Here is my answer, and I am not going to hedge it: you cannot find real love while you are trying not to get hurt. For most of my dating life I did exactly that. I held back my interest, waited out texts, played it cool and quit the moment a woman showed any red flag. I thought I was protecting my heart. What I was really doing was keeping the love I had to give locked up, and I still got hurt. Now I open my heart early, on purpose, and I accept that the pain may come with it.
This page gathers the three posts where I worked that out in real time. They are not polished. One is a journal entry I wrote the day after a woman I had just met told me she had no time for me for the next month or two. Another is a story about a date I wrecked when I was 17. The third is from about a week after I met the woman I am dating now. Read them together and you will see my view move from raw hurt, to a memory that explains the hurt, to a stance I hold with more confidence.
The oldest is I'd Rather Feel the Pain Than Nothing, from October 26, 2025. I was wrecked. I cried through a restorative yoga class and I briefly considered medication that would flatten everything out. I rejected that. I would rather feel the pain than nothing. That entry also gave me a rule I still use: when someone clearly pulls away, I stop chasing. Looking back, I also see that my second voice memo to her was too much, and that I should have said nothing at all.
In I Have a Date Tonight and I Feel 17 Again, from July 16, 2026, I traced the pattern back to a date I botched at 17. A girl I worked with at a grocery store wrote her phone number on a slip of paper for me at her checkout lane. The date went badly. I was insecure, I asked to be taken home early, and she read that as rejection. Over the next ten years I got guarded and cold, drank to cope, and sabotaged good things. My relationship with my ex, which lasted 15 years, was the exception. After my divorce, dating became mostly pain.
What I learned, and what I tried next, is in You Can't Find Love While Trying Not to Get Hurt, from July 19, 2026. I had absorbed the advice to go quiet after a date so she would miss me. On a date with a woman from a matchmaking service, I followed it and did not text her for two days. She cancelled the second date, saying she was not feeling the romantic spark. My view now is that the problem was my guard, not her.
So I changed the approach. With the woman I am dating now, I lead with open-hearted love from the start: I tell her what I feel, I text first, and I trust her. I am not claiming this is easy. The anxious thoughts still show up, and I name them and keep my heart open anyway. I also make a deliberate choice to assume loyalty rather than betrayal, and to deal with betrayal if it actually comes. If it hurts, I have people to lean on: my kids, my mother, friends from AA and my tennis friends.
The shift across these posts is from treating pain as a reason to shut down to treating it as something I can survive while staying open. In 2025 the hurt was fresh and I was tempted to numb it. By July 2026 I was arguing that the surest way to find the right person is to be open from the first date, and that the wrong person will be repulsed faster. I still think that. I am also clear that it is my experience and my stance, not a guarantee.
Below, you will find each post in full, newest first, so you can see the reasoning behind this stance and judge it for yourself. If you want the broader argument, my dating mindset page and my dating advice myths page cover more of it.
If you are holding back in a relationship right now and want an honest outside view, you can get a personal video review from me at https://jerrybanfield.com/review/.
On this page
Every post I have written on this subject is below in full, newest first, each under its own heading.
- You Can't Find Love While Trying Not to Get Hurt (July 19, 2026)
- I Have a Date Tonight and I Feel 17 Again (July 16, 2026)
- I'd Rather Feel the Pain Than Nothing (October 26, 2025)
You Can't Find Love While Trying Not to Get Hurt
From my video published July 19, 2026.
Stop Holding Back and Go For It
You can't find love while trying not to get hurt. Stop holding back and go for it. I'm doing it right now. I just met a woman six days ago, and I'm going for it. I'm not holding back. I'm feeling every feeling I can possibly feel for her. I'm communicating that lovingly, respectfully, and appropriately, and she's responding fantastically well, and I'm getting that back.
Almost everybody else, though, is coming from a place of trying to minimize pain instead of maximizing love and joy and connection. Most dating advice out there sounds like this: don't text too much. Don't seem too interested. Match their energy. Keep your options open. Don't catch feelings too soon. Oh, you're simping. And all these stories go along with that. But really, the only thing you need to do to bring serious love into your life is open your heart and love like you're a child again.
I really respect the difficulty in doing this. I'm not telling you this is easy, or that you can just switch it on in a second. But I want you to see that your own inability or unwillingness — your own choice to hold back, to protect your heart, to play guarded — will block you from getting the love you want in your life.
How Playing It Safe Cost Me a Second Date
I will give you a very personal example of this. When I met my ex fifteen years ago, I loved and didn't hold back. I got so excited about her, and we had a beautiful fifteen-year relationship. Then when I got divorced, I was holding back. If I ever didn't hold back, it would only be for a moment, and then I'd quickly fall right back into defensiveness, anger, fear, rejection, and scarcity. When I met women, I would withhold my interest. I wouldn't text them. I'd instantly be disappointed if they didn't want to immediately start hanging out with me every day. If they said anything like, "Oh, I'm not dating right now," or showed any little red flag, I'd just immediately quit and give up. I tried to go out with as many women as possible, but I was holding back with all of them, which left me watching a bunch of dating advice about not acting too interested.
That advice cost me one particular match. On a matchmaking service, I matched with a beautiful woman who also appeared to be rich — takes-vacations-to-Antarctica rich. She seemed very interested in me. There were definitely romantic sparks on the first date, and she seemed like she had so much fun. But what happened? I started playing games. I didn't text her for two days, because all these fellas on YouTube were telling me, yeah, don't text her too much, don't seem too interested, don't catch feelings too soon.
What happened after two days? This is a woman ten years younger than me, and she felt neglected. She felt like I didn't care about her at all. She felt like there must not be a romantic spark. She felt me closing off. Even though we didn't talk, she felt that I was intentionally keeping safe, that I was holding back — and therefore she didn't feel all the feelings. Then she texted me and said, "Let's cancel our second date. I'm not feeling the romantic spark from here." I didn't even reply or ask any questions.
