I've lost several dates with women that, because I'm paying for matchmaking, effectively cost me thousands of dollars in missed opportunities. I want to help you avoid that pain of loss. I'll tell you the stories here and explain the background, because I didn't realize that what I was doing was pushing women away.
Two women, two great first dates, two canceled second dates
Here are two specific women. Both of them were beautiful, wealthy, and interested in me, and both had very nice first dates with me. Both were interested in scheduling a second date. The first woman I went out with from matchmaking was very interested. I kissed her at the end of the first date, and she was excited to set up a second date with me. I met her on a Thursday, which was a good day, and we texted Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Sunday we set up the second date, and she sent the last message. Then I didn't send her a message on Monday or Tuesday. Suddenly, on Tuesday afternoon, about 48 hours since we'd last texted, I get a text: I'm not feeling the connection, let's cancel the second date. I didn't reply. At the time I was just hurt and confused. I'm like, what happened?
I got divorced in 2025 and I've been dating like it's 2010
What I didn't realize is that I got divorced in 2025, and in 2026 I've still been dating like it's 2010. When I met my ex-wife, we didn't text. Back then, texting in dating was unusual. I did date one woman when I was 19, in 2009, where we both had smartphones and we did text a lot. But most of the women I dated in my 20s, I did not text with, because texting was not a thing back then, especially if you didn't have a smartphone. When I met my ex-wife, she had a flip phone. We would call each other on the phone. I would generally call her once a week: how are you doing, quick call, schedule a date. That was the rest of the communication. Okay, I'm going to meet you here. Good. Through the first six dates or so with my now ex-wife, until we were in a committed relationship and sleeping together, we hardly texted or talked on the phone during the week at all. We would talk once and schedule a date. I didn't realize I was carrying that mindset into dating in 2026.
I actually did this same thing with another woman, and a family member of mine set me straight. He's like, are you kidding me? You didn't text this woman for two days? Of course she's going to think you're not interested, that you're talking to a bunch of other women, that you don't care about her. He said, I'm texting two women right now, all day, both of them, all day. It's like a job. That's what he said most women expect now. I'm like, really?
When I dated the woman I've called the queen, that's what I did with her. As soon as I met her, we talked for about an hour, exchanged phone numbers, and I texted her right after I met her. We texted each other all day, every day, until she started pulling away, and then it went downhill from there. I still didn't realize that women, at least the ones I'm interacting with today, seem to associate a guy showing up consistently in their phone with being interested. There seems to be an expectation that there needs to be a lot of texting or there's just not much interest, which does make sense, since we all have our phones.
Why I thought I shouldn't look needy
At the same time, I've been thinking I don't want to look needy. Normally I text people back right away if they're friends or family members. We're scheduling tennis, or I'm asking my mom to come over, and generally I text people back pretty quickly, sometimes within a minute or two. But with some of the women I dated earlier this year, they were being very avoidant with me. I'd text them back right away, and they'd take 24 hours to respond to my message for no good reason. I was consistently getting interested in women who were being avoidant. I didn't even know the term avoidant, but they were just being very bad with their phone. You know they've had their phone all day. They see my message. They don't even care to respond. At some point I got to thinking that's just normal. I looked back at my past history and thought, okay, we just don't hardly text each other. I don't want to look needy. We focus on seeing each other in person.
Well, I did this again. After the one matchmaking date, I was very excited. I did like her, and I was very interested in her, but I just didn't realize we're supposed to be texting all the time, flirting, sending little memes, and talking about our day. In my mind, that actually kind of kills the attraction, because it's like, I didn't have a chance to miss you. I'm thinking I should let her miss me. But these days people move so fast. If he hasn't texted, it's over. And I'm thinking, why didn't she text me? Why can't she double text me? Apparently it's generally expected that the men initiate the conversations. I've had this over and over this year, where I've had women I'm interested in, who are interested in me, and it falls apart on the phone.
Part of it is that I watched all these videos on YouTube saying you're a high value man, you take time, you play these games with her messages and don't respond, you've got other options. And I got to focusing on: don't look needy.
She said she values a man who puts in the effort
I went out with a woman recently who is beautiful, successful in the eyes of the world, very intelligent, and very compatible with me in a lot of ways. She said clearly: I value a man who puts in the effort. Maybe in my 20s I was okay with guys who were more avoidant, but I absolutely want a guy who puts in the effort, and I'm not at all interested in a guy who isn't. With her, it's funny. She texted me 30 minutes after the date with a very warm message saying she'd had a great time. And again, it went downhill on the phone, and I was surprised.
So here's what happened. She texted me right after the date. I took two hours to reply, because I actually was out doing stuff, but I also found it difficult to reply to her. Maybe it's because I didn't like her that much. Maybe it's because I was closed-hearted. Or maybe I was playing games and too focused on not looking needy. But I took two hours to reply to her first message. Then she replied the next day, and I just started one-upping her. The longer she'd take to reply to a message, I'd take the same length of time. She takes five hours to reply, I'll take five hours. She puts hardly any effort into a message, I'll put hardly any effort into a message. And the problem with that is it's not going to work out. It generally seems to be expected, at least in early dating, that the man carries this.
Can't we just meet in person?
