It wasn’t technically a dealbreaker. I never wrote it down. I definitely never stopped to question where it came from. But it was quietly determining who I would date, who I would take seriously, and who I would write off before they ever had a chance.

And I was SO fucking sure I was right about it.

I thought I knew myself and what kind of man could “handle” me. I thought I knew what I needed in a partner. I knew what would work for my life, my career, my ambition, my pace.

Except…I didn’t.

Because sometimes the preferences we’re the most attached to have absolutely nothing to do with compatibility. They’re just stories we picked up somewhere along the way and decided were facts.

And one of mine almost made me miss the love of my life.

It literally never came up on my first two dates with Felix which is a testament to how irrelevant it is to our actual connection, but stay with me here.

After our second date I was like, waittttt… I love this energy, we’re really vibing here. So naturally, I did what any woman in the 21st century does and I googled him.

On one website, his bio said recent college grad.

Recent college grad? What?????

Mind you, I was 29. College felt like another fucking lifetime.

Wait so how old is this man?

And that’s when I discovered that the guy I was beginning to have serious feelings for was six years younger than me.

The spiral took hold Immediately. I felt a wall build up in my chest and my brain started spinning. Was it his first time dating an older woman? Was it a joke? Was it a fetish? Was I about to be somebody’s cougar phase??

I had literally set the limitations on my dating apps to older only to avoid all of this. I wouldn’t even set it to my age. I wouldn’t consider anyone unless they were two years older, three years older, five years older.

I had decided that a younger man wouldn’t be able to handle my success, my personality and whatever phase of life I was in. That’s a pretty big judgement for an entire age group.

Plot readers, hear me loud and clear: I want to grab past me by the shoulders and SHAKE HER. Because if I had followed my own stupid rule this time, I never would have given Felix a chance.

While the six year age gap was telling me I was dating a fetus, my gut was telling me to ignore it because the man across from me was that: a man, an actual evolved adult.

The person you end up with is almost never the person you thought you were going to end up with.

So if you’re single, ask yourself: in what ways are you holding yourself back?

Why we filter by age (and why it’s keeping us single).

The story we all get taught growing up: older man = more mature, more stable, more ready for a real relationship. Younger man = a project, a fetus, a phase.

Older does not always mean wiser.

I have met 42 year old men who cannot articulate a single fucking emotion and I have met 24 year olds with more emotional intelligence than the last three 40+ year old men I dated combined.

MATURITY IS NOT LINEAR. It depends on how someone was raised, what they’ve lived through, and whether they’ve actually done the work to grow.

Yes, age does give you life experience but experience does not guarantee self awareness.

On our third date, I finally brought up the six-year elephant in the room. He was so unbothered by our age difference, and his energy showed me how little it mattered. He said, “honestly, every single one of my relationships has been with an older woman. I’m just very mature for my age. That’s how it’s always been.”

At the surface, a 23 year old and a 29 year old is a wild contrast. He was still living at home at the time and I had been in the workforce for six years - I lived on my own, I was running a company. Every metric of adulting looked different for us but when I actually talked to him, he met me where I was.

The double standard.

There is a weird shame around an older woman dating a younger man. Of course, that same stigma doesn’t exist for older men dating younger women. Leonardo DiCaprio has dated women who literally weren’t even born when his first movie came out.

In the movie The Idea of You, Anne Hathaway plays a 40-year-old divorced mom who falls for a 24-year-old pop star. When their relationship becomes public, suddenly everyone has an opinion. She’s desperate, she’s having a midlife crisis, he’s going to grow up and leave her. And if the roles were flipped and she was the younger one? Then she’d just be a gold digger.

WOMEN. CANNOT. WIN.

For generations, women have been taught that the man is supposed to be older, more established, more experienced. But why are we still treating that like a requirement?

We can date for the things that actually matter: compatibility, values, ambition, emotional maturity, chemistry, and whether this person actually makes our life better.

Make it your bit.

When I first hard launched Felix on Instagram, I was so afraid of what people were going to say about our age, I didn’t even tag him in the photo.

I could already hear all of the hate comments in my head.

Once I actually posted most people did not blink. Have I seen randoms in comments over the last three years say nasty stuff about the age gap? Sure. But at some point I just stopped caring, because the second I realized this wasn’t weird for us, I stopped needing it to not be weird for anyone else.

For his 25th birthday I threw him a Frontal Lobe surprise party complete with a brain shaped cake. Because once you can make the age thing a joke, it stops having power over your relationship.

When you’re not embarrassed by something, it becomes really fucking hard for anyone else to embarrass you with it.

What actually matters.

I’m not telling you to go change your Hinge settings to 21–25. Please don’t come back here and blame me.

I’m telling you to question the rules you’ve created about who your person is “supposed” to be.

Maybe yours isn’t age. Maybe it’s height. Maybe it’s a certain job. Maybe it’s where they went to school, how much money they make, what neighborhood they live in, or some hyper-specific physical type you decided was your type at 22.

Have standards. Have non-negotiables. Know what you want.

But learn the difference between a foundation and a flex.

Your person is probably not going to look like the composite sketch you have been carrying around since you were in college. Mine certainly didn’t. And thank fucking God for that.

And this is literally why I have an entire chapter in my book about figuring out what you actually value in a partner, what your real non-negotiables are, and which “requirements” might actually be holding you back.

Let’s F*cking Date comes out September 22, and if this newsletter resonated with you, I would be SO grateful if you pre-ordered a copy. Pre-orders are incredibly important to the success of a book, so every single one genuinely makes a difference.

And obviously, I wrote the whole fucking thing for you. ❤️

XOXO,

SFK

Now that I have you here, let me explain. I know what you’re going to say…”I barely have time for ONE man, now Serena is telling me to date THREE?” Also, no, this isn’t leading men on or playing games so get outta here with that bullshittery. This is an ENERGY GAME, and genuinely good for your mental health.

All I’m asking you to do is have three guys in our orbit. Every one doesn’t have to be the love of your life, and you don’t need to bring each one home to mom. It’s simply an energy expenditure: one drink with Ben on Thursday night, a coffee with Jake Saturday morning, and a walk with Peter on Sunday.

Wanna know what happens the second you have three men? YOU ARE NO LONGER FIXATED ON ONE PERSON! It’s liberating.

For the entirety of my twenties, I did the exact opposite of what I’m telling you to do now. I would meet up with a guy who asked me out on Sunday, and if there was any semblance of connection, I would lose my fucking mind over him for the remainder of the week. I would pick up my phone 12,000 times a day hoping his name would pop up, I would obsess over every text message I sent him. It was insane (but also not, because I hear this from women ALL. THE. TIME)

Every single guy I even remotely vibed with, I convinced myself he was my person and made him the center of my entire universe. It didn’t matter if it was one date or one week later. It happened every single time.

And then I would sit alone in my apartment and wonder why I felt so out of control and hopeless.

And now, I’m giving you that reason. It was simply because I only had one man to focus on at a time. All of my excitement was being funneled into one guy, and I didn’t even want to bother going on dates with other guys once I was hooked. Which, of course, then meant the second he started to pull back, I would start to spiral and obsess.

The second I decided to start dating multiple people, my entire mindset shifted. It became a rule I made for myself: If I had a great date with a guy, I would open Hinge IMMEDIATELY (like literally the second I walked back in my apartment) or I’d text a friend and ask her if she has any friends to set me up with. Not because I was over him or playing the field, but because I refused to let one guy hold my entire dating life hostage. The scarcity mindset comes from feeling like you don’t have options, so I always made sure I did!

Why Three, You Ask?

When you’re only hooking up or dating one guy, you have zero perspective and nothing to compare him to. It’s like when you were in middle school, and the teacher graded on a curve but imagine being the only student in the class for the curve to be graded on - it doesn’t make sense and it’s veryyyy skewed.

Let me say this for the girls in the back: going out with someone else does not cancel out your feelings for someone else! Yes, you may think Ben is your favorite - but that doesn’t mean Jake doesn’t add value and fun.

Here’s the story I’ve never told publicly before.

When I first started dating Felix, after our SECOND date, I went to a party and made out with another guy.

