I'm Jerry Banfield. This is a real, raw, authentic day. Dang, how many times do I have to say that? This is a day in my life as a full-time creator who is 220-some thousand dollars in debt and desperate for money, and I've just filed a report with the FBI. Wow, I already don't like how I've started this off. Maybe I should just delete it. But I have had some breakthroughs in the last 24 hours that I'm really happy to share here with you, because I literally went to bed crying, just feeling so defeated and frustrated. And yet, to me, that's where breakthroughs happen. That's where we get smarter, where we learn something. Our pain should be like putting an iron in the fire, where it comes out red hot and ready to bend. That's what I felt like last night.
In fact, the more pain I felt emotionally as I thought about all the nights my wife and I spent watching TV and movies on the couch, snuggled up, the worse it got. I'm single and have been celibate for a year now. I got divorced last year, and she's got a new boyfriend she's doing all of that with. I just felt agony. Then I looked at my financial situation and thought, I need to make tens of thousands of dollars by the end of the year, or I'm going to need some kind of other miracle, or I'm going to have to move out and just be desperate. And that's disgusting. So I was like, come on, you can do this. Who do I need to pray to? Jesus? Jesus, Satan, Muhammad, Buddha, Shiva, whoever, just tell me who I need to pray to. Myself? Fine, I'll just affirm that you've got this, bro. What do I need to do? You figure it out. All right, figure it out.
So I had a few breakthroughs yesterday in the middle of this pain, and I share this stuff here. I would rather not share this with you. All right, I'd rather not. It doesn't make me feel the greatest or look the best. I'd rather keep a lot of this stuff to myself. But I've come to believe that my story is the one thing nobody else can make, so here it is.
The meme coin, the hackers, and the FBI report
One thing that triggered my frustration is that my meme coin, Jerry on Robinhood, tanked to a $60,000 market cap after hitting as high as $160,000. That high was on September 22nd, the day I launched it. It was also the day hackers compromised my Google account. I didn't realize that I had been a lazy boy and had signed up for a new MetaMask account with my Google account. I didn't realize that was the one loophole left after I closed the rest of them. So the hackers had my MetaMask account, and they rugged my coin. They sold $13,000 of it. Well, it was $20,000 in my wallet, and when they rugged it down, they got $13,000 out of it.
So yesterday I made a report to the FBI, which basically dragged me through the mud again. Some people are like, well, why haven't you submitted this report? Why haven't you contacted the FBI when they sold $20,000? Why haven't you reported that they took $20,000 from you and rugged the coin? Why? I'll tell you why. Because I didn't want to drag myself through the mud on it again, which is exactly what I had to do in order to make the report. And I felt like crap afterwards. I'm like, you are such an idiot, man. How did you let these dumb scammers get you on a Teams call and take control of your computer while they say they need to grab a thumbnail? You're a dummy. Come on, man. That was so stupid. How did you let them do that? My coin would probably have been into the millions of dollars by now. And the guys who stole it only got $13,000 and something, maybe $14,000, out of it.
At least, looking at the information I gave to the FBI, it does destroy the narrative of all the people saying, you rugged your own coin. Look, I put $5,000 into it. I wouldn't have rugged the whole coin to get $13,000 out a couple of hours later. That would have been $8,000 profit. I don't care about $8,000 profit enough to destroy, to sabotage, or to make it so much more difficult to get my meme coin back to where it was.
Why I'm not allowing hate on my streams anymore
I got all riled up and fired up yesterday, too, because I did two live streams, and especially on the second one, there were so many haters. The problem is negative energy. I'm sensitive. It's so toxic. One of the things I generally do well is avoid listening to so many of these people who are just lonely and dysfunctional, where all they want to do is call names and talk trash all the time. And thriving, to me, does not usually happen with a bunch of name calling and trash talking. This is the environment that I think stops most average people from going anywhere, because you're surrounded by people who just talk trash and call names and drag you down. If you want to do well, like I've done well, then you've got to stop with all these people who drag you down. You've got to do anything to get away from them. And at the same time, I want to be there and connect with my community.
