I'm recording this vlog in my car today. I loved that one of the viewers commented today — I think it was in my chat on jerrybanfield.com, or it was in my Skool community — saying that one of the things you all love is the unpredictability in my videos, that you never know what you're going to get. And I love that, so I'm going to make sure to keep that going. You never know what kind of crazy stuff I'll say in a crypto video. And today, I texted at least ten women asking for dates and trying to reconnect. The big message, the big story of today is this: I need to persist.
It's the same reason I do these videos relentlessly every single day — on average, seven videos a day — to grow my YouTube channels. And I'm grateful. I made $300 today thanks to you and people like you watching, and that doesn't even count YouTube ad revenue. Two people bought the lifetime chat membership on my website today, a third person bought a one-on-one call with me at jerrybanfield.com, and somebody joined the Skool community, which is awesome. I got one of those notifications while my daughter and I were taking a walk this morning. She said, "Nice, Dad, you'll be able to pay the rent now." I said, "Hell yeah." So I'm really grateful. I love doing this. I'm good at this. And I love seeing the support you all bring in on my website. There are so many interesting things to talk about.
Relentless in Business, Quitting in Dating
It's funny how I take this approach with my business: I'm absolutely relentless and persistent. I don't care how I feel. I don't care how many people say negative stuff. I don't care how many times my videos flop. I don't care if I do videos and don't make any money off my website, or if nobody joins my Skool for a week. I just keep going no matter what. I don't care if other people make fun of me. And yet when it comes to women, I've been giving up. I've been giving up so easily. A woman says she's busy once and I think, oh, okay, she's done, she's not interested, stop texting her — instead of continuing to persist. Okay, she was busy that day. How about trying again?
So today I went back through my phone and started messaging. There's a single mom who canceled — flaked on our date at the last minute because she forgot she had changed days and had her son. I said I understood, but then I took a couple of days because I didn't really feel like messaging her. Then I messaged her today: all right, let's try this again. Why not? This is a woman I met in person who's already interested in me. Why would you quit at this point? You've already done the hardest thing. The hardest thing is meeting a woman and getting some clear interest. Literally, the easy part is just continuing. And I went through and texted all kinds of old connections that didn't even work out, the hit-and-miss connections, and got no response on most of them. One of them said she just wanted to be friends. I'm not being friends anymore. I've got no time for friends — I've got enough friends.
Teaching My Boy to Break the Ice at Yoga
Speaking of friends, one of my boys called up this morning. He asked, "Hey, can I go to Body Electric — or, well, not Body Electric — can I go to the yoga studio with you?" And I said, yeah man, come on. So we met up there, and it was his first class at the studio. I told him, "Man, you're kind of throwing my game off, because this is your first class and I don't want to just ditch you to go see if I can meet a woman here." So I put my mat down next to him and we talked a little bit. Then the instructor actually asked us to introduce ourselves to the people next to us. So I talked to the married woman next to me, and then I saw a pretty woman to the left of her that nobody was talking to. I went over and said hi to her, and she was happy for the attention. I told my friend — he's in his mid-twenties, and I'm trying to teach my boy some things — that's how you do it. Just talk. Just break the ice.
I gave a woman a compliment today, and it turned out she was there with a guy. I didn't see that at first. I said, "Oh, I like your pink hair," and she just started going on and on about her hair. I told my friend, see, that's what works for me: just give some kind of compliment and see what kind of reaction you get. Although I did think, really? You're gushing that much about your hair to me when you're here with a guy already? I guess she really likes guys. So that's good.
The Queen and the $500 Video
I actually did get a message back and forth with the queen last night. She said she actually knows the podcast. I had asked her, "Hey, are you cool if I release this video for $500?" She said no, she didn't want me to release that video. And I said, okay, that makes the decision easy — if you don't want me to release the video, then I'll keep it to myself. It's no big deal. She said, "You have other ways of monetizing." And I said, that I do. But then, after she said "no thanks, I'd rather keep that private," about ten minutes later she added, "And I know what podcast you're talking about." I'm not even sure what to do with that. I just said thanks, and that I appreciated it. Now I don't know what to do with her. Do I want to persist with her? I don't know. I decided I don't need to message anything today.
This is the balance: do I want to persist? I'm happy to message a woman I'm interested in — every single woman I'm interested in, I'd be happy to message all of them every day. I've realized I've been doing a little too little of it. At the same time, I don't want to appear needy and just be chasing. But I seem to be erring on the side of being avoidant, withdrawing very easily, and giving up super easy.
