Be Yourself in Dating: Why It Isn't the Whole Answer

Being yourself sounds like the easiest dating advice there is, and this year I have spent a lot of time working out why it so often failed me. My newest answer is the hardest to live with: honesty looks like the worst dating strategy in the short term, and it is the only one I have seen work in the long term. In Honesty in Dating, filmed alone on Halloween night, October 31, 2026, I lay out what that has cost me. I have been out with 26 different women this year, and my king-size bed has had no woman in it all year. Two or three women would probably have been in it that night if I had hidden the things they shouldn't know until I had hooked them emotionally.

I know how well hiding things works, because I did it in my 20s. I was an alcoholic, drinking a handle of vodka a week, and I never let the woman who became my wife see me drink for our first six dates. I hid it another month after she became my girlfriend and told her at two months, when she was already hooked. She threw up. We got 15 years and two children out of that start, and we also got a divorce last year, because the dishonesty I used to build the relationship paid forward. I was performing around her the whole time, and once I got sober I became a different person than the one she had agreed to date. Honest up front, we would have figured out in a week that we were not compatible.

Honesty has done the opposite this year. A woman left after I told her how I hooked my ex. Another canceled a second date after watching my divorce video. Friends I gave my books to ghosted me. What I finally understood is that honesty is a filter, not a sales pitch. It empties the bed in the short term because somebody wrong for me didn't get in it, and it leaves room for the right person: the woman in another country I am talking to now, who knows about my debt, has watched hours of my videos, and loves my honesty because her ex was a pathological liar.

It took four posts to get there. The first of them, Why "Just Be Yourself" Doesn't Work in Dating, came out on June 15, 2026. After my divorce, I came in warm, open-hearted and excited, and the women I liked pulled back every time. I texted one woman the morning after we met and she cooled off immediately, while the game I played when I was younger, waiting days to text, made women more interested.

Two weeks later, in Be Yourself Is the Best Dating Advice Nobody Understands (June 28), I decided I had been misunderstanding the advice. Performing, impressing and hiding the truth is what short-term dating advice teaches, and I had been doing exactly that with at least 20 women that year, mostly to lukewarm responses. I said I would rather be single than get stuck with someone I had performed for.

Then came I Thought No Games Meant Tell Her Everything (August 5, 2026), the post with the most doubt in it. A woman said she wanted no games and someone authentic, so I told her everything. It felt great for a week, then my messages became a one-way street and she wanted space. My openness had turned into pressure, and I concluded that I should assume the game is on unless I find very clear evidence that it isn't.

Read in order, the four posts show a shift, and the newest one reconciles the earlier three for me. Being yourself is not enough on its own, and some kind of game is usually running on the other side of the table. But the alternative I used to practice, lying by omission until someone is locked in, is worse, and I have the 15-year receipt to prove it. In AA we call that taking hostages. So the rule I can stand behind is this: don't perform, don't dump everything in the first week as a tactic, but tell the truth about who you are and what you've done, and let it filter. Being real with my ex would have cost me a second date; managing things cost me a marriage. I'll take the lost second date.

Below this opening you will find every post on this subject, oldest to newest, in full. If you are looking for one clean rule, you won't get it from me. You will see me contradict myself in places, because the same tactic can work in the short term and fail in the long term. For the wider picture, my dating advice myths page covers advice that doesn't hold up on real dates, and my post on standards covers where I draw the line on who I'll keep seeing.

If you want me to look at your own situation, you can get a personal video review from me at https://jerrybanfield.com/review/.

Honesty in Dating

From my video published October 31, 2026.

I've went out with 26 different women this year, and my honesty feels like it has absolutely ruined everything. But the beautiful thing is that I have now attracted a woman who loves my honesty. I know dating is so frustrating because it feels like everybody's performing, everybody's ready to betray you, everybody's lying, cheating, telling you anything, trying to trick you into relationships. What I can tell you from my personal experience is that being honest will seem like it's the worst strategy in the short term.

There are so many women I could have had in this bed right here, this king-size bed that no woman has been in all year. I could have had women in this bed if I wouldn't have been so honest. I could probably have a girlfriend if I had hidden certain things about myself. I've already given you my honest take on single life versus a relationship, and an empty bed all year is a big part of it. So let me tell you what it looks like, from my experience, when you are dishonest, and how that works out in the long term versus the short term.

How I Hid My Drinking From Every Woman I Dated in My 20s

When I dated in my 20s, I was an alcoholic. I'm sober 12 and a half years now. Back then I would hide my alcoholism from women as much as possible, because I had this intuition that I shouldn't date any woman who would be okay with my alcoholism. I should only date women who would not be okay with me being an alcoholic, because they would inspire me to change. So when I met women and went out with them, I would generally minimize my drinking. Anytime I didn't, things often did not go well, unless we slept together on the first date, which happened a few times, or I managed, for some reason, to not get too drunk that night. Often it didn't work out that great. This one woman I went out with, I had three or four beers and started crying all over the place about the stuff in my life. She was totally turned off, and I never saw her again.

I learned that it was important, ideally, to not drink at all until I'd already had sex with a woman and was in a relationship with her. Now, how dishonest is that, when I would drink a handle of vodka every week? I would binge drink two or three nights a week, anywhere from eight hours at a minimum, if I had a lot to do, to sometimes 12 to 16 hours straight. I'd sit down at like two in the afternoon, start playing Call of Duty Zombies, maybe get into some hardcore Search and Destroy, maybe throw on some Battlestar Galactica at some point, or dip into some Diablo, and then be up till anywhere from four to eight in the morning. That's how I used to roll. So how dishonest was it that I'd be going out with a woman, literally out to dinner, and not ordering a drink when I drank that much? That's how I used to roll.

How did that work out in the long term? Well, I attracted a beautiful woman who ended up becoming my wife, and she never saw me have a single drink for our first six dates, at which point we had sex and she agreed to be my girlfriend. I then hid my alcoholism from her for another month, making sure not to drink around her and to put away the liquor when she came over. The bottles would often be all over the place, and I would always clean up. Then, after we'd been dating two months and she was already hooked, I told her: well, I drink a lot, and I play a lot of video games, but I'd be happy to give those up for you. She went back to my apartment and threw up after that. Because it's like she's stuck then. She's stuck.

This is what a lot of people do in dating. So many people take this approach, and I know it because my honesty has pushed away a lot of the women I've went out with. For example, if I wanted to just get a woman in bed as soon as possible, I would never tell a woman I was a YouTuber. I'd make up anything else I could, because for some reason most women don't like me being a YouTuber. If I made something else up or hid my work from them somehow, like, oh, I have a business online, I generate leads, literally just made something up that was somehow relevant to what I did, it would go a lot smoother at first. I've literally had women that have Googled me, looked up my videos, and told me, I don't want to go out with you again because of your videos. Apparently my videos are too honest, and they can get to know me a little too quickly.

Fifteen Years, Two Kids, and a Bait and Switch

But in the long term, here's what happens. After 15 years with my ex-wife and two children and trying everything to make our marriage work, we had the simple realization that the two of us probably weren't that compatible. Why? Because if I had been honest about how much I drank when we first went out, she'd have been like, see ya, don't want to be with ya. If I'd have been honest about how toxic I was and my political beliefs and all that stuff, she'd have been like, bye. And if she'd have been honest about some things, I probably would have felt the same way. Then I ended up getting divorced last year. Why? Because the dishonesty I brought into creating the relationship eventually paid forward, even after I got sober and quit playing video games.

The problem was that when I stopped drinking and quit playing video games, I became a different person. So I ended up doing a bait and switch on her. She thinks she's dating this alcoholic version of me, and the alcoholic version of me is just performing all the time. I'm performing when I'm around her. I'm trying to say and do anything that I think she will like. And then when she's not around, I'm acting completely different. The way I acted with my friends versus the way I acted with her, you would not think they were the same person, especially if you saw me talking to my Xbox friends, saying all kinds of crazy stuff, and then saw me out on a date with her. You'd be like, that's not the same person. That's dishonesty.

It meant that in my relationship with my wife for 15 years, I didn't feel like I could make the kind of jokes I wanted to, because she'd get all pissy if I said what I was thinking. So then we can't really communicate. We had lots of great times, to be sure, and we had fun, but I couldn't really share my sense of humor fully with her. In the beginning I shared it more, but the further we went on, the less I could. I like dark humor. I was a police officer. My mom was in the military; she was an officer working with dogs in the medical field. I have a dark sense of humor. My ex-wife has a very Office Space, Jim Gaffigan, Nate Bargatze kind of sense of humor, which I can find funny, but I'm more Kevin Hart, Louis CK, even Anthony Jeselnik, Bill Burr. I like it dark and crazy, and my ex couldn't stand it. If I'd have been honest, we'd have figured that out immediately. But because I was dishonest, I planted seeds that would come to harvest long in advance. Now I look back and think I should have been more honest. Obviously I should have worked on myself and gotten sober first; that would have been ideal.