This obviously is not because I wasn’t into Felix but I did this because I knew if I let myself get fully swept up in him after two dates, I would go through my spiral again of rearranging my entire life around him in my head, analyzing every single text he sent me, writing our wedding vows on my morning walks. And THAT desperation is exactly what destroys relationships before they even have a chance.

So yes, I made out with a stranger at a party to remind myself I have options. I am that bitch, and if it didn’t work out with Felix, I’d be fine because there are other men who want my attention. I never saw the stranger again btw.

When I saw Felix again for our third date, I wasn’t a fucking nutcase who memorized his entire dating history from Facebook - I was cool, calm and myself.

One last thing on this - this is not manipulative or cruel. Men have been calling this practice “playing the field” since the fucking 50’s and the second women do it, we’re told we’re leading men on. I’m over it and until you have explicitly agreed to be exclusive with someone, you are allowed to see what else is out there.

When you aren’t trying to impress somebody, you show up as your most authentic, unbothered, lethal self. You’re not performing for them, or molding into something you think they want - you just show up as yourself. And that’s the fucking prize.

Ok you made it to the bottom. Now I have to tell you that my book is out in 32 days (!!!!!!!!!) I talk about this at LENGTH in one chapter, and there are 79 more chapters after that.

If you pre-order before September 22, you unlock so many bonuses that literally just die on release day. So let’s pre-order now, shall we?

Pre-order it now and every copy you order enters you in for a chance to win a full weekend in NYC with me and your best friend. (And yes, I’m doing the audio book!)

XOXO,

SFK

Also (ICYMI) I wrote a book!!!!! Let’s Fucking Date comes out in a little over a month (September 22 in case you want to mark your calendar and set 47 reminders 😉).

And today I’m announcing my book tour. I’m coming to a city near youuuuu: New York, Chicago, South Carolina, and St. Louis. All the details, dates, ticket links, and pre-order info live at letsfuckingdate.com. Come see me and make sure to bring your sister and your mom and that one friend in your group who is still seeing that guy that hasn’t called her his girlfriend after 3 years.

Ok, on to the report.

READING:

The other day I read this article and I found myself nodding almost the entire way through. The era of simply posting a beautiful life is over. Lifestyle creators can’t rely on pretty apartments, expensive bags, Pilates classes, and aesthetically pleasing coffees anymore because everyone has access to that content. Audiences want something they can’t get somewhere else.

I’ve actually been seeing this play out in real time on my own platforms.

When I look at the videos that consistently perform the best, they are almost never the ones where I’m showing you what I wore or where I had dinner. They’re me, sitting in front of a camera, looking directly at you, telling you the thing you probably don’t want to hear but desperately need to. (Sorry lol). They’re the videos where I sound the most like... me.

The internet has become so good at replicating aesthetics that aesthetics alone have almost become… worthless? Or worse, replaceable.

For example, my friend Yhasmina had an entire photoshoot of hers stolen. She takes her job very seriously and was shocked to find that another influencer edited Yhasmina’s face out of the photos, edited herself into them, and posted them as if they were her own. When the influencer was confronted, she didn’t even apologize. Help.

Between AI, Photoshop, and increasingly sophisticated editing tools, almost anything visual can be recreated or worse, stolen. But what can’t be recreated quite as easily is your brain, POV, life experience and the way you connect ideas.

When it comes to my own work, my north star is: how do I want someone to feel after reading something I’ve written or listening to me speak?

PROUD OF:

Announcing my book tour!!

BABY WE ARE GOING ON A BOOK TOUR TO A CITY NEAR YOU!!! This isn’t just a tour. It’s a confidence + dating workshop and celebration where you’ll leave with new friends and feel invigorated.

With a book tour launch, we have a ton of moving pieces. I need social assets, email assets, website assets, and more. It’s overwhelming. Especially because SFK LFG is a small and scrappy team, I needed some help. That’s why I partnered with Adobe Express, the create anything app, because a girl can only do so much. No one tells you when you launch a book that there’s not 100 people waiting to help you lol.

They recently released their first ever “Adobe Express AI Snapshot for Small Business” study all about how small business owners are using AI, which I found super relatable to my work. It’s all about how to stand out in the era of AI, and how important it is to have a real personality and vision behind it, which is just SO TRUE. Now, let’s get into how exactly I used it to prep for my book tour and create *literally* anything...

The first thing I did was put my book cover and fonts into a brand kit - which took just a couple minutes. From there, everything I built was 100% on brand, which made things SO. MUCH. EASIER. Instead of eye-balling everything and hoping the color code was the same for every asset I made.

Then, I generated a template to start the city cards. I wanted them to feel like they were little postcards from each stop on the tour. I didn’t love the first rendering - it was fine, but needed more flair. I threw that one away and started fresh - and it still just wasn’t hitting. I spent almost an hour refining it and changing the copy, but I eventually loved where it landed.

The perfectionist (and Aries) in me knew this would take a while, but apparently there are a lot of other like-minded Aries in the world. Adobe Express told me only 6% of small business owners publish AI-assisted content without tweaking it first*. Six percent!!! Isn’t it somewhat reassuring that nobody is letting their robot blindly post for them and that we all share the experience of making tiny tweaks no one will ever notice? I don’t know why we’re all so weird about admitting it. The first draft is never the most valuable part, it’s the human touch and time spent refining it to match your vision that really matters. You still need good taste to stand out, even in the era of AI. Taste is THE competitive advantage these days.

The final touches of the process was a logistical miracle. I got the finalized city card design down, and then used the resizer tool to resize it for my Instagram feed and stories, TikTok cover photo, email, and the venue flyer; ALL DONE in 5 minutes. If anyone has spent any time designing assets, you know this is a feat in and of itself. I rolled out the entire posting schedule in advance with the content scheduler because we know Past Serena with a calendar is WAAAAY more trustworthy than Future Serena with good intentions lmao.

And that was it!

I honestly went into using Adobe Express thinking it was just going to be Canva for more sophisticated people, but it wasn’t at all. It didn’t just give me speed, it gave me a quick and easy starting place so that I had enough confidence to actually modify the design that I wanted and not just rush to the finish line. Read the full “Adobe Express AI Snapshot for Small Business” - if you’re a small business owner or creator, it’s gold.

*Survey conducted by Morning Consult to 850 small business owners.

OBSESSED:

Read more

That was literally me at 29 years old. I really thought I was doing everything right. I was in therapy healing my inner child, I was choosing (what I thought) were available men, I was reading every self-help book I could get my hand…

Read more

Spoiler alert babe: I did but not in any of the ways I thought I would.

SO if you are currently eyeing the door at your day job or romanticizing being your own boss or picturing Sephora sponsoring your next GRWM video please sit down. I want this for you SO badly. I also need you to know what you are signing up for because nobody told me and I would very much like to be the friend with the giant glass of rosé and the truth bombs here with you.

Here’s the only rule of this job that has held up for six years and read this carefully please: the people winning at this job long term are not any smarter or prettier OR any more talented than you - they just got humbled earlier and started acting on it sooner.

Everything I am about to tell you is something I learned the embarrassing and *very* expensive way. I am now handing you the cheat sheet (11 game changing tips) so you can get humbled the way I wish I did in 2020.

1. You are truly the only person keeping the score.

You will post that TikTok video you’ve been holding onto and get two million views and you will be SO sure your life is changing from this point on. And then you will wake up the next morning and refresh your phone twelve times like a fucking psycho and realize NO ONE REMEMBERS THE VIDEO YOU JUST POSTED. And that’s when the actual brutal thing hits you which is that no one cares about your numbers as much as you do.

Your mom watched it 47 times, your best friend watched it twice in between her pilates class at Equinox lol, and some random girl saved it on the subway ride to work and will literally never open it again.

And this is the thing that ends most new creators tbh. Your worst day online is somebody else’s completely normal Tuesday. You flopped? WHO CARES!!! Post the next thing. You went viral - so what? Post the next thing. Nobody is scoring you but you.

2. Love you or hate you, it’s still an obsession.

If everyone in the comments is just like omg you queen, you are basically wallpaper and no one has ever been like “that wallpaper changed my life.”

The girls making fun of you in the Snark subreddit are still forwarding your posts around. That is exactly what we call free distribution babe. Being ignored is what actually kills you.

