I paid $750 for a date with a woman where it seemed like everything went perfectly. And you're not going to believe how this turned out.
Here is how I paid the $750. I have a matchmaking service that I paid $7,500 for twelve dates. This was my tenth woman on the matchmaking service. I paid for the service because my friend's friend said it was awesome and he was sure I'd find somebody on it. On the first nine dates, I got zero second dates. This tenth date looked to be the most promising of all of them. Every woman I get matched with effectively costs $625 for the introduction and the in-person date, so I had effectively paid $625 before we even met.
The perfect date spot
I told the matchmaking service the exact location I wanted to go to. It was a local art museum, because the woman's profile said she liked museums, and she wanted a coffee date. I thought, great, let's go to the coffee shop at the Dali Museum. I arrived there, she arrived, and she looked good. We sat down and ended up having lunch at the cafe at the Dali. We had a great conversation. I told her I'm a YouTuber, and she reacted really positively, which is getting to be uncommon. A lot of women react negatively, like, "Oh, what's that?" or "How do you make money doing that?" She was like, "Oh, cool. I was really into YouTube a few years ago." She asked what my channel was. I said they're all Jerry Banfield, and I told her she should probably wait to watch my content, because it's like diving into the deep end of the pool.
Then she asked me more questions. I was talking less than she was. She was having fun, she was laughing, and we were getting lunch. She seemed smart, and she seemed to appreciate that I'm an intelligent fella. We had a really nice lunch. Then I spent about $50 on tickets to the Dali Museum. So by the time I paid for the museum tickets, the lunch, and the parking, the whole date came out to about $750 for the entire experience.
We took an hour walking around the Dali Museum. I was focused on having fun and trying to follow the Owen Cook approach: be fun first and foremost. I was making jokes, I was getting her to laugh, and she was laughing. We were talking about the artwork. It seemed like everything was going awesome. We walked through the museum going back and forth between silly comments that generated laughter and deep discussions about art and the meaning of life. I was trying to be fun, and I was thinking, this is going great. My matchmaker had said she was really excited about this date and thought there was a lot of compatibility here. The woman wants to have kids, and her values seemed very well aligned with mine. I was thinking, awesome, awesome. What could possibly go wrong here? Certainly nothing.
I had my kids to go pick up. She already knew I was divorced, she already knew I have kids, and she seemed totally okay with it. Then I got a call from my ex-wife while we were on the date. I had my phone silenced, and there is nobody else I would have answered the phone for, but I thought, okay, it's my ex-wife, I need to take this. She said, "Hey, you're picking our son up from school." I saw that my ex had texted me an hour before to double-check that I was picking our son up, which she normally doesn't do, but I had it on the calendar, and everything in our calendars is still shared. I said, "Yeah, I've got him. Don't worry about it." I hung up the phone, we went back to looking at all the art, and everything was cool.
A handshake, a garden, and a phone number
On a lot of my first dates I'll end up holding hands with the woman, because that really escalates things nicely physically. I wasn't really feeling the vibe to hold hands, but I was making a little gentle physical contact, putting my hand on her back a little, just gentle introductory physical contact. She seemed to be liking it, although she did shake my hand when she met me, which is unusual. Most of the women I've met from a dating app or matchmaking start off with a hug. This woman shook hands. But that was fine. It was cool, right?
We walked down around the garden, and she seemed like she was having a great time. Everything was awesome. We walked out to the car and I said, "This was fun. What would make a nice second date?" She talked about wanting to go to Treasure Island, her favorite beach. I said, "Great. When are you free? Why don't we check our calendars now?" She said she needed to go check her work schedule. I said, "Cool. Do you want to give me your number so we can figure it out?" So she gave me her phone number.
I went and picked my son up from school. As soon as I got home, about 30 minutes later, I sent her a message: "Hey, I had a nice time with you." I didn't mention the second date right away. It was a generic after-date message, nothing special. Then for about six hours I didn't hear anything from her. I was thinking, really? Six hours? But then she sent me a message right before bed saying it was a pleasure spending time with me today and thanks for the date earlier. Great, great. So we're doing good, right?
I didn't message her that night because I was about to go to bed with the kids. The next morning I woke up and sent her a message saying, "Good morning. Went to sleep early with the kids. Let's go to Treasure Island. When is a good time for our second date?"
