I studied 100-plus dating videos on YouTube from 100-plus different creators so that you could skip through all the nonsense I've been going through. I want you to have an amazing dating life, and this research was difficult. I built 235 slides here, and I'm going to go through them live, off the top of my head, plus using my notes, so that you can understand exactly what is being taught on YouTube right now from all sides of the equation. I am very interested in you having the best life possible, and this whole project is dedicated to helping you make that and to see the bigger picture of what's happening in dating.
Every video I picked was published in the last three months on YouTube. I'm tired of old, outdated dating advice. I want to know what's working now in June 2026. Every video is broken down the same standard way: core thesis, best and weakest advice, and two zero-to-10 scores. I'm going to rank 100 different creators, and I'm shocked that some of the creators I've been watching got some of the very lowest ranks in here once I looked at the bigger picture of what everybody's teaching. What you'll especially be fascinated in is the gap between practical and relationship scores. So much of what people are teaching is designed to just get you into a situationship or a hookup, but it will not work for a long-term relationship.
I'm also going to pair and discuss everything here based on my own personal experience: having a happy 15-year marriage and two children, then getting divorced last year, dating again, going out with at least 20 women this year myself, and suffering through the dating advice on YouTube until I finally said enough is enough. I need to see what's actually happening on YouTube. I need to teach this myself. This is not a ranking of creators as people. This is cold, hard, clinical research backed by the emotion of wanting a loving and joyous relationship.
How to actually use this research
If you really care about your dating life, I invite you to think about how important your dating life is, how much happiness and joy you can have, and how much you've suffered up to this point. If you want a better dating life, go through this entire long, drawn-out, detailed research so that you can learn all the lessons and find maybe a handful of creators that you really love watching — and maybe stop watching some of the ones you didn't realize were so toxic.
Not every creator is for every goal, and this is something the research helped me see. Some advice helps you get dates, but if you're already getting dates, you don't really need to see how to get more dates. What you really need is to learn how to build a relationship, stay out of bad situations, and stop drifting into fear instead of love. The goal behind the advice is very important to be aware of, and I try to get at that.
I set out to make this very inclusive of diverse perspectives, because what I've noticed in a lot of popular creators is that they give one single perspective. So I put 27 men-focused creators in here, 33 women-focused creators in here, 12 LGBTQ-plus voices including two trans creators, and 12 relationship experts. My approach is that if I study what everybody's talking about — whether straight, gay, want kids, don't want kids, young, senior dating, first dates through 50-plus years, cold approach, dating apps, dating after divorce, therapists and researchers next to pickup artists — I've got it all in here because I want to hear everybody's perspective and expand. I guarantee you will greatly expand your view of the world and your view of dating, and from there you'll be able to conquer dating.
And if you want to conquer dating and work with me, that's exactly what my community is for. I'm here to help you create a life you love and to work with you directly. We don't have too much time to tangent on that because it's a long presentation, so let's knock it out.
The wildly different theories of love on YouTube
What you want to start with is seeing the wildly different theories of love that are all over YouTube. This has been a big boost to me, realizing that I was mostly watching a very limited kind of content. You've got coaches teaching attraction and tactics, like Todd V. Dating and Haley Quinn, who I'd both been watching recently. Then there's attachment and emotional regulation, which I had not been looking at at all. There's breakup and no-contact recovery, which I was just starting to think about a bit — even though I got divorced last year, I hadn't thought to look up any breakup or no-contact recovery. But it's hard when you're co-parenting; you can't do no contact.
Then you've got standards and feminine energy, which is not something I'd ever looked up before this. I'd seen some red pill and evolutionary psychology. I'm not going to include any — or hardly any — of the black pill stuff in here, because that's just crap to me. There's so much depth in dating. There is not a one-size-fits-all. Nobody, especially not me, has all the answers that work all the time. I hate to break it to you, but there's not one single system or coach that perfectly explains how everything works, because all of us are alive, all of us operate a little bit differently, and all of us have different preferences and things we like and don't like. So it's not just looks, it's not just money, it's not just one thing or another, or how you treat or act or communicate. There are some things that seem to work really well for a great relationship, and some things that work for attraction, but there's not one system that explains everything.
I hadn't even been watching many videos on marriage and commitment or mature dating until lately, until I realized maybe I do belong closer to that category. And boundaries and healthy communication — interestingly, when I first saw videos like that, I thought none of this is useful for me. But doing this research, I'm like, you know what, I do need some more videos on that.
The big picture: 7.5 practical, 6.5 relationship
Let's look at the big picture, and then I'm going to go through 100 creators with two slides per creator on an individual video. I actually analyzed more than 100 videos, but for here I dropped some of the most useless videos and creators that didn't seem to contribute anything to the conversation. So this analysis is 100 videos, 100 creators, one video per creator. The average score on how practical their advice is came out to 7.5. The average relationship score was 6.5. Practical is like, okay, how do you go up and cold approach a woman? Relationship is: how is what you're doing and the kind of person you're being going to lead to you having a successful relationship?
Across these videos, YouTube leans toward tactics over connection, which is a big problem. Because when you're practicing and learning all these tactics but then have no follow-through for connection where you can have a real relationship — like I had for 15 years, and I still have a great co-parenting relationship with the mother of my children — you're stuck. I'm looking for another single mom, or a woman who wants to have more kids that I can expand my family with. So that's my lens, and from there I see that tactics don't matter that much. I need relationship skills, and I need to do everything toward a relationship. A lot of the tactics that get taught on YouTube undermine getting a relationship.