The Dispatcher: A Story About Not Giving Up
Let me give you an example. If you read my book Officer Banfield, which is on my website — it's my story of my time as a police officer — one part of that story was the dispatcher, and how I persisted with her. She dated other guys, so I knew she was a bad idea too, but I just hung around and waited. And when I saw it was my turn and she was free, I jumped in there. She was still hung up on this other guy, and I just persisted with her. One night we went out on a date to Zaxby's. That's right — your boy, 24-year-old Jerry Banfield, would invite a woman out to Zaxby's for a first date. So we had a nice first date at Zaxby's. She was looking banging. This dispatcher was a perfect ten — I can't imagine a woman more pretty than her. I actually got there late, which was funny; I was talking to my friend, a fellow officer, before that. I was in a great mood, went out, and had fun on the date. Then one night I tried to meet up with her at a bar at like 5, and I drove over there and the bar was closed and her phone was off. I called her the next day like, what's up with that? But I persisted with her.
Then came the night she came over and we had our one-night stand. I had set up everything. We had so much emotional tension on Monday while we were at work. My sergeant punished me by sticking me in dispatch — and I think he was really trying to help me out with that. I swear, when you want something bad and you tell the universe you'll do anything for it, in my experience the universe will do anything to give it to you. I got on my sergeant's bad side, and he said, "Banfield, I think you need a night in dispatch to adjust your attitude." There were two dispatchers, and he put me in there with the hot one. I was like, thank you — you don't really hate me, do you? Because if he'd have stuck me in there with the other one, he'd have been really trying to hurt a fella. But I think he saw what was happening. He was perceptive. He figured, yeah, he wants her, I'm going to stick him in there with her. So I spent all night with her Monday in dispatch.
I was planning to have her over Wednesday when we were off. I don't even remember if I texted her anything Tuesday. Wednesday, I texted her at like 8 PM, and she said she was going over to her friend's place. I said, all right, let me know when you're done. So it's 1 AM and she hasn't texted me yet. Now, the guy I've been lately would have just given up. I had sent the last message, and the guy I've been lately would have thought, I'm not double texting and looking needy — I guess she didn't really want it. But the guy I was back then? It was Wednesday night, I was off, I'd been drinking for at least four or five hours playing video games. It was at least 1 AM — I can see the text now, it was like 1:10 — and I was just about ready to give up. I turned all the lights off. I was about to go to bed and call it a defeat. But then I thought, you know what, let me send her one more message. I don't know what happened, but I'm going to send her one more message. So I sent her this one message: "Hey, you still coming over?" Super simple. No game, no Bobby Rio Scrambler text-emotion stuff. Just super simple: hey, you still coming over?
She replied back like two minutes later: "I'm on my way over now." I flipped. I was like, oh my God, dude — you've got to turn the lights back on, clean up, get the drinks ready. I remember that as one of the biggest turnarounds in my life. I had felt so defeated. How did I not plan this clearly? I thought I'd seen this coming — I'd bought her favorite liquor, I had everything ready to go, and then she didn't even respond to my text. I remember a moment just sitting there on the couch, defeated, thinking, I can't stand to go to bed tonight like this. What happened? But back then, I didn't care about looking bad or worrying about the double text.
I just thought, I've got to try one more time before I go to bed. I didn't know why she hadn't replied to me for hours. I don't know if she was hanging out with — well, she said she was hanging out with a guy that was a friend. And this was the kind of girl that guys would just lurk around and hope for something. But I made the moves. I persisted. I guess some of these other dudes did too. As soon as I sent that text, I hardly had to wait. She wrote back, "I'm on the way over now. What's your address?" I remember I had been so sad and so defeated, and as soon as I got that text, it was: you better get ready.
It Was On Because I Didn't Give Up
And it was on. When she came over, we started watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I saw about the first five minutes of that movie, and it was like — how do you want it, how does it feel? Whoo, that was good. And it happened because I didn't give up. It was because I double texted after she hadn't responded for five hours. It was because I decided the thing that would be lame would be to not try one more time before I went to bed. What if she was just waiting for a little reminder? What if she needed an excuse to cut out of her friend's house?
She was still seeing this other dude at the time, too. Here's what's messed up: this other guy was texting her, and the two of them were having all this drama — they'd been in love. And she comes over to my house. She leaves her friend's place, she's got her phone in the car, and I'm thinking, oh, she wants it bad. She was wearing this black tank top and these banging black boots and blue jeans — and underneath, red lingerie. Oh man, let's go. She spent the night. We woke up at like three in the afternoon the next day. It was so good. I remember laying in my bed — and I was very agnostic at the time — thinking, God, you're real. You got me. Thanks.
Texting Every Woman on the List
Then I look at what I've been doing now, and I've just been quitting so easily. So with that in mind, I went through my phone today with one rule: any woman that I think there's any possibility with, I'm texting, and I'm crafting a message for each of them. I texted one woman, a single mom who had deleted my number: "Hey, you still think of me? I still think of you. And we're all connected." She was into conspiracy theories, so I thought that would be the right message for her. I sent another woman a message — I'd asked her out on a date before and she didn't respond for two weeks, so I'd joked, maybe sometime this year, or maybe we can plan for 2027 — and she said she just wanted to be friends. I don't need to say anything to that right now. Maybe another day. I texted a single mom I just met in person, and she texted me back enthusiastically. Most of the rest of the women haven't responded yet.
