if they wanted to, would they actually though?

I’ve been sitting on a secret for months, and this week, I finally get to reveal it to my favorite audience: you - duhhh. You’ve been with me from the start, so before the rest of the internet gets to weigh in, you get the first look.

Let’s get into it.

– Holly

OPENING STATEMENTS

As you know, this newsletter exists to help you find dating clarity when you’re exhausted from all the emotional gymnastics you’ve been doing for the last however many years. For when the thing we’ve somehow classified as “dating” starts to feel more like a twisted horror funhouse that warps everything and makes us feel insane.

Initially, I thought I could fix things by building a new kind of dating app… and then I realized the world doesn’t NEED another dating app. What we do need is a new curriculum for how to actually date… how to put ourselves out there without letting one rejection derail everything, how to communicate clearly, and how to ask for what we want without fear or shame. Some of that starts with the tools and essays that land in your inbox each week. But a lot of it builds when we hear from people who’ve been through the thick of it and come out the other side: still alive, still thriving, still whole humans worthy of love, respect, and partnership.

There’s a lot of this that exists on the internet… much of it is noise that’s dressed up as expertise. It’s polarizing, pervasive, and it promotes an “us-vs-them” mentality that pushes us farther apart. You know the phrases, because you hear them on repeat. They’re the ones that bombard our TikTok feeds, the ones we drop into the group chat when a friend is spiraling over their situationship for the umpteenth time, the phrases we tell ourselves to placate our feelings of disappointment and dejection: “if they wanted to, they would,” “it’ll happen when you least expect it,” “heal yourself first.”

These are the things we say to make ourselves feel better without doing the work of examining the pattern… without asking the bigger questions: what do I want? what am I doing to get it? what could I be doing differently?

THE PREMISE

Each episode takes one piece of dating advice everyone posts, reposts, and drops in the group chat, and puts it on trial. My brilliant, hilarious, and beautiful friend Tyler (the girl) hosts - she has an uncanny ability to somehow read my mind and articulate the exact point I want to make on-camera in a much funnier way than I ever could. Each week, a new group of guests show up to confess their own crimes, mount their defenses, and prosecute the offending phrases that continue to keep us trapped in our bad dating patterns. You get to be the judge and jury.

It’s filmed in my living room, on my couch, the exact spot where the initial idea came to me while scrolling TikTok at 10pm and rolling my eyes at yet another self-proclaimed 20-something “dating expert” declaring that the saying “I don’t chase, I attract” is the reason for her success, without actually providing any real proof or substance to back it up. Guests came from different backgrounds, ages, orientations, dating experiences, and each episode highlights their on-screen discovery of all the deeper layers and complexities behind each phrase.

EXHIBIT A

WATCH IT FIRST:

ON THE DOCKET

Also standing trial this season: It’ll Happen When You Least Expect It ...and five more defendants whose indictments remain sealed until their court date.

If you’ve ever received (or sent) one of these in a text with zero context, this season is for you. New episode every Tuesday — subscribe on YouTube so the verdicts find you.

I’m rooting for us.

xoxo

Holsss

P.S. Forward this to the friend who says “if they wanted to, they would” at brunch, and find out if they’re on the prosecution or the defense.