Madeline Argy: saying no is a skill, but withdrawal is an overcorrection
Madeline Argy is another creator I ran into. I saw her videos and titles and thought, man, she's just saying anything to be viral. But I found myself vibing with what she actually said and ranking it, and it works out pretty well when you go into the details. Her video "Sex and the Power of Saying No" got a lot of views by talking about sex, and I agree with the core of it: you can't safely participate in dating or sex until you have the unshakable confidence to explicitly say no, plus the discernment to choose partners who will respect that boundary.
Now, it's tricky too, because if you get into saying no all the time, you can ruin a sex life. If you're saying no out of resentment because you haven't taken care of yourself, that's a problem. You should be able to say no, and ideally you should completely stop dating until you trust your own ability to say no. At the same time, watch out, because some of her stuff borders on fatalism about her own dating prospects. She says she rarely ever likes anyone. She seems to be struggling with some of the other things I've talked about across these creators, like looking for the perfect person and dismissing people very easily. The boundary-setting realization is healthy, but the extreme withdrawal is certainly an overcorrection.
The deeper question underneath all of this is: why do you need to set this boundary? I've certainly thought that just because you're not in the mood to have sex doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It can still be a very productive thing for the relationship. Like that scale I've mentioned before, if one person is feeling a five on the sex scale and the other is feeling a ten, it could be best for the relationship to go ahead, and it's also worth it for the person feeling the five to investigate what's going on with them. So there are significant ups and downs with her approach, but it's valuable to hold all these different points of view.
Jimmy on Relationships: stop diagnosing your dates as narcissists
Jimmy on Relationships talks about the signs that someone will be toxic, and his core thesis is: stop trying to clinically diagnose the people you date as narcissists. Yes, please, God, stop. Stop trying to slap all these clinical psychological terms on other people. To me, that itself is a red flag, or at least a yellow flag. I say this from talking with a lot of women in a dating context: as soon as a woman starts talking about narcissists and her ex, I immediately picture that she's going to be talking about me the same way down the line. Anytime you start throwing on these psychological terms, that's a warning sign.
Even the word "boundary" gets thrown around all the time. To me, boundary is not something that should be used casually. Physical safety, not being hit in a relationship, that is a boundary. You are not going to hit me. That's a boundary. You hit me, the relationship is over. I'm not going to tolerate physical violence, that's for sure. But most other things are not a boundary that severe. The idea of small boundaries is, in my view, not really a boundary at all. That's a comfort zone. That's a preference. Enforce the small stuff, yes, but you're going to push people away by arbitrarily enforcing silly-ass boundaries or playing games.
I absolutely believe you should stop diagnosing your ex as a narcissist. I hope the things I've said about my own ex reflect my subjective experience with her, and I hope I've named just as many opportunities for improvement in myself as I have in her. Taking it slow is definitely ideal, but then people start throwing around phrases like "love bombed." I didn't even know what love bombing was until I got divorced. There are so many challenges packed into this language.
Chantel Heidi: zero-tolerance vetting versus more love and tolerance
Chantel Heidi had one literally titled "Live Replay, March 31st, 2026." She says women must protect their safety and emotional well-being by enforcing strict, logic-based vetting strategies, specifically waiting three months before any physical intimacy. I do agree with waiting longer before physical intimacy. Three months can be a little long. I believe waiting at least a month before physical intimacy is a great idea, and using physical distance can help too.
Here's where it gets complicated in my own experience. A woman I really liked, one I've mentioned a bunch of times but won't describe in detail for privacy, seemed to be using something like this vetting approach on me when she first met me. But then it seems like what happened is she suddenly flipped and slipped into bed with somebody else right after that. So the downside of this advice is that it's quite extreme. Encouraging you to walk out of a date and drive away without a single word the moment someone asks a question you don't like, that's zero tolerance. If anything, I think we need more love and tolerance today.
I do understand there's an audience of women she may be speaking to who consistently get into abusive relationships, and yes, they may need much more logical standards. But that probably goes back to chemistry, because I've noticed that people with a history of toxic relationships often don't even seem interested in a healthy one. You'd think they'd want it, but the romantic chemistry isn't there, or the healthy person seems boring, or he's "too nice." When you're used to the drama of an abusive relationship, everything else feels boring by comparison.
I've been kind of practicing zero tolerance myself with women over a lot of different issues, and I can tell you it's time for more love and tolerance. I've been way too strict, and then I've been annoyed that I'm alone. I've come to believe you have to gently drop your standards a little at a time if they're too high. What's tempting, if you put up really high standards, is to then crash them down to zero. This kind of extremist advice encourages you to put your standards crazy high with no compromise, and often what that leads to is your standards sitting at 100 where you won't let anybody in, then dropping to zero where you'll let anybody in.
Deborah Cooper: decide with logic, not temporary emotions
Relationship coach Deborah Cooper covers dating disasters and lessons learned. I agree a lot with her thesis: women in relationships suffer because they make decisions from temporary emotions instead of logic. Unfortunately, women do seem to be driven heavily by emotions, and men often are too. In relationships, some decisions really do need to be made on logic.
I'm not personally seeing much blatant disrespect in my dates, though I hear there's plenty going on out there. But all of us are translating through our own filters. Some of my fun and humor could be read as blatant disrespect. One woman wanted to hear my comedy routine, and I asked if there were any subjects I shouldn't get into. She said, "Don't say anything about women." So of course I said something just to be funny and provocative, and I can see how somebody could call that blatant disrespect and a red flag. Man, I'm amazed anybody can date in this day and age. I'm proud of any of you who keep trying, because this is hard.
