This is my journal entry from October 29, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Book 5 — Daily Autobiography — my real, unedited days, published in order.
I got a great massage from my massage therapist tonight. It was one of those sessions where the work itself was solid, but the conversation mattered just as much. We talked, really talked, and afterward she was stuck in my head for a couple of hours. That doesn’t happen often. Although, if I’m being honest, it’s not that unusual either. A woman I’d been interested in was stuck in my head for hours—sometimes days—so I guess this is just how my brain works when someone gets under my skin.
Later, when I was at my mom’s house, I kept thinking about it. And that’s when the thought showed up: maybe my massage therapist and I should talk about whether there’s something more here. She has a boyfriend right now, which complicates everything, and I don’t pretend it doesn’t. From my perspective, it feels like the best part of that relationship might already be behind them. That’s just my interpretation, and I could be completely wrong. Maybe she’d actually be happier with me. Or maybe this is a terrible idea. The only way to know is to actually ask her and see what she thinks. If she tells me it’s a horrible idea, then I can put it to rest—cleanly—like I did when a woman I’d been interested in told me it was a bad idea. That clarity matters to me.
I knew I didn’t want to have this conversation inside the massage studio, so I messaged her later. I’ll admit, in hindsight, it was a little sketchy. Her boyfriend is out of town, and there was a moment where I was like, yeah… this could be read the wrong way. I asked if she wanted to come over tonight, and she said she was wiped out but available tomorrow. That actually felt better. I invited her to come to my place. We’ll only have about thirty minutes to talk before I have to pick the kids up, which honestly feels perfect. Enough time to say what needs to be said, hear what she has to say, and then let it breathe.
One thing I’m clear on is this: if she did want to explore a relationship with me, I would want her to break up with her boyfriend before anything happened between us. I don’t want to be part of something that feels sneaky or dishonorable. I don’t want her—or him—carrying around the feeling that something happened behind someone’s back. That matters to me more now than it used to.
I was surprisingly nervous about reaching out. I sat on the couch for a good twenty minutes telling myself I needed to message her. I even dictated an entire audio message first, which was a terrible idea. Listening back, it sounded lame and overcooked, so I scrapped it. Instead, I kept it simple. I texted her and said she’d been stuck in my head since the massage, and that I hoped she’d had a nice family dinner. She wrote back saying she’d had a lot to think about after our conversation. That alone made my stomach flip a little. I asked if she wanted to talk more tonight or if another time would be better, and she suggested tomorrow at 1:30 p.m.
So that’s the plan. She’s been to the house my ex-wife and I lived in before—the one my ex-wife’s in now—but she hasn’t seen this place. I told her to come by, I’d show her the new house, and we’d talk. Thirty minutes. That’s it. Enough space for honesty without dragging it out.
I’m very attracted to her. That part is obvious. There are also obvious issues we’d have to work through if anything were to happen. But everyone has issues. The real question is which ones you can help each other with, and which ones you can’t. My ex-wife helped me with a lot of mine over the years, and I know how powerful that kind of partnership can be. With my massage therapist, some of the issues feel potentially complementary. Others—I honestly don’t know yet.
I’m interested. That’s the truth. And tomorrow, I’ll find out a little more about whether this is something real—or just something I needed to say out loud so I could let it go. My massage therapist and I have been good friends for a long time. We’ve moved through a lot of different phases together. She’s the one massage therapist who’s stayed consistently in my life for eight years—through her living out of town, through her different boyfriends, through a marriage, through all kinds of seasons on both sides. Somehow we’ve always kept in touch. That history matters to me. It’s part of why this felt so loaded.
After sitting with it for about twenty minutes, I finally told myself, just fucking text her, man. This is what’s on your mind. Go for it. At the very least, it eases the tension in the friendship. If I don’t ask directly, that tension just sits there and grows, and I don’t want that energy bleeding onto the massage table. If she actually is interested in a relationship, she should know the option exists, because she might not even think it does. And if she’s not interested, I need to hear that clearly: no, I don’t want a relationship with you, for this reason or that reason, let’s just be friends. That’s clean. That lets me cross the idea off completely and move on.