The Opposite Approach: Leading With an Open Heart
Let me tell you what I did instead — the opposite approach. The opposite approach is that I go around open-hearted, just offering love wherever I can. I made a video talking about workout classes and about opening my heart and really loving the women in those classes silently — not saying anything, not trying to pick them up, but just opening my heart and putting out: I love you. I'm so glad you're here. You're so beautiful. You're doing an amazing workout. You're so strong. I'm so proud of you for being here in this class. Thanks for being here and making this so much more enjoyable than doing it by myself. Just putting out that energy over and over again.
I had tested that a little bit in the past. I had even done it unintentionally sometimes when I was married. I ended up getting a crush on a woman in yoga while I was married, because I wasn't holding back. I didn't even talk to her for six classes. Both of us were in relationships. But she felt that energy I was putting out toward her, and she approached me and started talking to me first. I replicated that several times with other women, even when I was married. I thought, wow, I can just put out all this loving energy, and maybe ten to twenty percent of women will feel it and be very interested in me — and I don't have to say anything. Looking back now, that looks awful. I was putting energy that should have been devoted to my wife out to other women. Absolutely, and I would never do that again.
And yet in dating, it's like I forgot that the main thing I needed to do after I got divorced was to really wholeheartedly love a woman, and that from there, all other good things would happen. I recently remembered this, and I started going around just loving. That doesn't mean I'm just accepting any woman into my life, though. In fact, the more I loved open-heartedly, the more I started to feel it whenever it wasn't reciprocated, and I'm naturally not interested. When I send a woman an excited text message inviting her to do something and she doesn't respond for two days, I just naturally start looking for a better place to focus my love and attention.
Six Days Ago in Yoga Class
Then six days ago, I ran into a woman in yoga class, and I was putting out that energy. She was very interested. I actually talked to her first, but I had been listening to her conversation, so I had a very clear opener: "Hey, you're also a content creator." Then she could feel that radiating love, that gratitude for talking to her — but not feeling less than her. I felt like an equal, knowing what I have to offer. I have unconditional love. I have so much love to offer. And then confidence, because I know what I have to offer is really valuable, and when I offer it, I know I'm worthy of being with as well.
The last six days have just been incredible. It's been a constant exercise where my head will start saying, dude, this is crazy. You've only known her for three days, six days, two days, five days. It says you need to hold back, or my head will attack me with thoughts like: you're crazy, you can't just love someone like this you just met, she's not that into you. And yet I've just prayed: please, God, let me keep my heart open. Please don't let me fall back asleep into trying not to get hurt. All I want to offer is love, and all I want to receive is love.
So many people say, well, you need to be careful, or slow down. I say no. I'm going to love like I'm a teenager who's never been hurt before — besides by my parents, I guess. I'm going to love like it's a first date in high school. I'm going in with an open heart, so excited, figuring this might be my wife. If that doesn't work out, I can take the pain. What I can't stand anymore is going around trying not to get hurt and then getting hurt anyway. That's the insanity: when you hold back on the love you're giving, you don't get as much love, and then you still get hurt anyway.
Don't Worry About Getting Hurt — You Can Handle It
Dating has been nothing but hurtful for me except for the last week. It was purely hurtful, but that makes sense, because the energy I was putting out was, "Baby, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me no more." That was the energy I was putting out, and I understand why. After I got divorced, it was very hurtful for both of us — breaking up and all of that. At the same time, if I want to find real love, I've got to open my heart and just offer that "I love you" energy out anywhere. Then when someone's interested, focus that energy. That's what I'm doing. I've been focusing that energy onto the woman I'm dating now, just endlessly, almost like an affirmation. I'm even playing songs like Kesha's "Warrior" and "Supernatural" and other love songs to help focus my mind and my body: focus your love. Give, give. Don't worry about not getting hurt. Don't worry about getting hurt. You can handle it if you get hurt. What you can't handle is not really living. What you can't handle is walking through life like the living dead, like a zombie that can't connect with a human being anymore.
Dating isn't broken. I think the YouTube algorithm feeds on people feeling hurt, and then they watch all this content about how awful the dating scene is. In my experience, the dating scene is not awful. The woman I'm dating now has struggled to date, but she has latched on to me now that I've stopped holding back. Yesterday, when we were out on our third date, she said, "Finally, a man with a heart and emotions." Then she felt safe to express her emotions, and she was enthusiastic about hanging out with me again today.
It just feels so good. In fact, it's so much joy that it's an adjustment — like if you're used to listening to music quietly and all of a sudden the volume gets cranked up. A lot of us are used to not having that much joy in our lives. Six days ago, meeting this woman, it's like the joy just doubled in my life. And then it flows over to everybody else too: I'm able to put that much more love and joy out to my kids, to everybody else in my life, to God and to Jesus, to anyone who has supported and helped me, and to all of you online. When I stopped holding back, as soon as I met this woman, I told myself: don't hold back. Give, give to her. Trust her. Love her. And it's felt almost telepathically.
Compare that to the two days I didn't text the woman I went out with on that first date. The energy I was putting out then was holding back, playing games, following these people online who don't have what I want. I want a loving, beautiful relationship of massive joy, of family, a teammate, a partnership. I don't want to learn from somebody who's got a high body count and has never had a great relationship, who shows up on YouTube bitter, saying anything they can to get as many views as possible, and then selling their community to bring people into doing the same thing — all the while telling people this is how you're going to be successful with women. No. I know what works because I'm doing it and living it. I'm getting the results. What works is this: open your heart and trust. And be prepared, too. I have so many shoulders to cry on if this doesn't work.
Assume Loyalty, Not Betrayal
I'm transparent. I talk with my kids, and they know where I'm at. If the hurt comes, I'll cry on their shoulders, and my mother's, and all my friends' in AA, and all my other friends' — my tennis friends. I have so many friends, so many shoulders to cry on if it doesn't work, that I can handle it if it doesn't work. But what I'm most interested in, all I focus on, is: let's get it to work.