So, yeah, yesterday's vlog felt like a total failure. I showed up all excited to go live and connect with my audience, and then what happened? You get one jerk after another coming along who just wants to talk trash, take me down, and call names. So I retitled it to "I'm not allowing this on stream again." I realized I need to do my vlogs by just recording them, so that nobody interrupts me. Those of you who like to watch would prefer that I not be interrupted and distracted constantly by people chatting. Then, once or twice a week, I'll do a long live stream. I'll schedule it as far in advance as I can so you know when it is, and I'll just sit there and talk to the community. Because most of you are not watching live streams after I'm done being live, since you figure you missed it.
That's how I've grown my channel. I also did a deep analysis with YouTube, and it looks like videos like this have been the thing I've done that has really helped grow my channels, whereas doing live streams deepens them. I'm going to talk more about that on the creators channel. It's kind of amazing, all the insights I've had.
Sitting with the shame of the FBI report
But yesterday I experienced the highest amount of emotional pain I've had in a while. Just feeling stupid, especially with that FBI report. It's like, what kind of an idiot who's been in crypto for 12 years has to sit here and submit a report to the FBI that scammers managed to get into his Google account, steal $20,000 of his crypto, and wreck his coin? I try to be nice and loving with myself. But just putting myself on that page and submitting the info, I was like, oh, I hate that I'm doing this right now. I hate that I have to do this. I hate that this happened. It's funny, I kind of dodged some of the emotional pain at the time it happened. But yesterday I had to sit there and face it. And I'm like, okay, I'm set up to make sure that doesn't happen again. And I'm persisting on my coin.
In fact, one of the brilliant takeaways from yesterday is that sometimes what looks bad is good. When my meme coin first got rugged, I had 20 percent of the supply, which was worth $20,000 plus, and they stole all of it. Now I've got a lousy 5 percent of the supply. And I've already lost another $1,000 or so from the price tanking because somebody sold the coin. Yesterday, somebody sold $4,000 of it. At first I'm like, this sucks. Who did that? But then I thought, oh, now I could actually buy more of it cheaper. This is good. In fact, I wish everybody would sell it so that I could buy back as much as I had before. Then I could promote it like crazy from there. It's funny, the same thing that looks bad is actually good. I can buy it cheaper now. People who are getting in early can get a better deal. And obviously this isn't financial advice. I'm just talking about my own experience with a meme coin that I launched.
Cranking out videos, Shorts, and a better way to sell memorabilia
Then I had several more insights. I realized I need to just crank out videos like this. I need to keep putting out Shorts, and the Shorts need to be clipped from videos like this. Then I had more realizations after that. I figured out a way that I'm going to start consistently selling Jerry Banfield memorabilia in a fun format. I think I'm going to do something like Jerry Banfield collector's boxes, something that makes it more fun and more reasonable to pay a higher price. I'm reading Seth Godin's Purple Cow, and I'm like, I need to offer products that people are really enthusiastic to buy, that are fun, that are not just a couple of hundred dollars for a shirt or whatever.
With that in mind, though, I've marked down the Queen shirt. This is the shirt I wore when I first met the Queen. And this other one is the shirt I wore when I arrived at VidSummit and on the first full day of the conference. I've marked down all the collectible stuff for the time being. Anything that doesn't sell, I'm going to handle like this shirt, which I also marked down. So many of you want things like autographed books and shirts, and I want to make it fun, not something boring like "go buy this T-shirt for twenty dollars." I want it to be a real unboxing experience. So I'm going to start selling Jerry Banfield collectible boxes.
So if you want to grab the Queen shirt, or anything like the gold satin shirt, grab it before I put it in a box where you won't be guaranteed to get it. I've lowered the price on pretty much everything in my store, and anything that doesn't sell on my website, I'm going to turn into mystery boxes. I'll make it very clear. I'm going to show every single thing that could be in any of the boxes. You'll know exactly what's possible, but you'll only be able to buy one box, and there will only be something like 10 boxes. Every month I'm going to try this. I'm going to have Jerry Banfield mystery boxes, and they'll have autographed books. They'll have all kinds of fun stuff.