The four kinds of dating advice
These are the four kinds of advice overall. The best overall advice looks at both practical and relationship — how can you get into a connection, a date, a place where you can even go to meet people, and then escalate that to a loving, healthy, beautiful relationship. This is the best kind of advice.
A lot of dating content, though, is all about useful tactics backed by risky philosophy, where many of the creators themselves have no evidence they've ever had a great relationship in their life. All they do is work on body count, which I personally can't stand. The research I've seen — that I guess I should have included in here — shows that people with a lower body count tend to have much higher satisfaction in relationships, whereas people who've had sex with a lot more people tend to be less happy with the partner they're with, more likely to be single, or in a dysfunctional relationship. Unfortunately, the majority of what you see, especially when you combine the size of the creators and the quantity of content they put out, is a shocking level of practical, get-attraction content with relatively little on how to build a deep relationship — and especially little on practical action that matches the relationship. That's what I intend to teach: practical, as in okay, how do you get started and get on a date, combined with practical action that matches getting into a beautiful relationship.
Then there are some creators who have deep wisdom that's less actionable — it can help get into a relationship, but you're left asking, okay, how do I actually apply this? And then the worst of the worst don't even have much practical or relationship value, but some of them get huge amounts of views just ranting and criticizing and putting out content that to me is destructive. When I watch it, I feel like crap afterward. So I've thankfully learned, especially doing this research, to absolutely never watch a creator who just complains and whines and puts down another gender or a specific type of person. Never watch this kind of content. It is destructive and will screw up your mindset. Instead, watch content that's high energy, high vibes, full of love and passion, and you will absolutely rock at your life.
If you're in the hetero game like I am, the core finding is that men are mostly taught attraction. We're taught peacocking — go around and turn women on, get them interested. Meanwhile, women are mostly taught to deal with the men they're attracting or find attractive, then vet them and make sure they're a decent man. And the relationship experts are teaching regulation — how not to go into extremes and destroy a relationship, or get all anxious and depressed. Tactics get you the date; attraction can get you a date. Vetting can help you avoid the losers. But regulation, which I've not been learning much of myself, is what helps you keep it. So here are some of the key things that keep coming up out of the 100 videos, so you can be sure you're getting the big picture of the conversation.
Boundaries versus comfort zones
Relationship psychology is huge right now. There are so many people talking psychology, and so much talk of red flags and boundaries. What I would add to the conversation is that a lot of what gets called a boundary should really be called a comfort zone. There should be an explicit distinction between the two. A boundary is something like, you're never ever going to cross this threshold. You're never going to break into my house while I'm filming a video right now. That's a boundary. A comfort zone is something like what you prefer, but there could be scenarios where you would step out of it.
I was talking to my ex recently. We've been divorced since 2025, and we've been very friendly, giving each other hugs, saying I love you, seeing each other. We had a discussion where she said, I think it's time for my boundaries that we stop saying I love you and giving each other hugs. And I said, I don't think that's a boundary. To me, a boundary is something that you absolutely never do and never cross. What I think you're saying is that saying I love you, especially now that you're dating someone else, and hugging each other every time we see each other, that's now out of your comfort zone. It's not something we should be doing on a regular basis. But it's not a boundary in the sense that there's never a scenario where you'd say I love you or ever have a hug. Boundaries are things you never go across. Comfort zones are different, and often the growth can be in stepping into the comfort zone. But for keeping our relationship comfortable, yes, it was time to distance ourselves a bit more from each other so that we're both more open to the relationship she's having with somebody else and the relationship I intend to have with the next mother of my children.
There's so much talk about red flags and boundaries that people have become paranoid. Any little thing at all, oh, that's a red flag, oh, that's a red flag. There's going to be a lot more on this later, because there are real problems with it.
Tactics get the date, not the marriage
So many of these videos are about attraction and tactics. The problem is, if you laser in better on relationship and marriage and commitment, on being a person who is ready for the relationship you want and putting yourself in a position to have it, you don't really need to do as much attraction and tactics. And a lot of the attraction and tactics content is insanely repeatable and contradictory.
Out of the 100-plus I studied, there were 22 videos where LGBTQ dating is part of the conversation. About half of those are significantly focused on it, like gay and lesbian dating channels, and the other half discuss it within the context of hetero dating as well. There are channels for dating apps and texting specifically. I personally just deleted the dating apps. I find dating apps conflict with my ability to be present and focus on creating the best live streams for you all, which I then turn into blog posts on my website. So I personally find dating apps to be very toxic and distracting. Without them, I make a much bigger effort to be in communities where there are women around who might have a lot of compatibility with me, and then I can put my attraction and tactics to work there. There are also 18 videos talking about culture, faith, and identity, like Jewish dating, Muslim dating, Christian dating, and 21 videos on breakups or no contact.
The best advice: Esther Perel and the myth of perfection
Let's look at the best advice first. I love this from Esther Perel: her warning to stop expecting tech-level perfection and a frictionless partner. I've personally had a few women critique me, saying I expect a woman to have her life perfectly together when I'm trying to date a woman in her twenties. That's an unreasonable expectation, that she's not going to have any addictions or serious dysfunctions, that she's going to be ready to commit, reply to my text messages, and not also be talking to five other guys. I've struggled with having way too high standards with women, and I've seen women do the same thing back to me. Any single little thing I do, oh my God, that's a red flag, that's a boundary, I'm ghosting him, I'm not talking to him.