Honesty Will Get You the Right Person

Now that I've been dating again, I've been very honest with women, and it seems like for most of the year it hasn't worked. For example, I probably shouldn't have told a woman this on the first date, but I told her what I did to be dishonest and hook my ex into a relationship. After that, she's like, see ya, don't want to be with you, my intuition says I'm not feeling ya. The woman before her watched one of my YouTube videos about my divorce. She really liked me before that and was planning a second date with me, and she canceled the second date. I've had several more women that have read the books I've written. I had a bunch of women that liked me as friends, and then I gave them books and tried to date them, and they all ghosted me. In the short term I thought, man, this sucks. Nobody likes me.

But here's the thing. Honesty will get you with the right person. I probably shouldn't wait until eight or nine minutes in to say that, but the value of honesty is that you will filter for the right person. In the short term, your bed may be empty, because somebody who wasn't right for you didn't get in it. But over the long term, honesty will help you get the right person in your bed, a person you're really compatible with, a person who will not, ideally, give you the silent treatment for days and lock you out of the bedroom and treat you like garbage and leave you for someone else. If you're with the right person, they're going to love who you actually are. That is the same thing I was getting at in The Right Person Makes You Want to Give, Not Take.

This is what's so brutal with dating. I've gotten into a bad attitude with dating at this point, the kind of mood that had me saying I'll never ask a woman out again. I figure every woman I'm out with is performing. I have almost no idea who the real person is, and I try to help women be more honest with me, but they're almost all performing. It doesn't even matter if it seems like she had fun or not on a date. I don't even believe the laughing. I'm like, did she actually think that was funny? She's smiling. Does she actually like me? People do so many things in dating that it's like sales. People look at dating like sales: I want to sell this person on liking me. Even back when I was talking to 14 women at once, I had no way of knowing which of them were actually being real with me.

Reading Body Language the Way I Did as a Cop

The last woman I went out with was beautiful, like a decade younger than me, and wanted kids. We seemed extremely compatible in a lot of areas. And one thing I probably shouldn't have said is what I'm about to say now. Well, besides the YouTuber thing. I used to be a police officer, so I'm pretty good at reading people's body language. That served me very well as a police officer. I could always tell when they were going to run or when they were going to resist, and I would use that to my advantage. It saved me a lot of trouble. I could read people's body language: are you going to be cooperative, or are we going to have to get the taser out here? Then I could modify my language based on that, or call for backup before things escalate. Okay, these guys' body language, let me call for backup here. They're being real tough. I don't think they're going to be cooperative. All right, let me call for backup, and we'll see how tough they are when the squad gets here.

So let me tell you what I said to this woman on this last date, besides being a YouTuber, which she cringed at when I said it. I'm like, well, I guess everything else she does from here is all fake, and I'm never going to see her again. Maybe that was a bad attitude, but I've seen that so many times before. Then I told her a story. I won't put out her personal information, but she triggered this story in my head. I'm big into conspiracy theories and hidden knowledge and all that stuff, and some of the things I've come across have helped me remember my other experiences and other lives. Okay. So I said that. And I had the feeling: I probably shouldn't say this if I wanted to just lure her in. But I don't want to go out with her again if I can't say this.

So I said that I am aware that there are many other planets with intelligent life on them. And on some of these planets, being a parent is the highest level of education, credentials and expertise you can reach. You cannot be a parent on some planets until you get what is much more than a PhD, or a doctor, much more training than that, in order to be a parent. You have to raise other people's kids with a parent. You're like a resident, basically like an MD, but you're a resident with parents. These parents who've already been through this education, who have the actual kids, train you, and you help raise their kids. You're an apprentice, a resident training with them on how to raise kids. You can only have kids on these planets once you've completed that training. Doing it any other way is unthinkable. Nobody conceives without having that training first. And therefore you get some incredible parents.

This planet still seems crazy to me, that anyone can just go around and have kids, and that's just okay. We're okay with this. One of the most important functions on this planet, and anybody can just have kids. It's crazy. It's so crazy to me. I shared this, and then I compared it to her life experience, and I figured, what? She might not like this. She might think I'm weird because of this, and she might not want to go out with me again. But I'd rather know on the first date than share something weird on the second or third or fourth date. I'd rather get it over with.

The Plenty of Fish Date at 26 Who Told Me Everything

The way I look at it, I had a woman, one of the women I went out with long before I was taking this approach myself, and out of all the women I've went out with, this is the one that, if I could have another date with her, I would. I respect her so much for her honesty. But at the time, I was dishonest myself. So picture me when I'm 26 years old, going out with a woman on a first date off a dating app. Except they didn't have dating apps then. It was just Plenty of Fish. It was a website. There were no dating apps back then. You get that? There were no apps on phones for dating. I had nothing like the first-date system I use now after meeting a woman on an app, either.

So I go out with this woman from Plenty of Fish, and she's gorgeous. Curly blonde hair. She's several years younger than me. She is so hot, braces and all. She is so hot, and I was so happy to be out with her, until she trauma-dumped on me. I'm not going to say everything she said, but picture the worst things a woman could say on a first date about what she's been through. She said all three of them. I'm like, oh my God. I remember being disgusted by her, and she could tell I was disgusted by her. If that was me now, I'd have been like, you are the love of my life. But she said, I tell every guy this on the first date. And this is stuff you should not. This might even be too much honesty. Keep in mind, the things she told me are the kind of things you would work on in therapy for years. These are like Alcoholics Anonymous fifth steps. My book Speaker Meeting 2017, on jerrybanfield.com, is where I put that kind of stuff from my own life.

She told me three different things that, for most of you, it would be unthinkable that a woman would tell you on the first date. Some of the worst stuff women go through, situations they get put in, things they've done. I'll give you one of them. She tells me that a guy was married, and she cheats with him. He's married, she's cheating with him, and she knows it. He gets her pregnant. And then she has an abortion. That was the most lighthearted thing she told me. I was disgusted, because I didn't feel like I could meet her there. I wasn't ready to be that honest myself. But she said she tells every guy that on the first date, along with the other two things, and the other two are much worse. She said, because I'm tired of guys finding these things out about me and then being disgusted and breaking up with me. So I just tell every guy this stuff on the first date. I'm like, all right. This is probably why you have a lot of first dates, isn't it?

But now, out of all the women I've went out with, if I could go out with one of them again, it'd be her. Because that kind of honesty is extremely attractive to me. Because almost everybody else in dating is trying to be as dishonest as possible.

Lying by Omission and Taking Hostages

For example, the woman I went out with last said that her main form of dishonesty is lying by omission. Yeah, like omitting a text. Am I going to get a text message back when I ask her if she wants to go out on another date? Omitting. I'll reply. And that's how most people lie in dating. Omitting the things that somebody would really want to know about you up front, until you can trick them and trap them into locking you in. In AA, we call that taking hostages. This is tricking people into falling in love with you, and then once they've invested emotionally, surprise. That's horrible. I would love to see more honest dating.

What's cool is that with honest dating, most of the women I've dated have been repulsed by my honesty. It's crazy how few second dates I've gotten because I've been honest. What do you do? I'm a YouTuber. I'm proud of what I do. What kind of videos do you make? Crypto. They figure scammer. Games. They figure loser. Dating videos. They figure, I'm going to be on his next video. Vlogs. This guy's a narcissist. You see, when I tell women what I do on YouTube, that's what they're thinking: narcissist, scammer, loser. If I said doctor, they'd probably be getting wet. Or attorney. They'd probably be ready to have sex on the first date with me. When I said I was a police officer, women used to love that. Not all of them, but if I said I was a police officer, they'd be right in bed. Saying I'm a police officer: in bed. YouTube: the opposite.

So I certainly could have lied on these dates and made anything up, and not given them my name so they could look me up. I could have lied. But in the long term, that strategy works poorly. And in the long term, performing on your dates, trying to sell the other person on how awesome you are, works poorly, because most people are not going to be your person. The more you can be honest, what's awesome is that when somebody finally loves that, now you've got something special.

The Woman Who Knows About $200,000 of Debt and Loves My Honesty

I've got a woman I'm talking to now who loves my honesty. She knows that I have almost $100,000 in credit card debt and another $100,000 on a business loan. She knows that I'm a YouTuber. She's watched hours and hours of my videos. And she fell in love with me, or rather, started to, and wanted to talk to me. Because the number one thing she's looking for is a guy who's honest. And because the number one thing she hated about her ex is what a compulsive, pathological liar this guy was. He would make up horrible lies and did exactly what I'm describing. If he would have been honest, they never would have been in a relationship. Instead, he traps her in a relationship, and she is just stuck, feeling loyal, and this guy just lies and lies. Unbelievable lies. And wastes years of her life. That is the opposite of what I'm trying to practice in my Learn Love series, where the whole point is learning to love the real person in front of you.

I think the number one thing we need to do to transform this planet is stop lying and tell the truth. That's been the number one thing that's broken the pattern of addiction for me in Alcoholics Anonymous. That's step five: stop lying and tell somebody the truth. Maybe everybody doesn't need to go on YouTube and write books like I have on jerrybanfield.com, with my level of honesty, although I do believe your story is the one thing AI can't create. But I figure, if I can't do it, who can? I've lived a pretty vanilla life in a lot of ways. I don't have anything I can't share. I can just write it out on YouTube. My life's pretty vanilla. There are some things I hold back because it's public; I have more details in my books, for example. But my life's pretty vanilla, and if I can't share at this level, then what hope is there for people in power who have done really horrible things? What hope is there for them to get honest and talk about how corrupt they are, all that they've done to get in power, all the people they've sacrificed in one way or another, all the things they've done that you would be disgusted to know about?