I'm thinking I'm going to buy an Ableton Push 3 and make some new music, so the boxes could have my music in a certain format in there too. The collectible boxes will be a cool experience, where you can buy one and it's all done personally by me, with collectible stuff in it. I ordered some coins, which apparently are going to take a month to get here, but I ordered them. So I'm going to make some fun, very limited edition boxes for something like 10 people that I'll start selling every month. Then on stream every month, I'll be like, hey, this will be in the next collection of mystery boxes. I may put some stuff up individually and then throw anything that doesn't sell into the mystery boxes. Or I'll just put all of it in the mystery boxes. That was a really cool breakthrough.
I want you to go to my website and buy stuff, because that's the bottom of the funnel. The top of the funnel is free videos, live streaming is the middle, and then for the really serious fans, there's stuff you can buy. I especially want to offer stuff you can have in person.
Every thumbnail should show something you can buy
I also realized something about my thumbnails. I've been wondering what the heck to do with them. I've got my titles in a decent place, but I feel like my thumbnails have just been getting wasted on random images and AI-generated stuff. Every single one of my thumbnails should be showing off something you can buy on my website. When I had those eBay auctions up, people bid everything up to 20-some thousand dollars, and the auctions all ended up being fake. Well, the auctions were real, but people made fake bids that they had no intention of ever paying, and they confirmed that via message. It was exciting and then quite disappointing, and it was painful. What it led me to see is that I should always be sending people to my website, and that's where I should be making my real money.
I have a new dashboard now, a public business dashboard, showing that I've made $4,633 in sales across 33 paid orders. The average order is $140, there have been 23 different buyers, 32 items sold, and there are 10 products for sale right now. That's where the majority of the money should be coming in, because I can sell shirts. I can sell mystery boxes. I can sell courses. I can sell comedy. I can sell games. I have a game called Meme Coin Dynasty, and it's awesome. It's a fun little game. If you click on Shop at the top of the page and then click on the Meme Coin Dynasty game, you can buy it with crypto, and it's fun. There's a leaderboard to see how high up you can get. Right now Max Resist is number one on the leaderboard with his Max Resist coin. I don't know how the heck he got it up to 11 million dollars. When I played it, I could barely get to a hundred and some thousand. The last time I played, I just got crushed trying to play my own little game.
Maximizing my funnel and making lives members-only
So what I see is that I need to focus on maximizing my business funnel. The top of the funnel needs to offer amazing free content, like I'd like to think this is. The middle of the funnel should be interactive lives. And I think I'm going to make my lives members-only. That way, people who are generous will have a clear avenue to give gift memberships to everybody who's not a member. If I make the chat open or just moderated, trolls can easily come in and get that first nasty comment in all the time, which, on some days, bothers me. Other days it doesn't bother me so much. But I think the days when I'm more heartfelt and really able to connect with you are the days the criticism and constant trash talking get to me.
And look, yesterday I was like, forget constructive feedback. Almost nobody in life wants constructive feedback. Maybe many of us should be more open to constructive feedback, but I've gotten enough constructive feedback at this point. And here's the thing. I don't want constructive feedback unless I asked for it. If I didn't ask you to give me constructive feedback, I am not interested in hearing it. I assume the women I've dated are not interested in me telling them they should lose weight, or get sober, or maybe get a better attitude about kids. They're not interested in that feedback. What I've noticed is that if you try to give constructive feedback to people who aren't asking for it, it's not constructive. You're being a jerk. And I've been a jerk a lot of times.
The warm lead I ruined with six texts and unsolicited feedback
My friend connected me with one of her friends. She's a single parent, an attractive woman who is very single. She doesn't have dudes lined up like you would think. People talk about how women have endless options, but she doesn't have dudes lined up. She's been going back to a guy she's broken up with over and over, like six, seven, eight times, and her love life is not going well. She doesn't use dating apps. She doesn't even want to participate in that, which I understand, since I've written about how the apps are a bad deal anyway. This was a warm lead. All I probably had to do was say, hi, I'm Jerry Banfield, and then literally do nothing. She might not have texted me for a week or two. But at some point she might have reached out and said, hey, let's go for coffee.