Sending that message felt incredibly vulnerable. Like, painfully vulnerable. But it also felt right. She responded pretty quickly, even though it was around 10:00 p.m. It took maybe ten minutes, and then her reply came fast. As soon as I saw it, I felt relief. I was glad I’d sent it.
When I think back, I haven’t always been good at this. As a teenager and in my early twenties, I often didn’t go for what I wanted. I didn’t ask people direct questions about things that involved them—whether they wanted to go out with me, whether they wanted a relationship. I kept things to myself. I avoided clarity.
There’s one college story that still makes me cringe. There was a girl who clearly liked me. She’d hang around my dorm room, talk to me, hold my stuffed animals. One night she asked if she could sleep in my room because her roommate was being loud. For some reason, I was so clueless I didn’t ask the obvious question—when you say sleep in my room, do you mean sex? I had her sleep in my chair. She said that wasn’t comfortable and asked if she could get into the bed. And somehow, even then, I still didn’t get it. I tried to sleep in the chair while she was in the bed. Eventually she got frustrated and left, and I was sitting there confused, like, what just happened?
What’s funny is that I did end up connecting with her—years later. That was back in 2003 originally. Then in 2010, seven years later, I was on a road trip and messaged her on Facebook to let her know I was in town. She met up with me at a friend’s place, and we ended up together that night. And the whole time, all I could think was how much I wished I’d just been direct back in 2003 instead of waiting until 2010. That one stuck with me.
The irony is that when I lost my virginity, the girl was the direct one. I invited her up to my room to watch Bad Boys on VHS, and she straight-up asked, did you invite me up here to have sex with me? And I was like, yes. Thank you for making that clear. That is exactly why you’re here. That moment taught me something, even if it took me years to actually integrate it.
So yeah, it’s nice when life allows more directness. I’m not going to ask my massage therapist over text if she wants a relationship with me, but inviting her over to talk says enough. If she were completely closed to the idea, she probably wouldn’t even come. Which means whatever this is, it’s probably somewhere in the middle. And that’s the interesting part. That’s what I want to explore.
I’m nervous, no question. But what surprises me is that I’m not actually afraid of her saying no. In a lot of ways, that would be the easiest outcome. If she says, no, I know you’re attracted to me, but I’m not attracted to you, or I’m happy with my boyfriend and I don’t want to break up with him, or I don’t want a relationship with you—fine. That’s clean. That’s clarity. I can cross it off the list and move on to the next woman without carrying this unresolved question around in my head. And honestly, that alone already feels like progress.
As much as I’ve known her, and as much as I genuinely like her, I’m very interested to see whether she’d want a relationship with me. But what’s actually a little more frightening than her saying no is the idea that she might say yes. If she says, yeah, I’d love a relationship with you, we have a lot in common that matters to me, and I’m willing to work through the things we don’t—that’s where it really gets real. That’s the unknown. That’s when life gets more complicated. At the same time, if that happened, I wouldn’t have to worry about dating for a while, which is kind of funny. Life’s like that. Often the thing that scares us the most isn’t rejection—it’s getting exactly what we want.
That’s happened to me a lot over the last decade. I keep getting what I think I want, and then once I have it, I realize it’s not actually what I wanted at all. I hope my massage therapist is what I want. I’m excited and scared at the same time. It’s a strange mix. To me, if she says no, it’s actually a great test of our friendship. Like, okay, we’re solid enough to talk about this and stay connected. If she says yes, though, then there’s a whole new set of things to figure out. Either way, something gets clarified.
I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Trust me, I’ll tell you. What’s funny is that I really didn’t want to dictate this tonight. I was like, man, maybe I just won’t say who it is. But come on—anyone listening would know who it is. It’s my massage therapist. And then I laugh at myself, because let’s be honest, nobody’s listening to this shit anyway. If Jerry makes an audiobook and nobody hears it, did it even happen? That’s actually kind of a good line. If Jerry is a tree that falls in the woods and nobody hears it, did it even get recorded? I don’t know.