Two and a half days of silence
It has been two days now. Almost two and a half days. No response. I'm baffled. I don't understand. I don't get it. I don't understand how you go on a date with somebody you said you had a good time with, where I read body language, I pay attention, I listen, and she looked like she was having a great time, and then you don't respond for two days.
I'm on top of everything important going on in my life all the time. I'm responding to people. I'm a YouTuber, and people join at jerrybanfield.com. I had a call scheduled with me today. Actually, I had a couple of calls scheduled with me today. I had a Cameo to film. I had messages on my Skool. I had other text messages coming in, personal and work related. This is the fourth video I've filmed today. I took my kids to school this morning. I went to a yoga class this morning, which I forgot to mention in my vlog for some reason. I'm going to an AA meeting later. And I responded to all the messages I got today. I don't get it.
So I texted my matchmaker yesterday before five, figuring she might still be at work. I sent her a screenshot of the exact message I sent, the exact message my date sent, and the exact message I sent after that, and I said, "No response. I don't get it." The matchmaker texted me back this morning and said, "Yeah, she was that way with me too. Sometimes she would take several days to get back to me." This woman had also canceled the first date at the same location.
Now, what's crazy is I just happened to pick the best possible location I probably could have taken this woman to. She absolutely loved the museum. She was really excited to go there. She was really into all the artwork. I picked the perfect date spot. I was fun. I looked good. She seemed like she had fun. And she still ghosts me. I am so baffled. And my matchmaker said, "I don't understand it either." My matchmaker said I have such a great offer for women that she would figure they'd be begging to spend time with me. Now, maybe my matchmaker is just good at her job, and maybe she's telling me what I want to hear, which I do want to hear. But my matchmaker has also gotten a lot of positive feedback from women who went out with me and then consistently canceled second dates with me. I don't get it. I don't get it at all.
You're not alone in this
Here are some possible explanations. I'm making this because I hope that if this stuff is happening to you, you know you're not alone. Whether you're a man or a woman, I've heard women with the same kinds of stories, and if anything, worse stories. One of my friends went out with a guy for months and they were in a relationship. Then he revealed that he's married, has a kid, is still living with his wife, and is not planning on getting divorced. My friend was his side piece. It's just all over. It's crazy. I don't understand. How do you live like that?
Do people get overwhelmed? Are they just done? It's easy for people to say, "Well, she didn't like you. You're a creep," or whatever. But she said she had fun. She looked like she had fun. She did enough work with the matchmaker to get out to the date in the first place.
She clearly was interested in this. It seemed like everything went well. I didn't send anything that would put her off. And the matchmaker is saying she gets the same kind of interaction with her. So I told the matchmaker, for future reference, with two matches left: if this woman responded to me at this point, I would say I'm no longer interested. If you take two days to respond to a simple text like that, when you could have just reacted to it, acknowledged it, or said "Let me check my calendar and get back to you tomorrow," that's it. Do you know how long that message takes to send? Fifteen, twenty seconds. I don't get it.
I made this with the hope of reaching people, because this seems to be happening all over the place, with all kinds of people. I don't understand why people are acting like this. I'm sure some dude will come in and say, "Hey, bro, her interest level wasn't high enough for you. If you had a car, you could have shown it off in the parking lot. If you had more money, you could have whipped your wallet out. If you were wearing a thousand-dollar outfit, if you were leaner." I'm sure a bunch of people will come along and say a bunch of dumb stuff that they try to sell you on. I don't think it would have mattered. I don't know that this woman wouldn't be acting the same way if she had gone out with a celebrity. It seems like people usually treat most other people the same way. People don't usually make huge exceptions and treat everybody differently.
The Queen, the park, and a devastating Tuesday night
You know what, though? I am grateful. I felt really bad after this, and it came right after I saw the woman I called the Queen, the one I was all excited about. I saw the Queen the day before this date, on Sunday, after not seeing her for six weeks, and spent an hour walking and talking with her. She didn't follow up with a text message, and she didn't respond to my last message either, even though it was a nice message thanking her. No response. We had an hour of talking, and she didn't follow up with a message at all. I figured that since I randomly ran into her at the park, I'd just let her reach out.
Then on Monday I went out with this woman at the Dali. She took six hours to respond. Then on Tuesday I ran by the Queen again, running in the same spot, and this time I just waved. And by Tuesday night I was devastated, because I realized this woman was ghosting me. She's not responding. And even if she does respond, I'm done. I don't care why you took two days to respond with no message. I don't care what your excuse is. At this point, there's no point in her even saying she's not interested. You take two days to respond with no message, and I'm good.