So one of the biggest takeaways I've got from this is embracing the risk and messiness of authentic human connection, figuring out where I can tolerate a bit of messiness and where is truly the place to say, look, I'm not dealing with that. For me, alcoholism is one of those. If you're an active alcoholic, since I have a history with that myself and I'm sober 12 years, that's an absolute no for me personally. But when you get honest, it comes down to a handful of things that are really important, and then you can be flexible on the rest.
Naftali Moses: your needs aren't wounds to erase
Naftali Moses says to stop viewing your emotional needs as wounds, as something you must magically eradicate before you can be loved. It seems like women especially tend to lean into this, but nothing I say is meant to be particular to any one demographic. Men obviously have this issue too; it goes all over the board, gay, straight, everyone. You don't have to be this perfect person. I've talked to a number of women who say, I'm not ready for a relationship, I'm working on myself. No. You often can do some of your best work on your emotional needs and wounds within a relationship, instead of trying to do it all by yourself and waiting to be perfect before you even have one.
Lovers by Sean: one partner can't be everything
Lovers by Sean gives the advice to stop expecting one romantic partner to fulfill every single intimate and emotional need. I've done really well with this. With my ex, I realized that I had way too many expectations, that she should be able to talk about my work and every area of my life, that she should be there for all of it. I've done fantastic since getting divorced and building a much bigger community of friends and a village of people who all support me. That means now, going into a relationship, I don't need my woman to be there for every single part of my life.
That's a big part of why I've put so much energy into building the Jerry Banfield Family, my community where people support each other. When your emotional life isn't resting entirely on one person's shoulders, everything gets healthier. If that resonates with you, I'd love to have you join the community and be part of that village.
Magic Maya: attraction can trigger fear
Magic Maya gives the advice to recognize that human beings, regardless of gender, often react to strong attraction with insecurity and fear rather than confidence. I've been seeing a lot of that. Believe it or not, for some of you, I produce a strong repulsion in some women, and I've produced strong attraction in others. I've noticed some of these women get insecure. They give me signals like, oh, I'm very attracted to you, and then they swap into insecurity and fear. I'm thinking of one conversation with a woman I was very attracted to, who seemed very attracted to me, and she went from very interested to flipping into insecurity and fear and boundaries, just chaos.
When I recognized that, I was pretty judgmental of it at first. I'd think, what is your issue, why can't you just handle being attracted to someone? But I've noticed the same thing in myself. When I get attracted to someone, there's this insecurity and fear. As soon as they like me, I start thinking, well, I'm going to lose them now. Being aware of this helps you stop it within yourself, accept it, and be more loving and compassionate toward others. To me, emotional maturity is being able to internalize a woman's awkwardness as something other than a personal failure or immediate rejection. That's a big takeaway I wouldn't have gotten without doing this research.
Clay Andrews and the Gay Men Going Deeper podcast
Myrtle Leach had best advice that wasn't at all about attraction. Clay Andrews gives the advice to exit the posture-versus-collapse paradigm entirely: realizing that you don't have to fake unbothered confidence or sink into desperate despair. You can just honestly and securely communicate your values, and that's emotionally mature.
From the Gay Men Going Deeper podcast: you don't lose yourself by needing someone, you lose yourself by having no boundaries. Yes. This has personally been less of an issue for me; I've been pretty good with boundaries. But I know some others struggle with it, and with reframing intimacy for really independent people. I understand that sometimes the more independent you are, the harder it can actually be to include other people in your life.
Lindsay Ann: the attraction test
Lindsay Ann offers the attraction test: asking yourself, would you still like this person if nobody in your life validated them? That's a grounded way to separate connection from social status. This is a big struggle in dating, because a lot of us are approaching dating as a way to up our social status. So many of the videos aimed at men are all about elevating your status, telling you that if you want to attract a woman you need to up your status, and that will attract her. But that's kind of sad. The mindset behind it, that all women care about is a man's social status, is also just wrong. There's so much more than that. It's the same as the idea that all men should care about is physical attractiveness, which is ridiculous. Personality makes a huge difference.
The Gottman Institute: own your part
The Gottman Institute gives advice on personal responsibility during conflict. This is big, and I really want this for my next relationship, because I'm pretty comfortable admitting how I messed up and my role in a miscommunication. I can't stand being with a partner who's always right and wants to argue everything. Just admit how you messed up, admit your role in the miscommunication, so we can both move forward, instead of one of us having to be right and the other having to be wrong. I'm really grateful for this one. This is what I want in a relationship.
Caitlin V and Dear Future Wifey
Caitlin V offers the reframe on emotional intimacy and connection before sex: treating a woman's need to feel emotionally connected not as a gatekeeping hurdle to be gamed. I can't stand how much of the advice treats this purely as a hurdle to game. Unfortunately, yes, you can game it, but the back end of that is just misery for everyone. I want to be fully emotionally connected with a woman before sex, because I have an incredible amount of loyalty within me, and trying to game that when I don't really feel it leaves everybody dissatisfied. The goal is to truly emotionally connect with someone.