What I do know is that the things that excite and scare us the most are often the things we least want to talk about. I did tell my ex-wife I wouldn’t get into a relationship until the divorce was final, and it should be final soon. My ex-wife and I are completely platonic now—no sex, no kissing, no romance, nothing. She’s told me I’m free and clear to get into a relationship, so we’ll see what happens.
Today’s been a good day. Yesterday was rough, but today felt different. Yesterday I got clear that books are the main thing—books, books, books. With that in mind, I actually got some work done today. I started a new dating book, which would be absolutely hilarious if my massage therapist says yes. Imagine that timeline: I start a dating book, and the next day I’m in a relationship. That would be perfect irony. One day I’m like, I’ve got nobody I’m dating, nothing on the horizon, no one in mind. The next day—boom. Relationship. Like, maybe I just realized my friend and I might actually be good together. You know what I’m saying.
This morning was solid too. I didn’t go to yoga first—I went to play tennis. I met a friend there and practiced using the lessons my son’s been giving me. I focused on my footwork, really paying attention to getting into position instead of being lazy with my legs. My calves are sore from all the split steps and hopping around, but I was happy with how I played. My error rate felt noticeably lower. I hit more consistent shots, kept more balls in play. I think I had one or two double faults the whole set, which is about normal for me. Overall, I just felt more steady out there. That steadiness feels important tonight. There’s a lot up in the air emotionally, but underneath it, something feels grounded. Tomorrow will bring whatever it brings. And either way, I’ll know more than I do right now.
What’s funny is we played for two full hours and only got through eighteen games. He won 6–3, 6–3, but those numbers don’t tell the story at all. Some of those games had long-ass rallies—twenty, thirty balls back and forth—running all over the court, getting pulled out of position, resetting, working our way back to the baseline, then starting all over again. He hit a ton of winners, especially those short ones. His short winners were going crazy. I started playing deeper toward the baseline to protect myself, and he just kept dropping these perfect little shots right over the net. It was honestly fun to watch him play, even while it was frustrating.
I made a conscious effort to practice what my son’s been coaching me on. One thing he does that really stuck with me is when I miss a shot, he just calmly says, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” At first I thought that was kind of weird. I was like, damn, am I some crazy bitch who needs to be soothed every time I miss? And then I realized—yes. Yes, I am. Because inside my head, when I miss, it’s not okay. I’m losing, I hate everything, I’m miserable, and nothing is okay. Practicing with my son looks like this: I smack a ball into the net and he goes, “It’s okay, it’s okay, here’s another one.” I miss again. “It’s okay.” Miss again. “It’s okay.” Then I hit one clean and he says, “Good, good.” And it clicked. I need to help that part of myself calm down. It’s okay. We’re going to keep playing. We’re going to keep moving. Because if I don’t, that part of me spirals and goes completely nuts.
I really appreciated a friend today for sticking with me. Last time we played, I got visibly frustrated, and I know that’s not fun to be around. This time I stayed cooler, and he appreciated that. He enjoyed the workout too. When I’m hitting ball after ball back and making fewer errors, he has to run his ass off. I was hitting short angles, moving him side to side, dropping balls toward the back corners. It was a great workout for both of us. Last time he beat me in a little over an hour, something like 6–0, 6–1. This time, even though the score was still 6–3, 6–3, it took two hours. That felt like real progress.
After tennis, I came home and recorded my third dating book. This one actually feels like something we’re going to publish. Then I had some hummus and went to yoga. A yoga instructor was teaching at my yoga studio. Somewhere in the middle of class, I had this thought: god damn it, Jerry, it’s not funny enough today. I want some laughs in this bitch. And then I laughed at myself for that too. Some days, the humor just isn’t as sharp. It’s funny—when I’m feeling worse, it’s sometimes easier to dig into that dark, manic, laughing-at-yourself place. When I’m feeling good, when I’m actually joyful, it can be harder to force the funny. And maybe that’s okay.