Let me say this clearly - be unforgettable on purpose or be forgotten by accident. Those are pretty much the only two roads.

3. Shameless is a job skill, not a personality flaw.

Hate to break it to you but you are going to post stuff that absolutely FLOPS. You will get screenshotted into group chats you were never meant to see (this has happened to me 3 times lmao).

I just wrote a whole newsletter about this called Cringe Is Just Unmonetized cause it kept coming up in my DMs and I felt like I was answering the same question 1200 times per day. Read it now and come back here and tell me I’m right.

The people who survive this job are the ones whose fear of being forgotten is bigger than their fear of being embarrassed - this is literally the cheat code to my entire career up to this point.

4. Stop trying to be the next someone else.

You cannot chase your way to the top of this thing. You can’t chase the algorithm, you can’t chase the Tiktoker who blew up last week, and you def can’t chase the trend that 90,000 people are already halfway through pivoting on.

The only thing that has ever actually worked for me, literally ever, is making the thing I would want to watch on my couch with Felix and Pancho. The idea I kinda wished already existed and could not find anywhere else - so I made it.

So if you’re sitting on a stupid or specific idea you keep thinking won’t hit - just make it and see what happens. What do you have to lose?

5. Pivot before it stops working.

The MINUTE something is working you should already be sitting on three more ideas to back it up.

The mistake I see so many creators make is that they wait until their numbers fall off a cliff and THEN try to reinvent themselves… which is honestly the worst possible time to be making brave creative choices. Nothing good ever comes from a place of sheer and utter desperation.

Do not be boring and do not be complacent. When something stops working, it’s already too late so stay ahead of the curve, always.

6. The first brand deals are a sample size, not a lottery win.

Ok your first few brand deals are going to feel like you hit the actual lottery. They are not!! They are simply a sample size.

The lip balm branded reel that funded your rent in June will be ghosting you by July. TRUST. ME. ON. THIS. And the worst part is you won’t see it coming. Which is why you have to treat every deal like it might be the last one for a minute.

Which also means to follow the basics of any job: turn things in on time, always follow the brief and what they are looking for. And put time and care into the work. Do NOT phone it in because you already have your eye on the next thing. Nothing gets you dropped faster than acting like you are too cool for the deal you already have.

7. Tax the money before you spend it.

Look. This one is not sexy I know but truly not optional. Take it from me who did not understand the quarterly taxes thing when I started during Covid.

Set aside 30% for taxes the second a check hits. And do NOT spend the number you saw on the DocuSign from your first brand deal. Every creator I know who has been at this longer than three years has one story about a tax bill that almost took them out (myself included). Do not be somebody’s cautionary tale.

8. You cannot run a business like a hobby and expect it to pay you like a job.

The $500 you can’t afford for an editor on the reel scheduled for next week is VERY often the difference between a video with a thousand views and the one with a hundred thousand. I’m not saying every hire is the right hire, but be smart and strategic about where you’re investing. If you have the data to back up that investing in certain areas will translate, spend the money. It will never feel affordable so you just have to do it.

Spend the money when it makes sense. Hire the help - I promise.

9. Your audience is not your therapist - your therapist is.

Nobody told me this and if you look back at some of my content from my early days, you’ll see I paid the price.

When you build a career on being publicly vulnerable, the line between authentic content and trauma dumping on 230k strangers gets so blurry and confusing and it happens so fast. There will be a bad day where you are like… a millisecond away from hitting post on something you should be saying in your therapist’s office instead.

Do NOT do it. There are things that belong in public and there are things that belong in a room with someone who is legally and ethically obligated to help you lol. Learn the difference before you learn it the hard way, because you cannot unpost something once it is out there.

10. Your friends from your old life will not always get it.

This one hurt to figure out.

Some of your oldest friends are going to say you have changed. Some of them are going to compare their salary to whatever brand deals you have posted publicly and things are going to get weird (this has happened to me). Some of them are just going to slowly stop showing up for you.

You HAVE to build a second circle of likeminded people in your space- creators, founders, etc. Your old friends will still your friends or at least the real ones are. But you need peers who get this world too. It’s not betrayal or you changing- it’s just how it goes.

11. Nothing will protect you more than your own list.

Every platform is going to change its algorithm 14 times in a year and every app is eventually going to turn on the people who built it - it’s never if, it’s when. TikTok might get banned again. Instagram breaks Reels every three weeks now. YouTube is doing whatever it’s doing lol.

The only thing you actually, truly own is the audience you built OFF the platforms. That means your email list, your Substack, your text list. THAT is yours and nobody can take it from you.

Trust when I say, build it now - when you’re still growing. Not the day the app disappears.

And one more shameless plug, because I just spent an entire section telling you shamelessness is basically the most important job skill soooo I have to model the behavior. If you didn’t already know - I wrote a book and it comes out September 22. It’s called Let’s F*cking Date and yes it’s about dating, but every relationship in your life (including the one with your work) is downstream of the one you have with yourself so it applies to you too.

Andddd… every copy you order is another entry to win a weekend in NYC with me and your bestie.

You’re welcome.

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So naturally I decided I was the broken one. I diagnosed myself with anxious attachment. I declared I was too much and quietly and slowly convinced myself I was the reason it never worked out with any guy in my twenties. I had literally built a career and persona helping women trust themselves. Then one text from Joe Schmoe would come through and suddenly I didn't trust a single thought in my own head. That's how loud the lie gets inside your own head.

Every single text I would draft to a guy turned into a literal group project. I’d screenshot our convo to every woman in my phone and try to get a script down that hit just right. Nothing ever felt right because none of it was me. Looking back now of course, I wasn’t obsessed with him…I was obsessed with the certainty of it all.

I thought if I analyzed enough, anticipated enough, and perfected every SINGLE response, I could somehow control the outcome and he would fall in love with me. I couldn’t (obviously).

Here’s the exact thing that changed my entire POV and led me to meet my partner of three years.

The right person doesn't make you feel like every text is a test you have to pass. They make you forget there was ever a test in the first place.

The craziest part of this whole dance is that I thought all of that anxiety meant I liked him MORE. I was confusing emotional instability for chemistry. If I was obsessing, spiraling, checking my phone every four minutes, then SURELY he mattered to me, right??? Wrong. The anxiety was my body was pulling a fire alarm and I was calling it romance.

So let me talk to the girl with one man's name sitting at the top of her texts right now (yes, you). The one you keep defending to all your girlfriends at brunch. The one guy who you think makes your stomach drop, and you've decided that drop is butterflies. Hear me please - if he makes you anxious over a text, during the easiest part of your relationship, what do you think happens when life gets hard?

Love is supposed to be the place you go to when everything else feels uncertain - it’s supposed to feel safe and secure. If someone can't make you feel safe now, please believe me when I say they will not magically become your safe place later. The anxiety doesn't disappear.

When I met Felix three years ago, he made the entire fucking committee disappear. I never had to second guess a text. I never felt like I had to workshop a reply or ask my girlfriends what to say. I never screenshotted a single thing! He’s my boyfriend now.

When you get into the right relationship it feels less like a straight dopamine hit and more like you are finally unclenching your jaw you didn’t realize you’d been holding for years. Even if you are an anxious person like me, the right person makes you feel safe from the very, very beginning.

Looking back, the biggest difference wasn't how Felix texted or what he texted. It was how I felt. I wasn't trying to decode him because there was nothing to decode. I wasn't wondering where I stood with him because he never made me wonder.

So please - the next time someone gives you butterflies - get honest about what those butterflies actually are. Half the time it isn’t excitement - it’s your literal gut waving a big red flag. We spend SO much of our time and energy mistaking anxiety for attraction that we forget what healthy chemistry is supposed to look and feel like.

I spent years trying to become better at texting and it turns out, I was just waiting for someone who made me stop overthinking every word I was saying.

Subscribe for more essays every Thursday.

Order Let’s Fucking Date if you're ready for the full playbook.

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One of the hardest ones I had did not come from an insane fight or some dramatic betrayal. Honestly I almost wish it had because at least then there would have been something concrete to point to and say this is why our friendship ended. The breakup was just this slow drawn out realization that someone I loved was no longer interested in having me in their life. After years of friendship, how does someone go from knowing every detail of your life to not responding to you at all? It’s fucked up.