What did I do instead? I sent her six text messages over the course of a week. She sent one back. And then I sent constructive feedback. Did she ask for constructive feedback? No. Is me giving her constructive feedback a good look for a guy she might want to date? No. I've never once given a woman constructive feedback before being intimate with her and had that go well. Ever. In my 20s, I knew you don't say anything that might hurt a woman's feelings. Absolutely no constructive feedback before you've slept together. Come on, man. But at the time I was thinking, well, I'm just going to give this to her. It's not constructive feedback if someone is not interested in that kind of point of view. I thought I'd learned my lesson about texting when I wrote about how waiting to text was wrong, but it turns out over-texting and then critiquing her is just as bad.
I've had a number of women this year go the same way. There was another one, a woman in her early 20s I went out with. I tried to give her some constructive feedback and never heard from her again. This is a woman I had ghosted, and she reached back out, and she was pretty interested. We'd been out on a bunch of dates. The thing that killed it was constructive feedback. It's the same pattern I described when one comment ended a date I was really into. So I am not interested in constructive feedback. I'm not interested in criticism. I'm not interested in name calling. I'm not interested in hate. Now, if somebody else wants to do that somewhere else, that's fine. But in my community, when I'm interacting with my fans, I'm trying to only interact with those of you who are supporting me and who love what I do. I don't want you to have to deal with these other jerks in the community either.
What makes someone a jerk, and why it's on me to find where I fit
I'd say someone's being a jerk if you show up somewhere, see everybody's trying to do one thing, and you try to do something else there. Man, this is going to make me look bad with Alcoholics Anonymous with what I'm about to say, and I realize that. But that's why there are some AA meetings I don't go to anymore. They just want this culty stuff, and I don't fit in there. I could fit in there, but I don't want to fit in there. I don't feel it's needed. Ideally, when groups of us gather together as people, we're trying to help each other and work together. When one person is out there trying to do their own thing and not considering everybody else, it just makes everything more difficult.
At the AA meetings I go to where everybody's trying to share and talk the same way, I get up there and say the opposite. That didn't get me any new sponsees. That made enemies of people who had seen me in other meetings and were happy with what I was sharing there, because what I shared at those other meetings was fitting in. But then I go to this one meeting and share, and it's upsetting people. And some of those people who got upset at that meeting are now upset when they see me at other meetings, even though they weren't having a problem with what I said at the other meetings. So that's why it's on me. If I go somewhere and I don't fit in, I need to go somewhere else and find places I fit in, where the groups of people are working together to achieve the same goals I am.
And I see it as the community leader. It's up to me to say, look, if you're not here to support me and cheer me on, then get out of here. Or watch, but keep your mouth shut. If you're not here to support me and cheer me on, I'm not interested in what you have to say. I don't care what you think. If you think I'm a bad father, or an idiot for getting into debt, or you think I rug pulled my meme coin, I don't care what you think if you don't agree with me and support me, or if you don't want to play with me.
Why jokes don't land over text
And I know it's hard sometimes. Is it hard right now? Not right now. But I realize some people are trying to play around and talk trash on a live stream and be fun. The challenge is that doesn't translate well over text. It's tough. This is why I prefer to send audio messages when I communicate with people, because it's much easier to make a joke via audio. Just sending text is risky. I sent one girl a text about her criminal history. I made a joke: did you get back, or did you get locked up? She didn't respond. She probably didn't think it was funny that I joked about her getting arrested again when she's already got felony charges she's dealing with. If I'd made that joke over audio or on a phone call, it probably still wouldn't have hit well, but it would have had a better chance of being seen as me just playing. Whereas via text message, it's easy to not receive the intention clearly.