Today felt good in a different way. I kept coming back to what matters: take care of my books, show up for my kids, be a good friend to my ex-wife, help her through this divorce. I scanned some papers for her today, and we’re very close to having everything submitted. Since we agree on everything, it should be straightforward. I looked over the settlement agreement, and honestly, it looks very fair to me. We both permanently give up any right to alimony. She doesn’t want child support, which is huge. She keeps the house and its equity and takes on the mortgage and the loan against it entirely, so most of the debt stays with her, but the house is cleanly hers. I can never force a sale or pull anything like that. I don’t touch her retirement either—she keeps all of that. In return, she’ll be covering the majority of the kids’ expenses for the foreseeable future.
When I look at it honestly, it feels balanced. It feels clean. And tonight, that sense of fairness and forward motion feels grounding. It gives me time to write my books. I don’t have to worry about money or dating or any of that right now. And yeah—when I ask myself honestly—is that part of why I invited my massage therapist over? Yeah, it is. But it’s not the primary focus. It’s more like a side project. An opportunity to explore something that’s already there. And then my mind immediately asks, alright, who are you going to ask over after my massage therapist? And the answer is, I don’t know. I’ll find out when I get there. I really am a one-woman-at-a-time guy. Once I’ve got someone in mind, it’s hard to even think about anyone else.
And then, fuck, there I go again—overexplaining everything. You’re right. I don’t need to narrate every internal process. Nobody cares. Nobody’s listening. Which is actually kind of freeing. It means I can say whatever I want, whenever I want, to whoever I want. There’s something liberating about that realization.
Back in yoga class, a yoga instructor taught a really nice flow today. There’s another yoga instructor there who’s hot, and I realized I haven’t been putting out good vibes toward her. What happened was, about a year ago at one of the events, she’d had a few drinks and was very friendly, and I judged her for it. I judged her for being that open and warm under the influence of alcohol, and without really realizing it, I’ve been putting out bad vibes toward her ever since. Today, though, something shifted. I thought, you know what, this is exactly the kind of woman you might really like to date. The kind of woman you might have a lot in common with. The kind of woman you might genuinely enjoy being in a relationship with. The kind of woman who might even want kids with you someday. So why not try putting out some good vibes instead?
Her mat was right in front of me today. And instead of pulling back, I started consciously thinking, I love her. I’m glad she’s here. I appreciate her classes. She’s beautiful. I’m sorry for not putting these vibes out earlier. And it felt really good—just to put that love out toward another person with no agenda attached. That’s actually how that one girl ended up getting a crush on me a couple of years ago in yoga. She felt the vibes I was putting out. She felt that I was cherishing her, admiring her, loving her energy. Even though she had a girlfriend at the time, she was very interested in getting to know me.
And then I shit all over that, because I was scared. If I’m honest, if I had it to do over again, I might explore that further. I might at least get to know her better before pushing her away. Maybe I get a divorce two years earlier. Maybe she dumps her girlfriend. Maybe we live happily ever after—or maybe it lasts a year, a few months, who knows. But if I had it to do over again, I’d at least go out to lunch with her. Going out to lunch with a woman isn’t cheating. And my ex-wife—my soon-to-be ex—was perfectly okay with me going out to lunch with other women. The truth is, this woman was so hot and I felt so drawn to her that I was scared. I was afraid that even a lunch would turn into something too intense, too fast.
I’m grateful to be single right now. And yeah, part of me laughs and says, so that’s why you’re trying to fuck it up, huh? Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am. Let me see if I can fuck up being single. Because being single does come with options and freedom, and now I find myself wondering—would there really be someone I’d have a better relationship with than my massage therapist? I don’t know. I’ve always believed in working with what you’ve got. Make the most of what’s already in your life. Make lemonade out of lemons—not that my massage therapist is a lemon—but if you’ve got people and relationships already present, it makes sense to explore those fully before running off chasing something new. That feels like where I’m at tonight.