What made it more painful was that I gave the opportunity for honesty and opened the door to try and repair. I asked her if something was wrong or if it was something I did. I I opened the door for the uncomfortable conversation because I genuinely would have rather had the hard truth than the confusion. She responded basically saying everything was fine, and it made me feel crazier.

That is what makes friendship breakups uniquely brutal. When there’s no real explanation - your brain just creates one out of thin air for you. You replay every single interaction trying to figure out if you were too much. You start rewriting the entire friendship trying to locate the exact moment it shifted and that is truly torture.

If someone truly wants you in their life, they will give you the opportunity to repair things. A real friend will always communicate with you. They tell you when something hurts them. They let you meet you halfway because they actually want the friendship to survive and be a steady presence in each of your lives. And if they don’t? Then eventually you have to accept that you are grieving someone who already made their decision.

There is nothing more painful than realizing you are trying to hold onto someone who already let go - romantic or friendship

We have all the language in the fucking world for romantic breakups. I literally wrote a whole fucking book about it. But with friendship breakups, there’s nothing. You just wake up one day and realize someone who used to know every detail of your life doesn’t anymore and somehow you’re supposed to act normal about it.

Here’s what I’ve figured out so far. And I am still very much in the middle of figuring it out.

1. Feel the f*cking feels.

Okay first things first. You do not get to skip this part. I know you want to log on to your therapist’s couch and speedrun the grief so you can move on and stop crying in the shower. That is not how this works lmao.

The grief and the rage and the wait but what if I just texted them intrusive thoughts at midnight. Talk to your mom about it (mine got hours of content on this one, sorry mami). There is no version where you logic your way out of a friendship breakup.

2. Let them.

Credit to Mel Robbins, patron saint of anyone who needs to stop chasing people who do not want to be chased. Read her book if you have not already.

You really do not want to be at my wedding? Great. I do not want you there either. You do not want to text me back? The door is right fucking there.

3. Not everyone is your best friend.

Okay this one changed my life so I am going to slow down.

When I first met Felix three years ago, I called everyone my best friend. Every single person lol. The girl I worked out with once a week? She was my best friend. The girl I FaceTimed on Sundays? Best friend. Felix listened to me for like two months and finally called me out on it. He was like “what do you mean everyone? They can’t all be your best friend.”

And I sat with that and then I got a little defensive and d then I realized he was right.

Part of the reason I was so hurt and complaining about friendships all the time was because I was keeping everyone on the same plane. I was expecting best-friend behavior from someone who was actually an acquaintance. I was expecting acquaintance behavior from someone who deserved best friend energy. Nobody was in the right place in my head, or in real life.

The second you actually understand where someone belongs on the plane, you stop getting your feelings hurt for the wrong reasons.

Keep them straight and you will find this all much easier - your best friends are your best friends. Your friends are your friends. Your acquaintances are your acquaintances. Your coworkers are your coworkers (more on that in a second). It is not a demotion to call someone an acquaintance.

4. If you are paying them, they are not your friend.

This one has to be crystal clear. Your assistant is not your friend. Your coworkers are not your friends either btw. They might become friends someday but while there is a transaction happening between you - it is a professional relationship.

I love a lot of the people I work with. I would even honestly say I care about them deeply. But I have watched too many women mistake work closeness for actual friendship, and then get destroyed when the work relationship ended and the friendship went with it. Because the friendship was never the friendship.

Know the difference.

5. Grieving someone who is still alive is its own specific hell.

This is the part that truly fucked me up the most.

Your lost friends are still out there living their life and going to Balthazar not inviting you. And I am supposed to just… exist while I know that??? Coooooool - love that for me.

It is a different kind of loss though because there is no closure and there is no goodbye. It is just an ongoing awareness that someone you loved chose to stop knowing you and that’s really fucking hard.

6. Stop trying to get an explanation.

Sorry babe - you are not going to get one.

And even if you did it would not feel like enough. Because the real explanation is ALWAYS some version of we grew apart or our lives went in different directions or they were jealous or they didn’t like who you were becoming. None of those answers give your heart what it is actually asking for which is some semblance of closure or explanation.

Give yourself the closure it needs.

7. Not every ending is dramatic.

Some are really slow. They’re just gradually unsubscribing from your life and one day you realize you have not spoken in 9 months and neither of you noticed or said anything.

That is not always a tragedy btw. Friendships have seasons just like every relationship in your life and not every season was built to last forever. Maybe they were your work bestie and you do not work there anymore. Maybe you outgrew each other. None of that means it was ever a fake relationship or didn’t mean something at the time - it just means the chapter ended and that’s okay.

8. The mutual friend problem.

This one was really hard for me personally.

Suddenly there are dinners and 40th birthday parties you are not invited to you and you have to decide how much of the story you want to share with people who are also their friends. My advice is always less than you think.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT build a case against them to the people you both love. It will feel good for 5 minutes and terrible for 5 years. Say we grew apart and leave it there. It’s simple and clean and leaves no room for additional questions.

9. You do not have to pick a villain.

Two people can love each other and still not figure out how to make it work. That is true for romantic breakups (I talk about this a lot in the book) and it is true for friendship breakups too.

They are not evil and you are not evil! Just because you couldn’t figure out how to be in each others lives anymore does not make them the enemy. And that’s okay!! And tbh, the story where nobody is the bad guy is the more mature and evolvoed one.

10. Making new friends in your thirties is not embarrassing. It is a flex.

I know it feels weird and I know it feels like everybody else has their forever people locked in from fucking elementary school. Trust me when I say they absolutely do not. Most of us are quietly figuring out who our real people are for the first time.

Text the girl you keep meaning to grab a drink with and say yes to the dinner even when you are tired and would rather be in bed with Love Island and a glass of wine. The friends I have now are the ones who have shown up for me in the last two years when our lives are more aligned and I am so much better off because I made space for them.

11. Sometimes the friendship breakup is you.

Plot twist. I have been on both sides of this one lol.

There have been friendships I ended because they were not serving me anymore and because I was doing more work than I was getting back and because I was shrinking around them. And I did not owe them nor did I give them a big dramatic goodbye. I just stopped putting in the work and let it fade naturally.

If you are the one leaving, you are allowed to leave. You do not need permission.

12. The right people make you feel like yourself.

Same principle as dating honestly. If you ever have to shrink or censor or perform to keep your people around… they are simply not your people.

Real friendship is not exhausting. The friends I have now are the ones who genuinely want me to win and I want the same for them. That is what real friendship is supposed to feel like.

Real friend energy:

• Tells you when something hurts their feelings

• Shows up when it’s not convenient for them

• Celebrates your wins without making it about them

• Lets you be the messiest version of yourself

Fake friend energy:

• Disappears without explanation or any reason

• Only texts or reaches out when they need something

• Uses what you confided in them against you

• Makes you to shrink to keep them in your life

Every principle in Let's F*cking Date applies to your friendships too. Every relationship in your life is downstream of the relationship you have with yourself.

PRE-ORDER HERE

If you are going through a friendship breakup right now I see you and I’m really sorry. You will get through it!! Do whatever you need to do to get over it, and then let it go. Chasing people who already let go only delays the people who are actually capable of loving you properly.

I take a lot of pride in my work. I’ve spent years mastering the art of making produced, polished videos under 60 seconds. Like with any job - eventually you just stop learning and evolving. And that’s exactly when you have to pivot. I knew it was time to step outside my comfort zone and shake things the fuck up.

So I started vlogging.

I am a complete amateur. I have literally no idea what I’m doing which is exactly why I wanted to do it. My work has always been intentional and produced which I genuinely love, but I wanted a place that felt messier and less polished. And honestly, it’s more for me than anyone else.

I’ve also lived in New York my entire life. As much as I love this city, it’s so easy to stop seeing it. My favorite coffee shop becomes routine and my neighborhood just becomes background noise. I’m so lucky to call NYC home because there are still a million things I’ve never done in this city, and there are new things to discover everywhere. I’m doing it because I wanted to fall back in love with making content again and I wanted to fall back in love with my city again.

