss, so much love, so much excitement. I felt awesome. It's like when you turn a computer on before it loads anything. I was on, but nothing had loaded yet. And then the ego and all the stories and all the shit with this life started to load. I'm like, fuck, God damn it. Waking up, I'm dealing with finances and romances. Finances are going great because y'all are spending money on jerrybanfield.com.
And I appreciate it. Popping in on that leaderboard, dropping money, I've got hundreds of dollars rolling in. I love that. jerrybanfield.com is here for you. And I'm going to make lots more money because I've got a hell of a lot of value to offer the world. I have fantastic strength within me and I know I can do better. I can be stronger than this.
I woke up feeling all weak and shitty this morning. I had my breakfast, got up, and went to yoga. The girl next to me was friendly today. And I'm trying to balance things, because cold approaching in the dark last night was maybe not the best thing to do. Maybe 99 times out of 100 it would have gone like that. But I don't know, maybe 1 time out of 100 I say, "Hey, you're really pretty," and the woman says, "Let's go to the park right now." That's the thing. Not all people are the same, and people's reactions are largely a function of what's going on in their own life.
This woman canceling last night had very little to do with me. She doesn't even know me well enough. What's messed up is that she was clearly very interested in going on the date the day before. What did she say the day before? She said, "I was thinking about you. I'm free Friday evening." Such a big lead-up. She was very interested in going out with me the day before. And I would hate to be the kind of person who is that inconsistent. What I need to be is the person who holds space to help a woman not be that inconsistent. That's my job as a man: to hold reality firmly so that a woman can come into my reality, a concrete reality that doesn't move and shake from day to day.
My Body Is Fantastically Strong
And I'm grateful, because my body is fantastically strong. I did hot yoga today and I just blasted through the rest of my day. I haven't been sick in years. My body looks beautiful. It feels good. It works properly. It's amazing. And I'm horny as hell. I've got the same sex drive I had as a teenager, maybe at most 5 percent less. I'm ready. I'm down. I'm DTF.
My body is strong because when I was getting sick years ago, I said, I'm tired of this shit. What do I have to do to feel better? What do I have to do to help this body work better? I'm tired of being on the couch throwing up. I'm tired of getting snotty noses. I'm tired of having the flu. I'm tired of being tired. I'm tired of being sick and tired. What do I have to do so this body works so well that it's healthy all day, every day? What do I have to do to get that result? And I put in work for years. I don't drink alcohol. I don't smoke cigarettes. I don't eat bullshit processed food. I eat whole plants: fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, and beans, mostly raw. And my skin looks fantastic. My face looks better than it did 10 years ago. Maybe some of it was the lighting back then, but compare my face six or seven years ago to now. My face looks amazing. That's because I decided a decade ago that I'll do whatever I need to do so my body is triumphant and strong.
I Need to Be Mentally Stronger Than This
This morning, as I was feeling so weak, I went to yoga and socialized a little bit, but I can do better than that. So I called up one of my friends who's much more experienced at life than me. He listened to all my bullshit for a while. And I realized I need to be mentally stronger than this. I don't know, maybe it's because of the culture, or marriage, or whatever happened. But I picked up some beta male tendencies over the last decade, being sober, being married. When I was in my mid-20s, I had a strong-ass frame. You weren't fucking with me. You weren't telling me "this is how it is" without me arguing you into a corner. I would argue as ruthlessly and nastily as I possibly could. My now ex-wife learned when we were first dating: don't try and argue with me about something. I will not stop. I will not quit. She'd say something like, "Well, I think human trafficking is a serious problem." Nope. And I would just bring out all the facts and just make shit up, anything I needed to do to win the argument. She'd get mad and give up and sit there and be quiet. You were not about to tell me anything. And that's part of why she was so attracted to me.
That's what I'm seeing. And this is general, it doesn't apply to every woman, everybody's different. Maybe I need the one woman. Or maybe I just need to be better for the 58 percent of women. But women often find a very strong man attractive. Physically, I'm turning women on at the yoga studio, with my sexy-ass face and lean body. Where I've been messing up is in my mind, in my texts, in my whiny-ass weakness of mind.