And Dear Future Wifey makes the point that the key to long-term love is choosing to love each version your partner becomes.
Loving the person they become, not just the person they were
One of the hardest things about a long relationship is that you both keep growing and evolving, and one day you realize the person you woke up next to is not the person you were with 10 or 15 years ago. I love who they used to be, but I don't love who they are now. That is one of the biggest challenges of an ongoing relationship. It even shapes how I think about dating: could I love this person if they made some significant changes? My goal going forward is to make sure I'm with someone where we can really love each other better as we grow together.
Evan Marc has this useful distinction between being a maximizer and a satisficer. A lot of us have the mindset that we're always trying to find a better option, and we carry this illusion that there are far more options out there than there actually are today. The ideal is to be a person who's content with an excellent though imperfect choice.
I've enjoyed Mark Manson, and he didn't make it into my list because he hasn't put out any recent dating content that I've seen, and I prioritized creators with recent dating content. But Mark Manson had a great point on his solved dating podcast about how you want to find someone where you're okay with the 10 or 20% of things about them that you can't stand. Everybody you're going to be with is going to have that 10 or 20%, at minimum, of things you can't stand. As long as you can accept that, and not try to fix it or make it go away, but just say, everybody is going to have stuff that's not compatible with me and I accept that, you're in a good place.
Freya India says her best advice is to stop trying to be the chill, emotionally numb partner who never needs anything. I can't stand how much advice is built around that. I'm a very warm, loving partner who is very comfortable expressing exactly what I need. I worked on that a lot in my last marriage. I didn't used to be that way. To me, true relationship security comes from clearly defining your standards, asking for what you want, and asking your partner direct questions to eliminate the guesswork. It's unreasonable to expect the person you're with to just read your mind. That's the best of the advice.
The weakest advice — and the traps to spot
Now we go through the weakest advice, and it's really important to spot whether you're watching content that gives this kind of advice and to be aware of the downsides. I'm embarrassed to admit how much content I've watched that falls in this category, because I didn't look at the bigger picture. I just quickly searched for something like "how to text a girl," and there are these traps. So many channels are basically a trap: you search for some practical advice and you go down a rabbit hole of the absolute weakest advice. These are a few of the failure modes.
To be fair, I only picked one video from one creator to include here, because picking 100 creators and 100 videos was hard enough. I went through every creator and tried to pick the best video that accurately represented their viewpoint. In some places I may have grabbed a video that wasn't so representative, one that wasn't on their best day or that doesn't reflect the depth they have to offer. Keep that in mind with these critiques. That said, look for patterns. Look for creators who are consistently putting out this weak kind of advice.
Coach Kyle — recording your dates
One of the funniest out of all these videos: Coach Kyle literally suggested recording your pickups and your dates. Sometimes I have wished I could listen back to what I said on a date. But come on, that's nuts. Recording dates and recording conversations is illegal in some places. That's nuts.
Coach Corey Wayne — manipulative distance tactics
I watched a bunch of Coach Corey Wayne's videos, and man, the manipulative distance tactics — I can't stand that stuff. I hate when women do that kind of thing to me. Can you just accurately respond to my message and I'll do the same? Do we have to do this artificial thing of trying to create distance? I can't stand it. Watching a bunch of his videos as part of this research has helped me realize: no thanks on any more of them.
Justin J — fear-based gender rationalizations
Fear-based gender rationalizations are, to me, some of the content that will most sabotage your best efforts in dating. If you're watching that kind of content, you're setting up the other gender — or, if it's the same sex, the kind of person you want to date — as the enemy. Then you go in and it's like a war right away, and that's the last thing you want. I watched a bunch of Justin J's videos when I was in a place where I was hurt and frustrated myself, so I identified with them. But once I shifted into a better place of owning what I am, really loving women, and forgiving my ex-wife, I found his videos absolutely unwatchable. His videos could change from what I've sampled, but videos that criticize the other gender — never, never watch those. If you want a happy relationship, never watch anything that puts down the exact type or demographic of person you'd want to be with.
Pseudo-medical claims — Mia Doris and others
Then there are videos with pseudo-medical claims. Again, this was a lot of research and I could have gotten something inaccurate, so make sure to double-check things yourself. But be aware of people giving dating advice and then tying it into specific medical claims — things like Mia Doris and feminine energy, PCOS, cherished allies, pH, breakups. Yes, there could be possibilities here that I'm not aware of. I'm into Louise Hay, the idea that you can heal your body and that emotions and physical health are connected — I'm into all of that. At the same time, in my experience it can be dangerous to get into somebody telling you that stuff, because you could pick up something that's essentially a nocebo. A placebo is something positive you believe that then plays out. A nocebo is when you pick up something negative that works the same way — you just believe it, and therefore it happens. How awful is that? A lot of the things we carry, in my experience, are nocebos: you believe something's bad, so it plays out, when if you didn't believe it, it might not play out that way. So be careful of that.
False hope in breakup content — Coach Lee and Coach Craig Kenneth
Then there's a lot of false hope in breakup content about how "no contact" is the way to get your ex back. Some highlights on that come from Coach Lee and Coach Craig Kenneth. I understand wanting to get your ex back, but I was with my ex for 15 years and I don't need my ex back. She doesn't need me back. There are millions of other single women on this planet and millions of single men. A lot of the time the best answer is to move on and not try to get your ex back.