And I know it's challenging. You'd think after six days, so much connection with this woman, three fantastic dates, and her constantly matching my energy — being thankful that I'm willing to take the risk emotionally, because it's a challenge for her to receive this much love from somebody. I don't think she's ever had an experience like this before, and it's a little scary for her too. Yet I woke up this morning, sent her a voice note at 7:30 AM, and waited two hours for her to get up a little later. My mind was filled with anxiety and fear: this is it. You're crazy. You're going to get hurt. And I said, no, no. I love her. I trust her. She sent me a very nice voice memo right before bed last night. I don't think she suddenly went to sleep and just changed a hundred percent.
Now, some of y'all would say, that's possible. And it is possible. But the woman I'm going to really love and make a deep partnership with is consistent. I'm going to love her, and I'm going to love and trust and assume consistency. I'm not going to assume betrayal. A lot of people are getting a lot of views on YouTube encouraging you to protect yourself and assume betrayal. No — I assume loyalty. If there is betrayal, I'll deal with it. But I'm going to assume loyalty. I'm going to love like there's no tomorrow. People say, "Well, I hope that works out for you." It's working out now. I'm happy. I'm filled with love.
I'm facing my demons head on. My head fills with stuff like: oh, you're not good enough for her. She figured it out. Maybe she watched one of your videos or something, realized you're a loser, and she's going to dip. And I pray: please, God, let me remember the truth. Please let me remember all the experiences I've had with her that are the opposite of that. Please let me remember that this is just as good for her as it is for me. Both of us have so much to gain, and then the world has so much to gain from two people loving each other. She wants kids. I want more kids. The two of us working out could bring life into the world in a time when fewer people are having kids — that's something hugely valuable for the whole human race. This is not just about me, or even her. This is about lifting everybody up. And I feel that the more I can love the woman I'm dating, the more I can love everybody else in my life.
Pushing My Glass Ceiling for Joy
It's scary, but it's fun. I haven't had this much fun dating in a long time, and most of the feelings have been so joyous and euphoric. It's been pushing my glass ceiling for how much joy I can handle. The beauty is, the more you push how much joy you can handle, the less interested you'll be in suffering. My sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous fired me yesterday. I have too much joy in my life, and he has too much suffering in his. We're just in separate worlds. He can hardly identify with me or help me. It just leaves him sad, looking at the life I'm having versus where he's at right now. I understand that. I accept that.
Don't hold back, though — even if you have to let people go because they can't handle all the joy you're having in your life. If they can't, if they're jealous of your relationship, let them go. They'll be replaced with people who can handle all of that and will keep affirming how much love and joy you have in your life.
Why I Say Most Dating Advice Fails
I know a message like this can change someone's life, because once you see what you're doing — that your mind invents rejection before it happens, that you're trying to conceal your emotions, especially with women — you can change it. In my experience, emotional concealment works very poorly, despite what all these losers tell you on YouTube. Not everyone who makes dating content is a loser, but a lot of the most popular dating content creators are utter losers in my mind, because all they do is make content to get views and get money. They don't think about how it impacts their audience. They're just doing anything to get stuff for themselves, and they're encouraging people to do things that, when you do them in real life, lead to people being hurt. I'm glad I'm a critical thinker, and I realized almost everything they were telling me is crap. It leads to bad results in person.
Every bit of it — from cold approach, to never cold approach, all the way to games and optimizing your dating profile — it's all disgusting to me. My belief is you should only approach when it's warm already. We had just done the same yoga class, and I knew exactly what to talk about because I had just heard her talking about it. That's a warm approach, not some random stranger on the street. All you need to do is love wholeheartedly, and you will bring somebody in like a magnet who's there to receive that. If you are vulnerable, it allows the other person to meet you there.
Taking the Maximum Risk
I did a video before saying I'm not taking any more risks, and I literally reversed that position. Now I say I will take the maximum risk. I will risk my entire heart with this woman. And I will lead, because I'm a believer that the man ideally is the leader in the relationship — at least in the concrete form of it. The woman leads with her desire. The man leads with his concrete choices and presence. The man creates the space; the woman creates the desires; the man creates from those desires. So the man holds a space based on the woman's desires. My woman desires a man who can really love her, help her feel safe to express her emotions, and not have to act like she's okay — a woman who is ready to receive unconditional love. I'm willing to lead the way there. And from there, I'm super patient, because I'm offering her my heart. I am certain that as I lead the way, offering everything I have with my heart and my emotions and my love, it makes her want to offer me everything she's got in return. And then we get the most joy.
These videos are my truth in dating, and I invite you to keep coming back and watching. I'm not here to give you advice — I'm here to listen. If you want to hear my experience or my perspective on your situation, I'd love to share it, but I'm first and foremost here to listen. Right now, this is a one-way relationship. I don't know you at all, but you can help me get to know you: schedule a private one-on-one call with me and tell me your situation. That helps me understand you better and make better dating videos, and I want to know how these messages transform your life.
I hope this is so helpful for you. If it is, I'd love to hear your thoughts, and you can find all of my videos on this journey in my Dating playlist.
I Have a Date Tonight and I Feel 17 Again
From my video published July 16, 2026.
I have a date tonight, and I feel like I'm 17 again, which is awesome at 42, because to me, as teenagers we often have really pure dating experiences. I'm going to lay out the journey a lot of us go through: from having excitement, opening our hearts, and having fun dating, to the point where the more we date, the more everything seems hopeless. We start closing our hearts, dating stops being fun, and we often withdraw, give up, or get completely into dysfunction. I'm grateful that what I can articulate is my own journey going through that whole process, and then getting back to what dating should feel like: it's fun, it's exciting, I feel so vulnerable, I'm scared. At the same time, that's the jumping-off place to landing a great relationship.
A lot of what people are teaching you on Dating YouTube is actually teaching you to be very guarded, defensive, and critical. Don't put yourself out there. Just get what you want. In my experience, that's a way to be miserable and for your whole life not to go well.
