It's August 19, 2026, and this is my vlog. I'm Jerry Banfield, full-time YouTuber, and I'm super grateful for all of you watching more than 11 minutes on average on the last one. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to say on this one, and that makes it fun.
One of you commented in the Skool community, I believe — or maybe it was in the chat on my website — saying, "I love how your videos are unpredictable. I never know what you're going to say in a video." And I love that too, because that's fun. That is what, to me, makes life more interesting. I realized I'm already doing this in my videos, where you don't know what's coming in each one. But then in dating, I'd been making my dating so boring.
Unpredictable Rewards and The Invisible Game
I've been listening to a lot of Bobby Rio's book in the last 24 hours, called The Invisible Game. He was talking about how attraction — building that dopamine, that stimulation in your life — is based on unpredictable rewards. It's like how people play the slot machine and don't know whether they're going to hit it or not. Dating ends up being the same way.
And it's crazy how, for me, just communicating with a lot of women has totally changed the balance of things. I looked through my phone to see how many women I'm interested in dating that I've messaged in the last couple of days. It's been 14. And that feels right to me, because I certainly have my time. There are one or two women out of that group I like the most, but I'm able to not pressure them, because I'm also texting and thinking about 12 other women.
Texting 14 Women at Once
Some of these texts are fun to look back at. My friend connected me with her friend, and I texted her Monday — a playful text. I didn't get a message back for two days. So I sent a message today and thought, all right, let's try this next message more straightforward and boring instead of flirty and fun: "Hi, this is [my friend]'s friend, Jerry." And I actually got a message back from that within six minutes. Now I haven't responded in an hour and a half, because I was also messaging another woman who hadn't responded.
With her, I'd sent two texts and she hadn't responded to two in a row. So I said, all right, third text in a row — maybe this one's the charm. Then she sent a text back within one minute: "Sorry, I'm busy and distracted."
I used to be so hella sensitive about all of this. If she wanted to keep me in a friend zone, if she didn't want to immediately go out — oh, I've been rejected, I should feel bad. But listening to Bobby Rio's book, the way I see it now is: if she's responding, there's a chance. If a woman really doesn't like you, she'll tell you — "look, don't message me anymore" — or she'll just block you or stop responding altogether.
The Massage Therapist I Blew It With Over the Phone
I remember talking to this beautiful massage therapist that I then tried to break out of the patient zone with over the phone, after not seeing her for a week or two for a massage. I asked if she wanted to go do something outside of that. And we had some serious chemistry. How do I put this? This was a professional massage, but I've never felt this stimulated before by anyone as by her. The second time, she even said, "I'm really surprised what a strong connection we have."
And I kind of blew that over the phone. What I should have done instead is just schedule another massage with her and talk to her while we were there in person. What I'm seeing is that the phone can be used to build attraction and play little flirty games, but the goal of the phone is to get women in person — and ideally to minimize what I'm doing on the phone outside of that.
Little Sparks Instead of Grand Gestures
One thing I really loved in Bobby Rio's book is that most men think of attraction as some grand gesture thing. Like, if I do this big thing, or I give her this big speech, or I send her a 16-minute unlisted YouTube video, then she'll really love me from there. But really it's the opposite. You should look at it as making her fall in love with you every day — helping her be attracted to you every day — and look at text messages as little sparks of attraction.
For example, I sent a message to the woman who's probably number one now, the one I went out with a few days ago. I sent her one little message yesterday, because we've got a call scheduled in a few hours — and hang on, I've got to scroll down and find her in my phone here. She said, "Oh, that's excellent. Dad humor. Well done." And I was like, cool — nice little exchange.
What's crazy is I've become the one now consistently not responding in a timely manner to most of the women I'm texting. With the queen, I just texted her back constantly, and I'd get frustrated when she wasn't replying. That's because I wasn't texting any other women. Now, texting 14 different women, I'm always figuring out what I'm going to say and which one I'm going to say it to. I'm having fun with this now. And I have hardly any emotional investment in most of them, which means it's just flirty and fun.
