The Question I Woke Up Asking
Today, April 4th, 2026, the main thing I'm thinking about is should I get back on dating apps? I originally met my first wife on Match in 2011, and when I got divorced last year, I tried going on dating apps for a little while, but I felt so rejected. I spent so much time, I felt addicted, and then I eventually deleted all of them after spending hundreds of dollars on premium subscriptions, getting two matches that I wasn't that attracted to and wondering what I was doing. Plus having some toxic interactions as well.
Why I Tried Talkify Instead
I then paid $7 500 for Talkify, which is a matchmaking service, as I talked about in some of my previous videos, and I just had my third out of 12 matches there. So I have nine more Talkify matches left, and I'm thinking, well, shouldn't I just finish those before I do more dating apps? And then I hear all these people, I've met people on dating apps, and what I want is very specific.
Exactly What I'm Looking For
I want a woman who doesn't drink, that wants kids, and is attractive. And dating apps really can filter, and I don't want a woman that does drugs or any of that stuff either. So dating apps can really filter all of those criteria well, especially Hinge.
I dug into exactly which Hinge filters actually move the needle in I Spent Hours Testing Hinge Preferences. Here's What Works.
Asking Everyone for Advice
So I wake up, I'm thinking, I'm asking people for advice today.
The Massage Date That Let Me Down
I go get a massage with a girl that, she looked really pretty, like you could think of, like, online content creator, like fitness trainer, look to her, she made a really impressive brand for herself online. But then when I go get a massage with her. I'm pretty disappointed in, how she looks for real, and her personality also. It's like, oh, this is, what looked impressive online turns out to not be very, turns out to be disappointing in person. And that, I'm thinking about that driving home from the massage, which I still feel good afterwards. And the conversation with her was a little awkward because she was wearing a mask during the massage, and she, long story short, she said it was because of massage school, and that.
This gap between the online version and the real person hit me hard another time too, which I wrote about in She Didn't Look Like Her Dating Profile and It Really Hurt.
That's how she did, massage school, and it's just comfortable. She didn't want to breathe on clients. And I'm like, I like being breathed on. I think it's, the mask thing bothers me. And it's, I don't like it. It makes me feel like the whole, we shouldn't even be in the same room together. Like, I don't want to, if you're thinking that way, I don't want to be around you. And maybe love and tolerance, I could have some more space for that in my heart.
When Impressive Online Isn't Real
But you can see that same issue play out online a lot, especially on dating profiles. And that's one reason I'm like, I don't even want to do online dating because you often see people that make themselves look impressive. And even on the first date, like that girl I went out with a couple of days ago, she, she did a good job trying to make herself look impressive on the first date. But then, following up with her is very disappointing. And I'm like, can we just be genuine? Can we just be real? And I'm not sure if dating apps facilitate that.
What My Ex Wife Told Me
I have a nice talk with my ex wife afterwards about the massage and about the dating and all that. And I'm trying to figure out, like, I'm looking for help. I'm wondering, are there any things I'm doing that maybe are pushing things, people away? Am I really ready for a relationship? Should I just, is it just a numbers game? Like literally meeting my first wife was just a numbers game. I just went through so many, so many dating apps and messages and so much time and energy. I finally found a girl I was really happy with that liked me back also. And we had 15 great years together.
I'm always glad to talk through questions like this openly with you — you can join Jerry Banfield Family and bring it to a weekly call.
I'd call that a success. And we still have a great friendship and two beautiful kids together. So I'd call that a success. And my ex gives me feedback saying that, well, maybe you're, I told her that I like to kind of I don't think you should be like making out generally on the first date. Now, I've certainly done that and I've done everything else you can do on. Well, I know this, but I've had sex on the first date also. So a few times. So I know that didn't work out good in the past. And I'd like to take it a little bit further. I'd like to take it a little slower physically, at least not on the first date.
Do we need to be making out probably on the second date? But I talked to my ex about that. And she's like, well, in terms of physical, you realize that you should take it a little slower and take time to warm up to it.
Diving Too Deep Too Fast
But she said, when it comes to the conversation, you seem to really dive deep immediately. You're doing the physical equivalent of sex on the first date with the way you talk with the woman on the first date. And I'm like, I guess that's true. Like I, I dive. I have some of these. I've dove in a bit too deep before I know them, telling them things like I deleted all my YouTube channels, which signals instability and lack of security. And that and my experiences like remembering being born and remembering before I was born and alcoholics anonymous. And I really I lay it out there. But the nice thing is nobody's wasting my time.
Nobody is dragging things out and then it's going nowhere. Like everybody is respecting my time and not having a second date. And I've never had a date with me so far. And I want to just be totally clear about what I have to offer, because then I figured things could proceed pretty quickly and be really awesome. I'm super grateful for the conversation with my ex, which is so supportive. Although it leaves me thinking I should probably get back on dating apps because there's just more. There's more opportunities in terms of sales. There's more leads. There's more potential clients on dating apps. And when I start to get excited about two is thinking, I could help people that are I could put up videos showing how to do dating apps.
If you want to follow the whole journey, including the money I've poured into it, watch I Spent $10,000 Dating and I'm Still Single and my my Dating playlist.