If you haven't noticed, our society is extremely corrupt at the top, and absolutely ignorant and dysfunctional at the bottom. If you want to truly get out of the bottom and go to the top, stop being ignorant. Start being honest. And learn. Learn, learn. The goal of all my videos is to teach, to help you learn something that's valuable, unlike the majority of content on YouTube, which is trash and will make you dumber.

The Queen Who Valued Authenticity Until She Watched My Videos

So I'm grateful today that my honesty has landed a woman who knows my actual life situation, who knows things that would be a deal breaker for a lot of people. Because I had this woman I was dating earlier this year, and she really liked me. She was so turned on when she met me in person. She agreed to have a date with me, and she was really having a great time with me, until she started watching my YouTube videos. My videos started to give her too much information, to break my heart, to break her fantasy, and to see me as a real person. Then she pulls back, and it just doesn't feel like we're compatible, because I gave her too much information. I was too honest. I told the rest of that story in Chasing a Woman Who Pulls Away: Why I Now Say Stop Sooner. Even though it was dreadfully painful, it also revealed that me and that woman were not compatible. I was focusing on the wrong things. I called her my queen, and I got a little excited. Why? Because she's hot.

Because she wants to have kids. Because she said she valued authenticity. But the thing is, when you value authenticity, you have to practice it. And that means that if you have a checklist of 10 things somebody has to qualify on, and if they don't meet a couple of them they're off, then honesty is going to put you off. Because you can imagine, the more you have a checklist, and especially a lot of the women I've dated, they want 10 different things out of a guy. Financial stability. And good looks. And health. And never married. And no kids. And a nice car. And a great relationship with his mother. And this exact faith. And you don't want to listen to the same music. All of a sudden, if you're honest, it's going to be obvious that there are several of those that are drastically not compatible.

But it's better to figure that out faster. The faster you figure out you're not compatible with someone, the less time you waste. And what's nice about being honest is this: you might get a lot of first dates, and you might feel rejected way more often, which I know all about from I Expected Her to Reject Me. Then I Made It Happen. But you're not going to get stuck with somebody who's totally wrong for you.

Don't Lie to Jerry

And I filter for honesty, too. In fact, my friend said this to my ex when she asked him for advice about marrying me. He's like, don't lie to Jerry. Tell Jerry the truth. He'd rather deal with the truth. Because then we know what we're working with. When one person is lying, you can't really fix things. When one person is incapable of telling the truth, nothing can get better, because you can't even share honestly about where you're at and what's happening.

So I hope this has helped sell you, or show you, that honesty is often painful and feels like it's the opposite of what you should do in dating. In the short term, that absolutely makes sense. My bed might have a woman in it tonight if I had just been willing to say what I needed to say to get her in here. I could even tell you two or three women's names that would probably be in here tonight, on Halloween, if I had just been willing to hide the things they shouldn't know until I hooked them emotionally. But that's dishonorable. It's disgusting. And it doesn't work out good in the long term.

Alone on Halloween Night, Talking to One Honest Woman

So I'm here by myself on Halloween night, filming videos about dating, talking to a woman in another country who's in bed right now. I explained how I got comfortable with that whole idea in Dating Overseas: Why I Tried It and Why I Won't Fly for a First Date. And I'm feeling very grateful that I have one woman on this planet who really appreciates my honesty, and that I feel she is very trustworthy herself. To me, that's the ideal foundation for a relationship, which is the goal of dating. All these dudes on YouTube that talk about all these women they've been out with, it's like, the goal is not to go on dates, bro. The goal is to have a relationship. Because it's relationships that provide all the value I talked about in 26 Women, 50 Dates, and 100 Reasons I Keep Going, and relationships are why I still say dating is the most worthwhile thing you can possibly do. The relationship provides the value. Getting laid, getting a woman in my bed, is worthless. I could pay. I could just pay to have one woman after another in my bed. That is transactional and worthless. I wouldn't. I did in my 20s, and I wouldn't recommend it. That's why I'm not doing it, because it's gross. And just lying to someone to get them in your bed is also disgusting. Just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean it's a good idea. So I think I've made this point abundantly clear.

Thank you very much for watching. If you want more, you can talk to me at jerrybanfield.com/call. You can have me review your situation completely, via email or audio messages or videos you send me, by getting a video review with me at jerrybanfield.com. My Author in St. Petersburg shirt is available on jerrybanfield.com. There's only two of these, and I'm not going to print any more of them. You can buy this shirt. You can buy a signed copy of my autobiography, Un-effin' Myself. There's a Jerry Banfield 3D game out there, kind of like Duke Nukem, and there's a Jerry Banfield Top Fan game. My website, jerrybanfield.com, has all kinds of stuff, including all six of my YouTube channels.

If you enjoyed this, I have six YouTube channels, and I invite you to check them out, starting with everything I've learned this year in my Dating playlist. Let's be honest. Let's be honest in dating, and it will make everything better for everybody.

I Thought No Games Meant Tell Her Everything

From my video published August 5, 2026.

I recently dated a woman I was really excited about, especially after she told me no games. She said, "I don't want to play games. Let's just be authentic." She said she wanted a man who was authentic. So I thought, great, I can just tell her everything and have a heartfelt connection. I don't have to play the dating game. I don't have to intentionally filter what I tell her, intentionally slow myself down, or intentionally act a certain way in order for her to open up and want to be with me. And for the first week or so, that seemed like it was working well — until my messages ended up looking like a one-way street, where I'm paying attention to her and all she wants is space.

I've been trying to figure this out so I could explain it, because I'm not saying she was wrong or I'm wrong. It's a miscommunication. Now, these are generalizations, and there are all kinds of people dating — this is just a helpful way to think about these dynamics. When she said no games, when she said "I want a man who's authentic," and when she expressed that she liked that I had emotions, that to me meant: great, I can just be myself with no filter and open my heart to her. But from her point of view, that turned into pressure. She needs to run. She's not safe. This is too much. Those seemed to be the things going on in her mind: she needs to pull away, we're just not right for each other, I must like her more than she likes me.

What Playing Games Means to Me

From my point of view, I should have played the game. So what does it mean to me to play games? To me, playing games means I need to act inauthentically. I need to act like I don't like her as much as I do. I need to withhold my interest in her. I can't tell her that she's my queen. I can't tell her that I'm really excited we met. I don't get to compliment her as much as I think I should. I need to let her wonder a little bit whether I like her. She needs to want to spend more time with me and feel like I'm not giving her as much time as she really wants. She needs to feel like I'm very socially valuable and that she's getting a great deal with me.

And what's annoying about this whole scenario is that when I literally did and offered exactly what she seemed to want, that turned out not to be what she actually wanted — especially looking back at some of the stories of men she dated before. It sounds like they were just awful with her, and yet she put much more time and energy into them, despite me offering what I thought she said she wanted.

But I know going forward that there's a difference between how men and women process dating. Now, maybe some women would align with me. Maybe there's a woman out there I wouldn't have to play any games with. But by default now, I need to assume that I must play the dating game. In my experience, no games simply does not work.

How I Played the Game Perfectly 15 Years Ago

I look back to when I met my ex-wife 15 years ago, and I played the game perfectly — because at that point in my life, I was an active alcoholic. I was used to very intentionally modifying my behavior and everything I did and said to fit the audience. If I was hanging out with the boys, I'd act one way with them. Then when I'd go out on a date, I would present the persona I thought would be most effective to get the woman into bed. Playing games was very natural for me. I knew in my 20s that you always show up and filter every single thing that might be a red flag to a woman. You're careful about what you're saying. You don't show you're too interested in her — except with your actions. You do go for a kiss. And my philosophy, too, was that if a woman didn't sound like she was compatible with me, I'd reject her immediately. I didn't concern myself at all with being authentic.

For example, after my ex and I had sex for the first time, I didn't text her the next day, because that to me was how you played the game. If the woman is a quality woman and you just had sex for the first time the day before, she's going to text you. She's going to message first. And if she doesn't, she's not worth keeping. I was playing the game perfectly at that time. I wanted to text her all day. I remember this day very clearly, 15 and a half years ago. I really wanted to text her all day. I was so curious, so nervous, so on edge. But I didn't. I played the game. I said, I can't text her first. And I was so good at the game that the game felt authentic at the time, although uncomfortable. I even made up a reason why: I told myself I'd gotten kind of aggravated when she left, so I'm not texting her. I got to the point where I had learned the game so well that I just played it instinctively. And she reached out and messaged me first. And it worked great — because after she had sex with me, she then had this whole day of uncertainty. Does he like me? Does he want to see me again? He said he'd be my boyfriend and I'd be his girlfriend — why isn't he reaching out? I played the game perfectly.

That's how it went, and all my friends were always saying, "Dude, your ex is so beautiful. Never get divorced. That's the best you're ever going to do." How did I do that? Because I knew the dating game and I played the dating game. I went to any lengths to hide anything that might scare her off. I hid my alcoholism very intentionally from my ex until I had hooked her very hard emotionally and we'd moved in together — six months. I was as inauthentic as possible when it came to my drinking. And then by the time she sees what an alcoholic I am, it's difficult for her to leave at that point. In AA, we call that taking hostages.

