Two and a Half Hours Before Our Date
Last night, I had a date scheduled with a single mom that I met in person, approaching her at work. She gave me her number, and then, just two and a half hours before our date, she canceled. Let me walk you through the text messages so you can get an idea of where we were at. This is a woman I met at work. She seemed very interested in me. She took the action to email me her phone number. Then we texted, and we set up a date for last weekend on Saturday morning.
Then on Saturday morning, two and a half or three hours before we were supposed to meet up, she says, "Hi. Oh my gosh, so sorry. I ended up switching weekends, so I have my son. We will have to reschedule." I said, "No worries. I'm a single dad too." She said, "You get it. Thanks for understanding." I waited two days to text her. Then I said, "When are we meeting up this week?" She said, "Hey, possibly the weekend. My week feels insane. As we move closer, I'll have more clarity." Then I said, "Sometime this weekend will be great. As a working single mom, you deserve some time to relax and have fun. I'm here to provide that." She says, "Oh, appreciate that. Yes, to be determined. And it was my son's birthday. How did that happen?"
I waited two days to text her after that, because I was busy texting. In the last few weeks, I've texted at least 14 women trying to set up dates, and yesterday alone I texted seven women — either working on scheduling another date, getting a date, and so on. So on Thursday, two days ago, I said, "Maybe today is the day for the big reveal featuring your schedule and availability." She said, "Such a big lead up. I was thinking about you. I'm free Friday evening, right?" And she sent that two minutes after my text. That's pretty bullish, right? That sounds pretty good. I said, "Celebrate. I'll pick you up at eight." She says, "I can meet you for whatever you had in mind." I give her an exact place and a time. She says, "Great, I appreciate the gesture. Still thinking eight." I said yes. So that was Thursday, a couple of hours after I texted her.
The Second Cancellation
Yesterday I didn't message her, because we had a date set up and I was going to confirm a little later. So yesterday, two and a half hours before we're supposed to meet up, she says, "Hey, oh my god, don't hate me. I'm not feeling up to it this week completely… forgive me." Now, I've been watching these Bobby Rios dating videos, and the idea is that if they try to flake on you, you argue in favor of it. So I said, "You've got time to rally and end the week on a high note with me. You can tell me all about your week." I was playing tennis at the time, so it took me about 12 minutes to respond to her canceling. Then she responds four minutes later saying, "Rally, not rally, I shall fret not." All right — she said "rally, I shall fret not" after I told her she had time to rally and end the week on a high note with me. That sounds like she's going to rally and get back in there, doesn't it? So I said, "Awesome, you're a trooper," and I told her where I was going to meet her and restated my offer to pick her up.
Then I don't hear back from her for an hour and a half. Seven minutes before we're supposed to meet, she says, "Oh shoot, I'm sorry, I misunderstood. Oh my god, I'm not going to make it. I'm so sorry." I was driving — I was at a stoplight when I saw this text — and I pulled over into a parking spot to give her a call. Obviously she doesn't answer, because who would want to face behaving like that? I was going to be like, "Hey, what's up? You all right? You want me to just come over? You want to reschedule? What's going on? Talk to me." But she doesn't respond and she doesn't answer my phone call.
The Accidental Approach at the Meeting
So I went to an AA meeting afterwards, and there was this woman I thought was attractive from across the room. I go up and approach her, and she turns around and — whoops — she's like 50. My bad. But I had already walked up to her, so I've got to go with it. I'm like, "Hey, I'm Jerry." She tells me her name, and then she made the mistake of asking how I was doing, and I told her the truth: I'm annoyed. I just had a date canceled on me last minute. And it's like, why do you act like that? I don't understand.
One Cancellation From Me, Ten Against
I've had dates with about 20 women — probably 30-plus dates at least this year — and I've canceled one of them. That's because I made the mistake of committing to the Queen way too early. I got way too excited about this woman, I offered to be exclusive, which was stupid, and I had this other date scheduled and I canceled it. So I've canceled one date all year, and I've had what has to be 10 dates canceled on me — and I've had about half as many dates canceled as dates I've actually been on. Some of it I can attribute to my behavior or my selection of women. Others of it, it's them — it has nothing to do with me at all.