Little did I know vlogging would do exactly that. It’s given me an excuse to wander into a new neighborhood, try a new Pilates class, say yes to brand invitations I would’ve ignored, and truly become a tourist in my own city again. It’s allowed me how to romanticize my own life again! Not necessarily because I’m living for content, but because documenting my days has made me realize how often I say no to things that could actually be really fun.

The other day I got invited to sunrise yoga at the Empire State Building. 9/10 times I would’ve politely declined. But this time I caught myself thinking wait... that could actually be fun for the vlog. So I went.

The funny thing is, once I got there, I completely forgot about the vlog. I was just happy I had said yes. That’s been the biggest surprise to come out of all of this. The vlogging gets me out the door and the experience is what I actually remember.

I also had this idea that if I was going to vlog I had to film my entire day and I’m realizing that’s not true at all. A vlog doesn’t have to document your entire life - it just has to capture the moments worth remembering.

I just posted my first vlog, and for the first time in a very long time, I genuinely don’t care how many people watch it. At least for now. Maybe that’ll change, but right now it feels different. It feels like I’m making something because I want to remember this chapter of my life, not because I’m trying to make the algorithm happy. Somewhere along the way, I started measuring ideas by how well I thought they’d perform instead of whether I’d actually enjoy making them. I didn’t even realize I’d been doing that until I made something that wasn’t for the views.

What I love most is that these videos are becoming little time capsules. One day I’ll watch them back and remember exactly who I was in this season of my life. Maybe one day my daughter will too. She’ll see my apartment, my friends, the way I talked, the places I loved, and all the little moments that would’ve otherwise disappeared.

Turns out the best part of vlogging isn’t having something to post. It’s having a reason to live a little more before you do.

P.S. If my first vlog gets 17 views, I’ll simply assume 16 of them were my mami.

READING:

1. Start With Yourself: A New Vision for Work & Life by Emma Grede A no bullshit guide to building the career and life you actually want. If you love ambitious women who tell it like it is, this book is FOR YOU!

2. Friends Like These by Amy Chozick A juicy fast paced novel about friendship, ambition, and the blurry line between rooting for your friends and competing with them.

PROUD OF:

My mami. ❤️

She just finished a week at sleepaway camp- I’m not kidding.

She went to Camp Château in Toulouse, France, and she spent the week with 34 other women. She signed up completely on her own, she shared a room with a stranger, she flew across the world, and walked into a group where she didn’t know a single person.

By the last day, everyone was crying because they didn’t want it to end.

She called me every day sooooooo happy. She made croissants and painted watercolors, and went horseback riding and danced at a silent disco. She somehow had a busier social life than I did. I felt like such a proud parent... I mean, daughter.

I’m SO proud of her for stepping outside her comfort zone. It’s such a good reminder that you do not need a partner to have an incredible adventure or make new lifelong friends or create unforgettable memories.

We spend so much of our time waiting for someone to travel with or to try something new with. Meanwhile, life is happening right now.

The camp was actually very reasonably priced, although apparently there’s quite the waitlist. If you’re looking for something fun to do she cannot recommend it enough. We already decided we’re going together in 2028. ❤️

OBSESSED:

Read more

Here’s the thing. Love Island reads like reality TV but it’s actually a case study in every dating mistake we’ve all made (just compressed into 40 nights with a camera crew and no phones lol). Every archetype was is in every episode. And if you were watching - you were also learning, whether you meant to or not.

So here are seven of the biggest lessons from this season. Every one of them is straight out of my book, Let’s F*cking Date, which is honestly starting to feel less like a book and more like a Love Island field manual that every new contestant needs to read.

1. We don’t date potential.

Melanie kept believing in the man Sincere promised he could become instead of accepting the man he kept showing her. And listen, I get it. We have ALL been a Melanie. We have all held onto a version of a person that only exists in our head while the actual person in front of us keeps giving us the same disappointing evidence over and over. Let me give it to you straight - your future husband is not a fixer upper. Chapter 48 in the book, and I could write another 48 on it.

2. A crush is just a lack of information.

Movie Night didn’t ruin relationships - it revealed them. The more information and data you have about someone, the less room there is for fantasy. When you’re at the beginning of something and everything feels electric and impossible and majestic and he’s just so different, it’s usually because you don’t know him yet. Once you do, the electricity either becomes something real, or it becomes a huge fucking red flag.

3. The roster is not the enemy.

Everyone wanted Kenzie to pick one. Andddd then she remembered she was single. There is nothing wrong with dating multiple people until someone gives you a reason not to. You should not be shamed into being exclusive with someone before they actually deserve you’re exclusivity. You are single until you’re officially not and you will know when that is - there is no ambiguity. This one alone would have saved my 26 year old self from three meltdowns lol.

4. Rewrite the script.

After getting hurt Jen said loud and proud that she hates men. We’ve all been there and obviously I get it. The problem though isn’t just what’s she saying - it’s the whole story behind it. The words you repeat to yourself over and over become the relationships you expect and get. If your internal script is always that all men are trash or I always end up with the same guy or dating in NYC is impossible, you are subconsciously (or even consciously) scanning every single interaction for all of the evidence to prove yourself right.

5. Starting over is not starting from scratch.

Melanie and Aniya both held on because starting over felt scarier than staying in a shitty relationship that they knew wasn’t serving them. But staying with the wrong person doesn’t protect your future at all, it just delays it. You are NOT starting from scratch - you are just starting with more experience which is worth INFINITELY more than starting with pure delusion.

6. Pick-mes don’t get picked.

The exact moment you start trying to convince someone to choose you- you have already forgotten that YOU are in fact the prize. Aniya spent SO much time just auditioning for KC and hoping he would pick her. Begging for a seat at the table just tells everyone at the table you don’t think you deserve to be there. You have to stop auditioning for every person in your life and start choosing who you ACTUALLY want in it.

7. Exclusive is not a real word. Boyfriend is.

Last night Zac asked Kayda to be exclusive and Trinity said what every woman in America was already screaming at her TV. What they have together is not a relationship - it’s just a situationship.

Being exclusive is not a title - it’s just a weak ask for all of the girlfriend privileges without the girlfriend commitment. It means please stop dating other people, but I would like to keep the door open in case I change my mind about you. I need every woman reading this to understand that there is no in between. If he is not willing to call you his girlfriend, he is telling you exactly who you are to him and you need to believe him the first time.

Stop giving girlfriend privileges to men who won’t give you the title - it’s never worth it.

8. The way someone treats you when it’s easy is the ceiling.

Nobody is on their worst behavior in a villa full of cameras during the honeymoon phase. If someone is inconsistent or dismissive or lukewarm about you when everything is fun and exciting and there are no real stakes yet - that IS the good version of them. It only gets more real from here.

If you’ve been taking notes during Love Island - I wrote the textbook.

Let’s F*cking Date comes out September 22. Preorder here. It’s every single one of these lessons in 80 chapters, with all the receipts, none of the villa. Consider this newsletter the trailer.

XOXO,
SFK

I just spent the week at Cannes Lions which is basically the Super Bowl of advertising lol. Every CMO and brand decision maker on planet earth was in one place figuring out where their multi million dollar marketing budget is going next. And the big talking point of the whole week - creators ARE the marketing money now. Brands are not asking should we work with creators? They are asking how fast can we get to her?

And every woman I know who has been thinking about starting something is still on the couch.

The only difference between you and the creator out there making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year is that they don’t give a fuck about being cringe. That’s it. They are not smarter or prettier or more talented than you. They just wake up every day and get to work, and you’re sitting on the couch deciding which video is too embarrassing to post. Where are you exactly? What are you working on? Because the people lapping you as a creator right now are not working harder than you are. They’re just willing to be cringe in public on a Tuesday afternoon filming that reel you wanted to post while you scroll TikTok and quietly judge them for it.

This is how I know nobody is watching you the way you think they are. Right now (without looking) recite three Instagram Stories you tapped through yesterday. Better yet, tell me the last thing someone you followed and LOVED posted. What they were trying to sell you? What were they? You can’t and of course you can’t.

Because you don’t care and the truth is nobody cares about anyone but themselves on the internet, and that is the most liberating sentence anyone will ever say to you. The audience you’re protecting yourself from isn’t watching you - trust me. They’re tapping through you just like you do on the way back to their own life.