And I'm sad to see all this. Maybe there's a woman out there who could watch my vlogs every day and fall in love with me. Maybe there's a woman out there I could just start talking to off the top of my head, and she would love that. But I have to assume — or I'm choosing to assume, or the data seems to be suggesting to me — that I must play the dating game if I want to have a realistic chance with most women.

Loving Women Means Understanding How They Work

Despite all this, I'm not putting women down. I always believe in treating women with respect. That's exactly why I want to learn and take the most effective approach with a woman. I believe in loving a woman as much as possible. Everything I do is out of love. I love even this woman who said she's not interested. I still love her. I still love my ex. I love women so much. I'm very enthusiastic to go out with the woman I have a date with later, and the woman I have a date with tomorrow, and all the women. I love women. And part of love is to respect and understand how people work. I love my children, and part of loving my children is to pay attention to them and understand how they work — that certain approaches with my children work better than others. I don't like threatening my children, so I take the approach of leading by example: I'm going to trust that you're going to do what you say you're going to do. And that seems to work really well.

It seems that with women, even if a woman tells me she doesn't want games and wants me to be authentic, I'm going to have to interpret that — or I'm choosing to interpret that next time — as: she doesn't want to feel like I'm playing games. She doesn't want to feel like I'm being dishonest with her or hiding stuff from her. But I also have to reflect that if I just do my idea of authentic, my idea of not playing games, that's generally not going to work, because of how she operates and how I operate. Most of the time, I've got to play the dating game or I'm not going to get in. I'm not going to find somebody to date if I don't play the dating game, because from my point of view, it's just a game. It's calculations.

Now, yes, there is magic to dating, and maybe I'll find a woman I don't have to play any games with. It might be a little more difficult than usual for me, because as a friend who knows me says, "You're an anomaly. I don't know any other men like you." Maybe some guys can play no games at all, be authentic, and just interface and connect with a woman perfectly because of how they live and how they operate. Maybe you're the kind of guy shaking your head right now thinking, "This isn't a game to me. I normally just operate like this, and it works well with women." Well, back when I drank and was used to hiding and playing games with everyone, it was easy for me too. I could get dates with women — I had a harder time getting dates, but once I got a date, my dating game was very strong, and there was a much higher conversion percentage than now.

The Game Is On Until Proven Otherwise

The main thing I've been doing lately is just trying to be authentic. And it seems like almost no woman actually wants an authentic version of me. But that's OK too, because maybe one day a woman will. I will have to ease into it more. I was trying to ease into it with the queen, but apparently we crossed some threshold where it was too much. And then I think: I should have played the game with her. I should have seen her less. I should have paid way less attention. I should have gotten way less excited, and I should have continued to date other women. It's much easier to just naturally not invest much in one woman. I've got two dates right now, women I'm asking on dates, more dates I'm trying to set up, and a matchmaking service — it's just easier for me not to invest as much in one woman when I'm dating a bunch of women, or talking to them and trying to get dates with a bunch of women.

And then you could argue, well, maybe that's no games. Maybe if I'm not sure exactly how many women I've asked out this week — I've sent messages to several, I've gotten some no's, I've gotten some non-responses — maybe that's who I authentically need to be: a guy who's trying to maximize my options. And then I can authentically just take my time with somebody. Or maybe one day I'll run into a woman who's an anomaly, who's able to handle my heartfelt expression, who's able to really appreciate it when I'm really excited about her, and who's able to express that same thing with me. Maybe I'll find a woman one day that I don't have to play games with. But at this point, I have to assume the dating game is on unless I find very clear evidence that it's not.

If you want to follow the rest of this journey — the wins, the rejections, and everything I'm learning along the way — I share it all in my Dating playlist.

And if you made it all the way through this whole confession, let me get to know you. Come join the Jerry Banfield Family, where you can ask me all these questions directly.

In the Family you can introduce yourself to the whole group and even post your dating profile for review. It's a place for complete, all-around belonging — that's why I call it the Jerry Banfield Family.

You can also schedule a call with me if you'd like to talk one on one.

I won't play any games with you in the Family. I'll respond to your messages as soon as I can. I'll show up the way I am normally: I respond as soon as I can, and I give everything I've got. And maybe one day, a woman will appreciate that.

Be Yourself Is the Best Dating Advice Nobody Understands

From my video published June 28, 2026.

Be yourself is actually the best dating advice, but it's also the most misunderstood. This is a big breakthrough I've just had recently, and I think you're going to be really excited to hear about it, because it makes dating so much easier. And for some reason, I hardly hear anyone besides Mark Manson and his book Models talking about this.

Normally, I've been dating with the idea that I can't be myself, because I'm going to offend women and push women away and nobody's going to want to date me. So when somebody says, be yourself, I have this subconscious response that I can't be myself. And also, who is myself? Many of us are so used to performing that we don't even know what it's like to actually be an authentic version of ourselves with somebody. The problem, too, is that often not being ourselves works better in the short term.

That's my frustration with dating YouTube. A lot of people I've seen on dating YouTube are teaching you to get short-term results. What they teach often does work in the short term, but look closely and many of them have never had, or consistently don't have, long-term happiness. They'll have a lot of people they get with, but very few that turn into anything real. This is why, in my experience, you don't need red pill or purple or black or whatever pills people are thinking about. Really, all you need to do is be yourself and figure out what that is.

What Is Being Real Versus Performing?

So the first thing we have to differentiate is, what is me being real versus me performing? I had this epiphany the other night, and it came based off the last piece I did talking about how she didn't feel the romantic chemistry. So I studied that. If you are having people say, well, I don't feel the spark with you, that's a great one to look at before this or right after, because it will make sense. I studied romantic chemistry, and it came surprisingly right back to just being yourself, because I am a person people feel a lot of emotion about, except when I go on a date with a woman and try to perform and impress and get picked and hide the truth. Then they don't feel that romantic spark.

In that last one I did live, I talked about how focusing on having fun and connection, and then crossing the lines a little bit when it comes to intimacy, is effective. That's what is being taught by some dating coaches in order to get women to feel something, to feel a spark. But before, I was thinking, well, I can't be fun on a date because I'm going to repulse women when I do that. So I had a great experience I'll tell you about. I put the stuff into action immediately, and I realized that when I'm focusing on being fun and connected and crossing lines, that is me being authentic. It's really more about a comfort zone than about boundaries.

I was out with the boys the other night, hanging out, and we were talking so much shit, dirty, dark jokes, laughing, roasting each other. And I'm like, that feels like I'm just being myself. That feels like playful fun. I'm sharing deep emotional stories. I'm crossing lines. I'm having fun. I'm unpredictable. But then I looked at what I've been doing on dates when women have told me they didn't feel the romantic spark. I've been doing the opposite. I've been showing up acting like it's a job interview. And the thing is, that stuff sadly will work in the short term, but in the long term, you're going to destroy yourself. If you catch yourself doing that job-interview version of dating and want help figuring out what being real actually looks like for you, that's exactly the kind of thing I love working through with people — join Jerry Banfield Family and we'll work through it there.

How I Performed With My Ex

What I did with my ex is a great example of that. When I met my ex, I was in this habit of performing, trying to be this person who's socially acceptable, when often I am not a person who is socially acceptable. If you think I'm mean based on my videos and the stuff I say online, which has a lot of terms and conditions, you should hear what I say in person. If you think this is bad, imagine what I say when there's no censor or filter. I'd been in that habit since my 20s, and then when I got divorced last year, I picked it back up. I was performing. All I was trying to do was convince a woman to get with me and have a relationship. I wasn't thinking at all about how that would work out in the long term. All I was trying to do was perform, impress, get picked, and absolutely hide the truth.

For example, when I used to date in my 20s, I would hide my alcoholism from women, because I wouldn't want to date a woman who would put up with me being an alcoholic. And at the same time, that put all this pressure on me, where I had to hide this big part of myself and my drinking. Then eventually my ex sees my alcoholism when we're married, and I have to stop and change. But what's worse than that is the humor. When I dated my ex, I did not come out with all my dark jokes. I was a corrections officer, always into listening to music, playing violent video games. I grew up with a mother and father who were both in the military. My mom was a career officer in the vet corps. So we had a dark sense of humor at my house growing up, and that's what feels very natural to me. That's the comedy I like. But when I would go out with women, I would absolutely take most of that dark edge off my humor. I felt like I couldn't go for my own jokes. So I would often be kind of boring, sitting there trying not to offend her. I'm trying to make a sale rather than make a successful relationship.

So what happened is, 15 years after I started going out with my ex, I'm riding in the car with her, and I feel like I've been so suppressed for so long, I've censored my personality so much, that I just take it for granted that the internal monologue I'm having can't be shared with her. And that feels awful. It sucks to work in the short term trying to perform, but then to land somebody you have to keep performing with indefinitely. If I had just been myself, there's no way my ex would have gone out with me on a second date. But 15 years later, I'd probably be with somebody who really liked the honest version of me.