So I talked to this guy today, and I told him I need to be doing more affirmations. I need to be focusing on how grateful I am that my body is so healthy, that I have such amazing kids, that I am doing work that I love, that y'all are getting me paid on jerrybanfield.com. I'm making videos that are going out to tens of thousands of people a day. Some days, 50,000, close to 100,000 impressions a day on YouTube from five-month-old accounts. I'm crushing it. I've got awesome friends. I play tennis. I've got a lifestyle. I got a massage today, and my massage therapist is awesome. We had fun. We filmed a video together. It was awesome. I had a great day.
And you know where I turned it around? It was when I said, I'm tired of being like this. What do I need to do to stop being like this? I need to be stronger mentally. I should not be breaking that easily. See, that was the third-place woman on my leaderboard who canceled. Fuck that. I should be able to handle the number one woman on my leaderboard canceling and going downhill, and I should still be holding my frame.
The one reason the woman who's at the top of my leaderboard right now seems to like me is that when she went out with me, I was fully locked in. I am the man. This is my world. And I'm here to invite you into it. I'm not here to step into your world. I'm here to experience you and hear what you have to say, but I'm a man, this is my world, and I'm going to challenge you. If I disagree with something you say, I'm going to lead. You're lucky to be out with me. There are very few men like me you could go out with. There are very few men like me that you would consider giving up your single life for, so you could be with an awesome guy who is strong. And she loved that on the date. I could see how turned on she was. She had fun. She spent hours with me. Some of the other dates did not go like that, because I was in weak-ass mode.
So I got that phone call this morning and started to feel better. Then I filmed a shitload of videos, which always helps me feel better.
My Mind Needs to Be as Strong as My Body
When I get out there and do my work, I feel better. I filmed five videos today, 100 minutes of video. This is the sixth video, so probably over two hours of video today. I had my kids over. My kids went across the street to play with their friend. I had my food. Then I got my massage. I've been listening to Owen Cook. I went to my AA meeting tonight. And I realized I can do the same thing with my mind that I've done with my body. I need to go that far with my mind. My mind needs to be as solid, as strong, and as relentless as my body.
My body, every day, has energy to get up and film these videos. Every day, I've got ideas. I don't have days where I'm lying in bed, tired, not wanting to do anything. Every day, I have enough energy to hit a hot power flow yoga class. Every day, I have enough energy for my kids. Every day, I have enough energy to show up for the things I said I was going to do. That is fantastic physical health and strength. That is absolutely top 5 percent of all people in this country. I am a top 10 percent man. By my definition, in fact, I'd say I'm a top 3 man, Corey Wayne. I am a top-percent man who gets access to that 58 percent of women. And I will accept nobody else's version of this reality.
It is time for me to lead by example and show this is how you strengthen your mind. Because there are a lot of guys out there with strong-ass bodies and weak-ass minds. You think that just being a big muscle-bound dickhead is going to get you women? Nope. As soon as she sees what a weak mind you have, she's out. And I think we can balance things out. If men get stronger, like I'm doing, if you get stronger, you're going to be able to turn more women on. It is brutal today if you are a weak man. Dating is horrible if you're a weak man. Dating is hard enough already. And I am a top 10 percent man, even coming out of the divorce and getting into this weakened state. Now I'm leveling up, and I can feel the women being more attracted to me.
At the AA meeting tonight, I screamed out something while they were reading, and the whole mood of the room changed. I'm a person who can make a whole room full of people feel something. I'm a person who can make people all over the world feel something with my videos. I am powerful, and my mind needs to be as disciplined and as rock solid as my body is. And that's going to take some intentional work. I've got to have my own back and validate myself all the time.
Why Am I Chasing Validation from a Woman?