What Dating Felt Like at 17
So first, let's articulate what dating felt like when I was 17. I remember I had this perfect — I can't imagine how she could be more beautiful — woman at work. I guess I could say girl; we were both 17. We worked together at a grocery store, and I went through her checkout lane. I don't remember even having her on my radar; I just noticed she was cute. I don't remember having a bunch of conversation with her or anything, but I was checking out in her line one day, and she just stared deep into my eyes, which caught me really off guard and left me feeling really excited. So when it was my turn to check out, I asked for her phone number right there, and she wrote it down on a piece of paper. It was a busy time in the store, with customers waiting. Then I called her and arranged a date.
I remember being so excited about that date. I had very little idea of how bad things could go. I was just open-hearted and enthusiastic: this is awesome, there's nothing I'd rather be doing tonight, this is so cool and fun. I wasn't defensive, I had no expectations that it would go negative — just, this is awesome, let's see what happens. I was filled with curiosity and excitement, with such an open heart.
It didn't end up working out well. I played video games all day before the date, got into some drama playing them, pissed off my clan, and blew all my dopamine on the computer. Then when she picked me up, she had a two-door sports car and a cell phone, which was a big deal in 2001. I remember feeling out of place, like, I don't know if I even belong here — this is too good to be true. Then I started to get really insecure on the date. We went to see a movie, and afterward she took me over to see her friends, and all her friends were beautiful too. It was all girls and me — a bunch of beautiful 17-year-olds and me. I just felt so out of place, unworthy, insecure. I was afraid I was getting kicked out of my clan, and I went into this big negative spiral.
Then, as we were heading to one of her friends' houses, I asked her to take me home, and she's like, are you crazy? It's summertime, it's like nine o'clock. I made excuses about my parents not wanting me out late, and she interpreted it as: he doesn't like me. She interpreted it as being rejected, and after that she didn't want anything to do with me. Then I got home, hopped right onto the video game, and found I'd been kicked out of the clan anyway. And then I had a moment of clarity about how badly I'd screwed up. If I had that night to do over again, I would stay out all night with her and her friends. I would never have asked to be taken home, I wouldn't have cared about a video game, and I would have accepted those feelings — I might even have articulated some of them as best I could.
Ten Years of Getting Guarded
What happened over the next 10 years as I dated is that I often got pretty bitter, defensive, and cold-hearted. I'd go out and drink, meet women, hook up right away, meet women online, and it turned into this thing that wasn't heartfelt anymore. There would be some excitement sometimes, but I'd often be very guarded, or I'd be looking at dating like playing a video game, where the objective is to get that conversion, get that sale, so to speak, at the end of the night in my bedroom. That was all I cared about. A lot of the women I went out with, I hardly felt anything for. Sometimes I'd have two dates set up in one night. I'd just ask every woman out everywhere all the time, and I got kind of cold-hearted and numb to rejection a lot of the time.
Thankfully, I was able to be open-hearted enough when I met my ex. But I used drinking to cope with the feelings — when the feelings got too much, which they would several times a week, I'd just get hammered — and I barely managed not to sabotage the relationship. There was also this consistent pattern going back to that date when I was 17: I kind of self-sabotaged it. Things were going really well from her side, and I just ruined it. That theme kept playing out in my dating. Women would like me, and I'd send them some nasty message and sabotage it.
It was amazing with my ex — I barely withheld sending that nasty message after the third date, when she wasn't ready to commit to me. I was like, man, I know she's dating someone else. I got drunk and had my ex over, along with the woman before her, and I thought, well, I'm not that great either — let's just see if she'll go out with me again. I'm amazed we made it through that. But I remember I had this opening in my heart and this excitement, like, I don't care if it doesn't work out, I'm going to go for it anyway and see if it's going to work out. And I had a really nice relationship with my ex for 15 years.
The Trail of Tears After Divorce
But then I got divorced, and dating turned into a trail of tears — almost purely suffering. Excitement lasted very short times and then got crushed almost immediately, and it was totally confusing. I didn't even know what to do or what to think. Dating has mostly been painful: a lot more pain, hurt, suffering, confusion, feeling sad, rejected, lost, or annoyed than anything else.
I made a video a few days ago asking, is anyone having fun dating in 2026? I'm grateful for those of you who watched that. And I realized: I ought to be having fun dating. I don't know why I would be dating without having fun. It's funny — I've just had one inspirational idea for a video after another, and I met a woman literally the day after I made that video. I met her at the yoga studio, and I'm so excited about her. I'm certainly risking being hurt, but at this point, I know I can handle it. I can handle being hurt.
I texted her — she's out working for most of the day — and I hadn't heard from her for three hours, even though we've been texting all day, every day. I texted her this morning; last night she said thank you, I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. So I messaged her this morning, and oh my god, there's so much energy. I'm so excited to see her, and I'm so terrified of her canceling, bailing, backing out, or being like, oh, I'm too tired from work. There's so much emotion, and what I feel is alive — and feeling alive is fun. I'm glad I know today that I can handle the loss and the hurt. What I can't handle is having dating not be fun. What I can't handle is going around not opening my heart up to women, not giving women a chance, and then feeling bad when it doesn't work out.
Running Game Backfired on Me
With this woman, I've done the opposite of what I did with another woman recently. I went out with a rich woman from another country who was very attractive to me and wanted to have kids, and we both seemed very health conscious. So what happened? Well, I was too guarded with her. Every phone notification, I'm like, oh, is it her, is it her? I was way too guarded. I was in my head trying to run game, and I ran game on the first date — I'd been watching these YouTubers reminding me of some of the stuff I'd forgotten while I was married. I had her talking and laughing for 80 percent of the date. The baby next to us was loving me and kept licking and waving. I gave the waitress a big tip, and this woman saw that I was very friendly with the waitress. I gave her a kiss at the end of the date because she seemed like she really wanted it, and she seemed to really like me and feel something.
But then I started playing this game of being distant. So many of these guys on YouTube had been telling me: don't text her for several days after the date, make her miss you, drive her crazy. So I tested that, and it worked terribly. We initially had some nice chemistry on the date, and we scheduled a second date, which she seemed very enthusiastic about scheduling. She was responsive to my text messages, and then she said, awesome, I'm looking forward to the date on Sunday — and I didn't text her anything in reply for 48 hours. After 48 hours, she said, I'm not feeling the romantic spark, let's cancel that date. I felt all hurt at the time, but looking back now, I didn't open my heart to her at all. I was so guarded. I was like, we've got this date scheduled, I don't need to do anything.