I’ll give you my receipts because I’m not asking you to do anything I haven’t already humiliated myself doing first. I quit my job in 2020. Three months in I was sitting alone in my apartment going what the fuck did I just do. Nothing was happening - like literally nothing. So I started a dating show called Let’s F*cking Date from my actual living room where I dated fifteen men on Instagram Live in front of strangers. The first few episodes were HEINOUS. I was visibly drunk in at least three of them. (They are still on the internet - find them if you want and send them to me) Only fifty people tuned in to the first. But then it started snowballing. Three seasons later that cringe little experiment was pulling six figures in sponsorships.

Somewhere in the middle of all that I ordered 250 decks of a card game I’d made up because the dates kept stalling and I wanted my contestants to have something to ask each other. I thought maybe a few people would buy them. We have now sold MILLIONS of dollars of card games AND I signed a book deal AND there is a real chance the whole thing becomes a movie (I’ll make it happen don’t worry). All of this traces back to a drunk girl with tarantula eyelashes broadcasting bad dates from her couch.

So when you tell me you can’t post the thing because what if people think it’s cringe. What if it is? What if a hundred people roll their eyes at you on a Thursday and forget you even existed on Friday? WHO CARES!!! Is that really the hill your entire dream is dying on?

So please, please, please. Post the video. Do the dumb dance. Talk into your phone in the bathroom even though it feels so fucking stupid. And just make the thing that makes you happy because the second you’re genuinely having fun someone watching will be too.

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Subscribe. One email every Thursday with the next thing I’m figuring out, what I tried, and whether it worked. Best case, you stop being scared. Worst case, you unsubscribe in a month and we both move on.

You know what would actually be useful right now during the craziness of Prime Day - a girl I trust handing me the things she has personally test driven. I have road-tested all of these and here is what is actually worth your money.

1. The Leather Crossbody: honestly so cute and so chic. Looks twice the price.

2. The Powder Puff Set: the best thing I’ve ever used for setting under-eye concealer. a game changer for $9.

3. Mason Jar Glass Cups with Straws: Felix’s iced coffees taste somehow better in these - don’t ask me why. Lol.

4. Tatcha Kissu Lip Mask: wake up with the softest lips of your life.

5. BK Beauty Foundation Brush: cheap and so good - this is the one I actually reach for every morning.

6. OUAI Pet Shampoo: Pancho’s favorite - he smells like a Mercer Street girl.

7. Anastasia Brow Wiz: the best brow pencil.

8. Living Proof Dry Shampoo: for the day 3 hair emergencies.

9. DJI Osmo Pocket 3: what I’m filming with in Cannes all week - worth every penny if you create anything online

10. Wet Brush Original Detangler: the OG and still the best

11. Breaksun Retro Oval Sunglasses: so cute and so cheap I don’t cry when I leave them on the plane lol

12. T3 AireLuxe Hair Dryer Set: the best - the only dryer that gives me salon-esque blowouts

13. Oribe Gold Lust Dry Shampoo: expensive but worth every penny

14. Lux Unfiltered High Gloss N°30 Body Oil: I feel so sexy when this is on. Also SPF 30 which I love

15. ANRABESS Oversized Hoodie: oversized perfection - i bought two for Felix so I can keep stealing them.

That's it! My full list lives here and there’s lots more things I've personally vetted bc I refuse to let any of you get scammed by a 2 star review.

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_{Heads up: these are affiliate links. I make a small commission if you buy, at no cost to you. I would never recommend something I didn't personally love. Stamped with the SFK guarantee.}

Recently, nothing gives me a dopamine hit quite like finding the perfect vintage piece online. I never filter by size. Unless it’s shoes, I treat sizing as a loose recommendation. A great tailor can work miracles, which means you’re shopping the entire internet instead of a tiny corner of it. That’s where the really good stuff is hiding. ✨

1. Plein Sud Strapless Top

2. Chanel Data Center Keyboard Clutch

3. Loewe Graphic Print Midi-Length Dress

4. Plein Sud Animal Print Knee-Length Dress

5. Khaite Leather Combat Boots

6. Bottega Veneta Halterneck Midi Length Dress

7. Ralph Lauren Collection Shearling Long Skirt

8. Toteme Leather Boots

9. Emilio Pucci Patterned Mini Skirt

10. Chanel Vintage 2005 Blazer (Yes, the one Andy wears in The Devil Wears Prada.)

11. New Arrivals Strapless Long Dress

12. Vivienne Westwood Red Label Striped Blazer

13. Courrèges Crew Neck Short-Sleeve T-Shirt

14. Prada 2016 Knee-Length Skirt

15. Bottega Veneta Jacket

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I wrote this list two years ago, when I had met Felix and was still pinching myself. Two years later, we live together, we have real life together, and every word on it has held. Maybe more than I realized at the time.

I want to preface this by saying that nothing I am about to say will require you to change who you are externally. You do not need to chop off your hair, change your texting style, or move to a different city.

Before we start updating Hinge photos, here are the 11 very specific things I did that led me to my person.

1. Go to therapy. 

This past year I’ve convinced 5 of my friends (and my boyfriend!) to start or restart therapy. Overall, the pattern I’ve seen is that people who are in therapy are more secure, grounded, and don’t take things as personally. 

In regards to relationships, it’s crucial that you work through your traumas and relationship roadblocks. If you’re always chasing after fuckboys or finding yourself in situationships, there might be a deeper reason for that. Maybe you say you are ready for a relationship - but are you actually? 

I’ve been in therapy since I was seven years old (a story for another time), but it was not until I changed therapists last year that I realized how much work I still had to do. Looking back, I realized that while I kept saying “I want a relationship,” I wasn’t remotely ready for one. Every time I would go out, I would drink to the point of blacking out as a way to disassociate. I hid behind fake lashes and bleached blonde hair instead of embracing my natural features. I would drunkenly have sex with guys because it would make me feel powerful, desired, and confident. Yet the following morning, I would walk into my building wearing my clothes from the night before covered in shame and stains from tequila shots.

And even if I was surrounded by healthy, loving men, I wouldn’t have known. 

So I finally spoke to my therapist about things I had buried under the rug for decades. I dove into my past and went on a crusade to figure out why I was so afraid of love or why I didn’t feel worthy of it. It wasn’t easy. 

The whole process itself was lengthy and pretty traumatic, but then I came out on the other side and it gave me so much more of an understanding of why I am the way I am. I finally understood why SFK was born – she was a method of survival; she was an armor I needed growing up. Working through things that happened as a child meant I could start to let go of SFK and exist safely as Serena. And ironically enough, one of the first things Felix said to me was that he saw right through “SFK” and just saw Serena, who was as soft and fuzzy as a teddy bear (hence my nickname, bear!)

If you keep going for a fuckboy and running away from emotionally available candidates, perhaps it’s time for introspection. Maybe you grew up in an unstable home or you saw your parents' nasty divorce… or your parents have been together for 30 years and you can’t imagine finding a relationship that will live up to that. No matter what, your childhood is going to have an impact on the relationships you attract in your life. It’s essential to give yourself the space to dissect them.

2. Remove negative language related to dating.

Raise your hand if you have said one of these phrases: 

• “Dating is so hard.” 

• “Dating in [my city] is the worst!” 

• “The apps are terrible."

• “I’m going to die alone.” 

STOP THAT. Words carry weight - you write your plot, after all. So if you want your plotline to head in a positive direction, it starts with you. The energy you put out into the world will come right back to you. 

Instead, say things like:

• “Dating is quite the adventure!”

• “When I’m ready for a relationship, I’ll have the opportunity.”

• “Dating helps me discover more about myself and who I want in a partner.”

• “I am going to focus on myself in a way that makes time for me, my career, friends, and anyone who brings value to my life.” 

• “The apps are another way to meet people, but my matches don’t define my potential.”

• “I’m going to find my person when the timing is right. Until then, I have shit to get done.”

By reframing that narrative, do you see how you can change your perspective on dating? 