What’s kind of fucked up, when I really look at myself honestly, is that a couple of days ago my massage therapist messaged me saying she wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t make it for the massage. And the very first thing I did was look to see if someone else was available. I messaged a friend to see if she had an opening. She said no, she was fully booked. And I’m like, well, congrats on being fully booked—I’ll see you tomorrow anyway because she’s coming over to record her book. When I step back and look at that, it’s a little uncomfortable. My massage therapist says she can’t make it, but she could do it tomorrow, and my immediate instinct is still, let me see if I can line up someone else first. I don’t love that about myself. And if a relationship with my massage therapist ever did happen, I’d want to be conscious of not bringing that same energy into it.
At the same time, there’s something relieving about the idea that she might just say she’s not interested. Like, hey, I’m single, you’re not interested, cool—let’s put that to bed. Not that kind of bed. Definitely not that kind of bed.
After yoga today, I came home and had a salad. I finished Charlie Sheen’s book. I was genuinely happy to hear that he got sober by the end. At the same time, I respect his criticism of AA—his view of it as this old-ass book that can feel cultish, where if the solution is mangoes, suddenly everything is a fucking mango. Eat mangoes when you wake up, eat mangoes before bed, carry a mango around all day. I get that critique. I also know what works for me.
After I picked the kids up, my daughter had a field trip to the theater to watch an orchestra play, which was awesome. And they didn’t ask to go to McDonald’s, which felt like a small miracle. I took them home. My ex-wife was happy to see that I was in better spirits today, which felt good for both of us.
Then I went to my AA meeting. There was a guy there on day one—literally drank yesterday, came in today trying to do this thing. He got his silver chip. And moments like that are exactly why I still go to meetings. There was another guy with about ten months, one with a couple of years, another with around three years, and then there’s me—eleven years sober, one of the seniors in the room now. That blows my mind sometimes. I love being there for the new guys, trying to help them through that first day, the second day, the first week, the first month. That shit was brutal for me. A lot of the new guys don’t make it. You don’t see them again. They disappear. But I stay sober by trying to help them get sober. That’s how it works for me.
After the meeting, I went to see my massage therapist for a massage. We had a great conversation—really great. Good enough that it made me seriously consider asking her about this whole relationship thing. I listened closely to what she was saying, and I shared my concern that, from the outside, it seems like there’s some trouble with her boyfriend. From my perspective, the place she’s at with him feels eerily similar to where my ex-wife and I were in our marriage. It’s that space where it’s not working, but the idea of being single feels too overwhelming to actually pull the plug. That limbo. That slow erosion.
My ex-wife and I eventually reached a point where it wasn’t working enough that staying together felt worse than facing being single. So we dealt with it. We divorced. We separated our shit. And that was that. I don’t know if my massage therapist’s there. I don’t know if she ever will be. But recognizing that pattern—seeing it clearly—is part of why I feel compelled to at least have the conversation.
After that, I went home to put the kids to bed and then spent some time talking with my mom. I’ll be honest—it was hard to stay fully focused because my mind kept drifting back to my massage therapist—but I still showed up. I gave my mom a solid thirty or forty minutes. I could probably tell you some of what she talked about. Other parts would be fuzzier. But I was there. I listened. I stayed in the room with her, which counts for something.
I told my mom that my ex-wife and the kids got her birthday presents and made cakes for her, and I felt genuine gratitude about that. Thank God for them, because I don’t give a shit about birthdays or Christmas. And then, of course, my brain immediately went, Jesus—god damn it, don’t rant about Jesus again. But here we are. Jesus wasn’t born in December. As far as anyone knows. It was two thousand years ago—nobody actually knows when he was born. From what I’ve read, it was probably summer. June or July. They moved the celebration to December to line up with an existing festival. So I’m not celebrating some guy’s birthday in December when he was literally born in the opposite part of the year. That’s just not happening.