The woman I have a date planned with tonight seems to appreciate the attention, so I've been consistently giving her attention, opening my heart to her, and opening my heart to the possibilities with her. And if it doesn't work out with her, I'm so grateful anyway — because this is what I need to do every time.
I need to open my heart and try to love a woman from the very beginning, and whoever doesn't want that, that's okay. The more I open my heart and love honestly, the faster the wrong woman will be repulsed — faster than by playing games and being guarded — and I feel so alive. I've been listening to Kesha's Warrior album.
She Just Texted Me
Oh, look who texted me right now. She said, morning, thank you, and she texted me a picture of this fancy boat she's working on. Dude, I could fucking cry right now. I feel so relieved. Oh god, she just sent me like three messages, and it's been three hours. And you know what — yesterday she asked if she could please work, because she could make hundreds of dollars working instead of seeing me at the time we'd scheduled, but then see me later. I felt sick to my stomach when she sent me that message, and I realized: this is how I should feel. This is what great, fun dating should be like. You should feel so much, and it's so scary. It's so scary to feel, but I feel so alive. I'm losing my mind. It's great.
I'm not here to be a zombie and just try to accumulate money and status. I'm here to live and experience life. So if you want to live and experience life, if you want mentorship, if you want a partner — not a dating partner, but a partner in navigating this experience — join the Jerry Banfield Family. I've set it up now so that when you join the Family, you can text me anytime — you can send me your phone number if you'd like, I'll add you to my contacts, and you get 25 minutes to talk with me every week. I'm there to support you.
To me, this matters because I've had people who mentored me in dating, and yet this feeling of being alive and opening my heart came from within. Nobody was even saying this. I went through all these dating videos, and this is just intuitive: what I've come to believe is that you need to open your heart and give yourself to this woman, and if she doesn't want it, then open your heart and give yourself to the next woman, and again until it works. You are so strong — you can handle it if it doesn't work. What you can't handle, in my experience, is going through life like a zombie, feeling like you're dead and that there's no reason anymore to try to date. Dating is awesome, and I'm so grateful. This has been a hell of an emotional roller coaster.
Sending Emotion, Feeling Emotion
If you want to have a really great relationship, you need to be able to really feel. This woman and I have escalated our feelings so much. I remember seeing some guy tell me in a video that you need to be able to send an emotion when you text a woman, and I was having a hard time understanding that, because I was so in my head. But with this woman, I immediately opened my heart to her, and when it tried to close, I said no — keep it open, stick with it. I've intuitively known how to send her messages that provoke emotion, and I know I've done that when I feel disgustingly vulnerable. Some women are not going to like that, and good — they can leave. This woman has really liked it, and she's responded with her own vulnerability, and she's always reacted positively. Even the day after I met her, I texted her first thing in the morning — not just good morning, but good morning plus one other thing — and she took like five hours to reply. Then, while I was talking about her to my massage therapist, she replied right then, and I felt this relief that I'm not just feeling this by myself.
Heart-to-Heart Energy
I've come to believe our feelings are communicated telepathically, heart to heart, directly to another person. I've noticed with all the other women, I've communicated a lot of fear that way. Like that single mom I did a story about before — if I can find the video title, I'll go back to it. It's not what it sounds like, but I put out the opposite energy toward that single mom. She had reached out to me, really liked me, and was so excited to see me again. And yet I put out this energy toward her of not trusting her, of being guarded, of not believing her, of figuring she would ghost me, figuring she would cancel on me. I didn't open my heart to her, and what's crazy is it's like she could feel that — and then she did ghost me. I swear, in some parallel universe I would test this: if I feel differently toward her, she acts differently toward me. To me, this is the most hopeful message my videos have. How you feel toward someone and how you open your heart to people will determine how they react to you.
Often in life, it's about forgetting all the hurts we've endured. To me, true forgiveness is to say: look, all the hurts I've endured dating and all the hurts I've given dating — I forgive all of that. And I'm going to go forward with this woman today as if it's my first date that I've ever been really excited about, and I'm 17 years old again, and I'm going to go for it. But this time, I'm going to be aware of self-sabotage, and this time I have the wisdom of having done all this before, so I'm more ready to have a relationship and to communicate than when I was 17. If you want to follow the whole journey, from the trail of tears to feeling 17 again, I share it all in my Dating playlist.
I'm so grateful to share this. I want dating to be better, and I'm here to help — so if you appreciated this message, join the Jerry Banfield Family.
I'd Rather Feel the Pain Than Nothing
Originally published October 26, 2025.
This is my journal entry from October 26, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Book 5 — Daily Autobiography — my real, unedited days, published in order.
After hitting that peak of euphoria yesterday, how do you think today went? It was fucked — and not in a good way. My dreams told me everything before I even opened my eyes. I barely slept because I was so wired from the high of meeting the woman I met, but the little sleep I did get was full of dreams where she and I weren’t going to date, where she wasn’t into me, where the whole thing fell apart before it even began. My subconscious delivered the verdict early.
So what do you think I did this morning? I wish I had followed the dreams and said nothing. Just let it be. But no — I sent her an audio message like a lovesick idiot. I told her I hadn’t slept right because I was thinking about her. I invited her to the violin restorative yoga at my yoga studio that I was going to that night — the one a violinist plays live for, with a yoga instructor teaching. It’s one of the most beautiful classes they offer, and I genuinely wanted her there.
And what did she say? Essentially: fuck off. Not literally, but close enough. She said she didn’t have any time for me “for the next month or two.” Cold-blooded. She did wrap it in a nice little shit sandwich, though — a soft line about being glad we’re friends, that it was great talking to me, that she appreciated the invite. But the meaning was the same: No. Not happening. Not now. Not soon.