I asked my ex-wife about this. She's like, "Yeah, women are flaky. My friends cancel on me all the time. I have plans with friends that I've known for 20 years, and I figure half the time I don't know if we're even going to actually do it." I'm like, what is going on with people living their lives like this? Is there ever going to be a woman that just shows up when she says she's going to show up, consistently, and doesn't suddenly feel a lack of romantic chemistry? Is it ever going to work properly again?
I feel for a lot of you guys who have never had a great relationship. I at least have an ex-wife that I was with for 15 years. We had an amazing relationship and kids. It fell apart in the later years, but most of it was awesome — we had years that were just like euphoria. I feel for a lot of you who have never had that and are looking at dating like, is this ever going to work or be worth it? And in some ways I wish I didn't know that it is worth it, because it would be easier to just quit.
"You're Really Pretty" in the Dark
Because last night, I came home and — I definitely don't want to share this part, but it's funny. I've been doing more cold approaching too, and it's funny how after you feel utterly defeated, it's like, let me just experiment a little more. So I'm taking a walk at the park at nine o'clock at night, so it's a little dark, and this woman comes up to me walking her dog. When she gets close, she says hi to me first. I say hi to her, and then I slow down after she's passed me and I say, "You're really pretty." And she shouts at me to get away from her. I wasn't even walking towards her, and she shouts at me to get away from her.
The funny thing is, I was feeling pretty sad and disappointed with dating before that, and ironically that left me laughing. It felt more honest. Because yesterday I texted four women who all did not even respond to me. I sent a joking message, I sent a fun message, I sent straight-up messages — four women straight up didn't even respond. I've been out with some of them before, some of them not, and I know at least one of them is very single. She doesn't have any other options, she's not dating anybody else — I know because I know her through a friend, and her friend connected us in the context of dating. Another one is a single mom, and I feel for the single moms — they seem to really be struggling to date, overwhelmed with life, struggling to survive. But it leaves me not wanting to date a single mom, because some of the women who are just single and don't even have kids have a hard enough time having their life together.
Meanwhile, My Life Is Together
I'm like, why do I have my life so well together? I have time to date, I have time for my kids, I have time to exercise, I have time to get massages, and I put serious effort into my YouTube videos. This is all I do for work. This is the third video I've filmed today — I filmed a video right before this, I filmed two videos totaling 38 minutes of footage, and I've filmed seven videos in a day before. I'm nuts for my work. I do my work, I get it all done, no boss has to make me do it, I do all of it, I obsess over it, and I do a good job at it. And I'm grateful: after starting all these channels from scratch in the last five months, I made around a thousand dollars in the last week — not counting YouTube ads and my Skool memberships. I made around a thousand dollars just off my website, just off of people like you going to jerrybanfield.com. I made $327 from one customer in one day who paid for the lifetime chat membership, where you can talk to me — one payment, once, for life — and then he also paid for an hour and 10 minutes of calls with me on demand, like immediately. And I've had other people come through with the lifetime chat support, and somebody bought my book. I've started offering dating coaching, I offer YouTube coaching, I've got a Skool community, I've got Zoom calls, and maybe I'm going to sell a sponsored crypto video.
I get my sleep every night. I'm stable. I'm like, isn't there another woman like me out there? A woman who's got a stable life, who can handle life successfully, who wants a man that can handle life successfully? Maybe. I mean, I went out on one date with one woman I really like. And in my video yesterday I was talking about my leaderboard, and now I'm questioning that, because what's annoying is that I still suffered so much even though this woman wasn't near the top of it. I made a leaderboard for yesterday's video for the women I'm dating, and in the video before that I said I started talking to 14 women at once. I hate that this works. It certainly works to help me not pressure any one woman, but it also increases my surface of pain and rejection and annoyance. This woman was definitely not in the top two on my leaderboard — she was maybe three or four. Maybe she went up to number two for a minute when it looked like she was actually going to show up for a date.