One thing I wrote down on a piece of paper while talking to my friend today is: why am I chasing validation from a woman? I don't need it. Y'all are nourishing me plenty. Look at this validation. I made almost a thousand dollars or so in the last week, not counting YouTube ad revenue, in Skool and on my new YouTube channels. And that's because y'all are going to jerrybanfield.com and joining the chat and paying to talk to me. That's awesome. That's validation. YouTube is giving my videos out. I have validation. All the likes y'all are smashing, all the comments, which I don't read, because I'm not reading free comments on YouTube. If you want to pay to support me and join the community, like the people who have before you, then I'll read everything you have to say. But I'm not reading anything for free, because you can say whatever you want and it's none of my business. I don't need to hear it. That's for y'all to have a free-for-all in the comments. Talk to yourselves. I only have so much time to read so many comments.
So I read my chat. I read my Skool. I'm there to talk to you in full, and on my one-on-one calls. I have enough validation in my life.
Here's one thing that happens with food. Now, I'm not a doctor. This is my experience and what I've seen. With food, there's the nourishment you take in and there's the nourishment your body absorbs. So there can be two people eating the exact same food, and one person is nourished by it while the other could be malnourished, because if you're not accepting nourishment, the food can go right through you. And it's time for me to soak in all the validation I've got. My kids give me so much validation, so much love, so many hugs, so many snuggles. My mom has all kinds of validation for me. I have so many friends. I go to AA meetings, and people love me at AA. Some people hate me at AA meetings. I'm polarizing. Love me, hate me, say what you want about me. I go to a meeting, and you're going to feel something when I share. You're going to feel love or you're going to feel hate, but you're going to feel something. One day it might be love and one day it might be hate. People feel something when I talk, and that's good. That shows I'm alive.
It's time for me to soak all that validation in and say, look, I'm validated constantly. I'm validated just as much, if not more, than some guy who's a DJ banging 10 chicks. I've got at least that much validation. I don't need validation from a woman. I'm happy to accept it, for sure, but I don't need it. I don't need a woman to go out with me to feel good about myself. I love myself. I'm proud of myself. But at the same time, I'm not going to sit here and act like jerking off every night is the way to go, because there's something better than that. And everybody who's living that way and thinking that's as good as it gets: there's better. There's better you can have. And if there's better you can have and you're not going for it, what are you doing here? Come on, go for it. Go for everything you want.
Going for It
I love that I do that. I want to make money online, so I go for it. I offer things y'all want, like talking with me. Somebody's going to buy my dating coaching, and I'm going to celebrate that. Somebody's going to buy my YouTube coaching, and I'm going to celebrate that too.
And y'all are buying everything else I've got: the chat, Officer Banfield, my Zoom calls, the Skool community. Somebody's going to buy a sponsored crypto video soon. Everything on my website is getting bought.
I just got t-shirts back up too. You can buy a t-shirt now and wear Jerry Banfield around town.
This is almost 30 minutes. I love listening to myself talk. The best part about my videos is I get to listen to them while I'm making them. So that's my day today, and I hope my day inspires your day. It's time to step up and be the strongest, best version of yourself you can be. And the easiest way to do that is to find somebody who has what you want. I called somebody today who has a shocking level of mental fortitude, and I asked him, what do I do? I ask him, I share with him, I listen to him, and I take notes from him. This guy could be my father, damn near my grandfather. And I listen and take notes because I want to learn how he handles harder things than I do without it moving him. And you know what? I'm on the path to be like that.
I'm proud of what I do. That's why I love it when people talk trash about my videos, react to my videos, comment, make your own versions, say any kind of thing you want. I don't care, because I'm rock solid in who I am, and I'm going to get even more rock solid going forward. If you want to follow along with how this dating journey unfolds, the whole story is in my Dating playlist.
Thank you all for watching. I'm ready for you at jerrybanfield.com. If this is the vibe I've got talking, imagine how good my listening is. Imagine what it would be like to have a two-way relationship where you know me and I know you. Come chat. Let's get to know each other. It's checkout time.