The Night I Stopped Performing

So let me compare that to what I just did two nights ago, applying being yourself and stopping performing and trying to impress and hide the truth. There's this woman, and I'll minimize any details about her since this is public, but I really like her. I'd seen her months ago and hadn't seen her in months, and then I saw her at this social event I went to. In the past, I would have tried to do all this stuff, perform and impress. Ironically, the first time I met her, somehow I didn't do that. Somehow I ended up talking all this shit and she thought I was hilarious. I've gone out with at least 20 women this year, and none of them have laughed at the stuff I've said like she has. And yet I was too eager. I had messaged her immediately the next day after getting her phone number. She shut it down right away. I gave up. Then she ended up getting a boyfriend, I deleted her number, and I hadn't seen her in six months.

So I run into her a couple nights ago. She says hi, but she's hungry because she just played tennis. In the past, I would have just desperately tried to keep talking to her, because I'm trying to get as much of her attention as possible. But instead, after she started to introduce me to her friend, I'm like, look, I'm hungry, I'm going to go grab some food. And she seemed kind of surprised. After not seeing me for six months, I immediately dismissed her. And I felt great, because I'm like, I'm so hungry I can hardly pay attention. Obviously I'm paying a lot of attention to her, but not constantly, and I'm talking and hanging out with other people as well.

Then I see that she's sitting in the hot tub at this event. And I'm like, all right, now I feel like talking to her, so I'm going to go talk to her. I slide in next to her in the hot tub. She's having the most boring conversation with this guy. She is just sitting there, and I'm like, oh my God, that's me. That's what I've been doing. This guy is scared to offend her. He's having, I swear to God, a copy-and-paste conversation you could have with AI. It's like I'm watching what I've done with 20 women this year in the third person. I'm like, oh, this is what they're talking about. This guy is performing. He doesn't want her to not like him. He's having safe conversations. He's using cheap copy-and-paste phrases. She's clearly bored. And I sit there and watch the conversation for like five minutes, because I'm just thinking, is this ever going to get interesting? How can she stand to have this conversation? This is so boring. And I'm like, God, this is what I've been doing on dates.

So then I'm like, all right, I've had enough of this, I'm going to start being myself. And I just intuitively know what to do, without trying to think about whether I'm going to like her or she's going to like me or any of that. I kind of look at it like I'm in the hot tub with the boys. What am I going to do? I'm loud and boisterous. I'm talking shit. I'm making darker and darker jokes. And she slides away from him, slides up next to me, starts bumping into me. But from there, a lot of times I would have switched into, okay, now I've got her attention, now I need to calm it down, now I need to try and keep it. But I didn't, because myself is just what you see here. I'm just out there being me. And she starts saying flirty things to me, and I just keep talking shit. Then I remember she missed my comedy routine last week, so I'm like, do you want me to perform my whole comedy routine again just for you? And she's like, yeah. And I'm like, okay, well, I customized it for the audience, so what should I do for you? And she's like, well, don't say anything negative about women.

So the first thing she does is tell me not to do something. Well, I'm going to do the opposite. So I literally made a derogatory joke come right after that. And she looks slightly offended. Do you think I stopped? Because I'm not the kind of person, if I'm being myself, who wants to walk around on eggshells and be super careful and gentle. I'm a little rough. Then she said something else, and I was talking about my ex, so I started telling emotional, personal stories too. The same kind of thing I told you about my ex, how I hooked my ex emotionally by being just enough of myself to get her interested, but filtering enough to not really show her the parts she wouldn't like.

So I was telling a story like that. I was talking about how mad and angry my ex got on one of our first dates. I was talking about some issue, and my ex was all worked up about how important it was. I'm like, no, that's not important. It's not worth focusing on. It's ridiculous. Pay attention. We don't need to worry about that. That's not that big of a problem. People are starving. Tens of thousands of people are starving a day. We need to handle that. We need to work on priorities. Feed people first, then we can worry about other stuff. The issue you've raised is not important at all. And my ex was so mad she didn't talk for 30 minutes. We were at this theme park, and she was furious, because most men wouldn't talk to her like that, since they're trying to perform and impress and hide the truth from her. But that's why my ex liked me, because I made her feel a huge range of emotions, from anger and "I can't stand this guy" all the way to "oh my God, he's so amazing, I love him." I was just enough myself to show her the things she would like. But I also hid some things. This was on like a 10th date when I made her that angry. I avoided making her that angry earlier, even when there were chances to, and I probably should have, because then she probably wouldn't have gone out with me again.

So I was telling this woman that, and she then tried to tell me, I don't want that kind of emotion with a man. I want just to feel a little bit. And I blatantly disagreed with her, boisterous, right over the top. I'm like, that's ridiculous. You're trying to tell me that if you go to a theme park, all you want to do is ride the kids' roller coaster and have these little tiny ups and downs? I'm like, no way. You want big drops. You want big ups and downs. And it's hard to admit, but that's what's true. And then she got up out of the hot tub right after that, because I kind of overloaded her. All these dudes in the hot tub are just quiet, watching me as I'm talking to her. And it felt really good.

When She Walked Away, I Didn't Chase

As she gets up out of the hot tub, now in the past, a lot of times I would have been like, oh my God, I offended her, what did I do wrong, I shouldn't have done that. But I'm like, if she doesn't want that real, raw side of me, if she can't handle that, then the last thing I would want to do is try to convince her to have more of it. I went up and talked to her again a little while later, and then I had more of a conversation that wasn't quite so polarizing. It was a nice conversation. I was playful and messing around, having her throw stuff in the trash can, and she was laughing all over the place. And I'm like, see, this is what happens if I'm myself. The real version of me draws extreme, polarized reactions from women, where they either love me or they hate me, but it's not lukewarm. If you're tired of getting lukewarm reactions and want to talk through where you're still performing instead of showing up as yourself, join Jerry Banfield Family and we'll look at it together.

I never again want to hear from a woman that she doesn't feel that romantic spark. That's an indication. If she didn't feel the romantic spark, then I'm being inauthentic. Because if I'm being authentic, she's not going to say she doesn't feel the spark. If I'm being myself, she's either going to love me, and that's not going to happen most of the time. Most of the time she's not going to love me. Most of the time, if I bring this personality to a woman, 95% of women are probably going to be like, ew, you are offensive, you are mean, you are too much, you are not who I'm looking for.

So I've been trying. I've gone out with like 20 women in the last year, and I've got so many lukewarm responses I can't stand it. Because what a tragedy it would be. Sure, maybe 19 out of 20 women would be like, absolutely not, I can't stand you. But what if that 20th woman would have been like, oh my God, I feel so much with this guy? But she didn't feel that, because I was trying to take the edge off my personality. Talking to this woman helped me see that for 15 years with my ex, I often didn't feel like I could just share from the heart with her. I felt like I had to perform and adjust my personality, which I eventually did. I tried as hard as I could to adjust my personality so I wouldn't offend her and aggravate her and get her mad as much. And then she didn't seem to like me as much when I did that.

But this woman, I talked to her and I said, you laugh more than anybody. You laugh more than anybody out of all the women I've gone out with this year. Nobody's thought I'm as funny as you. But I also realized I haven't let most women see my real sense of humor, because I've been afraid of pissing off that 95% who are not going to be down with this. But then I've missed out. Maybe one of those 20 would have loved to see the real version of me. And that's what be yourself means.

Why Most Dating Coaches Get It Wrong

This is so much harder, because you're going to filter fast. Almost all the men giving dating coaching advice tell you not to do what I just said. The more you try to remain a mystery, the more you try to not get the woman's ick factor triggered, the more you try to just perform and impress. Almost all the dating coaches are talking about perform and impress. They're talking about putting on a show for the woman, having these stories ready to go. You're doing a performance, and they even encourage you to use the same performance with multiple women, because then you already have your lines down, you already know what will impress the woman. But in all cases, you are hiding the truth. Do not tell her about this or that. Don't tell her anything she shouldn't know up front. If you don't have your money right, you hide that. Take an Uber if you don't want her to see your car. Almost all the dating advice is short-term, and almost all they have is short-term results to show for it in terms of hookups.

But imagine, I was thinking on the way home from this event, imagine riding in the car with a woman where I could let my real sense of humor rip. Because riding in the car with my ex, she would get annoyed or offended when I would say some of the stuff I was thinking about other drivers. In the beginning of our relationship, I just flat out didn't care, I was so myself. But eventually, the longer I was with her, I slipped into just performing and trying to impress her, because I got tired of making her angry all the time. My ex enjoys a sense of humor that's different from mine. She likes this real, thoughtful, witty humor, something like The Office or Jim Gaffigan or Nate Bargatze. That's the kind of humor she likes. I like Anthony Jeselnik, Dean Cole, Louis CK, Jimmy Carr, Jim Norton. I like graphic shock value. I'm going to swear. I'm going to tell stories that are going to push the limits. Like Anthony Jeselnik, fire in the maternity ward. That's funny.