It's the same on my stream. Some people are just trying to play around and joke and talk trash to make it fun. But it's hard to tell that from just a few words on a screen versus somebody who's incredibly antisocial and all they do all day is go talk trash in live streams. It's hard to tell the two of those apart. So, yeah, yesterday I got in a real negative space. But what did I do? I took my kids out to dinner.
I spent the evening with my mom and my kids, just because. Some of you think, oh, you can't have emotions, you're too emotional. Having emotions is fine. The key is that I have a wide range of emotions. You can call that whatever you want. But I still get stuff done and do what I need to do no matter how I feel. I take my kids out to dinner when I'm in a bad mood. I just submitted a report to the FBI about what a dummy I am. Or what a victim I was. Either one. Or what a generous person I am, that I just opened my MetaMask wallet to some random group of people and said, here, take my stuff. You could look at it that way, that I was really generous. I just let anybody steal my MetaMask wallet and rug my coin, and now I'll have to do a bunch of work to bring it back to where it was.
The woman in the produce aisle
This has been really helpful with dating, too. I went to the store last night, and there was this beautiful woman. I walked by, and my silly self, I didn't even need to buy anything, but I go back over that way to the produce aisle. But then I feel so much like garbage that I don't even try to look at her. I literally just look away and pretend like I'm shopping. It's like, all right, either just don't even go that way, or just walk by and say hi at least.
And then I realized something else, something I've probably contributed a lot to my dating problems. One thing my ex loved, when we met, was how much I wanted her. I lusted after her. I desired her so bad. And most of these women I've gone out with this year, I have not felt that. I'm like, nah, you're too heavy. You're too dumb. You're too inconsistent. I've been very condescending with many of the women I went out with, even attractive, smart women making great money. I'm like, you're too boring. Your jokes are stupid. You tell a story that should take 2 minutes in 20. I realized I have not been desiring most of the women I went out with this year. The problem with having had such an attractive wife for so long is that if a woman isn't just beautiful, I hardly feel anything. I'm like, whatever. I don't feel much desire.
The guy who accepts most women versus me rejecting most of them
I had a talk with someone who is consistently sleeping with women he meets online on the first date. I was trying to understand, and one thing he told me is, look, I accept most women. I'm very accepting. A woman's overweight? That's fine. A woman's got a bad attitude? That's fine. A woman didn't show up for her kids? That's fine. A woman drinks too much? That's fine. A woman doesn't have a high school diploma? That's fine. I'm like, jeez. And I took inventory of myself and realized I don't accept most women. I very quickly reject most women, at least in terms of what I will desire. It's a big part of why average men are doing so well out there while I sit here single.
Even with the Queen, whose shirt is up here, as soon as she canceled that date, if I'd been honest, I would have just said, it's over. You just canceled this date, last minute, for no reason, because you're in your head and you're a disaster. I'm finished. This is messed up and I'm out of here. That's what I would have said if I'd been really honest. Instead, I circled the drain and tried to make her reject me, so that I could feel bad about it, and I acted desperate and whiny. I told the whole story in the post where I expected her to reject me and then made it happen. But I knew it was over with her as soon as she canceled that date, because of me being intolerant. She canceled one date, and I'm out. You know?
Women feel it when you don't desire them
I had a humbling realization last night. It's like, dude, you are not desiring the vast majority of women you've been out with, and they know that. I think one thing that turns a lot of women on, and a guy with much more experience than me said this exact thing, is feeling your desire for her. That makes her feel good. It makes her feel wanted. That makes her feel the desire back for you. Lots of times, women are not lusting after men first. Sometimes they are, but it seems like usually it's the man who is lusting really hard, and then the woman, if she's open to it, gets turned on by that. Wow, this guy really wants me. She feels chosen. She feels desired. And most of the women I've been out with, even though so many of them were attractive, I find it difficult to desire, because as soon as the crazy stuff starts happening, my desire drops. "Oh, I go on these plant medicine retreats." My desire was up here, and then you told me how dependent you are on plant medicine, and my desire is way down here now. That didn't used to happen. Women could be crazy as anything, and if they were still hot, I'd be like, let's go. But not now.