It's hard to even make this video, because there are certain things I don't like about it. Can't we just have a connection that doesn't involve having our dating life be on the phone? It's so annoying. Now I go on awesome first dates where the women like me and want to see me again, there are no big red flags, and then I'm losing them on the phone. It just seems so dumb. Part of me thinks it's so dumb that I have to put so much effort into dating a woman on the phone. Can't we just focus on meeting up in person and use the phone to do that? But no. And I see that this is a big point of my resistance: thinking this is dumb has stopped me from succeeding at it, instead of just accepting it. Maybe some of the women I haven't been that interested in, and that's why it's been a struggle to text them. But also, in the past, I've texted women and it felt like too much pressure, where I'm figuring I've got to send her a great message and make her laugh, or I shouldn't send anything at all.
With the most recent one, that's what I was thinking. If I couldn't send a great message and a perfect reply, I was putting too much pressure on my phone game to be great. And ironically, from pressuring my phone game to be great, it ended up sucking. So this woman sent a message 30 minutes after the first date. I waited two hours to reply and sent a thoughtful reply. She replied the next day. Then we got a phone call set up for later in the week. I took an entire day not texting her because she was working, but from what she's seeing, she's interpreting that as I don't care about her that much. She's figuring he's probably texting other women and trying to get dates with them, which is absolutely true. At the same time, I thought she didn't want to be bothered that much. But she said she appreciated the effort on the phone call. The next day, I sent her one funny message, and she sent one funny reply, and then I didn't text her again until the phone call. The day after that, we exchanged just a couple of texts. Two days later, she sent a message that she was going out with her family, and I didn't text her for two days. The next message I got, two more days later, was: I'm not feeling the connection. And I'm like, seriously? It's purely my phone game.
Phone game is a skill
Dating can feel so difficult, but to me there are just individual skills to learn throughout the process. There's a whole phone game skill, and what I'm seeing is that it's mainly the phone. You just need to put in effort, show up, and text. I have more women I could give examples from. One woman flaked on me. Why? Because I didn't text her the morning we had a date planned, and before that, I hadn't texted her for four days. First off, why am I doing this? In some part of my mind, it thinks that's what I'm supposed to do. And I'm also thinking, I don't want to look needy.
So if you're feeling frustrated over this, and this is confusing to you, you're not alone. I didn't grow up texting women or dating a lot. It's probably funny to a lot of you who have been dating this whole time. It might seem crazy that I didn't know, like my family member said, that if you don't text a woman for two days, she figures it's over.
The Call of Duty breakup in 2010
I remember one woman I was dating in 2010. We were serious, in a committed relationship. This was a beautiful woman, and I was the first guy she'd been with. We had a really hot, intense relationship for a few weeks. Then she pissed me off, because she was upset that I wanted to play Call of Duty every night with my friends instead of spending the night with her. I was upset because I just wanted to come over and get laid at about 8pm, head out when she went to bed, and play Call of Duty with my friends until 4 to 7am. We weren't on the same page. One night I stayed over with her. I was pissed, and I couldn't sleep because I was used to staying up late. I tried to do what she wanted, but then she didn't do what I wanted, and she was still mad first thing in the morning. So I just walked out, slammed the door of her trailer, and drove off. I didn't text her for four days. And when I did text her, she had already grieved and moved on. The relationship was over in her mind.
Looking back at all this, how did I think at any point that not texting a woman for multiple days looked good? It certainly didn't look needy, but it looks a lot more like he's not interested. I see a lot of women making videos about avoidant men: you've got to stop dating avoidant men, here are the signs he's avoidant. But I also hear all these stories about women dating avoidant men, so on some level, I thought women liked avoidant men. Then I watched a video that really helped. No, women generally appreciate a guy who puts in effort and persists. Sometimes, if a woman really likes a guy, she'll tolerate an avoidant man. If she's really attracted, or there's whatever it is about him she likes so much, she'll tolerate him not investing a lot. But generally, most women want effort.
I have the time to put in the effort
As a guy, I've got the time and energy to put the effort in. After all, I film seven videos a day. I have people messaging me on my website, jerrybanfield.com, and in my Skool. I handle lots of messages from my work. Obviously, I have time. I have time to text several women at once, all day. And I just feel kind of crazy at this point. How have I missed so many opportunities this year? There's a woman who came over to my house. She's in her early 20s, and she was really into me. I was just kind of annoyed with her when she left, so I didn't text her for a couple of days. She actually texted me. Then I ignored her message for two weeks. Then I ran into her in person and felt bad. And now she's ignored my last few messages. Okay, that's over.
I hope this helps somebody, because I'm amazed at how much pain and how much confusion it's taken to simply realize I need to consistently put the effort into texting. And if a woman is going to classify my effort as needy and low social value, that my sexual market value must not be that high because I'm texting her, so be it. Now, yes, you don't want to just blow somebody's phone up and double, triple, quadruple text all the time. I've had some women where I double and triple texted them and they didn't reply to anything, and then I stopped messaging them. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about women who were interested in me and liked me, and I put minimal effort into them on the phone. That's crazy.
So I hope this helps somebody. If this helps you, let me know in the chat on my website. I have dating coaching available, and I'm learning. I'm in the dating arena now, and to me that's really powerful. I'm in the middle of this. I'm in the dating game, I'm dating, I'm learning all this stuff right now, the lessons are very clear and top of mind, and I'm testing all of it out in person. If you want to talk to me, go to jerrybanfield.com.
Every lesson I'm learning out here lands on my Dating playlist. Thanks for reading.