3. Say goodbye to the scarcity mindset. 

This whole “there are no good men left” for hetero women is such BS that has been fabricated by the patriarchy. My mami told me that when she first moved to NYC in her 20s, people were saying the same thing. So I’m sorry, but you are not that fucking special. You aren’t gonna be the first person to not find their person. There is someone out there for you. You are worthy of love and if that’s what you want, I promise you will get it. I cannot stress this enough though, don’t sit inside (even though it’s a million degrees outside) and wait for that person. Get your ass up and put yourself out there. 

4. Write the list. 

No, I’m not talking about a list of every physical trait you must have in a guy. I’m talking about the qualities and attributes of the person you hope to be with. Maybe they’re family-oriented, ambitious, loyal, witty, obsessed with traveling - actually now I sound like a dating app profile lmao. Be realistic with your list. You might not get it all, but choose what is non-negotiable and don’t settle for anything less. I’m telling you - that list will do wonders for you. When you speak your desires into existence, the power of manifestation begins…

Notice the differences between these two “wish lists.” Btw, I don’t like using the term “wish,” because it really devalues compatibility and chemistry.

Wish List #1: 

1. 6’4”

2. Has a six pack

3. Graduated from an Ivy League

4. Founded a hedge fund or VC firm

5. Has at least a seven-figure salary

6. Is 35-40 years old

Wish List #2: 

1. Tall

2. Strong and athletic

3. Values education and works hard

4. Working toward career-minded goals

5. Wants to provide and build generational wealth for his future family

6. Is emotionally intelligent and mature

Can you spot the difference? The second list focuses on attributes and shared values, whereas the first list is all about checking off hyper-specific physical traits and career accomplishments. Don’t get me wrong – you want to be attracted to them and have crazy good sex. But your core values need to align too. If Mr. Harvard is a selfish dick and only takes you along for his ride, then WHAT ARE YOU DOING? 

We need to stop shopping at Build-A-Man. Except maybe when they suck and we can rip their stuffing out lmao just kidding. Leave your filtering at home and meet that person IRL at face value, which leads me to my next point…

5. Be open-minded. 

If you’re looking for a guy in finance, 6’5”, blue eyes – then you’re really limiting yourself to so many people who could be compatible for you… or maybe you should just move to Sweden. 

Even if someone doesn’t check all of your “boxes” right off the bat, there could be more to their story. Go on the date if they’re a respectful person. Put your sights on actually getting to know who that person is before you judge them. Remember, it’s a two-way street. 

During the pandemic, I did my IG live dating show, Let’s Fucking Date. I literally dated 50 people in 2020–in a blind date style. And why blind? Because I didn’t want to go in with a preconceived judgment of each person’s life story. 

Which is really hard to do on the apps. 

While dating apps can act as a great avenue to meet people outside of your bubble, it can be severely limiting too. And I keep getting messages like, “Everyone on the apps suck” and “SFK, I can’t land a date in NYC.”

Here’s my brutally honest opinion:

I would have never set my dating app age parameters down to 24. I went on a 24-year-old's podcast and ended up building a life with him. Years later, that age gap is the most boring fact about our relationship. We miss so many potential connections because we've already written the story before the person has said hello.

Moral of the story: the less picky and type-specific you are, the more open you will be to finding someone of actual compatibility.

One quick caveat here: If there are any real red flags (i.e. not treating you with respect or bashing their ex), fuck the “be open-minded” tip and move on.

6. Set boundaries. 

If someone takes you on a date and you never hear from them again, hold a funeral and say goodbye. Do not text them. It might suck in the moment, but they did you a favor long-term. Lean into your feminine energy and take the back seat approach. It will show you how interested that person is in you. Oftentimes, it’s easy to overcompensate with rapid fire texts or check-ins. But one-sided communication defeats the purpose and your own self-worth.

And if someone breaks up with you, please don’t beg for them back. Exes are like spoiled milk. If you put spoiled milk back into the fridge, will it become fresh again?

No. Toss it out and remember: you are the prize, and prizes don’t chase winners. 

7. If it’s not a fuck yes, it’s a no. 

You don’t want a maybe, a person who’s so-so toward you, a “well, it’s better than spending my Tuesday night alone,” or a last-minute shit show. Your ride or die will make you feel like a priority. I think it's so unattractive when someone shows up for you only when it’s convenient for them. 

No matter how hot, smart, successful, funny or “busy” they are, you have to keep putting yourself first. You will meet someone on your level at the right moment. But in the meantime? Don’t let lazy losers take up your time and energy. This is why I’m against having a fuck buddy. It’s called a vibrator. Go buy one.

@serenakerriganLess excuses, more self love. #queenofconfidence #selflovetips #confidencecoach

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8.Keep a Roster.

Until you are official, you are not official. A crush is just a lack of information.

In 2022, I found myself in a situationship without even realizing it. I was dating a guy in finance - yes he was 6’5, blue eyes and he was also the worst. We went on three dates within two months, yet I created an entire narrative that he was going to be my boyfriend. I’ll never forget getting a text from him while I was on a girls’ trip to Mallorca, saying he didn’t “feel anything romantic between us.” I proceeded to cry at a fish shack for the next hour (see photos below lmao.) I put all of my eggs in one basket and was crushed when he told me it was dunzo.

Looking back, I didn’t know him at all. While I idealized him and put him on a pedestal, I also was always second guessing our texts and spending way too much time and energy decoding whether he actually liked me or not. I can’t reiterate this enough: If he likes you, you will know. If not, you will be confused–and also on the verge of a mental breakdown like I was.

In order to stop yourself from creating the story line that they’re your person when you’ve only met them a few times, the easiest thing to do is keep your options open and schedule more dates (i.e. market research), which helps you compare and contrast. As challenging as it might be to juggle dating several people, you have to assume the #1 person on your roster is also dating other people too. Wouldn’t you rather open yourself up to more opportunities than close yourself off to one person who responds quicker to Instagram DMs than thoughtful text messages?

Have a diversified portfolio – you never know who will be a wild card. 

9. Protect that pussy

Decided when you want to sleep with them...but if it were me, I would not fuck them on the first date. 

First of all, sex is very intimate – I mean they are literally going inside of you. Lol. Wouldn’t it be better to get to know them, let them get to know you first? Protect that pussy. 

Secondly, you release oxytocin when you have sex. Scientifically, you become attached to a person from that moment - whether it was mind-blowing sex or just meh. It’s difficult to discern what you actually feel for them so save yourself the pain (and conflicting emotions), and sleep with that person when you actually know who they are.

Plus, if they’re really “the one”, they will wait – and the build up makes things so much hotter. And don’t forget to play this game when you’re ready to take things to the next level.

10. Do it for the plot.

We can sit and swipe our lives away (I’ve been just as guilty of this as the next), but how can we discover our full potential that way? You are what you attract. Go to the networking event. Play pickleball and shoot your shot. Take that trip you’ve been dying to go on. You don’t need an S/O to have fun. The woe-is-me energy will kill the manifesting vibes, and tbh, we can all smell your desperation from a mile away. Do things that make YOU happy, and your person will appear when you least expect it.

The apps are not conducive to meeting someone. It’s a business after all, and they need people to stay on the app. When I finally figured this out, I deleted them all. Months later I met Felix on his podcast. We now live together and I still cannot believe deleting Hinge was the move that did it.

11. Stop comparing  

I know how fucking annoying it is when it feels like everyone is engaged, married, or about to pop out a kid. I know how it feels to be the “only single girl,” but I promise you are not alone. Bottom line: If you start comparing yourself or your timeline to others, you will feel bad about yourself. It is game you will never win. Put on those blinders and focus on what you can control. Also remember, everyone is posting the good stuff- so block out the noise and focus on YOU.

LASTLY… 

There’s a reason people say “when you know, you know.” You won’t have to wonder if you’ve found the right person. I waited five years to be in a healthy relationship. From the first date with Felix, I was never anxious. Never had to second-guess whether he had feelings toward me. Years in, that has not changed once. It should feel easy, calm, and exciting from the start. And it should stay that way.

Dating can be overwhelming, but you’ve fucking got this. Trust me, a few years (or months!) from now you’ll be like, “I’m so glad this happened when it was supposed to.” It will be that good. And remember, no one’s journey is completely linear.