Off the Leaderboard, and Still Asking Why
Now she's off the leaderboard. She's not even on it anymore. And it's annoying, because this wasn't even my first choice, and yet having that kind of behavior happen — it's not even about her as much as it gets more to: why is life like this? Why does someone schedule twice in a row with me and cancel both times? And this is someone who seems very single. I don't know that for sure, but she's someone who was willing to give her number out, and a single mom probably doesn't have that many options for guys to date. Maybe she does — what do I know?
My guess — and I could be completely wrong — is that she was probably caught up in some addiction yesterday. She was all stressed out, and maybe she started drinking or using something immediately after she got done with work, got into that, felt overwhelmed, and then it's, "I can't do this date right now." To me it looks like self-sabotage. You could have connected with another person, but instead… Maybe she was out with somebody else — maybe that is what happened — but I don't feel that's probably what happened, because if she had plans with somebody else the day before, she probably wouldn't have scheduled with me. In my read, there's probably some self-sabotage, some kind of addiction, something that would probably be sad to witness, as the most probable cause, based on how she was talking about how stressed out she was. She was probably using some coping mechanism, or at home all emotional, or something. And I get it. And it's like I kind of took on some of that myself, and now I realize I need to be… I'm not even sure, man.
Gurus Who Don't Live What They Sell
You hear there are so many people selling so many products and talking so much stuff, and lots of times they're not even living the products themselves. I read this book, The Way of the Superior Man, and so many guys quote it all the time — and from what I've learned, the guy who did that book wasn't living that lifestyle himself. He literally took that information and wrote it in a book. It was from his master, his mentor — he paid a guy for coaching, the guy tells him this stuff, and he puts it in a book. He wasn't even doing it himself. That's the kind of world we live in, where people are making fortunes being totally dishonest. They're selling people, and people think they're a guru, and they don't even live it themselves. I'm out here living authentically what I'm practicing — but then it's like, I need to change my practice.
And today I'm just so down on dating. I'm like, man, I see what I'm doing. I see why people quit. I see why people give up. I see why people think it's not worth their time. I get that. But I've had the red pill at this point — I know it is worth my time. I want another family, or more accurately an expanded family, with another woman and more kids, and I know there's a woman out there who has the same desire and will be very happy with me fulfilling it. And what's dumb is that the top two on my leaderboard are both women that could very well qualify for that role, and then I'm so bent out of shape about this one canceling — one that probably wasn't that great of a fit — that I don't even feel that great about the fact that there are two women who could be that woman. But I can't pressure them. Things are going very slow with both of these women. One I've known for quite a while; the other I just went out on a date with for the first time.
There's Value in the Difficulty
I just want to have empathy and share, because I know I talk a lot of stuff, and a lot of days I feel good, but God, this is hard. But — oh, that's what she said — there's value in the difficulty. There's nothing else I'm doing in my life that brings this level of challenge to my entire character, my entire being, and that's why it's worth doing. Because if I want to build character, I need to challenge myself as hard as I can take it — which also sounds dirty — I need to push myself to the limits. And with dating this year, I've pushed myself to the limits, where my mind felt just smashed apart, where my heart just felt destroyed. Like with the Queen: I texted her to ask for a walk yesterday. No response. And it's not surprising. It seems miraculous today when two people can come together and actually have a nice relationship — it actually seems like that's unusual.
Avoidant Women, Avoidant Men
And I know it's not just one side — I understand women are having the same kind of experiences with men. The woman I talked to last night, after I shared my frustration and asked, "Why are women acting this way?" — she's like, "Men act this way too. You're dealing with avoidant women, and I've dealt with a bunch of avoidant men myself." And she said, "That's why I don't date anymore." To me, that's the saddest thing — when you've given up, when you just quit. That's the saddest thing. At least if you're trying, you're in the game and maybe something could happen.