Why I need to be friends with women first
This is why I need to be friends with women. I talked about this on my dating stream recently, where I said I realized that my dating problems have been of my own making. The live stream was called "I finally understand why dating hasn't worked for me in 2026." I'm not going to repeat all of it here, but I encourage you to watch that one if you'd like the full story on what I've learned. It builds on everything I listed in the post about my 20-plus dates after divorce and what I was doing wrong.
What I've learned is this. First off, I'm the type of guy who needs to be friends with women, because I'm way too superficial, way too quick to reject a woman, way too intolerant of ordinary character defects that women have, and way too uninterested if a woman's not attractive. At this point, I'm entitled. I'm like, if I don't find you way more attractive than average, you are below me. The only way it's going to happen is if the woman totally simps up to me and just constantly desires me, affirms me, messages me, and is really crazy for me. That's the only shot she has if she's a regular-looking woman, because I'm not doing anything. I am not that interested if you're a regular-looking woman. I would rather be celibate than get interested in an average-looking woman. I know that sounds bad, but let's be honest. That's what's been happening all year. There are several women I went out with who were pretty into me, who were giving me compliments, who wanted dates with me, and I was just like, you're not hot enough, plain and simple. And they could feel that I wasn't desiring them the way I was desiring my ex. They could feel that they didn't mean that much to me.
That's why I need to become friends with women. When I become friends with a woman, and I'm not immediately looking for this woman to be perfect, then there's a chance for me to love her as a person and kind of overlook a lot of other things. It's funny, at this point my dating life makes complete sense. I've been trying to just hook up with women, but I haven't been able to maintain it. I've been going at it saying I want a wife, but then I've been using these old hookup ways of thinking. I haven't been friends with women. I've been very intolerant of so many things I think of as character defects or incompatibilities. I've been very critical and offered all kinds of unsolicited constructive feedback. Like this one woman I met, a decade younger than me, beautiful, great job, wants kids. She talked about her plant medicine journeys and how much she was struggling with scrolling, and I said something like, I'm not there, I don't know if we should have met. And then afterwards I was like, oh no, I should have let that go.
I've been more superficial than any woman has been with me
It's funny, I feel like women have been superficial with me, but I've got to say I've certainly been more superficial with them. My desire drops very easily to a dangerously low level. It's like, maybe I should be consistently texting women and trying to meet up and do stuff, but I very quickly go from high desire to no desire for a woman. I'm not that thirsty, which is funny because I talk so much about dating and I've spent so much money on it, as I laid out in the post about spending $10,000 on dating. But when you compare me to a lot of these other dudes, I'm not that thirsty. I will just do things myself rather than deal with a woman who's crazy or a woman who's not attractive enough for my ridiculous standards after being married to and with a very attractive woman for 15 years.
There was this one woman I saw, and I literally saw her legs and I'm like, I'm out. Nope. Done. Can't see her again. No desire for her. It's gone. I look back and I'm like, Jesus, man. Some of you probably would have been perfectly fine with her. The guy I was talking to who's meeting women online all the time wouldn't give two hoots about this woman's legs. But I literally saw her legs and I'm like, nope, I'm done. I can't look at that. I deserve better than that. Geez, man.
And then I remembered some of these gorgeous women, my now ex-wife and a couple of these women who were friends that I then got crushes on. I was kind of in this state of spiritual experience. I'm not going to name their names here, but I was naming names. I want one of them. That's the kind of woman I want. You see how beautiful all those women were? I don't want anything else besides that. That's what I want. You did it before, now do it again. I'm not interested in anything besides that. Don't waste my time with any woman besides that. Because it's funny, if a woman's really attractive, I will feel an immediate, high sense of desire. But for almost anything besides that, nope.
It used to be that almost any woman would turn me on. Y'all should have seen some of the women I went home with in my 20s. Geez. A few drinks, and it's like that song, if I have one more drink, I'm going home with about anybody. Y'all tell me, oh, you should try big, beautiful women. I'm like, I have. When I was 19, I'd go home with a big girl, no problem. I went home with a few big girls.