And then there’s Santa. Santa and Satan—same letters. S-A-T-A-N. S-A-N-T-A. The exact same letters. So now Satan’s basically running Christmas anyway. You’ve got two overlapping mind-control systems colliding on December 25th. If you’re in the Jesus camp, you’re celebrating a birthday that didn’t happen then. If you don’t give a shit about Jesus, you’re worshiping materialism and presents, which is basically Satan with better marketing. What a great holiday.
Long story longer, I’m grateful my ex-wife and the kids are there for my mom, because I’m not getting her anything for her birthday. If anyone should be celebrated on her birthday, it’s her mother—who’s dead now—because she did a lot more that day. All my mom did that day was get born. I’m sure she’d be happy to refresh my memory on the details.
My mom is sixty-eight. Sixty-eight. That still blows my mind. How the fuck do I have a mom who’s sixty-eight? And then I think about how much of life is just about where you’re at and how you’re handling it. Being eighteen sucked. Tons of energy, no clue what to do with it, a brain that’s dumb as shit and barely capable of processing life, and nobody solid to run things by. I’m grateful I’ve got more life experience now. And my body still works fantastically.
An older friend was telling me today how parts of his body aren’t functioning properly anymore, but he said his spirit is strong. And I respect that. I really do. I tend to look at bodies like cars. If the thing completely breaks down, the air brakes are shot, and I can’t fix it—well, I’ll be out of this bitch. Time to get a fresh model. And then someday I’ll be listening back to this recording, forgetting that I was the one who recorded it in the first place. How’s that for a brain bender? Mind bender, Jerry. Whatever. How’s that for a mind fuck?
Yeah, you should’ve said mind fuck in the first place. That little voice again. Like Little Nikolai in Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies on the Moon map. Little Nikolai, are you hurt? No, Papa. That shit still makes me laugh. Because really—how’s that for a mind fuck? You could be listening to this… and you could be the one who recorded it.
It’s kind of like Total Recall. The original one with Arnold Schwarzenegger—I haven’t even watched the remake. In the original, he thinks he’s living one life, and then he wakes up and realizes he had this whole other life before his memory was wiped and replaced with something artificial. And I start going down that road mentally, thinking that you—the person listening to this—might have recorded this too. You just don’t remember it. Especially if time is simultaneous, which I tend to believe it is. You could’ve been born the same day as me and still be listening to this from another angle of the same moment. Or maybe you were born after October 29, 2025, in which case—let’s be honest—nobody’s listening to this shit. Nobody. Jerry, literally nobody is going to be listening to this in twenty, thirty, forty years. You’ve got some serious delusions of grandeur.
But then again, Bill Wilson probably didn’t think people would be reading the Big Book like it’s a goddamn Bible either. Or maybe he did. Bill was grandiose enough that he probably pictured it. And I’m grandiose too. I can admit that. I picture my grandson someday listening to this and thinking, man, my grandpa was awesome. I wish I could’ve met that fool. And then my brain goes even further—what if the person listening to this is my grandson through my massage therapist? From a kid with my massage therapist, who, by the way, does not want children, which is obviously something that would need to be worked out. But what if that’s who’s listening? What if this is a grandchild hearing the exact day and the exact mental state I was in when I was planning to ask their grandmother about a relationship? How fucking wild is that?
That’s what I love about my mind—its ability to stretch like that. To take an idea and just run it out to the edges of absurdity. Like imagining some sad bastard listening to this two thousand years from now while people are celebrating Christmas as Jerry Banfield’s birthday instead of Jesus’s. Now that’s a level of grandiosity I can get behind. Like, hey, you can celebrate Christmas for me. What day would that even be? I was born June 15th, so by that logic, you’d celebrate my birthday six months later on December 15th. That actually seems fair. Jesus has enough people celebrating his not-birthday. Somebody should celebrate my motherfucking birthday on December 15th.