It's funny, I was so into my ex's world, and I had censored and filtered myself so much, that when I first watched Anthony Jeselnik, back when I was deep in a relationship with my ex, I had a hard time laughing and was offended. But I watched his newest special back when I was getting out of that, and oh my God, that was funny. I had just gotten separated, and I was dying. I'm like, oh my God, this is so funny, I love this, this is my humor. The darker and more graphic, the more crazy it is, the more hilarious. That's normally what makes me laugh. If you see me sitting around somewhere smiling, I'm thinking something really mean and nasty a lot of the time, and it's entertaining me. And I'm like, oh my God, imagine riding in the car with a woman where I could rip the same stuff I'm laughing at, and I could speak it out loud, and she laughed too. That would be so good. But the hard thing is, when you actually lean into being yourself, you will filter so much faster, which is good, but it conflicts with all the stuff you're being taught most of the time to convert for the short term. And what's funny is, me being boring is also filtering faster too.

What I Care About Now

What I care about now is this: if I can't make the kind of jokes I want to with a woman, if I can't talk the same kind of shit with a woman that I can talk with the boys, no thank you. If I can't rip on somebody else and use all kinds of obscene language and dark humor and crazy shit that I can't even say online, if I can't do that with you when we're going somewhere, then forget it. No, I am never getting into another relationship like that again. From now on, that's how you talk. From now on, I never want to hear a woman say she doesn't feel the chemistry with me. I either want that one out of 5%, maybe even a one or two percent woman, to be like, oh my God, if you don't marry me, I just am not going to be able to even date again. I either want that reaction, which is not going to happen that often, or I want a woman to say, I would never go out with you again, you are offensive, you are mean, you're an asshole, you're a jerk, you are an arrogant person I couldn't stand to be around.

I should be triggering extreme emotional reactions, because that's what I do with everybody. I am a person who gets those emotional reactions. And I think most of us, if we're being authentic, that's exactly what we're scared to do. We're scared to have someone we're out on a date with disgusted with us right to our face. But if you're being yourself, if you're being real, you should be off-putting to the majority of people, because the majority of people are not going to want to date and marry the real you, which is understandable. But you want to filter and get with someone who loves the real you, the you that doesn't have to perform. If you want help finding the courage to be that off-putting-on-purpose version of yourself and filter faster, that's a conversation I'd love to have with you — join Jerry Banfield Family and bring it to me there.

How disgusting for me to realize that I ended up performing in a marriage, and I got tired of performing at the end of it. I got desperate to be with a woman who would actually accept me as I see and experience myself. A woman I could share my thoughts with and be brutally honest with, who wouldn't be all offended, and a family environment that would support that. My ex's family, they're happy to go around and talk about the weather all week. I can't stand that. They're going on a vacation right now, and I'm so glad I'm not there this year, because it sucked last year. Nobody wanted to talk to me. Nobody asked me anything about myself. And that's what happens when you perform in the short term. You may win, but you will get punished for that in the long term, when you're on a family vacation 14 years later and no one wants to talk to you because you're too dark, you're too graphic. And then when you're not doing that, you're too boring. I want to be with a woman whose family I could go to where all of us could talk shit and laugh together. God, that would be good.

Most People Don't Think Enough

I hope this has made a difference for somebody, because if I hadn't thought of this... Some people on my videos say, do you think too much? I'm like, most of you don't think enough. You should be analyzing and thinking and improving and checking yourself, because that's how you make changes. That's how you do better. If you're just on autopilot, if you're not thinking and questioning what you're doing, you're going to get a life designed by somebody else and by your past choices, instead of a life designed by you.

I am so excited that I just realized this: if I'm rigorously honest, if I'm real, yes, most women will be like, fuck you, I don't want to ever see you again. That should be the response from at least half the women I go out with, when I make a joke that puts them down and they're all butthurt and roasted by it. If you can't take a joke like that, I don't want to go out with you. If I can't say the rudest thing I can think of to your face and you can't laugh at it because you appreciate I'm being playful, then I don't want to go out with you. If you're all serious and you think politics are important and we've got to take that stuff seriously, I don't want to go out with you. If I can't make fun of everything you think and believe and try to destroy your whole reality, and you can't laugh about that whole process, I don't want to go out with you.

And I'm not saying anything specific to men or women. The woman should be able to crack jokes about men to me. I want my woman to do everything back to me. My woman should be able to crack all the jokes I've said to her right back. It was imbalanced in my relationship with my ex, because she did that stuff to me. She would crack all these jokes at my expense. But I didn't feel safe cracking jokes at her expense, because she gets so upset and butthurt. She could dish it out, but when I would even do a little bit of my humor, she couldn't take it. We should have figured that out in the first three dates. But we didn't, because I was performing and trying to impress, especially because I thought she was really attractive. I was trying to get picked, and I was trying to hide any truth that would result in her not picking me in the short term. But in the long term, it becomes this one-way thing.

Cut the Bullshit on the First Date

So I encourage you, figure out who you are that is most authentic. If you're a man, how you're acting with the boys is probably most authentic. If you're a woman, how you're acting with your girlfriends is probably most authentic. And what I'm thinking from now on is that I'm going to come into a first date and say, look, cut the bullshit with me. That is not going to set a tone a lot of women are going to like. They're like, what do you mean, cut the bullshit? I'm like, don't bullshit me. Treat me, act with me, how you do with your girlfriends. Give me the straight talk. Tell me the real shit. Don't bullshit me. Don't try to perform for me. Don't try to get me to like you. I want to see the real you, the teenage girl, the five-year-old kid, the 30-year-old woman you are now. Show me who you really are right now. Don't bullshit me, and don't try to get me. If you want to practice bringing that no-bullshit, fully-yourself energy into your own dating, I'd be glad to work through it with you one-on-one — join Jerry Banfield Family and we'll dig into it there.

Men and women both do this. Dating has often become stressful because you get two people showing up, and both people are trying to perform, impress, get picked, and hide the truth. But I can't stand that anymore. I'm showing up, I'm going to be real, and this gives me the chance to be loved fully. I left this party, and wherever it goes with this particular woman, I left with this amazing feeling like, the next woman is going to love the real me. The next woman is going to love my humor. The next woman is going to really be able to love me. And I'm not going to have to always be hiding stuff from her and trying to change myself to get her to love me, to like me, and to approve of me. And she's going to be able to be her full self too. Because all the stuff I've talked about that happens with men happens with women too. Women have a dark sense of humor and sometimes have to hide it from their sensitive husband. Nothing I'm saying is intended to be even about gender. It applies across the board.

I think a lot of us are so scarcity-minded that we feel like we can't be ourselves, because there aren't enough opportunities. But I think the more we're ourselves, the more we'll also clear space for the right person to be there. Because if you hook somebody, like I did with my ex on short-term strategies, look at what happened: I just blew 15 years with somebody, and she used to consistently say she didn't think we were that compatible. Why did we get to having kids and not being that compatible? Because I wasn't real on the first date, the second date, the third date. If she'd have seen all my humor and my alcoholism and how much I was into video games and talking shit and the music I listened to, if she'd have seen that stuff right up front, she would have run.

And I'm grateful for all the women who saw a little bit of the real me this year and were like, oh, I'm not feeling this, my intuition says you're not the right one. I'm like, good, because if you don't like what I'm being, honestly, then you are not the right one. I'd rather be single than get stuck with somebody I performed and tried to impress. And I noticed in some of the comments, people saying, you're mean to women, your standards for women are crazy high. No, I am being honest and authentic and myself. If you find that mean, you are not the right person for me, because there's a lot of love, unconditional love and loyalty and generosity and self-introspection going on. There is a lot of compassion and joy and empathy and understanding and thoughtfulness and intelligence underneath everything that's going on with me.

I've come to believe that if you want to have a whole experience of the world, you need to be able to face the light and the dark. We're often constantly getting funneled with this toxic positivity. You should be able to look at the dark and the shadow side and all the crazy stuff and embrace it and have fun with it and laugh about it, because that's how you have a complete experience. And if you don't agree, great, then we should not hang out. I want a woman where we're aligned. I don't want a woman I feel like I have to do short-term stuff to get with. I want a woman I can be real with. And look, if you don't fit, get away from me. I'd rather have that space, because if you fill your space with somebody who's not right, then you're not ready for something better. If you want to go deeper on all of this, I've gathered everything I'm working through on this in my Dating playlist.

If this has helped you, I would love to know that. You can send me screenshots from a text conversation you're having, you can ask the community, or you can talk to my AI that's been trained on my videos.

Why "Just Be Yourself" Doesn't Work in Dating

From my video published June 15, 2026.

The advice that keeps failing me

Here's why I don't trust just be yourself in dating, and this will be a really helpful video if you're struggling with who am I in dating, should I run the game, or why don't people just like me as I am? This is what I've been facing recently, is the advice everyone gives me is saying, just be yourself, be authentic, be honest, be open, but I've got a problem with that advice because in my experience, that doesn't actually work. What works is running what I call the game. Let me give you some context.

When being open-hearted backfired

When I got divorced last year, I started being what I thought was myself. I was just real open hearted and excited and honest with the women I liked, but it did not once did it even start to go well. I came in warm, I saw the possibilities, I felt hopeful, and all the women I liked were universally repulsed from that. Meanwhile, when I actually got with my ex, who was absolutely gorgeous 15 years ago, I was constantly running the game. I was playing the game. I was being more neutral, more indifferent, less invested, and the attraction, not just with my ex, but with a bunch of attractive girls before her, came much more easily.