Destroyed. Absolutely destroyed. I cried off and on all day. Thankfully the violin yoga was incredible because I needed that release. Holy shit, I sobbed my little eyes out in there. I cried so hard I had to mouth breathe for a minute, which in my religion is basically a mortal sin. I was mouth breathing like a motherfucker on that mat, trying to get myself together. Eventually my nose reorganized itself and I got back to nasal breathing within ten minutes, but before that, I came dangerously close to wailing. I had to clamp down on it — the sound that wanted to come out was some ancient grief, like an animal howl. But it was good. I got it all out.
Last time we did this restorative violin class, I was there with the family — my ex-wife, my daughter, and my son. We laid our mats next to each other in a perfect row. We looked like this perfect little fucking family, breathing together, resting together, a picture straight out of a brochure about mindful parenting. And now what? Now it’s destroyed. Now I’m on my own. Now I’m out here getting shot down like I’m in Top Gun. I’ve got no wingman. I’m out there solo, taking hits from all sides. But still I rise. Again and again. Even on days like this.
There was a beautiful girl behind me tonight in restorative yoga — and she had been at the spiritual community last night too, though I didn’t realize that at first. I had just finished crying my face off for thirty minutes, lying there completely wrecked, trying to rest. When I finally looked back, I saw her. She was pretty. And my first thought was, Fuck, I do not want to do this right now. Then she made eye contact with me and smiled, and I thought, Why the fuck is this bitch smiling at me right now? Don’t you see this is not the time for this? For once I wanted to be fully present in my own damn body without another girl appearing to test me.
But curiosity got me. Something in me said, Go find out what this is. So I got up and walked over. I said hi, and she said hey, and then she said, “I saw you last night.” That surprised me. She introduced herself — a woman from the event the night before. She said she had been at the spiritual community too. I barely remembered seeing her there, though she did look slightly familiar when she said it.
It hit me then how small this community really is — how much overlap exists between yoga studios, ecstatic dance, healing events, the spiritual community, my yoga studio, random workshops. Online you can burn bridges all day because there are infinite people to replace the ones you alienate. But in real life, especially in a city like St. Pete, everyone circles back. People show up again and again — at yoga, at spiritual events, at tennis, at cafés, everywhere. So I told myself, Be nice to everybody. You never know when someone is going to show up again — or when they might decide they have to have you in a month.
After I sent the woman I met that first voice memo this morning, she wrote back with three texts in a row. And then I sent her a second voice memo — the one that was basically my downfall. I said something like, “Look, that’s crazy. I know you had so much fun with me last night. What else are you doing in your life that’s as fun as hanging out with me? When have you laughed that much recently? It’s important to prioritize fun and be around people you enjoy — like me. I know you’ve got time. We could meet for an hour after work, go to a yoga class or something. You’ve got time.”
She told me last night how stressed she’d been, so I kept going: “The antidote to stress is hanging out with people who make you feel good, people you laugh with, people who give you connection and play. That’s how you reduce stress.” And even though I didn’t say the next part out loud, the subtext was there: Most of the stuff people do to fix stress is bullshit. If your life didn’t suck, if you didn’t sit alone scrolling Instagram, if you didn’t isolate yourself and push away the people who actually like you, you wouldn’t be stressed in the first place.
I didn’t say that last part, but that was the energy behind the message. And immediately afterward, I felt bad. The whole thing landed heavy. It came across as toxic, like I was lecturing her — when I should’ve said nothing at all. My new policy, I’m thinking, is that when someone sends me a message like she did today — something distancing, something closing the door — I won’t respond. I’ll let them go. If I see them again, fine, I’ll say hi. But I don’t need to chase people who aren’t choosing me clearly. It just means something is off, and I need to move on. If you’re untangling your own dating patterns — when to lean in and when to quietly let someone go — that’s exactly the kind of thing we can talk through together when you schedule a one-on-one call with me, figuring it out together instead of alone.
The truth is, most people don’t appreciate insight when they’re not ready for it. I’ve tried offering people clarity, direction, perspective — and instead of seeing the value, they get offended, defensive, or uncomfortable. They stop wanting to be around me because I hit too close to home. And maybe that’s just something I have to accept: not everyone wants the truth, even when they’re drowning in the problems the truth would solve.
At the AA meeting the other day, I watched everyone sitting with their arms crossed while the person before them shared about being open and receiving spiritual gifts. And I thought, How the hell are you going to receive anything when your whole body is clenched shut? Arms crossed is the posture of someone defending themselves, comforting themselves, trying to stay safe. When I pointed that out, someone said, “It’s cold in here.” Bullshit. It wasn’t that cold. If your arms are crossed for an entire meeting, you’re not letting anything in. You’re not hearing shit. Maybe a few people are open, but most look like they’re in protective mode — and when you’re defending yourself, openness dies on the vine.
So yes, your boy is still single — if that wasn’t obvious by now. And I caught myself laughing tonight, thinking how ridiculous it would be if this woman from the event ended up liking me more precisely because I didn’t give her much attention. I walked over, said hi, but I didn’t smile, didn’t flirt, didn’t turn it on. It’s funny how reverse psychology works. Meanwhile, last night I was so enthusiastic with the woman I met that she probably woke up thinking, I can’t handle this shit. He’s too much. Too needy. Too desperate. Too old. And he probably wants sex every day. Which, to be fair, is true.
While going through the divorce parenting course today — because I’m a fucking winner, baby — I did wonder if I was saying “fuck” too much. But fuck it. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck. My first YouTube video ever was literally me saying “fuck” over and over. It went, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” and that was the whole video. Somehow, that guy went on to rack up hundreds of millions of impressions. That’s the origin story.
As I listened to this divorce course, with its narrator basically saying, “If you fuck up, your children will hate you and join gangs,” I started laughing. That was the general tone: fear, fear, fear. And then something clicked — when kids get afraid, they often withdraw. That’s what these women are doing with me. I come in like a force of nature — big presence, high energy, switching lanes at 100 miles an hour. Jerry Banfield incoming, giant ego, giant confidence, giant metaphorical schlong, shaking up their whole lives and dragging them off the dance floor like whoa. It doesn’t translate neatly into text, but you get the audio vibe: I’m overwhelming some of these women. They’re timid. They’re not ready for someone coming in like a wrecking ball — in their bed telling them, “Put the goddamn phone away. Delete Instagram. Start living your real life. Stop doom-scrolling the way I used to while I was making a living off everyone else doom-scrolling.”