Maybe for women, you can get away with quitting more. I think men are the ones that can't afford to quit, because if I quit dating as a man, I could have 10 beautiful women surrounding me, all interested in me, and I'm not going to realize it. If I'm closed off to something, it's not happening. Women at least may have more openness in that respect, but for me, if I decide to withdraw and close my mind to dating, it's not going to happen — and it doesn't matter if the right woman comes along. I will push her away, I will ignore her, I won't ask for her number.
Like, there's this woman at yoga, and she was really into me the first couple of times she saw me. She followed me out one day. When I started talking to her and some other guy started talking to her too, I just walked off — and then she came up to me at my cubby and was all excited to talk to me, and she seemed really disappointed when I didn't ask for a phone number. Then I saw her again at another studio, and the same thing happened: she walked out to her car, she was all excited, she was really into me, and I didn't ask for a phone number again. The next few times I saw her, she just seemed kind of sad, like I'd rejected her — like she tried to show me she was interested and hoped I would make a move, and I didn't. And that's the thing: the way it usually goes with women making moves is that if the guy quits, no move is happening — although I've seen exceptions to that.
Maybe I Should Just Focus on Making Money
At this point I'm considering, you know, maybe I should just focus on making money. Because if I make money, then I could date women overseas. I have friends in different countries who are content creators, and they're like, "Dude, just come overseas, man. You'll get an amazing woman. There are women who would love you here. You could have a beautiful woman in her early 20s who would love to have a family with you and move to the US, who would be very happy to be a great partner and follow your leadership. There are so many great women." They tell me how the most gorgeous woman would fall in love with you and move to the States with you, and as long as you could support her, she would have kids and be very happy with you. That's just a general statement of what they expect is possible — obviously there's still reality, and that's not going to be every woman.
Why Do I Even Want Validation?
So at this point I'm like, why do I keep getting into these situations? And I'm like, oh — I'm looking for women to validate me. Why? I don't need a woman's validation. I have so many of you online watching my videos — like 10,000 views a day, and when YouTube changes the view metric, it's going to be like a hundred thousand views a day on my videos. And that's me starting brand-new channels in March 2026. How much more validation do I need? I've got kids that love me, that I see almost every day, that I have overnights with Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I have a mom that loves me. I have other family members. I have friends. How much more? I don't need validation from a woman. I don't understand why my brain even thinks that it does, and why my heart is so craving it. Although I do know: to me, the deepest relationship I'm usually going to make comes through dating.
At the same time, I don't know if I can quit dating. I tried to quit dating before, and then another beautiful woman at yoga seemed like she really wanted me to get her number, and I didn't, and she seemed sad leaving that interaction. And then right after that, I met the Queen and picked her up at yoga. So I'm not even sure if I can quit dating.
Every Advantage, and It Still Happens
I hope this helps give you an honest experience of dating. I've got every advantage: I'm intelligent, I'm good looking, I have a passion and a purpose, and I'm in fantastic shape. And what's nice is that I don't think it's just me. There are celebrities that have these same kinds of dating experiences. I remember some professional baseball player had a woman make such a toxic video about going out with him. I don't think it's just me — he gets blown off too. It's not you. And I just hope that I have a queen coming. I have faith that there is going to be another great relationship in my life, and I'm willing to put in the work. I just would like to know what the right work is.
I hope this helps you, and I'm available to help as a coach. I'm not going to be one of these fake gurus that acts like I know everything and have it all figured out, because I know they don't. I'm here as someone you can trust to empathize with you, someone who's not going to put you down, who's going to understand where you're coming from, and who is in this with you right now. Some of these dating coaches have been married a decade — they haven't actually done this in a long time. I'm a dating coach who is out here doing it today.
You Know Exactly Who You're Getting
You can work with me, and you know exactly who you're getting. There's nobody else that's going to work with you — it's just me. I'm here to listen, I'm here to support, and you know that I understand.
And if you just want to chat or talk to me, go grab that lifetime chat access on my website.
I'm looking forward to the day when I meet someone, or when one of the women I'm already dating works out, and we'll be celebrating together — you can follow every step of this story on my Dating playlist until then.
That will be a day where it's like: look, you got through that. And if I can get through this, you can get through it too. There's something good on the other side.