This creates a real conflict and a hard question. If one version of me.. If one version of me gets rejected, the version of me that goes up to a girl and is all excited to talk to her and really wants to get to know her and is open hearted and enthusiastic about the possibilities based on the attraction I feel, if that version consistently gets rejected, where the women I like, for example, let me give you some very clear examples. I go to this sober dance party in St. Pete, Florida, and I meet this girl there on the dance floor. And she's looking at me, making eye contact.

Her friend introduced her, so she got a warm introduction to me. She's giving me signs. She's interested. I talked to her for a couple hours. She's not dating anybody, although she said, I'm not dating right now, which if I was running the game, I'd immediately, either roasted her over that or said bye. But I kept talking to her. We held hands. We sat and looked over the water, and we had a lot of fun and laughter together. She gave me her phone number. And then I was being very real and authentic. I was excited to meet her, and I texted her the next morning saying, hey, there's a yoga event tonight I think you'd really like.

Would you like to go? And of course, she's immediately cooling me off with that. Oh, no, I don't have time. I'm too busy. And see, in that scenario, I always felt like I was being really authentic. I just shared from the heart. I didn't try and filter or make anything happen. I just was connecting with this girl. And I woke up honestly excited and reached out. And do you think things went well with that girl? Absolutely not. She had no interest in me and was never that warm again. As soon as I sent that text message the next day. And then I wonder, that side of me felt pretty authentic.

But let's compare that with playing the game.

What I mean by running the game

So a lot of men and like dating coaches and guys that are in like the manosphere and stuff, I've learned how to play the game 15 years ago really well. I actually learned in 2009. So 17 years ago, I was playing the game and I got one hot girl after another to like me, to fall in love with me, to want to go to bed with me over and over again. And I knew how to run the game. The game was not showing too much emotion, not appearing to be too available, being a little aloof, having options, not acting overly attached too early. And that meant not showing.

Girls, honestly, that I had interest in them. And the crazy thing was, it was also not honestly feeling interest in them. And it worked over and over again. For example, if that girl I had met at the sober dance party, if I don't message her for several days, she probably is actually more attracted and more interested in me because now she spent several days wondering what I've been doing and hoping, thinking, did I like her? She's had several days to miss me and want me. But instead, when I text her the next morning, which feels authentic, like something somebody not playing any games would do, then she's turned off by it.

When the game runs itself

The uncomfortable truth is, too, this game was working for me even when I wasn't even consciously playing it. I was just honestly, there was one girl that I hooked up with right after I moved out of the house from, getting separated with my ex. And I woke up. This one morning, and I'm like, I'm going to just go through my phone and text girls and try and get one to come over tonight. I texted 11 girls first thing in the morning, and I had one girl that came over and spent the night. And I didn't even like this girl. I felt like I had to stuff every part of authentic me and just zip my lips and not criticize all the ridiculous things she was saying, all the things she was saying that were turning me off constantly, that were making me not like her.

I didn't find myself. I didn't find myself very physically attracted to her. I was pretty indifferent and honestly unavailable and not showing very much emotion except intentionally faked emotion to try and connect with her. And as soon as we were in the bedroom and she had a good time, she really liked me. I was so excited when she left the next morning. I made sure to get rid of her as soon as possible the next morning. If I would have actually liked her, I would have made sure to get rid of her. I would have made sure to keep her around the whole day if she wanted to.

But I made sure to get rid of this girl immediately. And I haven't seen her again since then. And of course, what happens? She starts texting me. I don't reach out to her at all. She texts me. She's texting me all day. She really likes me. But I ran the game honestly on her because I honestly didn't have any emotion for her. I wasn't available or interested in a relationship with her at all. I was totally aloof because I knew this isn't a girl I really like. And I was not at all attached to her. And it worked. She was very interested in me. I don't know if I've ever turned a girl on that much before.

I share more of these honest dating stories and what I've learned from them in my Dating playlist.

And it's ridiculous because it's a perfect example of the conflict between I know that the game works and the girls I'm most wanting to just be authentic and not run the game on, the ones I find attractive and I'm interested in, then, those are the ones I most need to run the game on because I can effortlessly not like a woman or pay much attention to a woman. Now, I think the ideal issue is that we should all be treating each other with love and fairness. And ideally, we should all be rigorously honest with each other. And that's why, at this point, running the game or playing the game, I can't stand it.

I don't want to play the game. But I get no results if I don't. When I was running the game, and I was, when I met my ex, like, I was blatantly not being real. I was intentionally hiding as much as I possibly could of anything I thought my ex wouldn't like. And all the girls before her. I was intentionally just being whoever I thought they wanted to be, whatever would attract them. And it worked. Not every time, for sure. But it worked. And it worked great. But as soon as then we got to the point of hooking up, I often would get very tired.

Because the energy I went into playing the game with required that I consciously didn't even like them that much. I had to intentionally push down any positive feelings I had and emphasize the negative feelings. And then many of the girls I was just interested in, increasing my body count or looking at them as a conquest. And I couldn't even tell if I really liked them until we hooked up. And my ex, I just found out, that I actually did really like her. But she was also so hot. That seemed to be all I really cared about, too. And she was pretty cooperative and fun.

How I won over my ex

When I met my ex wife, if I wasn't running the game, I probably don't get a second or third date with her. If I just met her and I was like, oh my gosh, you're so beautiful. Tell me all about yourself. Here, let me tell you all about me. She probably, she was dating another guy at the same time she was dating me. I was, according to her, I was running my game better than him. I was aggressive. I was manly. I was running the game. And this guy sounded like he was just being very authentic and taking it slow and really into her. And I was the one like on the second date where I'm going in for the kiss.

And I'm like, my thought is at the time, my game was if we don't kiss at the latest by the second date, I'm finished with the girl. I don't care anything. I don't care anything else about her. If we don't kiss by the second date, I'm done with her and I will go for it. And unless she like says, absolutely not, please don't. If there's any, if there's positive signals, I will make the effort. And if she's not interested, I will back off and be gone permanently, immediately afterwards. So this is the thing is the game gets so much in terms of results. And I'm certain that I can just keep running my game and even get better at it than I was before.

And I can have all kinds of women, but some beautiful, some not, but I can have as much action as I want running the game. And I will also not waste my time with women either. Like I went out with a few girls that I didn't like that much from online dating apps and it was effortless to just never text them again. And they didn't reach out to me either. If they had to reach out with me, I would have shut that down or I would have just ignored them. So here's the problem though. My ex often said that she didn't feel we were really compatible.

She feels that normally the two of us would not have got together, but she never put it together the way I've put it together now. We got together because I knew how to attract a woman. I knew how to get a very beautiful woman to fall in love with me because I'd done it repeatedly. I knew how to run the game and turn women on and get them attracted and hook them emotionally. And it felt like I had to be dishonest in order to do that because if I was being honest, like I went out with this, as I described in one of my recent videos, I went out with this girl that was a 29 year old doctor and I didn't run the game on her.

I told her that I thought she was attractive. I gave her compliments. I said that I had a great time and wanted to see her again. What do you think happened when I text her the next day? She didn't respond. And like now, it's just extremely predictable. I guarantee you, if I run game on that girl and I don't talk to her for several, I don't message her or ask for several days after the date, I guarantee you, she feels totally different about me. The problem is with this, though, lots of time what works to get someone attracted and get them in the bedroom and even to get a relationship and even have a family and kids, is that something necessarily, sustainable for the long term?

Because maybe my ex would have had a better life if I hadn't been running the game and she got with this other guy instead of me. This other guy who is more passive and not such a man, not so masculine. But this other guy who might have been nicer, might have been, a much more compatible fit for the two of them. But I bulldozed him out of the way. She didn't have time. She didn't have time to even think about him with me running my game at my level. And then this gets down to, well, my friend, I was talking to him and his wife last night and they both tell me that they weren't running game.

They were just being authentic with each other and he expressed on his date, first date, how much he liked her. He followed up right away. He even went by her workplace and brought her coffee just a couple of days after their first date from online. Like, that's, you won't see your boy doing that if I'm running the game. Now, if I'm being authentic, I love to do stuff like that. I love to do things that make my woman feel special. But unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be what actually gets a woman interested in me. If you're caught in this same tug-of-war between being real and getting results, you might find it helpful to book a one-on-one call with me so we can talk through what's been happening in your own dating on our call.

Friends who say authenticity works

Now, this got me thinking because my friend was trying to sell me on being authentic and telling me that will work, but I have no evidence that will work. I've never seen me authentically being authentic. Being loving and excited about a girl. I've never seen that once work in my whole life. Every girl I've ever got with was from running the game. Or from, like, literally, whether it was on purpose, like, ooh, I think she's hot. All right, game face on. Or being so disinterested that I was just naturally running the game. So my friend's telling me about trying to be just be yourself. But then this gets to what is authenticity.

Authenticity is me being a guy who is all enthusiastic about a girl. Is me on that date I went out with on the 29 year old doctor, is that me authentically? Or is that just me running kind of a version of myself? Like, if you think about it, like, each of our personalities is just kind of a working program we're using today. And about a week ago, I realized my working personality was not getting effective results with women. That I'm grateful. I'm physically attractive enough. Now, if you're not physically attractive enough to get that first impression with women where they find you physically attractive, I just put up a video about weight loss, for example, that can be really helpful.

