I was with my ex-wife for 15 years, and I got divorced last year. So I was in the habit of focusing on and talking to one woman at a time, although I always seemed to be making attractive female friends during the last few years I was married. And what has happened instead? In trying to just date and focus on one woman at a time, every woman I've ended up having any kind of excitement about has felt pressured, pulled away, felt like I was too much, felt like I was overwhelming her, and said she needed space.
The last time I did this, with the woman I called the queen, was absolutely brutal, because I got really into her. She said she wanted a guy who was authentic, and she said she didn't want a guy who played games. So I thought, great, I can just immediately focus on her. I'll stop talking to all the other women and everything's going to go great with her. Now, how do you think that went? If you want the details, I went into all of that on my Jerry Banfield vlog channel, but I'll give you the short version: I had a miserable experience. Again, after an amazing week together, she pulls away and says she wants space. It was the same thing all over again, because I wanted to see her a few times a week, and I wanted to text and maybe have a call if I couldn't see her. It was too much, too much pressure.
The Change I Made
So I made a change after that awful experience of feeling like I had been misled. This woman was very single, hadn't been out on a date with anybody, and I thought, great, I can just focus on her. Well, what I realized I need to do is focus on as many women as possible, because I have enough space in my life to talk to 14 women at once. Fourteen women who all need space, who all don't want to be pressured, who often flake, cancel dates last minute, don't respond, and aren't that enthusiastic one day, then are very enthusiastic the next.
So I went through my phone and looked at every woman I had any kind of history with: some I'd been friends with for years, others whose phone numbers I'd gotten, women from dating apps, and women from matchmaking services. This was after things didn't work out with the queen, because she said she didn't think we were in the same place romantically and emotionally. And it's like, well, yeah. I have enough space to talk to 14 women and go out with several women every week, and you barely have space to talk to one guy and go on one date every week or two. So I started talking to 14 different women.
An amazing effect happened immediately. When I was just talking to one woman, I'd be anxious about her responding. I often would be waiting for her to respond to me, and I usually would respond back to her faster. In the first week she was more open, but then she closed up, and it was a week and a half of just awful, always waiting for her to respond, and then even feeling like what she was messaging was so low effort compared to what I was sending. It felt like she didn't care at all. So I switched to messaging 14 women at once, and all of a sudden, I'm the one all of them are having to wait on. And then they flake. They don't respond. They don't want to go out on a date. They're busy. And I don't care, because I'm constantly trying to figure out who I need to message next and what time of day I need to message each woman. It's so much work to message all these different women.
Exactly Who I'm Juggling Right Now
I'll look in my phone right now. I messaged 14 different women, and several didn't respond, so I'll tell you exactly how many I'm juggling. One: a woman I've known quite well. I'm trying to get her out on a date and out of the friend zone. She messaged me this morning. Two: a woman I went out with a few days ago. I really like her. She's probably number one on my leaderboard, but she's out of town for a while, so I'm going to need to go out with some other women. Three: a woman I picked up in person and got her phone number. We're scheduled to go on a date tonight. Four: one from a dating app who didn't respond to my last message. So what. Five: one a friend connected me with. I'm trying to get her out on a first date and I'm going to have to double text her today, since she didn't respond to my last message two days ago. Six: a woman I went out with from a dating app quite a while ago. I don't know if anything's going to happen there. She didn't respond. Seven: a woman I had some great conversations with. She got really emotional, and I've been wondering if I want to follow up with her. Eight: a woman I met at tennis. I think I'm going to see her and play her in tennis today, so we'll work on that. Nine: a woman I met at an event who said she just wants to be friends. That was three days ago, and I'm still thinking maybe I'll send another response. Ten: a friend from a while ago, no message back. Eleven: a woman I went out with on a first date and knew from yoga. Didn't respond. Twelve: a woman I had several dates with. She's further down the leaderboard, but it could be a little entertainment. She hasn't responded yet. Thirteen: the woman I was really excited about sent a message, and I haven't responded in a few days. And then there are a couple more down there that I think are falling off.
So out of that, I have at least four women I'm either very close with right now, where I have a date tonight, or we've already been on a date, or we're getting a second one. I have four women who are in the funnel, so to speak, where there seems to be strong mutual interest. Then there are several others where maybe we can get something going, and several others who have fallen off. However, when I'm out in person, I'm also constantly approaching women and attempting to add more, to replace some of the ones who fell off or didn't reach out.
I Don't Think It Should Be Like This
And it's ridiculous. I don't agree with this. I don't think it should be like this. I think it would be beautiful and sweet, like with the woman I met at yoga that I called the queen, where I had all my emotions out here, and I cried out for my queen, and I met her, and I finally felt safe loving someone. Then she goes cold. Then I shouldn't have sent what I sent, and I had this whole drama sequence with her. I think it would be beautiful if I could just meet one woman and we could both meet each other where we're at. But this is working, because it allows me to be emotionally stable. I'm not too concerned with what any one of the women is doing. I wish it didn't work this way, but what's ridiculous is that this seems to be what women find attractive: a guy who's messaging 14 different women and constantly trying to pick women up in person.
Yesterday at yoga, there was a beautiful woman next to me, so friendly. She had a boyfriend. If she didn't have a boyfriend, I was going to ask for her phone number after class and try to go out with her. Right after that, same basic workflow with the yoga instructor. She had a boyfriend. If she hadn't, I definitely would have asked her out. All of that while I've got one date planned, other dates I'm trying to plan right now, and a woman out of town that I like and hope I can see when she comes back.