I could see it now. I put up a Christmas tree and someone’s like, oh, you’re celebrating Christmas? And I’m like, bitch, I’m celebrating my birthday. Oh, were you born December 15th? No. I was born June 15th. We’re celebrating this motherfucker now. I’ve got a tree up for myself. A whole-ass tree. Jerry, this stopped being funny like thirty minutes ago. No—it didn’t stop being funny. It just became funny again. Right now. The image of me putting up a Christmas tree just to celebrate my own birthday six months late—that’s funny.
When you really think about it, it sounds ridiculous. Celebrate my birthday December 15th, 4084. Or wait—no, that math’s fucked up. That wouldn’t even be the right year. It’d be like Christmas 2184. Or 2100-something. I don’t know. I clearly missed some math in there. Whatever. It’s going to be a while. Let’s just say a million years from now. Fuck it—a billion years from now. I want somebody listening to this on the other side of the universe. Actually, let’s go full multiverse. A billion years from now, in another universe, someone’s listening to this like, how the fuck did we find this, and what is this guy even talking about?
And before anyone thinks it—I’m not on drugs. I’m not drinking. I’m not smoking meth. I’m not tweaking. I’m just naturally high. High on life, as corny as that sounds. I’m glad to be alive. And yeah, that’s probably because I’ve been down most of the week and now I finally feel myself coming back up. I’ve wrung out a bunch of dumbass ideas. I’ve stumbled around. I’ve gotten clearer. And right now, I feel like I’m back on the path. That’s where I’m ending tonight—alive, amused, slightly unhinged, but very present.
As long as I’m recording books like this, I’m on the path. I’m on the path, baby. That’s the anchor. If I have a girlfriend tomorrow, that’ll be wild. But what feels good right now is accepting what I can and can’t control. I can ask. I can talk to my friend. I can say what I’m thinking and see what she’s interested in. What I can’t control is how she responds. That part’s hers. If she wants it, she wants it. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t. And no amount of mental gymnastics is going to change that.
I was sitting on the couch earlier, about twenty minutes deep into my own head, and I asked myself a different question: which scenario is actually more interesting? And it reminded me of something from way back—when I chose the dispatcher instead of climbing the police ladder as I wrote about in Officer Banfield. Instead of going the “smart” route toward corporal, I went for the dispatcher. Most people would’ve called that a terrible decision at the time. But am I glad I did it now? Hell yes. I’m so glad I did that. All the drama, the chaos, the getting hired and then fired—I’m grateful for every bit of it now. That choice made my life infinitely more interesting.
So I thought about that with my massage therapist. What’s the more interesting move here? Sitting on the couch being a lame bitch, never asking the question I clearly want to ask? That would make me a fraud. If I go around saying I’m honest and authentic, and then I don’t message her and ask if she wants to talk—and when we talk, actually tell her what I’m thinking—then I’m lying to myself. And honestly, if I’m not willing to live that way, I probably shouldn’t be writing these books at all.
I didn’t phrase it quite that dramatically in my head, but the conclusion was the same. The more interesting scenario is to send the message and see what happens. I’m glad I messaged a woman I’d been interested in, even though she said no. I’m glad I messaged the other woman, even though she said no. I’m glad I flirted, asked, tried, and got rejected. Every time someone says no, I cross them off the list and move on cleanly. No lingering fantasy. No wasted energy. And now my massage therapist’s up next. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
Aren’t you excited? That’s the funny part. You can put this on double speed, skip ahead to the next chapter, and find out how it went. I’ll tell you tomorrow night. And if you want the real-time spoiler, here’s what my inner critic is saying right now: Jerry, she’s going to be like, ew, you’re fucking nasty. Nasty-ass bitch, I’d never want to be with you. Ugly-ass bitch, no. You’ve probably got a small dick. You’re not making any money. And I don’t want kids with you. Ew. Is that what she’s going to say? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I’ll let you know how it goes.
It’s 11:11 p.m. That feels symbolic enough to stop. Checkout time. We’ve got to go. Jesus, please help me stop recording now. I cannot stop talking. Alright. Done.
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