Now, Bobby Rio said not to call it a game. It's a game to me. It's just a game. Let's see who's going to be attracted to me here.
There's a Waiting List for My Friend Zone
One woman sent me a message yesterday saying she'd rather stay friends than go out on a date. And to me — I'm going to send a message maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe another day, and basically not even acknowledge that. There's something flirty and playful about replying with something like, "Sorry, there's a waiting list for my friend zone — but there is immediate availability for..." and then I'll be specific, like a date with her, something like that. Because I'm a person who's only worth dating.
I'm done being friends with women unless a few things are true — like they're providing a valuable service in a business context, such as massage. And I think when I end up dating a woman exclusively again and having a serious relationship, I'm going to need to stop going to even massages.
Why Massages Get Complicated
Here's why: when I was married, I caught feelings for some of the massage therapists. One of them said, "That's very normal. You're getting all this attention and validation and hands-on time — and this is just professional massage. I don't know what some of y'all might be doing, but that's normal." And I'm seeing that I was distracted by some of these massage therapists when I was married, even just having professional massages. There was sexual tension with some of them, especially when they were single.
Going forward, because of honoring the tension that men and women often have energetically — not always, but in my experience — I don't tend to want massages from women I'm not attracted to. And I do tend to want massages from women I am attracted to, even though it's strictly professional and platonic. It's still satisfying that validation — this attractive woman is paying attention to me, even though I am just paying.
I think that once I get a steady woman, I'm going to need to go to men for massages. And I hate to even say that, because for 12 years I've been paying the women who had the best combination of quality massage, attractiveness, and great conversation. If you could master all of those, I'd pay you $800 a month to get massages from you once a week — and never any happy endings in any of those massages, which, now that I'm single, I've reconsidered. But it's nice to keep that separate.
No More Friendships With Women
Honestly, I don't want to be friends with women. Because if I'm single and I'm attracted to you, I can't just be friends with you — I'm going to be trying to sleep with you. I'm going to be plotting on it. All right? Can we be honest about that? Because that's what's going to happen.
And second, most of my male friends are attractive too, so I don't want a woman lusting over me either if I'm not available to her. I know some men who've been friends with women where the women have spun up entire love stories in their minds and missed out on guys they might have dated, because they were thinking this guy they're friends with is going to fall in love with them. I don't think that's healthy either.
I'm surprised at myself here, because for years I've been critical at AA meetings of men going to men's meetings and women going to women's meetings. I've been saying it's better if we all work co-ed. Not for me. If I'm going to have friends, they need to be men, because I'm not trying to sleep with some guy I'm friends with, and it just gives the relationship a whole different, relaxed energy. If there's the possibility that I'd like to have sex with a woman, it's just hard to honestly be friends.
With that context, it's also nice to be a guy who can be honest and say: I'm not the friend zone kind of man. There's a woman I've been friends with for at least a year — we know each other really well — and yesterday I had the courage to send a text to break out of the friend zone. I invited her to do something. She said thanks, she's busy that night. She didn't offer another time or say she'd follow up. So I'm going to send her a text in another day or two, because I realized there's an obvious time and day I should invite her, and I'm going to do that.
It's All a Love Game
It's crazy, because before, when I was so focused on — I almost said her name again; I'm glad I haven't had to edit — when I was so focused on the queen, it was so dumb. It's so dumb. It's good that I learned this, but it's sad, because she said, "I don't want to play games." But the way I see it, this is all a love game. It's all just a love game. There are rules. Obviously the rules don't work all the time with everyone — that's what makes the game interesting — but there are rules that tend to work. There are ways men tend to behave and ways women tend to behave. And once you know how the game works, you can just start winning it.
For example, I didn't realize that a lot of people like to be pursued, or that a guy who's persistent will win them over. Which brings me back to that very attractive massage therapist: I texted her asking if she was single or still dating someone. No response on that. And you know what? I don't care — because I texted 13 other women also.