Know Your Emotional Capacity
The idea with this is that you've got to know what emotional capacity you have. If you're coming off as desperate and needy, especially if women are feeling like a man is desperate and needy, it's such a turnoff. The easiest way for me to adjust that is to just have more women, have a leaderboard, have options, and not emotionally invest in any of them until they invest in me first.
And yes, I realize this might end up with a woman or two who really likes me and whose heart I end up breaking. Out of all these women, plus the women I'm going to meet later, make connections with, get phone numbers from, and try to date, there could be two, maybe three, who fall in love with me. Then there may be two or three women who all want me to be their boyfriend. When that happens, I will not offer to be any of their boyfriends. I will try to avoid being exclusive with any of them until I see that one has the capacity to truly fill the space that 14 women are now taking up in my life.
And again, I think it should be different than this. But right now, this is the way people are dating, and there are certainly women taking this same approach with men: women talking to 14, 15, maybe 30 or 40 guys on dating apps and meeting up with as many of them as possible. Meanwhile, there are guys out there only talking to one of these women. What I've found is that if you have a lot of space for dating in your life, then you've got to fill it with quantity first. And it works. It's stupid that it works, but the power dynamics have completely changed. With one woman, especially one woman who doesn't have enough time and is not available, it's just so difficult. When I fill that space instead, every woman feels like I'm this high-value man who's not pressuring or pushing her at all, and that dynamic works for all of them. It's so ridiculous.
For example, for most of the year, when I was focusing on one woman at a time, I would go from one woman to another woman I'd get excited about, and then I'd essentially burn the bridge. If a woman canceled a date with me, I would just be annoyed and kind of spiral, and either ghost her or send her a message. I sent one really attractive single mom a video that was kind of toxic, made with one of my female friends, making fun of her for ghosting me and stuff. She deleted my number after that. Whereas if I'd been talking to a bunch of different women along with her at the same time, I wouldn't even have made a big deal of her canceling. I had a date canceled last weekend, and I literally had two dates in the same day.
Being Nonchalant When a Date Cancels
So do you think I cared that much when my morning date canceled? I was able to be truly nonchalant and say, no problem, I understand. Especially since she's a single mom. Hey, I'm a single dad, I get it, don't worry about it. And now I have a date with that woman tonight. I was able to be cool, and I was able to take a couple of days without messaging her. So instead of sitting there focusing on one woman and why she's not messaging me, feeling insecure and distracted, I have several women I need to respond to now. Let me see: I have at least four, if not five or six, women I'm actively communicating with where it's my turn to text.
Quality Messages Over Quantity
What I usually end up doing is sending the first text at some point during the day. They send a response, and then usually I don't reply. Because what texting 14 women has also done is make it obvious that I need to focus on quality messages over quantity. One knockout message is much better than sending a bunch of little crappy ones.
For example, here's a message I sent to a woman I really like, probably number one on the leaderboard. She's about to go on a trip. Instead of sending some generic message like "hope you have a nice trip" or "have a nice day," I sent a message imagining what her luggage looked like. I said I'm picturing you packing tonight after all the stuff you did, and I described the exact kind of luggage, what color the luggage is, how the bags are worn, and all that. She sent back a longer reply saying I was correct on these things and off on those things. Then she told me what she's doing and said she hopes I had a good day. That feels nice. We had a nice, solid exchange. I sent a message clearly focused on her. So with the different women, I take time to focus in and send a really heartfelt, flirty, fun message each day. But then after I get a message back, I often don't feel the desire to reply.
What I did to get a date with the woman I'm going out with tonight was the same basic thing. A couple of days after she canceled the date, I sent her a message. She sent me a message about six hours later. Because I'm messaging several women, I'm not that concerned with who's replying and when. She sends a message several hours later, I send one about 20 minutes later, and it's a really nice, heartfelt message. Then I don't reply to her reply, which she sends about 20 minutes after that. I wait two days to text her back, and then I say, maybe today's the day when I'll find out what your schedule is. A really fun, flirty message. She replies two minutes later saying she thinks she'll be free this weekend. I reply about two hours later saying, great, I'll pick you up at eight. She says she'll meet me, I text her where we can meet and what we can do, she replies, and we've got a date.
How I Can Handle 14 at Once
This feels natural and normal and so easy for me. And yet I've talked to a few people about this, and they're like, dude, how? I went to Sober Bar in Gulfport and talked to the bartender last night, and she said, how can you handle messaging that many women at once? It's too much for me to just deal with messaging one guy. And I'm like, I'm a YouTuber. I've got two kids. I take care of myself and my life. I'm in my studio. I have a lifestyle where I can, and in my mind I'm very thoughtful. I can afford to think of 14 different women.
Now what's going to happen? I imagine this is going to be like a sales funnel, where I keep trying to get more women into the funnel, but eventually it should whittle down to one amazing woman I'm really happy with, who's really happy with me. That's the goal of this. And I hope this is helpful for you. If you've felt like you consistently run into people saying you're desperate, you're needy, you're too much, then you just have space to message and connect with more people than average.
This is what I do full time, and it's where I read all the messages. I offer dating coaching with Zoom calls and texting support between calls. If I can teach dating like this and practice it myself, I can support you on your dating journey as well.
I also have my Skool community. If you use Skool, you can schedule a call with me ahead of time if you want to, and if I'm online, you can just pop in and talk to me immediately. Usually within 10 or 15 minutes you can have a call if something urgent is going on.
If you've enjoyed this, at jerrybanfield.com I have more YouTube channels you can watch, and if you'd like to chat with me, ask me questions, or give me feedback or comments, join the chat.
Thanks for reading. I hope to see you on my next dating video in my Dating playlist, and go to jerrybanfield.com in the meantime.