Especially after 10 or 12 liquor drinks, I'd go home with any kind of girl. I used to pay for it, too. Like, ah, forget it, I'll just dial this phone number and be with whoever comes over. But now, dude, my standards have gotten ridiculous. I'll have a huge desire for a woman, and then as soon as she says something stupid, my desire is just gone. I'm like, ah, I can't stand you. Women used to be able to say the craziest stuff and it didn't affect my desire at all. So I see that either I've got to compromise and take a more plain-looking woman, or I've got to compromise and deal with some crazy. I can't be expecting a woman to be extremely attractive and not crazy.
I should have let the parenting rant go
I think I'll probably continue to optimize for attractiveness, and I just need to let more go. Like the woman I went out with who was talking trash about parenting and all that. I should have just overlooked that. I should have just let it go. Because she was hot, she was fun, and she cursed a lot. I like a woman who's like, forget them, talking trash, making obscene gestures. I'm like, yeah, she's hot. I like that. I was so turned on by her. But she literally went on a 10-minute rant, and my desire went to zero for her. I'm like, dang it. And she was very interested in me. She was simping to me. She was trying to brag. She was clearly so insecure. She was trying to brag and make herself up to be the best woman, talking so much trash. I recognized that, and I thought, man, I should have just recognized what she was doing and let it go.
Because one of the hottest girls I went out with this year, who was also very successful and professional and a decade younger than me, I was doing that same thing on a date with her. I'm like, man, don't do that. That's pathetic. So this woman, very attractive, was doing that on a date with me. She thought I was a heck of a catch, and she was really excited about me. And then I lost all desire for her after she said that stuff about kids. Me in my 20s wouldn't have given two hoots about that. So I'm excited to talk more about this on the dating channel.
Pain is the opportunity
I'm grateful, and I hope that when I share this with you, if you're in pain in your life, you can see that this is also your opportunity. The pain is the opportunity. Even in the middle of the pain, you can say thank you. And what gets you out of it is spending time with people and talking to people. Fortunately, my roof was leaking yesterday. So my neighbors, who are my landlords, came over to have the roof repair guy there. I was in the worst mood, but I was just surrounded by people. My kids were there. The neighbors came over, and I can't be in a totally foul mood in front of my landlords slash neighbors. Then I went out to dinner with my kids. My mom was supposed to come, but she was so late that we had finished the food before she even arrived, so we just met her at my house. Then my mom's over. Then I go to the grocery store. I spent so much time with people and so much time doing things for other people.
I still ended up crying, and to me, crying will often move those feelings and get them out. It's often hard for me to let negative feelings pass unless I cry it out. That's my idea of emotional intelligence, because it can be hard to let negative feelings go until I just cry my eyes out. I said goodnight to my daughter. I gave her a hug and snuggled with her and sang "You Are My Sunshine." That's when I started sobbing, because sometimes my mind says, life is so magical, but the magic's not happening for you. Where's your magic with a woman? My mind will often point out where things aren't magical. But it's like, look, this is a beautiful experience. My daughter's in middle school, the time when she's probably going to stop wanting to snuggle her dad and have her dad say goodnight. That's something that could end any time. I remember my mom and dad singing and snuggling me goodnight until I was about 12 or 13, and then I didn't need them to say goodnight to me anymore. Then it was just, goodnight. I'm 13. I'm a teenager. I don't need Mom and Dad singing "You Are My Sunshine" to me. I'm a grown man. That's how I was thinking at 13.
See what's here now by noticing what you'll miss
I realized there's a certain amount of magic and beauty available every day. The question is, can you see what's here now? Often you can see what's here now by realizing what you're going to miss when it's gone. I'm going to miss my daughter being 11 and my son being 8. That's flying by. Those are precious, beautiful ages where they've got a lot of cognitive and communication skills, but they're still kids, and they still worship you and follow you. Those ages are about to be gone. They're going to be teenagers who think they're grown men and women who ought to be deciding and doing things for themselves, and who don't need their dad for anything except money, or a place to sleep, or a ride somewhere.