So yes — hi. I know I can be a lot. But here’s the thing: I’m not going to be fake just to try and get women. I’m not going to pretend to be anything other than exactly who I am. I really am excited about romance — even a messy, bad romance, like that old Lady Gaga song that was stuck in my head. I want that energy again. I want the connection, the passion, the intensity. I want a great relationship — another one worthy of my whole heart.
Today was still a great day in its own strange way. I spent the morning, the middle of the day, the evening, and the night with the kids — except for when I slipped out for yoga. In between all of that, I was working on my audiobook. I actually finished dictating I Was Famous on the Internet today. I somehow skipped over a chapter in the middle of recording, and only realized it at the end, so I went back and recorded the missing piece. I’m genuinely excited about how it turned out.
And honestly, I think I’m about to get major paid in this audiobook game. These dictated books are so much better than podcasts. Podcasts are shit — I can't stand podcasts. But audiobooks? This is living-legend material right here. Though I can already hear the review: One star. Jerry sucks cock for a living. He should stop going out with women. There’s always a voice ready to talk shit.
It has been an emotional roller coaster — the kind that climbs sky-high one night and drops your ass straight into the abyss the next day. As soon as I sent that message this morning, I felt it: This is not being well received. She’s telling me to fuck off right now. And she did. I had this moment of just wanting something — anything — to go right the way my marriage did for most of its duration. Last night I was triumphant. I walked out of the house after two weeks separated and thought, Damn, I’ve already found a new girl. Twenty-nine years old. Let’s go.
But apparently it’s not going to be quite that easy. Maybe the next one will be thinking, Why wasn’t I pretty enough for him to remember my name and pay attention to me? What can I do to get him to notice me next time? Maybe I’ll buy one of his books. Who knows.
It’s been a ride — painful, yes, but funny in its own twisted way — and what amazes me is how ready I am to go again. Not tonight. No, absolutely not tonight. But tomorrow? I’ll probably wake up ready to pick somebody up at yoga again. That’s one of the things I genuinely love about myself: I go for it, I get destroyed, and I’m ready to try again almost immediately. I don’t waste time, and I’m glad the girl didn’t waste mine. She didn’t drag it out for a month or two, or years, the way some people get strung along. She shut the door immediately.
I always tell people, “Don’t waste my time. Either you want to fuck me every day and marry me and have my kids, or let’s move on.” There’s no need for ambiguity. I appreciate that the woman I met didn’t try to string me along. She spared me that.
Still, I took an emotional beating today. I went through all the classic rejection thoughts: I’m too old. I’m not good enough. Maybe she doesn’t think my dick is big enough. Was everything last night fake? Is this what every girl is going to do — act one way in person and then send a cold message the next day? I honestly felt like when she texted me this morning, it was up to me to at least try pushing through the resistance — testing whether it was real or just fear — and that’s why I sent the message I sent. But the answer came back loud and clear. If you find yourself spinning through those same rejection thoughts and want to talk your own situation out with someone who’s lived it, you can book a private call with me and we’ll look at it honestly together.
I still went to the 10:00 a.m. yoga class this morning, partly because I wanted to see that other girl I’d had a crush on before. Right after last night, I still went looking for her. I skipped tennis so I could go — in case she was there — because I wanted to tell her I’m divorced now, tell her to forget about her girlfriend, tell her to meet me at the hotel. That energy still lives in me, even when I’m heartbroken.
Honestly, 10:00 a.m. yoga was the peak of my happiness today. I woke up halfway delusional, still convinced things might go well with the woman I met. She’d laughed a hundred times last night. She was pretty. She liked me. We were compatible on so many levels. I let myself believe it had a shot. But nope. Not today, boy. Nothing went well for you in that department. At least everything else did.
I had real time with the kids today. We played Uno No Mercy, and I got a ton of snuggles. I was around the house with them most of the day — present, involved, part of the family rhythm. I even had dinner over there tonight. Despite feeling gutted and drained, and despite barely sleeping last night because my mind was spinning in circles over the woman I met, today was still a better day than many I’ve had in my life. And I’m proud of that. I’m proud that even after a hit like this, I’m ready to get right back on it tomorrow. I’ll go for it again and again and again because that’s what life is — either chasing women or romancing the one you’ve got.
This guy after yoga today tried to hit me with some philosophical bullshit. Indian philosophy (thought he’s not Indian), something about how one day I’ll quit chasing girls, how desire fades, how I’ll outgrow it. He also told me he was gay, so my immediate thought was, What the hell does this dude know about chasing girls? Maybe he quit chasing dudes when he turned forty-eight, but I’m not quitting anything. Desire hasn’t gone anywhere for me. I want women just as much now as I did in high school. That fire hasn’t dimmed one bit. And I don’t think it ever will.
I’ve seen men in their eighties and nineties still chasing women, still alive inside because that spark never died. I already told the story about the eighty-six-year-old man whose girlfriend was ninety-three, and they were still having sex every day until he dumped her for being “too old.” His next girlfriend was ninety. That’s me. I’m going to be that guy in the nursing home — not that I’ll ever be in one — still trying to fuck something. That desire, that instinct, is not dying out. If anything, it feels stronger as I get older because I understand how precious connection is.
That’s where my dad got it wrong. He started as this vibrant young man chasing women everywhere, full of life and sex and fire. But after decades with my mom, resentment built up, and the flame went out. Once that flame dies, the body follows. It took ten or fifteen years, but it happened. That will not be me. I won’t let it.
