299. How to Stay Open When You’re Fed Up With Dating w/ Serena Kerrigan

What if dating felt less like a stressful search for your person and more like an experience you could actually enjoy? In this episode, I’m talking with Serena Kerrigan, creator and author of Let’s Fucking Date, about lowering the stakes in dating, stopping the need to control the outcome, and staying open to connections that don’t look exactly how you expected.

Serena shares how meeting her boyfriend challenged her assumptions about age, success, and what the “right” partner should look like, plus the mindset shifts that helped her stop overmanaging her dating life and actually enjoy it.

We’re getting into how to...

• Use Serena’s “potential, practice, or plot” framework to make every date feel worthwhile
• Stop putting so much pressure on every first date to become something
• Stay open to people who don’t fit the picture you had in your head
• Tell the difference between showing interest and doing too much
• Give someone enough space to actually reveal how interested they are
• Let go of control when dating feels uncertain
• Get out of your comfort zone when your dating life feels stagnant
• Stop treating self-improvement like a formula that guarantees you a relationship
• Know when an “ick” is meaningful and when you might need to get a grip
• Date with a more abundant mindset when age and timelines are stressing you out

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