If this hit a nerve, the book is basically this newsletter on steroids. Eighty chapters of it. The full playbook for dating, sex, situationships, breakups, and refusing to settle. Pre-order Let's Fucking Date. It comes out September 22. Consider it everything I wish someone had handed me before I cried in that Mallorca fish shack.

Andddddd…drop the dating advice you'd give your 24-year-old self in the comments. Best ones go in next week's issue.

XOXO SFK

May was the first month in over a year that I wasn‘t drafting, editing, or actively crying over my book. Which means it was also the first month I remembered how to be a person. I took my mom to Scotland, read other people’s books for fun instead of for research, and ate a full meal without mentally rewriting a paragraph. It was extremely weird and extremely necessary.

The book itself is now at the part of the process where it’s officially out of my hands. Advanced copies are going out to early readers, which means strangers are reading my most embarrassing dating stories before any of you. Deeply specific kind of panic. My publisher also just launched a Goodreads Giveaway, so if you want a free advanced copy before September, the link is below.

Anyway. Here’s my report for May.

READING:

1. Yesteryear: A clever, nostalgic time-travel novel that will make you grateful social media didn’t exist in high school.

2. Famesick: If you’ve ever wondered whether success actually fixes anything, Lena Dunham’s answer is a fascinating, messy, and surprisingly vulnerable no.

3. Count My Lies: The kind of twisty psychological thriller that makes you cancel plans because you need to know what happens next.

4. Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It: Equal parts hilarious and unhinged, with a heroine you’ll root for even as she’s actively spiraling.

PROUD OF:

This.

OBSESSED:

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Six years ago (during Covid no less) I started hosting blind dates on Instagram Live. Everyone was stuck at home and lonely and bored and suddenly every night there were hundreds of thousands of them watching strangers flirt on the internet live while I narrated the chaos in real time. It started as a social distancing experiment and somehow became a real business.

Not exactly by choice either btw. Meta and Google did reject my dads and every platform took one look at the profanity in the name and said absolutely fucking not (pun intended). I couldn’t even buy a paid ad if I begged Zuckerberg myself.

So I’m sure the next question you have is would I put the expletive in the name if I had a do over? Honestly no. I think it probably cost me opportunities I can’t even quantify but the brand awareness was/is truly undeniable and I’m incredibly proud of what I built so it is what it is. If anything - getting locked out of ads became the thing that really forced me to be scrappy and shameless and creative in ways I never would have been otherwise.

Here’s the only rule that actually matters and what I learned. You cannot sell what you wouldn’t buy yourself. If you wouldn’t buy your own thing ten times over there will be no stunt on earth will save it. I knew my card games were good so my only job became getting them into the right hands by any means necessary. After that - the games just sold themselves.

Everything I’ve done basically comes down to these three things.

One: Make Them Guess

An element of surprise cuts through almost everything now because people are drowning in so much content. The second they fully understand what they’re looking at they scroll right on by. So sometimes the entire strategy is to just... not tell them. Sometime that means teasing a product for weeks without revealing it and sometimes it means a mystery box where people buy before they know what’s inside and sometimes it means pretending you’re launching an OnlyFans (more on that later)

For the launch of Let’s F*cking Play (my self-love card game) I tipped off Deuxmoi that I was starting an OnlyFans, and then I confirmed it myself. On a specific day at exactly 6:09 PM I would officially be playing with myself. The internet lost its damn mind. Thousands and thousands of people signed up. People were posting theories and debating whether I was serious. From a marketing perspective, confusion mixed with curiosity was the sweet spot for me.

Then 6:09 hit and the video dropped and yes technically- I was playing with myself……and my new card game. The whole thing was a reveal for Let’s F*cking Play and it was available only to the people who’d subscribed. To this day it’s one of the highest-converting launches I’ve ever run - for a card game.

Underneath all the chaos the actual strategy is simple - you tell people something is coming and then you don’t fully explain it and then let them spiral in the comments trying to figure it out.

Two: Let Your Fans Do the Selling

There’s a misconception now that good marketing has to look expensive and well produced or polished. And that you need a beautifully constructed cinematic campaign and a launch video that looks like a fucking A24 trailer before anyone will care. The thing that has sold my card games most has ZERO of that. It’s just people talking about them and sharing them with friends. Not even influencers or creators pretending to like them for a cut of the commission. Actual people who are genuinely obsessed. And friends bringing the game to dinners and couples tagging each other in videos - this is what actually moves product.

The single most effective thing I have ever posted is probably a screenshot of a DM from someone losing their mind over the game in their own words.

People trust real enthusiasm especially from a stranger with nothing to gain. A random girl with 300 followers saying this game ruined my life in the best way possible will outperform a perfectly lit ad campaign almost every single time.

One of the smartest things I ever did was stop treating my audience like customers and start treating them like collaborators with me. I would literally ask them everything. When I was writing my book I asked them what to name the chapters and when we build a new game I ask which questions belong in it. When people feel like they helped build the thing, they want to help it win, because people support what they feel connected to.

Which is also why I would much rather send free product to the girl who’s been here for five years than to an influencer with 100,000 followers who’s going to toss it on a pile with seventeen other PR boxes she got that day. Yes I know giving away product costs money but your community is the asset. Those are the exact people who repost you for free and defend you in the comments of the cringe reel you just posted and buy the game for their girlfriend. They’ll also hand you honest and unfiltered feedback all day long if you listen which is essentially free market research.

I know who my OG followers are - I even know their usernames. I know exactly who’s been here since the IG lives I was doing during Covid and that relationship is the entire game because people can always tell when they’re being spoken to instead of marketed at.

Three: Be Shameless

I once heard Taylor Swift was at the same restaurant as me, so I made my boyfriend Uber over copies of my game and tried to hand her one on her way out. To be clear, I would never interrupt someone mid-dinner. She was leaving, I shot my shot, and she politely declined. (Travis, however, seemed interested.)

Later, somebody posted an entire Reddit thread about how embarrassing it was that I tried to give Taylor Swift a card game and got turned down. I don’t get that mindset at all. You know what’s embarrassing? Sitting around waiting for permission to promote the thing you built. I walked away with a story, a video, and the newsletter you’re reading right now, and that alone made it worth it.

I once slipped a game into Kendall Jenner’s bag and got a screenshot I’ll probably use forever. And during the holidays, we launched wrapping paper with my face on it to sell more games, of which we have sold approximately 25 rolls. There are still over 100 sitting in storage somewhere as we speak. Apparently nobody wants me under their tree, which honestly feels fair.

But that is kind of the entire point. None of it has to work perfectly to be worth doing, because the stunt that lands and the stunt that flops are both content, and content is the asset. Taylor saying no became a story. The wrapping paper failing became a story. The rejection is still completely usable. A no costs you nothing, and you survive it every single time, so I take every shot. No ads, no permission, no budget. Just nerve. And if you’ve got more nerve than budget, you’re probably already ahead of most people.

One more shameless plug, because obviously. Everything I make comes back to the same obsession: getting people to put their phones down and talk to each other. The card games are one way in. My book is the other. It’s called Let’s F*cking Date, yes, the same name as the company, because I fully commit to a bit. It’s everything I know about dating, sex, and refusing to settle for crumbs. Buy the damn book.

I WROTE A FUCKING BOOK. I’ve been waiting to say that for a very long time.

I must confess, I almost wrote this book five years ago and I chickened out. I had the stories, I had the audience, and I had years of conversations with women who trusted me with their worst dating moments; but I was also single and quietly terrified that this fact made me a fra…

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Spring has officially sprung and you know what that means: The Spring Sephora Sale.

This is our Super Bowl. Our Olympics. Our Met Gala. But before you black out and add 12 different bronzers to your cart, let’s chat. Consider this your tightly curated guide to what’s actually worth splurging on.

Proceed with intention. Shop like the baddie you are, not li…

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Last weekend I celebrated my 32nd birthday and it was the best one yet. The theme, the vibes, the people, everything turned out exactly how I wanted. Lucky for you, I’ve created a guide that will teach you how to do the same.

My mantra for parties is that everything needs to relate back to the theme and the guests having a great time.

PARTY CHECKLIST

1. THEM…

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Right now I am in the in-between stage of the book process. I’m currently obsessing over the cover for Let’s F*cking Date and doing some light, surgical editin…

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