Then I have another friend who just broke up with her boyfriend recently. Right before recording this, I sent her a message, because I decided: I'm going to invite her out on a date. I know she's single. She just talked to me for 30 minutes in person within the last week. I know she has some interest. I know we've both been in the friend zone for a while, and it's up to me to try and break out of it.
And then there's the woman I just went out with Saturday night. We didn't text at all yesterday, and I started wondering — is it on me to text? I don't know. Maybe it is. As a man, I feel like it's on me to initiate. So I sent her a text today, and I used ChatGPT: make this funny, I want to say I'm looking forward to talking to her, she's doing a specific thing tonight, so reference that and make it funny. ChatGPT cranked out a nice message, so I sent it. It took a couple of tries — at first I was like, nah, not quite like that — but I'm going to use the tools at my disposal if I need help with that.
Ranking the List Without Getting Attached
It's really nice, because the woman I went out with Saturday night is at the top of my list right now. But at the same time, if I have a list, then I'm not too overly emotionally invested in the woman at the top. I'm still pretty crazy about the queen, though. She might be second right now, but I'm not sure what to do with her either. She messaged me last night and it sounded kind of cold — like she'd been watching my videos, and maybe hearing these podcasts too, which made me go, really? But then I wondered: did I give up on her too easily? Should I have kept messaging her? Was two and a half weeks of not messaging her too long? Is she a little hurt and sad right now, wishing things could work out? I don't know. If she actually watches these videos, she could just message a fella and reconnect. She might. I'm not sure if she's number one or two. I really liked the woman I went out with Saturday. The queen's got a head start, though. I'm so interested to see what happens.
Either way, it's up to me to persist. It's up to me to keep trying, like I do with my business. I've been too paranoid about, well, what if a woman thinks I'm harassing her? Look — if a woman asks me to stop talking or stop texting, I don't talk to her. I honor that. But not a single woman I can think of in the last year since I've been single has said that at all.
The Yoga Studio Complaint Comes Full Circle
And now for even better drama. I was at the park walking with my daughter this morning, right next to my house, and I see this woman I recognize. I recognize her, but I don't say anything beyond "hey," and she says "hey" back. I used to see her at the old yoga studio I went to for years. The last time I saw her there, I had given her a compliment on her sweater. That day, I had decided I wanted to break my routine and stop putting my yoga mat in the same spot, so I put my mat in the back of the room — which just happened to be right behind her. She was in a different place than usual, too. I was not putting my mat there intentionally so she'd be in front of me; it just ended up being a bonus. I was genuinely trying to interrupt my patterns — I put my yoga mat in the same place every single day, so I told myself, just do something different. She just happened to be right in front of where I put my mat that day, and I thought, oh, cool, that's nice. And I complimented her on her sweater.
She had read some of my books. I'm going to get more of my books on my website at jerrybanfield.com so you can buy them there, but if you've got Audible or Amazon, they're on there. The books she would have read would be An Author in St. Petersburg and I Was Famous on the Internet. An Author in St. Petersburg is my daily diaries from right before my marriage ended — really good material if you like these vlogs.
So, two hours later that day, I get a phone call from the yoga studio saying that a woman felt she didn't feel safe doing yoga with me based on what I'd written in my books, and something else specific in person. And I thought, I know exactly who made that complaint. It was two hours later, I was just there, and that was the only woman I talked to. This was a woman I had known for years, a woman who's married. I wasn't trying to hit on her or anything. In fact, this is a woman I didn't talk to for a whole year, because she was very attractive and I was married and I didn't want to get another crush on a woman at yoga. She looked a lot like the woman I did have a crush on at yoga — in fact, I would sometimes mistake the two of them. I'd get excited thinking, oh, the woman I have a crush on is here — and then, oh, it's just her.
After like a year of seeing her at 50 or 100 yoga classes, I finally said something to her in a parking lot one day. And she said, "Well, thank you for finally talking to me." I was like — what? Like she'd been waiting for me to talk to her. So then I was friendly with her after that for about the next six months, but not that friendly. I'd say hi if I saw her, and we'd talk a little bit. So I was pretty surprised to get a complaint that day at yoga.