Hayley Quinn — is a rejection really a win?
Let's look at more details of this questionable advice, because it's important you pick up on it. Keep in mind that with each of these creators the sample is limited. Hayley Quinn is a great example. I only included one single video of hers, though I've watched many more. Most of her videos are only about five minutes long, and my rule is one video per creator. So she has much more advice than her sample here reflects — but then again, she's the one who makes a bunch of short five-minute videos instead of longer ones I could pull into a single video without confusing my methodology.
Hayley Quinn, for example, tells men that a rejection is still a win because it gives you feedback. I don't know about that. Where I'm at right now, I'm waiting for women to signal me, because women have signaled me — they'll make deep eye contact and smile and make it clear they want me specifically to come talk to them. That is where I've gotten the best results. What I absolutely can't stand anymore is the cold approach: when a woman hasn't looked at me, made any eye contact, or given me any indication she's interested, and I cold approach her anyway and get rejected, and I feel bad and she feels bad. That is not a win. Yes, technically it's giving you feedback, but don't do it anymore. Don't cold approach someone who hasn't given you any signal she's interested.
Dr. Ramani — over-pathologizing normal dating
Dr. Ramani is highly validating for abuse survivors, but a lot of content like this has led to a situation where we have hyper-vigilant viewers who over-pathologize normal early dating clumsiness, mundane boundary testing, and genuine intense infatuation as calculated malicious abuse. Like love bombing — I hardly feel comfortable giving a woman a compliment today, because immediately it gets labeled love bombing. So I'm very skeptical of content that takes people who've been through extreme situations, generalizes it, and puts it out in a context where people who haven't been in those extreme situations start diagnosing each other. This happens to men a lot, but it can happen to anybody: you've got women diagnosing men as if we're in a psychologist's office. I've worked as a police officer in a mental health hospital. I've seen the most dangerous situations and people who are physically locked up because of what they've done. Taking that environment into dating is very toxic and makes everything harder. That said, as a woman especially, you do have to vet whether a man fits into that category. But realistically, the vast majority of the time the answer is going to be no — and unfortunately you're usually not going to be able to detect it on just the first or second date.
Christy in her 50s, and Last First Date
Back to Coach Kyle, I already covered the audio and filming. Christy in her 50s suggested inviting a woman you just met in traffic to pull over at a Starbucks up the road. I don't know about that — but this is exactly why I love this research. I've seen women in traffic before, and that's pretty bold. Maybe dating in your 50s that makes sense. I'm almost there — not quite, I've got another decade — but that's why you want to watch lots of different content: to get a feel for all these different approaches.
Last First Date gave the advice to use hugs from friends and community to replace missing physical intimacy. Yes, that can work. When I got divorced, I leaned in more to my community — the people around me from AA and other communities. If you're navigating a season like that, I'd point you toward exactly this: build a community around you. That's part of why I bring people into the Jerry Banfield Family, so there's a place to lean on each other while you grow.
Friends can't fill the space a partner is supposed to fill
One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people who are single, or doing too much of this, are just trying to use all these people from communities and platonic friends to fill the void of having a lover, and then they say, "Oh, I don't need a lover." Well, then you're leaning on your friends way too hard. It would be better for you to actively seek a lover instead of essentially keeping a few friends who are basically like lovers, and sometimes you do have sex with them but lots of times you don't. It just gets confusing.
Christine Loveridge — going silent vs. real no-contact
Christine Loveridge made the point that going no-contact, like telling someone "I'm never going to speak to you again," is a bit dramatic. Going silent is functionally different, and it can breed resentment or confusion rather than the panic that a clean no-contact is supposed to create. I've lived this one. There's a woman I went out with where I decided, I don't think we're compatible. She's got all these different guys going on, and her life is in a very unstable place. I've gone silent on my end, because I figure if she wants a bunch of details about why I'm not interested in continuing to talk, I'll be happy to give them. But for now, she sends me a generic "How are you doing today?" text, and I don't want to talk about how I'm doing with someone who's staying for 10 days with some guy on the other side of the state. I'm not interested in having a little chat with you — go focus on him. I'm not saying I'll never speak to her again. I'm just saying, when you're totally unavailable, no thanks, I don't want to emotionally invest in that right now.
Honey Renee — line up the next partner before you leave
Honey Renee's advice is to quietly quit a relationship by secretly lining up a new partner. Now, part of me wishes I could have done that when I was married before. It's framed as self-protection, but it's also advising women to cheat and monkey-branch, and that destroys integrity and prevents mature communication. And yet I'm not saying it's flat-out wrong to give someone that advice. Part of me — I had some girls I had crushes on when I was married — part of me thinks I should have just lined those up, and then when I got divorced, instead of having nobody and being alone and sad and desperate and needy, so that nobody wanted anything to do with me because of that, maybe I should have lined somebody up and made a smooth transition. So maybe I'm just jealous on that one.
Nadia Bocote — the Pinterest wedding board
Nadia Bocote suggests telling someone on a first date, "I should let you know, I've already made a Pinterest board for a wedding." I don't know. That might actually work for me. I've got to say, that might actually work for me.