I'm lean. I have a beautiful face, in my opinion, which matters most. And I have an energy about me, like a strength that women, not all women, but consistently, women notice me and find me attractive. Even dudes notice me. Like, when I walk into a room, I got a, big, strong energy and presence about me. That's, the kind when I share, people are like, who is that? I've got that presence about me. For example, the 29 year old doctor I went out with. She was very physically turned on by me when, based on the first impression. Like, I could see she was very enthusiastic to be out with me.

She was having a good time. But the more I was authentically me, the more she kept getting less and less interested. I guarantee you, if I had ran my game, she'd have been more interested and probably made out with me at the end of the date, instead of me getting her phone number and texting her and she ignores me. And that brings back to what is authenticity. If my goal is that, if there's a woman I'm attracted to, I want to do as much as I can with her. Isn't it authentic for me to just adjust my personality to run the game, to run whatever programs that achieve that objective?

I've successfully done that last week. There was a gorgeous girl at yoga today. And I came in with a, I don't care at all attitude. She starts talking to me first. And I, like, I put my mat farther away. And she's like, do you have enough space? I made her repeat herself. Cause I was like, I don't even understand what you just said. So I said, what did you say? And like, I didn't, if I was being like what I thought of as authentic a couple of weeks ago, I would have been all excited and I would have started talking to her and asking her questions.

And in almost every case, that has left me with a lot of anxiety. But I come in today, this girl starts talking to me first. I put my mat down with this energy of like, I don't care. I'm going to be where, and it, she starts talking to me first. And I'm, I make her repeat herself. And then I give her a one word answer. I say, yes. And then I walk off. It's like, I put this energy out of, I don't need anything from you. And that seems to really attract women, unfortunately, especially girls that are hot. And I'm like, I don't need anything from you.

And I guarantee you, even if I just go in there with the energy that I had before, this girl does not talk to me first. When, when you're really running your game properly, hot girls will start conversations with you. My personal trainer was on his game and like he just, girls would just try and pick him up. But this brings back to what is authenticity because I feel like there's this version of me that's really loving. Like I am with my kids, like where I just, want to snuggle them and play with them and have fun. And be as nice as I can. That feels authentic, but it also feels authentic to roll into a room and have this alpha male energy where, I'm a big presence and a big deal.

This same tension between who I am now and who I was a decade ago is something I dig into in I Can't Date Like I Did 15 Years Ago.

And if you want some of this, you better start something because I don't need you. I got all kinds of views all around and I'm only interested in the best I can get. And I'm not tolerating any, any wastes of my time. I'm not tolerating any BS. I will ghost you immediately because I have a full life and I don't need you. The crazy thing is women often like turn their heads at that kind of energy. And women just run away from the honest. Now, this is not all women. What I'm saying is most of the time, what my friend described sounded like an exception last night.

And maybe it's a certain level of maturity. Maybe it's a certain level of attractiveness. What I find is funny is if a girl's attracted to me enough, it's like I can just do whatever I want to. Like, but still, if I had been real and authentic with the girl that I hooked up with last time, I'd have told her, I would have said, you completely turned me off. And if I'd have been, if I'd have not been focused on running the game and just, getting mine, I'd have told her, get out. I'd rather be here by myself tonight than deal with you. This is a challenge because I'm looking at, I ideally would love a world where we can all just be honest with each other.

And where our honesty is that we are open hearted and loving and we want to embrace each other. And when it comes to dating, if we could all just honestly express our preferences, our likes and our dislikes, what we find attractive, our interests. But that doesn't seem to work. And if I focus mainly on what I love about a woman, they seem to not like that unless they have pretty low self esteem. And the ones that have that kind of low self esteem, I can't seem to find attractive.

Which version of me is real

So now I'm going down into like, what is honesty? Maybe authenticity is not whatever I feel most strongly at the moment. Maybe authenticity, maybe the excited, romantic, open hearted side of me that's real, but the cautious, discerning, emotionally contained side is also real too. And that leads me to, which one should I lead with? Well, I know that if I lead with the cautious, discerning, emotionally contained side, that that's the one women raise their eyebrows and notice when a man comes in with that energy. I had another interaction with a girl that was very pretty and I was so excited to get to know her and her friend had already told her about me.

So she already had got a positive opinion of me before she even met me. And then she's really cautious and guarded though. And if I'd have been running the game, I'd have cut that off immediately or I wouldn't even have triggered that cautious and guarding. But instead I went in like a kid just trying to be excited and fun. And and I left feeling horrible. I left feeling roasted. I left without a phone number. I left with a resentment. And it's like, if I'd have been running my game, either I'd have just not even hardly paid attention to her. And she would have tried to chase me more.

This same girl right now is chasing this guy and doing everything she, from my view, she's doing everything she can do to try and get with this guy who has stated to me that he has no interest in her like that. This is the guy she's trying to get with. And he has stated to me, he has absolutely no romantic interest in her. He does not find her attractive. He does not want a relationship. With her, he won't even do anything physically with her because he doesn't want her to hook him emotionally and try and rope him into something that he knows he doesn't want.

And here she is following him, feeling like in her mind, from what I can see, that, she's treating him like a boyfriend and she's trying really hard to break through. And when I hear my mom tell the story of meeting my dad, same kind of thing with him. So this leaves me looking at, like, it doesn't seem like pure authenticity works at all in dating. And it leaves me frustrated because if I'm authentic and then I get rejected, it kind of really hurts. And maybe that's why I don't want to do it. My friend said that, the cost of, that you are running the game, because you're coming from a place of hurt.

And I am hurt. One woman after another, after another. Universal rejection when I'm being what I feel is authentic. But when I'm running game, it doesn't hurt. If there's no hurt, if there's, if they don't text me or they're not interested in me, I don't care because I don't need them. And I'm just out there. I'm going after whatever's available. And if you're not available, I don't care because I'm going around when I'm playing the game, I'm closed hearted and you're not getting in here. And you're going to have to work to even try and get a little piece of some genuine emotion for you.

I'm constantly intentionally encountering any of the loving emotion I have to try and balance it or even slide it to negative. And it's just, it's really annoying that this works so well. And it works 15 years ago in my twenties. And it works. Right now, just the same 15 years later, despite so much of the world changing, it works just the same. Even though there's so many women out there that I know, and I respect that they're saying, stop playing games with us. Don't use these rules. But then I say, well, stop, stop letting that work to attract men. Stop being attracted to men that you can fantasize about because you don't know them enough.

I've passed out books to all kinds of women, like autobiographical books and universally turned, turned off every woman. Not one woman found me being real about my life. Not one woman found it attractive. Every single woman found me honestly sharing about my life repulsive. Across the board, across any type of relationship, any type of friendship, any type of history. Women universally repulsed by me sharing the truth. Now my friend says, and it seems that authenticity can lead to a better long term relationship. But it seems like if, if I go down, the authentic path, I'm going to be completely alone and just have to have faith that someday someone's going to come along who isn't repulsed by a man being straightforward and honest.

So far, I've not seen any evidence except my friend and his wife that point to this even being possible.

The cost of running the game

At the same time, the game has a high cost to just a couple of weeks ago, I was going around putting out all this loving energy towards women. And so enthusiastic when a girl I liked actually liked me. But the game also creates fusion. Confusion hurts feelings, leads to false hope. And I know the game is not nice to be on the other side of. Because looking back, I can see the wreckage of all the girls I dated before. And even looking at like my ex, where, maybe she'd have had a better life with somebody besides me. But I got her. Because I was running the game and the other dudes weren't.

Will running the game actually lead to a happy relationship? I've noticed a lot of men that write dating books seem to really struggle to have a happy relationship themselves. They can always get dates and hook up with girls. But a lot of the guys who talk about how to play the game don't seem to actually have long term healthy relationships. And when I stopped playing the game with my ex too, and it seemed like once I stopped playing the game, she didn't like me. She didn't like me as much anymore. The version of me she fell in love with off the game was not the version that then showed up to just be authentic and be there.

If you're wrestling with the same questions, you can schedule a private call with me and we'll talk through them together on our call.

And I know, I know it hurts when you get ghosted when you go out with a guy. And he doesn't text you back for five days. Yeah, I remember one girl went back in my game running days, aggravated me. So I, after spending the night with her, I left her and didn't text her for four days afterwards. Even though we're a boyfriend and girlfriend. It's like, I'm tired of this, you can, you can have some space to think about me. And she, she decided that after four days of not hearing with me and and deciding that the phone didn't work on her end either, that she was ready to break up and I was a little hurt at first, but at the same time, I moved on.

And then there was another girl right after her, another attractive girl that was really into me right after her. That's the thing. The game can work in the short term. Absolutely. But what if it works on the wrong people? I don't, I don't like being a version of me that feels fake, but I don't like being this guy that women just are universally turned off on either. I want to be honest, but I'm not even sure what to do besides run the game at this point, because I don't see a better alternative than just running the game. Rolling in everywhere I go, say whatever I feel like, like last night, there's this girl I've, I've known for six months.