If you're trapped in one-sided financial relationships, or you struggle to set boundaries with toxic family members, those are things worth considering. I think her advice gets pretty toxic on blended-family environments, where you really need to work together instead. To me the real line is simple: do not be blatantly disrespectful to me in public. Women and men both should be polite in public. You don't start yelling or screaming or putting your partner down in public. That's crazy, and I'm not putting up with it.
Dr. Ramani: love bombing as subtle grooming
Dr. Ramani's take is "the secret agenda of love bombing, it's not what you expect." Love bombing isn't simply over-the-top romance; it's subtle grooming and a series of loyalty tests. I agree, move slowly on new relationships. Don't try to love bomb someone all over the place, and don't dump a whole bunch of over-the-top compliments on them.
The downside is that this can push me toward not wanting to compliment at all, and I feel bad about that in this culture. A woman takes all this time to get ready and look beautiful for a date, and then I don't even want to acknowledge it because it starts to look like I'm desperate or like I care too much. So I try to acknowledge it carefully. I gave a nice compliment to one woman where I said I enjoyed the thought of her getting ready and trying to look her best for the date with me. I acknowledged the work and time she put in, which isn't a very dangerous compliment. Taking all of this in is difficult because there's so much, but that's exactly how you grow. This research benefits me as much as anyone, and I hope it benefits you the same way.
I do like his point in the discussion about whether butterflies are actually a trauma warning sign. A lot of the time, yes. If you're getting serious butterflies with somebody, instead of calmly getting to know them and being curious about them, that huge spark can be a warning sign.
Jonathan Asla: the conversation to have before sleeping together
Jonathan Asla covers the important questions to ask before sleeping together, and I agree. You should ideally have a direct, explicit conversation about exclusivity and deleting the dating apps. That's very good advice for building a healthy relationship. Filter anyone who isn't looking for something serious right from the start, absolutely. At the same time, presenting a full list of vows to a man before you've even slept together can be a bit off-putting, and you could lose something with it. But I do think some basic dating vows are an empowered boundary.
If any of this resonates and you want to go deeper with me, I'd love for you to work through it with me directly. You can join my community and the Jerry Banfield Family on Skool, book a Zoom call with me, message me, or talk with my AI, and I share a lot of this same thinking in my books and across my site. Dating in this era is genuinely hard, and I'm proud of anyone who keeps showing up for it.
The First-Date Conversation That Comes Way Too Soon
If you picture having this kind of heavy, deep-boundaries conversation on a first date, you can see how badly it lands. This, to me, is exactly why you shouldn't sleep with people on a first date, because having a conversation like this on the first date is way too soon. You're diagnosing a relationship that doesn't exist yet.
Boundaries vs. Personal Preferences
One creator's channel ran along the lines of "just ask girls" and "dating advice I wish I knew sooner" — love, heartbreak, and moving on. One of her lines was: if a boy crosses your boundaries to disrupt your peace, leave him immediately. And again, if you can clearly define a boundary versus a personal preference, that can make sense. That's the distinction I keep coming back to. So much of the red-flag, boundary, therapy-speak culture online blurs the two. A real boundary is about what you will do. A personal preference dressed up as a "boundary" is just a demand with better branding, and treating every preference as a hard line someone "crossed" is how you end up alone, convinced everyone you meet is a narcissist.
You Don't Need Endless Time to "Heal"
I don't think you need a whole lot of time to heal after a breakup, and here's the problem I have with the way that gets sold. There's a quote from somebody — I think it was Eckhart Tolle or Wayne Dyer. Supposedly there's a parable of a man long ago and his son. He was told in the morning that his 19-year-old son had died in a Navy accident. And that night the father was found out at a dance, participating in a celebration. Somebody was shocked and said, how can you be out at this dance having fun like this when your son died today? And the man said: well, at some point I'm going to go back to having a joyful life after my son has passed. And I say that today shall be that day, because I see no point in throwing away a day of suffering when my son would want me to have a day of joy.
That's what I think about breakups. A lot of people put themselves into what, to me, looks like — what they call "healing" is just voluntary suffering. Literally as soon as I got separated, I was immediately trying to date. I don't need time to heal or to be alone. In my experience, that is just rationalizing a bunch of extra suffering. The opportunity cost for it is high. You're wasting your time. Get out there and at least start meeting people and talking.
The "All Men Are Cheaters" Generalization
Then there's her generalization that men are lustful cheaters and liars. I unfortunately see how that is true sometimes — some men, sure. But speaking for myself: I was faithful for 15 years in my relationship. I had integrity, and I was honest — too honest for my ex lots of times. I was a little lustful, for sure. That's the thing, though: all of us are going to have some character defects.
Having a strict zero-tolerance policy — if someone makes one mistake, you're going to be alone doing that. Nobody is going to survive that standard. The real question is forgiveness. If both people have a strict zero-tolerance policy, then nobody is ever going to be in a relationship for long. So I don't buy the idea that your body literally rejects a toxic partner. I think a lot of us make things way worse than they have to be. Before you diagnose your date as a narcissist, it's worth asking whether you're holding them to a standard no human being could ever pass.
Where to Go From Here
If any of this resonated with you, I'd love for you to join the Jerry Banfield Family where I keep working through this kind of thing with people who are actually trying to build something real instead of just cataloging red flags. And if you want the full breakdown of everything I learned from studying these dating creators one by one, you can dig into my Dating playlist.