Owen Cook — the caveman persona I've finally outgrown
Owen Cook. I've probably spent the most hours watching his content, and after doing this research, still the most. I love a lot of things about Owen Cook, but the relentless promotion of the hypomanic, highly aggressive caveman persona is incredibly performative. And his stories with women don't sound like there have been many happy relationships. There have been a lot of hookups and a lot of action, but not a lot of consistency and love over time. So it's like, do I want to be like this guy? Are my odds of having a woman and making a family and a partnership getting better when I listen to his content? It certainly has helped me in some other areas, but I can see from this research that it's time to move on from listening to him and broaden my horizons.
Lean muscle, being a "Chad," and Casey Zander
People ask how important lean muscle is. I'd say it's important to take care of yourself — but here's the thing. Casey Zander, for example, is all about just being a Chad and getting yourself looking perfectly. There's a point where yes, being lean and taking care of yourself is helpful, but the idea that you should just hit the gym, get insanely lean, and go off your physical appearance is absolutely a tangent. The best thing for dating is being well-rounded. Do take care of your body. I eat whole plant-based, I'm less than 20% body fat at 42 years old, and I can get out and play a four-hour tennis match in the middle of the day in the Florida heat. I believe in taking care of my body — but I'm not going to the gym today, I'm going to do a free yoga event at the park later to meet up with a friend and see if there are any women I can meet and work on all this there. The idea that you need to be super shredded and lean, and that that's all you have to do, is absolutely ridiculous. I watched a bunch of Casey Zander's videos, and after this research, I'm never watching one again. If he helps you, that's great. Personally, when I look at the big picture, it's not helpful.
Relationship Coach Deborah Cooper — adversarial by default
Relationship Coach Deborah Cooper's advice on navigating family dynamics is pretty adversarial. For example, when a woman complained about her 12-year-old daughter moving in, Deborah advised making a spreadsheet to throw in the husband's face and told her she should just divorce him. If you're dating with stepchildren — which is exactly the environment I'm looking in — love and tolerance, acceptance, and making a beautiful partnership are what's important. This is why it matters to look at the big picture of what so many different people are saying. Because if you only look at one, or two, or maybe a handful of creators, and they're all saying the same things, it can seem like everybody's saying that. But what I'm showing you here is that not everybody's saying it. Some of these little manosphere videos are very niche, and when you apply this stuff with real people in person, it's a disaster and it doesn't get you what you want.
School of Life — love should be simple? No.
The School of Life's strict rule of four chances and then we're off is highly arbitrary, and it ignores the fact that secure relationships face complex, different periods that can be resolved with all kinds of methods — therapy, patience. Claiming love should essentially be quite simple is ridiculous. Looking at my parents' marriage — my mom being in the military and living all over the world, my dad's alcoholism and getting sober, and the challenges my brother and I brought — having a long-term partnership is almost as challenging as dating. At least in dating you get some nice breaks of being single. I've been in my house all day by myself today, and I'm like, damn, it's nice. It's nice in here.
Todd V Dating — body count and resentment
Todd V Dating I found recently. If I could summarize his videos, it's all about body count — as many as possible, that's my summary after watching a number of them — with the aggressive framing that society lies to men to keep them on sexless borders. I can certainly see some of that, but you don't want resentment when you're trying to date. Resentment is one of the worst things you can carry. You want to open your love to that goddess or king or queen you want to invite into your life. That's where I'm at. That's why I'm teaching, that's why I'm doing this — because my heart is open to the queen I want to build my life with. I've had to sift through a lot of dating advice that sabotaged that, and I've gotten to this place on my own, and now I can see what to watch from here.
The body you bring into a relationship
People also ask whether low belly fat really helps. Obviously you don't want a big beer belly. To me, whole plant-based is the easiest solution. According to Dr. Michael Greger — who is a doctor, I'm not, he's the one who's done the research — eating whole plant-based makes my entire body, my mind, every single thing work better. But you can't just eat vegan junk food and think you're doing whole plant-based. Whole plant-based is fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, beans, plus B12 and spices. Read the book How Not to Die. Eating like that, what I've found is my body naturally settles into a shape that's beautiful, healthy, and fully functional — and that's the kind of body to bring into a relationship. I'm not the doctor here; I'm just the one who's tried it on myself for a decade.
Now, creator by creator — starting with Matthew Hussey
About 41 minutes in, we go creator by creator, 100 creators, one by one — well, two slides at a time. And I'm surprised how these rankings turned out when I applied an objective system to categorize them all the same way. Keep in mind, the biggest variable here is which video I chose. I might have picked Matthew Hussey's best video, and I might have picked Casey Zander's or Owen Cook's worst video for this particular methodology. So you're welcome to use your own methodology. I'm confident that hearing 100 different creators and the basics of what they're teaching will really help you get a bigger view of the world, just as it's helped me.
Matthew Hussey earns a perfect 10 on practical and a perfect 10 on relationship. This is the ideal mode to be in, where the practical advice matches having a healthy relationship. His video on how to make modern dating feel easier is fantastic. Dating burnout is the single greatest threat to your love life — yes, and I've experienced this myself. I've had several dates in a week, gotten all excited about one, and couldn't even focus. Where I'm at right now is: if you're not my next wife, I don't need to invest anything emotionally with you. We don't even need to talk. I don't need another friend. If you're not my next wife, all I've got time for is my work, my children, taking care of myself, being a member of my community and my friends — and then working on building something with my next wife, so we can build a family, a partnership, have fun together, have kids, and build a life that lasts.