I would love to meet up with her again. But here's what happened with her. She told me about this guy she's dating who, honestly, sounds like a total loser — and this is for all you guys who think you need to win, that you need to have social value to be with a hot woman. This guy sounds like such a loser. And I'm not saying that if you fit this demographic you're definitely a loser — I almost don't even want to go into specifics, because some of you are going to get triggered.
And I know some people think I'm a loser too — living off of credit out here, telling my business on a public channel, celebrating people who've given me money on my website and supported me. And you know what? The haters will love this even more.
Launched Today: Dating Coaching
Look what I created today: dating coaching. One month with me — four hours of Zoom calls, plus text messaging support between calls. I can't wait until somebody buys it. Somebody's going to buy that, and I'm going to throw it in all the haters' faces. And I've got YouTube coaching out here too. I just put both of these up today. And honestly, you could do both of them if you wanted — YouTube coaching and dating coaching. Double or nothing.
I am an awesome dating coach precisely because I'm doing this myself. Some of you think, well, you can't be a coach unless you're the best. Forget that. Tiger Woods — I remember thinking, why does Tiger Woods have a golf coach? The golf coach is not as good as him. The golf coach is there to help him be at the top of his game. And I pay for a dating coach. I pay for a matchmaking service. I've spent over $10,000 on dating. Dude, I feel like I'm getting to the top of my game — where if a woman is beautiful and intelligent and healthy, I'm feeling like that's what I deserve. And if you're not fitting that category, I might text you or fool around and distract myself with you a little bit, but I'm not taking you seriously.
It's funny — it's annoying that it works this way, but it seems to. What gets women attracted to me is that I talk to 14 of them at once, and then I don't pressure or overwhelm any one of them. I think that's dumb. I think it should be better if I just talked to one woman, she talked with me, we loved each other, we gave everything to each other, and we sat on the phone together. That, to me, would be great. But for some reason, it doesn't seem to work that way.
The Guy She Rejected 30 Times
So, back to the massage therapist — again, the really hot one. The hottest massage therapist I've ever, ever worked with. As soon as my ex and I decided to get separated, I couldn't wait to message her. And I knew she had this lame guy she was dating. I wasn't going to give any specifics, but — I should give some specifics. This guy is so pathetic, bro. Dude, I'm such a higher-tier offer. But this guy won her over through persistence. She said no to him over and over again. And I guarantee you, if you saw him, if I told you what job he does and how little money he makes, that he lives with his parents — I guess he's tall, he has that going for him, but he doesn't even seem to be good-looking or anything. She said no to him day after day. Then she had a shitty experience with him too — drama, and somebody cheated; I'm not sure whether it was him or her, but it was shitty. And then she still keeps dating him anyway.
This is a woman who's beautiful. If she was online dating, she'd have every guy on the app liking her — guys dumping roses and boosting their profiles so she'd see them. And she's dating this guy. The way I see it, she has low self-esteem herself; she doesn't feel like she deserves anybody good. And the only guy who gets through her own defense mechanisms is a guy who persists. Now, I know this sounds bad — I was going to say he won't take no for an answer, but really, he basically won't accept rejection. And to be clear, she never told him "you're harassing me" or "stop talking to me" — nothing like that. But she rejected him over and over. No, I'm not going out with you. No, I don't want to exchange phone numbers. No, I don't even like you. She rejected him, I think she said, 10, 20, maybe 30 times. This guy just kept trying. And this is a woman who's been single a lot of her life — married, bad divorce. Part of me wants to just put her name and her website out there, but I won't.
Black Pill Dating Is Bullshit
This is an example of why you need more real-life experience, and people around you with more real-life experience. A lot of the stuff you see online makes sense until you get more experience in real life. You see all this looks-maxing stuff, all this "if you're not a Chad" black pill dating bullshit — and if you don't know anything, you can fall for that. But if you do know, you won't fall for it. Because I have so many memories of amazing-looking women who were with, dude, losers. I saw a guy out to eat the other night with this woman — a beautiful woman — and this dude is short and ugly. And I'm like, see? Black pill dating is bullshit. She's all into him right now, and this guy, at least by my surface-level take, is nothing special.