It's the same with a single mom I was going out with. It's been three days since she messaged, and I'm done. I'm good. I don't need to go out with her again. There are enough issues there. I asked her a few times about different days she was available, and she never suggested an alternative. I'm done. I am not going to put my time into dating someone where there's so little back-and-forth energy. This is nuts.
We can all do better than this
I feel like collectively, as human beings, we could do better than this. Yeah, sometimes it's easier to just not send anything. I get that. Who knows what happened in this woman's life? At the same time, though, I think we all can do better. I think we all can be more honest. If you don't like something about somebody, I think the kindest thing to do is to say it. I realize that women especially can sometimes be afraid of a guy getting upset. But if a woman does something on a date that's a huge red flag and totally turns me off, I'll tell her. If this woman does text me at some point, I'll say, "Look, you took too long to respond to that first message. That's a major red flag to me, and I'm not interested going forward." This is over to me, because I don't care what you were doing. If you don't respond to messages after a first date that seemed to go well, then either you're too overwhelmed and your life is too chaotic, or I'm too low a priority, and I'm not interested in fitting into that scenario.
Maybe matchmaking is just not my niche
At the same time, this helped me realize I have much bigger opportunities and possibilities. I'm on YouTube, and maybe matchmaking is just not going to work for me. I have not gotten one second date out of matchmaking. Sometimes the lesson is that you need to change your approach. I have two more matchmaking dates, and I'm not planning on paying for matchmaking again. In fact, I'm seeing that the best way forward for me is to bring women in from YouTube. Because maybe I'm not that special in those other settings.
I want a woman to be obsessed with me. I want a woman who responds to my messages and hearts all my messages. I was just talking with a woman who responds right away to all my messages and hearts all of them, and that's what I like. I want a woman who has some mutual enthusiasm and a high level of interest in me. Maybe for me, I need to bring that in from YouTube. Maybe these other dudes have their cars or their houses or their ultra-built-up bodies. I think all of us in dating need to find a unique angle where we can win in a unique way, some area of life where we're specialized.
I know someone with a really impressive job title who just cleans up on online dating. Women come straight over to their house, and half the time they get laid on a first date straight from a dating app. They consistently get matches. They have matches sitting there that they can't even do anything with. And it's literally their job title and a picture of their car. This person is using the assets they have. You could call getting laid on the first date winning in some ways. For the long term, maybe, maybe not. But they're using their assets in a way that is getting results. And I see that I need to be bringing women in from YouTube.
A dating show with first dates on Zoom
So I'm thinking I'm going to start a dating show and have first dates on Zoom with women, and then put them on YouTube. Obviously everything will be very clear and communicated. There will be an application, there won't be any surprises, and I'll edit anything that needs editing. I think I need to bring women in from YouTube, because maybe I'm a guy who doesn't impress women off a matchmaking service right away, doesn't stand out on online dating apps, and doesn't often impress a woman at a yoga class. But I know I am a guy that some women, women who feel like they can't find a guy they actually like, see in my videos and think, "You're all I want. I only want to dance with you." I know there are women all over the world, maybe not a lot, but women all over the world, who could fall in love with me from my YouTube videos. So I think we're going to maximize that angle.
The lesson I'm seeing is to stop doing things that are ineffective, and then don't tell stories about how the whole system doesn't work, because I'm sure there are people who do great with matchmaking. I know there are people who do great with online dating, people who do great with pickup in person, and people who do great at bars. You just have to find your niche. To me, YouTube is my niche, and we're going to work on that. I would love for Jerry Banfield dating to turn into first, second, and third Zoom dates with women. I think that would be amazing, and it would come out of my suffering from being ghosted on this date. If you saw her, heard everything she said, and saw me, I imagine a lot of you would think she ought to be pretty interested in this guy, superficially at least. Dope. All right, I'm out.
One more thing. If you like this shirt, you can buy it. This shirt is for sale on eBay, along with the shirt I met the Queen in. It's the shirt I wore on Who Are These Podcasts, it's listed and live right now, and you can own a piece of Jerry Banfield history along with my other shirts. If you want to follow every twist of this story, from matchmaking to the Zoom dating show, it's all in my Dating playlist. Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you again soon.