So guess who I run into walking around the park this morning? I'm like, oh boy. She says, "Oh, I haven't seen you lately." I tell her, yeah, I've been going to a different yoga studio, and I tell her which one. And she says, "Oh, they got you, huh?" And I'm thinking — I "not know" who got me. I held back from saying, "Somebody complained on me at the yoga studio. Was it you? Because I think it was you." I hesitated on saying it outright, but I subtly suggested it with the way I said things. I repeated, yeah, I started going to this other yoga studio, and she said, "They got you, hon." I just kind of looked at her for a minute. My daughter had commented when she saw this woman walking up — "Oh, she's just letting her dog run around off the leash." So I made sure to say that too: "Oh, my daughter said you're just letting your dog run wild, huh?" And then I made sure to dismiss myself from her first. We don't need to have superficial small talk with the woman who complained on me. Although I did notice something: she said she just moved near me. She said, "I just moved here." And I thought — I thought she was married. I figured she would have said, "We just moved here."
The last time I saw her, like nine months ago, she was married. And I dismissed myself first. My daughter had to go to middle school — we were taking our walk — and this was not a conversation I needed to have while my daughter was standing there. So I said, all right, see you later, and I walked off.
Telling My Daughter the Whole Story
Then I told my daughter everything. I said, that was the woman — that's the woman who complained on me at the yoga studio. She said, "Really?" And she wanted to know everything. My daughter's in middle school, and this is the kind of stuff her world is going to be getting into. Then, as we kept walking around the park, we ran into the woman again. She was on her phone, and I noticed she had her dog on a leash now. I thought, nice. And I felt good that I had said something about that too. So that was fun.
The Cost of an Authentic Vlog
I'm really grateful for the chance to do these videos, to do this for content, to do this for your support. And it is tough sometimes. I want to have a real, authentic vlog, but some days I think I should just stop doing my vlog, because to do it I have to talk about everything that's actually interesting in my life — and those are the things that are really vulnerable. Believe it or not, I don't want to talk about a lot of this stuff. I don't want to tell you about my little yoga studio complainer run-in. I'd rather keep this stuff to myself. But this is my job, and I'm good at it. And somebody needs to lead by example and do this, because I don't have an employer — I am under less control than most people, so I have the leeway to have these kinds of conversations. Somebody needs to lead by example so we can have a more real, authentic world, instead of this lying, fake drama and putting on faces.
But the more I get into dating and the game and all of that, the more I wonder: can I even date as an authentic human being? If I just open my heart and love a woman, is anyone going to see that as anything besides desperate and needy? Maybe some woman would. I think a woman just scheduled a call with me, but it's probably about ICP in the next few days. I sure would love it if a woman actually found me somewhere and fell in love with me through my YouTube videos. That would be really magical. I would need to warn her, though — you should probably know my type by now. I'd hate to disappoint a woman who somehow didn't realize that I like women who are lean and in shape. That is a big thing to me. The woman I went out with recently is very lean, very in shape, and I love it.
So I'm super grateful for the chance to do this, and at the same time, I hate it sometimes. Things might have gone totally differently dating the queen if I had not had vlogs like this — vlogs where she'd watch me crying and then, instead of seeing an authentic man who's on a mission to change the world, probably decided this guy's a weak loser, he's too into me, I'm too good for him. Maybe that's not what happened. Maybe that's not what happened at all. But I do find these vlogs especially annoying for dating.
The Next Woman Has to Love My Work
Here's the thing, though: when I find a woman who loves and approves of my work — like the one woman I'm in the friend zone with, who loves and approves of my work already — that matters. That's why I have to ask her out: she already loves what I do on YouTube. The next woman is going to have to love and support my work. My ex did a decent job by just not looking at my work, but she didn't like it. It was always under the surface that she thought what I did was annoying and she'd rather I do something else. I think a big part of deleting my YouTube channels last year was trying to get my ex to like me. It was a desperate move from a desperate man trying to save his marriage. Maybe if I get a real job — like being a massage therapist, where I go to actual work and do an actual job — maybe my wife will love and respect what I do. She was a big fan of me going to massage school, and we got divorced very soon after I quit massage school. It was like I teased her with what she wanted, and when I canceled it, she was done — absolutely done with this guy and his work and all this crap. So I want a woman — and I'm good. I know I'll have a woman someday who will love and support my work and really mean it. And I'm grateful for your love and support of my work.
I think that's about it today. I would love to know if you like this down-to-earth, in-my-car vlog format — tell me in the chat on my website, or join the Jerry Banfield Family on Skool and message me directly there. I read every single message in the chat, I read all the tip messages, and I read everything in the Family. I don't read stuff on YouTube, though — so if you want to talk to me, if you want me to see what you have to say, that's where to reach me.
And if you want to keep following this whole saga — the queen, the woman from Saturday night, the friend zone breakout attempts, and everything I'm learning about persistence — my Dating playlist has the whole story as it unfolds.
Dude, I'm sweating in this car like I did at Power Flow Yoga today. It's like 90 degrees right now, even though it's 7 PM. I'm going to take my son to the park and play baseball with him. I really appreciate all of you watching.