So this is the self-talk I'm having. Look, you're going to have that magic with a woman again. One of the beautiful women I've had crushes on and been friends with, one of those will work out. I've had a lot of beautiful women I respected whom I could have been friends with if I'd been lasered in on my type and realized, just be friends. Have as many beautiful women as friends as you can, because they have other beautiful women as friends, and somebody's going to fall in love with you, and you're going to fall in love with them. But for God's sake, if you've got a woman you desire, don't push her away. Keep her as close as possible and keep that together. I'm telling myself, look, you're going to have something happen with a woman again. And kind of the fun of it is that it's going to be a surprise. You don't know which yoga class it's going to happen at, like the yoga girl date, or where. Maybe I'll go to a run club tonight. I've been running on my own, and I'm kind of feeling like I should take myself out to a run club tonight, but I'd have to miss the AA meeting I usually go to. We'll see. The point is to be ready for the magic to happen with a woman, because I still want love to find me the real way. Be ready when it happens, but appreciate that this magic is here now with your kids. You might have some woman in the future and be missing this time with your kids.
So realize that in life, there's always more to miss than there is to appreciate. You've got to ask, what am I going to miss when it's gone? I'm going to miss having the house to myself to film videos whenever I want, and say whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want, to whoever I want. When some woman moves in, I might not be able to talk like this. I hope it'll be the right kind of woman where I can have plenty of time to film. But even if it is, there's a certain ease with which I can speak when I'm just sharing this with you, and I definitely need a woman who would appreciate that. I didn't feel comfortable with my ex when I was in the house with her for years. I didn't feel comfortable with her hearing the things I was saying on my videos.
A beautiful, perfect time in my life
This is such a beautiful, perfect time in my life right now. And I hope, if I've communicated anything, that you can see how this is a beautiful, perfect time in your life too. Yes, there are things you miss. I think of all these women, and it's like, dang, there were so many opportunities, and I just threw all of them away. Sure, they did stuff to throw them away too. But I need to adjust what I can adjust. Some of them have done perfectly well finding someone else to be their boyfriend. And I need to be ready to do it right next time, with the next great opportunity I get. I don't care about anything else besides a woman I'm very highly desiring, where we can also have a great friendship and she would respect me as a person. I think that's a great opportunity. Not a woman who sees me as an eventual meal ticket, or just a father, or whatever, but a woman who would just love hanging out with me, because the right person makes you want to give, not take. And man, I hope I've communicated this: look for what's beautiful in your life today, because it's going to be gone in the future. These kids are going to be grown and out of the house before I know what happened. I may have another woman and more kids, but these kids now, I love these kids. They're amazing. They're wonderful.
The shirts, the mystery boxes, and what's next
And I love this shirt I'm wearing, but I've got it listed on my website. This might be gone and out of the house before I know what happened, too. I love this shirt I'm wearing right now, and you can buy it if you want it. If you want some of these things I've worn on stream before I put them in the much cheaper mystery boxes with a bunch of other stuff in them, grab that stuff now, like the Queen shirt. I probably shouldn't even sell it, because that shirt has special significance to me, but I think it'll help me let her go. Just sell this shirt. Let somebody else have it who would appreciate it. It's a beautiful, Christmas-looking Jerry Banfield shirt that I've actually worn a whole bunch of times. It's a medium. So I'm going to let that go, and I'm going to let this one go too if you want it. I'm going to get rid of it all one way or another, and I'm going to make some money so that I can keep doing this.
I appreciate your love and support. If you've watched or read to this point, you are a lover, and I'm going to do whatever I can to keep creating for you, to create what you want to watch, and to offer what you want to buy. I value your feedback. If you're a member, I'll read your comments, and I will have members-only live streams to talk with you and get to know you. I plan to do a live stream sometime this weekend. If you want to follow along with the rest of these days as they happen, every one of them goes in my Daily Vlogs playlist. Thanks, and I hope to see you.