Now, I'm just talking off the top of my head trying to be entertaining. I'm not trying to put anybody down. I know all kinds of people think I'm a total crazy asshole, an insane person. Okay? So understand: I'm just out here being real, trying to have fun and give you an entertaining, real-life experience that expands your mind.
Persistence Runs in the Family
So with this therapist, I was thinking: I should have just been more persistent and kept seeing her. But it also let me see that there are so many women in my phone — women I've been on dates with, women I've seen in person, women I've known for a while — where I just gave up with one text. I quit with a single text.
This body wouldn't even be here right now in this form otherwise. My dad persisted and kept trying over and over with my mom. She was still married when they met. She said she didn't like men. She had no interest in him — she didn't like him. And my dad just kept persisting and kept trying. In fact, my dad had it so easy with most of the women at the racetrack; it seemed like he could get women really easily. It seemed like he liked my mom because she said no to him. And I'm seeing the same kinds of things in dating.
Like this one woman I messaged — I sent a first opening message, and I used Chat-GP-fucking-T to literally write a flirty, fun message. She didn't even respond. In the past, lots of times, I would have just quit and said, oh well, that didn't work out. So I sent another message today, and I got an instant message back from her. What I'm understanding is that attraction is unpredictable. Maybe when I send a woman a message, she's not in the mood to receive it, or she's in a bad mood, or she's distracted. The mom I messaged Monday night said she was overwhelmed, too much going on. I guess I didn't message at a good time then — and I guess I did message at a good time today.
Nine Women Owe Me a Reply
What's messed up now is what I see when I look through my text messages. There were definitely five or six women who did not respond. There are still a couple hanging out there, and I'll probably leave some of them alone. But right now — one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight — eight of the 14 women have actually sent the last message. And if you want to count the queen in there, nine, because she responded to my last message. There are nine women in my phone where they sent the last message and I haven't responded — to about half of them for at least a day, and the ones I messaged today, it's been hours.
And I'm like, this is so stupid. This shouldn't work. But when I'm messaging 14 women, I don't know what to say to all of them. I'm not in the mood to message all of them all the time. I get in the mood to message one, or like five at once, and I'll message all of those. But then I'm just sitting there — and it's like, this makes me high value. This makes me more attractive, that I'm trying for 14 different women at once. And I'm going to yoga, talking to anyone — I talk to the dudes too. I'm just starting conversations with everybody to see who responds to me. I'm trying to meet women in person. I have a matchmaking service. This makes me a winner.
I would think that what I did with the queen is what would make me a winner. That, to me, is what should work: you're awesome, you're amazing, let's build a life together. And no — instead it's, let me talk to 14 different women, let me keep trying when a woman doesn't respond, and then when she does respond, I'll let her wait a day or two for my response, because I'm talking to 14 of them and another one is getting my attention right this second.
Hopefully the Last Time I Do This
And I'm enjoying this right now too. Look, hopefully this will be the last time I do this. Although what's sad is that sometimes this kind of thing gets so addictive that even when people do get into relationships, they can't stop doing it. And the question is: am I going to be a guy in a relationship who's able to maintain attraction if I'm not texting 14 other women? I'd like to think so. I'll figure out how to balance that out in a relationship. But I am grateful — I'm having a good time doing all of this.
It's such a different approach, and I'm so interested to see: are any of these women in my phone the one I'm going to end up with? Is it going to be one I haven't met yet? There's a woman who paid $96 to schedule a call on my website. I don't know if we're going to talk crypto, dating, YouTube, or something else. I'm interested to find out. And if you want to follow how this whole experiment plays out, every one of these videos lands in my Dating playlist.
It would be really cool if a woman fell in love with me on here and that worked out. But — oh my God, did I run out of stuff to say? Nice.