So when this guy today was talking about karma — how desire fades, how I’ll stop chasing — I didn’t buy any of it. I don’t believe in karma. Karma is just the momentum of past choices but I create my own reality. I can change direction whenever I want. And maybe the woman I met woke up feeling that same thing: I can’t handle this man. He’s too much. He’s going to tell me to put my phone away at night. He’s going to try to be my dad. I get that. Some women don’t want that, or they think they don’t. But she does need guidance. She does need someone grounded. She does — she just doesn’t know it yet.
What amazes me is how good I feel recording this tonight. After last night, I was actually looking forward to sitting down and telling you how fucked up I was today, how deep the pain went, how hard the crash hit. And yes, it hurt like hell — the kind of hurt that sits in the chest and refuses to move. But the difference now is that I know I can handle the pain. I don’t fly off the handle anymore. I don’t implode. I don’t do stupid shit. I let myself feel it. I let it burn its way through me.
And I also know this: I’ll be high again soon enough. Naturally. These girls are my drugs now — they get me high, then drop me low, and make me feel something. And feeling something, even when it hurts, is better than being numb.
It feels good to feel something. To me, the real sign you’re close to dead is when you stop feeling altogether. Zombies don’t feel anything — at least the ones I used to shoot in Call of Duty didn’t. Being alive means feeling things, and even when the emotions are brutal, they give you superpowers. I even had a moment today where I thought, Maybe I should just do what everyone else does and get on the doctor-prescribed drugs that even everything out. Then I imagined myself floating through life like a muted version of who I am, leveled out into some monotone, boring-ass person. No offense to anyone who needs that, but for me? Fuck that. I’m not trying to dull the highs and lows. I can’t do what I’m doing right now without a huge emotional range. This kind of performance — this kind of creation — requires extremes.
Oh, what makes this good, Jerry? And who exactly are you talking to? Just your damn self?
Yes. And I’m having a blast in here, masterbatorily creating — which should honestly be the title of the book. I’m making myself laugh, and if there’s one thing I want to do with women, it’s make them laugh. I made the woman I met laugh at least a hundred times last night. I had her laughing on the dance floor, by the water, by the fire pit, walking around the venue, standing near the entrance — everywhere. If she doesn’t care about laughing, maybe she’s just not ready for the level of joy I bring. A lot of people have a glass ceiling on how good they’re willing to feel. And sometimes I roll into someone’s life — like the woman I met — and she can’t handle how good I feel and how good I can make her feel.
You can’t handle the truth. I’m going to say that in every damn book at this point. Because it’s true: some women cannot handle how good I can make them feel. And I have to respect that.
But I also hope I can handle the women who will take me to that next level. I think I’m working up to that. The way I narrated my earlier audiobooks compared to this one — this is another level of energy, another level of honesty, another level of pure chaotic clarity. This shit is crazy, isn’t it? And yes, I’m swearing every ten or fifteen words (although the written version has some of those edited out to make it flow better), but I’m having fun doing this. This is fun. It doesn’t have to be fun for everyone, but I want at least one person listening to this to laugh their ass off at how regular and ridiculous my life is, and how I approach it, and how I find humor even while watching a divorce course and crying, imagining the woman I met deciding at the last minute that she actually wants to date me, that she wants to come out to yoga tonight, that maybe she wants to fuck me afterward.
I genuinely pictured it: taking her to restorative yoga, letting her have a deep emotional release, and afterward she'd look at me like, You know what? I do want to date you. I do want to marry you. Get me pregnant tonight. That’s where my mind went — full fantasy.
There was a Kesha song stuck in my head all day, even if I couldn’t get the lyrics out right.
Sometimes I wonder how long these diary entries should be. They’re getting pretty long. But I think I should just go until I run out of things to say. Which, realistically, means we might be here all night. This could go on forever. And honestly? This is gold.
Can you imagine me listening back to this in thirty years? Can you picture my son or daughter hearing it one day? My daughter, my son — I love you. If you’re listening to this decades from now, I hope I’m still alive, still friends with your mom, and hopefully not divorced from the second wife yet. Or the third. Or the fourth. I also hope I’m not sitting around with some new girl doing this exact same shit at seventy-one — but honestly, even that sounds better than living like a zombie glued to a phone all day, watching videos of people I’ll never meet, numbed out on whatever my doctor prescribed so I don’t feel anything because “life is so hard.” Yeah, life is hard — but I’m harder. That’s why I incarnated here. I looked at this planet and thought, This will be fun. I’ve got eternity. I figured I’d drop in for a hundred years, experience some chaos, maybe go build a star afterward.
The other day, I had the idea to channel an alien from across the galaxy and put it in a nonfiction book. And why not? If someone can’t disprove what I’m channeling — can’t show that in the entire universe there isn’t one alien who matches what I describe — then who’s to say it’s fiction? So I’m going to channel this weird energy-being alien civilization, maybe one that builds stars and eats stardust and doesn’t breathe anything the way we think about it. Something wild. Something cosmic. And I’ll put that shit right under nonfiction. Prove me wrong.
The more I talk like this, the more I realize how much I love myself. I’m proud of how I went through this day. I wish I could take a poll right now — really ask people what they think — but I’m not trying to hear from random motherfuckers online, so I’ll just ask my massage therapist tomorrow. I’ll ask her whether the most loving, joyful, authentic move was the message I sent the woman I met — the life-coach reply — or whether it would’ve been better to ignore it altogether. You could argue either way, and I honestly don’t know which was “right.” We’ll see.
I can feel myself winding down now. Miraculous. It’s like emotional digestion — that feeling when you know the whole thing has finally moved through you. That’s what these diaries are for: getting it all out of my system in one big release. And I keep coming back to this image: my kids, thirty years from now, listening to their dad’s real talk. The stuff I wouldn’t have said to a ten-year-old version of them, but would absolutely say to a microphone at midnight. I would die to have something like this from my own father — his unfiltered truth, his messy thoughts, his humor, his contradictions, his desires, his frustrations. Even now, I can’t talk with my kids at this level, and I wouldn’t swear this much around them, but the spirit of it — the honesty — is the same.
All right. I think I’m done. And no, it’s never going to land as “that’s what she said.” Fuck.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Dating playlist.