Trying to approach and date and attract too many women burned me out. I literally used dating apps, a matchmaking service, picking women up in person, and getting referrals from women — I even have friends and men referring me to women to date. I've experienced dating burnout this year, and yep, it caused me to hide my authentic self, to perform rather than connect, and to become cynical. When you've gone out with 20 women and it didn't go anywhere with any of them, that's what happens.
Quality over quantity, and the buy mode pivot
I've had some second, third, and fourth dates along the way, but most of them didn't even make it past a first date, and that can lead you to be really cynical. This is exactly why you don't want to run dating as a pure numbers game. You want quality over quantity, not quantity over quality. That's why I'm not cold approaching women. Some woman walking by with headphones on who won't even look at me, I'm not talking to her. I want a woman like the one I'm very interested in right now, who looked at me and smiled at me five or ten times on the dance floor before I ever talked to her, and then we talked for two hours after that. That's what I'm looking for. I don't need to be cold approaching.
His best piece of advice is what he calls the buy mode pivot. The second you start assessing the other person's worthiness instead of trying to sell yourself, everything changes. A lot of us show up like it's a sale we're trying to close, trying to sell ourselves, and this is men and women, gay and straight alike. Instead, look at it like you're a buyer. Would I buy this? Focus on investigating, playing around, deciding whether this is something you'd actually want. When you're looking to buy rather than to sell, it's significantly more attractive and intentional, and you can just show up and act however you want to act, because you're the buyer, not the seller.
Matthew Hussey: is dating broken, or are we just burned out?
If you feel jaded, cynical, or exhausted by dating, Matthew Hussey has a good video about how to make modern dating feel easier. That said, him saying it takes a full calendar year to get to know someone is pretty ridiculous, and it can actually encourage the opposite problem, where you get so desperate trying to get to know someone forever that you end up stuck in some situationship. The question this raises is: is dating broken, or are we just burned out? To me, dating is not broken. I've done some fantastic learning and growth through dating. The culture and the world we're in can certainly make dating difficult right now, but dating can also be one of the most beautiful and meaningful experiences of your life. So for everybody saying dating is broken, it's absolutely not.
Orion Terriban: "just be yourself" is the best and worst advice
Orion Terriban tackles "just be yourself," which is both the best and worst advice out there. I actually really like the nuance here. "Just be yourself" is terrible advice if you're unhappy or unsuccessful, because you first have to change and improve. If you're messed up and crazy, yeah, it might be good to make some changes. But at this point I'd like to think I've got a pretty nice personality, and what I should not do is try to artificially be someone else. My personality should be something I just share, making little adjustments to the core when needed. The problem is I've been bringing a different personality to dating than the personality I show here and with my friends.
The most emotionally mature version of this advice is reframing it as identity and self-improvement. You do need to pass through a phase of uncomfortable, conscious effort where you feel like you're acting unnatural. Absolutely, especially in early sobriety, early divorce, and things like that. This video is very conceptual, and there's a place for that, though I'd note a lot of the other videos have had more concrete, actionable advice. To some degree, finding your authentic self is a trap anyway. To me, the deepest level of self is that you don't have any identity or any self at all; you're just undifferentiated consciousness. So how about that.
Jared Ross: volume of in-person dates over filtering
I've enjoyed Jared Ross's dating profile videos, like for Hinge. He's given some good advice there, but I'm not using dating apps anymore so I don't watch him much, and I wish he'd move beyond dating apps. His core thesis is to stop filtering so hard on dating apps and prioritize getting a high volume of in-person dates. I probably would have gotten more dates that way. I wasted time on the fence sitters and the women who just wanted to talk. I also filtered very severely and was overly picky on dating apps, so I found his videos helpful for branching out. Where I part ways with him is his dismissal of shared values, lifestyle, and income as predictors of relationship success. There's a healthy balance. I got almost no matches from women who said yes to drinking on Hinge, because me saying no to drinking was too big a lifestyle misalignment for them.
The question this brings up is whether we settle for mediocre partners because our sample size is too small. I certainly think a lot of people do, but the extremes cut both ways. Some people settle for mediocre partners because their sample size is too small, and then there are others of us with such insane standards that it doesn't matter if there are practically infinite women who'd line up with them.
Jessica J: stop interrogating, start sharing
Jessica J. Dating says 99.9% of men do one thing that bothers women. Your interest is right, but your execution is wrong. Men fail at attracting women by interrogating them instead of sharing their own experience. I definitely do that, and that's the change I've just made. I should be sharing and talking about myself on a date. I listen to some of these dudes who say don't say anything about yourself, be mysterious, get her to talk. Well, I can name a few women that didn't work with. A woman should want to get to know me. I've talked uninterrupted for three hours and twenty-six minutes about this, and I was even talking to myself beforehand to prepare. So if a woman doesn't enjoy listening to me talk about myself, I definitely should not be trying to interrogate her on a date instead.
So I've learned: do not try to interrogate women on a date. Start sharing my stories, my experiences, and my emotions. Move the conversation away from "what" and toward "how," and be a multidimensional person. That said, this is mostly just practical attraction. It doesn't do much once you're actually in a relationship, which is why these attraction-only tricks aren't as important as they seem. You need to combine attraction with deeper connection. A lot of the creators we're going into, like Casey Zander and Owen Cook, don't build much beyond attraction in their videos, and just getting people attracted is no good if you can't build long-term connection. At the same time, you don't want to totally dismiss finding common interests. I'd love to meet a woman who's also a YouTuber so we could have YouTube in common, that would be awesome, even though chasing common interests too hard can kill your chemistry.
Todd V: sexual tension and not being neutered on dates
Todd V. Dating had "top five dating secrets I wish I knew earlier," a perfect clickbait headline. I agree that true attraction requires leaning into sexual tension rather than avoiding it, and I've been a bit too conservative on that. You can see I'm always thinking something sexual, ready to say "that's what she said," or "oh, it's hard." But on first dates especially, I've been a bit too neutered, just showing up and being boring. What really helped me was watching the woman I mentioned earlier before I talked to her. I watched another guy have a really boring conversation with her, and I thought, oh my God, is this what I'm doing on dates? Is this me? Ew.
The idea is that the seasoning is not the meal; it's mature. Stop over-gaming and destroying trust, and make a natural connection. I don't think all of society is set up to keep men sexless, but a lot of society is training men to be safe, and I've taken in a lot of that too. I used to be a lot more dangerous and a lot more comfortable being very sexual, though to the point where I didn't really respect boundaries unless there was a very clear stop, no, or don't. Back then I was focused on getting what I wanted. The more considerate I've become, the more I second-guess myself; you can see me wondering whether it's rude to interrupt a woman who's out in public with no apparent desire to connect with anyone. Is that safe and sexless, or is that considerate? I don't know. Todd's got some good dating videos, but a lot of it is just approach and basic stuff.
Casey Zander: raw physical attraction as the whole game
Casey Zander, my buddy, you made it down to number 83, and I've probably watched more of his dating videos lately than anybody's, although I've put more time into Owen Cook. Casey's really fallen off recently. His latest stuff is so bad. He's saying that in modern dating men are either effortlessly chosen by women for their raw physical attractiveness and aura, or they're forced to overcompensate with money, effort, and text game. No, Casey. Maybe in the world you're living in, but not in the world I'm living in. I'm seeing women choose men where physical attractiveness doesn't appear to be an issue at all. And the aura? I look at some of these guys and think, this woman wanted a fixer-upper, this guy's ugly and he's an asshole. I'm seeing literally the exact opposite of what he's describing, and this kind of advice is very detrimental to actually leading to a relationship.
I do agree with some of it. This is why you have to separate the good from the bad. I very much agree that habit building is subtraction rather than addition; that's highly practical. Cut out all drinking, not just late-night drinking. Cut out junk food. Work out. I absolutely agree with that. But I've also seen women choose men who have physically let themselves go. And yes, you don't want to rely on pickup artist lines, but the claim that a truly desired man has nothing to do other than text is ridiculous. Do you even want a woman who would sleep with you on the first date? Unless perhaps she'd known me a long time and there was already a lot of tension, it doesn't make sense. Especially through a dating app or matchmaking, if you'd sleep with me on the first date, you'd do that with anybody else, and that's gross. I've done exactly that before, so I'm not judging from some pedestal. But the whole "is the provider dead" discussion is ridiculous. Casey's focus on raw physical attraction is what he's personally gotten into, and now he's sharing it with all these guys who follow him, which is a perfect example of a coach broadcasting his own lane as if it's the universal truth.
When the Old Videos and the New Videos Say Different Things
A lot of Casey's older videos say different things than his newer ones, and the newer videos are what I've focused on across all of these reviews. So, sorry, Casey, I'm not watching you anymore, my man. Not watching you anymore. When a creator's older material and their current material contradict each other, I judge them on where they are now, and where he is now lost me.
Creator #88: Austin Dunham Dating
Creator number 88 is Austin Dunham Dating, and the video of his I dug into is "What having success on dating apps taught me about women." His pitch is that you optimize your dating profile signals to trigger a woman's primal desire. He also says don't put attractive people on a pedestal, treat people to a baseline. That part actually makes sense to me.
But I totally disagree with his claim that relationships are built on lust and a three-second primal attraction from a dating app. This is so bad. I watched some of his videos while I was trying to optimize my own dating apps, and I kept thinking, this just isn't right. Some women do want to be put on a pedestal. My ex wanted to be put on a pedestal. She loved that when we started dating. This is exactly why a one-size-fits-all approach has no value. What works with one person is the opposite of what works with the next.
Dating Is Not a Marketing Funnel
Here's where I part ways with Austin the hardest: I don't believe in treating dating like a marketing funnel. And I say that as a marketing guy. I've got over a billion views online. I've built my Skool community, the Jerry Banfield Family, where we talk about AI and YouTube and making money and living a healthy life. I am absolutely a marketing guy.
But there is a big difference between marketing funnels — getting my message out to as many people as I can and generating leads — and dating. Dating should not be like a marketing funnel, Austin. Dating is not a marketing funnel. Women, connection, a relationship, love, and a partnership should be treated as something much more emotional and sacred, not with the cold business approach of a marketing funnel. The tactics might get you the date. They will not get you the marriage.
If you want to go deeper into everything I found reviewing these hundred-plus coaches, watch my Dating playlist. And if you'd rather talk it through with a real person instead of running a funnel on yourself, you can book a call with me and we'll figure out your next move together.