In this episode, I’m sharing my 10 rules of feminist dating—the principles I know actually lead to an equitable, joyful partnership. No matter your past experience (or lack of experience), your age, or your sexuality, these rules are here to help you magnetize the right partner and feel amazing doing it. 

These 10 rules are a response to outdated, patriarchal dating advice that teaches you to shrink, self-silence, and settle. I walk through what it means to date as the main character of your life, expect co-creation, stop doing unnecessary emotional labor, question inherited scripts, and reject the idea that you’re “too late.”

This episode is for late bloomers, restarter daters, and anyone who wants to date with power, alignment, and self-trust—without playing games or abandoning themselves along the way.

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Main Character Dating: datebrazen.com/dating

Free Essence-Based Preferences workbook: datebrazen.com/workbook

📚 Read my book: Thank You, More Please
A feminist guide to breaking dumb dating rules and finding love. Order HERE

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Show transcript:

Lily @ Date Brazen (00:00)

Hey gorgeous friends, welcome to another episode of the podcast that is now the Feminist Dating Show. I am so excited that you’re here. And today I am sharing with you the 10 rules of feminist dating.

I’ve been thinking about them for a really long time. They are obviously also reflected in my book, Thank You More Please, A Feminist Guide to Breaking Dumb Dating Rules and Finding Love. But as there are so many ways to date and so many rules out there, I wanted to provide a feminist lens to dating with power, dating with intentionality, dating with alignment.

so that you can live your best feminist badass life and magnetize the right partner

A feminist partner magnetizes an equitable partnership.

So to lay the groundwork for why I know that a feminist dating life magnetizes the most equitable, amazing partnership, I wanna read a few pages of my book, Thank You More, Please, to get started. And then we are gonna hit the dating rules hard.

There has been a massive revolution in the way women have been taught to achieve over the last 50 years. There are so many books about how to negotiate for raises or how to assert your value in the workplace. But the way that we’ve been taught to date is still stuck in the dark ages. We’ve been taught that we should trust an app to deliver us from singleness. We’ve been told that wanting a relationship too badly is desperate. That desire for the right partner and the feeling of what’s wrong with me that I haven’t found someone makes you less of a powerful badass.

There’s also a dirty myth floating around in consciousness that wanting a partner makes you less feminist. Then in the opposite direction, there’s the very real social constructs that women are looked at as less valuable if they don’t have a romantic partner. In response, conventional dating wisdom says, you want to find love, don’t trust yourself. This can sound like,

you sure you know what you want? Play the numbers game, let me swipe for you. Maybe you should try this new dating app I read about.

Are you being too picky? Maybe you should just go on more dates. This kind of advice equals exhausting yourself with dates, dating like it’s your part-time job, and lowering your standards because, you never know who is right for you, right? I would hear this all the time from my friends and family when I was single and really struggling to find the right connection or really any connection. Then after years of working in the dating industry as a professional matchmaker and then as a dating coach, I saw this old-fashioned dating advice for what it was, harmful and sexist.

These norms are the reason that I ended up in the worst romantic relationship of my life. And they’re probably part of the reason you feel miserable in your dating life too. Right now, those shitty norms are embedded in most dating advice, dating services, and dating support. The patriarchy is the leading force in why dating feels so dang hard and arduous for everyone, and especially for women and people socialized as women. The patriarchy is a very prominent character in this book, so let’s get to know it a bit, shall we?

The patriarchy is one of the main reasons dating feels so draining and treacherous. So here’s the definition from Cambridge English Dictionary. Patriarchy, controlled by men rather than women or both men and women of most of the power and authority within a society. What other fucked up system predated and created the patriarchy? White supremacy.

These systems of oppression are embedded in our society to keep power with people who are primarily cisgender male, wealthy, straight, able-bodied, and white. This is why I call myself an intersectional feminist dating coach. Because if dating matters to our personal wellbeing, I believe the inverse is also true. The way we find love, the way I coach, the way we do life matters to the wellbeing of others around us. as Merriam-Webster defines it, feminism.

is the belief in and advocacy of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. Feminist is also a dirty word to those invested in upholding the status quo and those who have learned to survive by maintaining it. Intersectional feminism, a turn coined by Kimberly Crenshaw, an American civil rights advocate and leading scholar of critical race theory, is quote, a prism for seeing the way in which various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other.

I don’t think we can talk about creating a badass dating life for you and millions of readers around the world and listeners in a meaningful way without talking about the dating industry and the dating process being a hotbed for harmful patriarchal norms. These norms tell women to shrink themselves to be more appeasing. These norms also foster racism, homophobia, and transphobia that run rampant in the dating landscape today.

So with that introduction to why we need feminist dating norms, why we need new rules for this dating landscape so that you can feel great about yourself, so you can meet the love of your life who is an equitable feminist here are the 10 feminist dating rules. Now, I have come up with this list. I’ve made definitions.

you take what you need and leave the rest. From my experience coaching hundreds around the world, this is a list of rules that I think if you follow, I know if you follow in your dating life, you will magnetize the right partner who is feminist, equitable, amazing. Let’s get into it. Rule number one, be the main character.

Want what you want. That means wanting what you want. If that’s a relationship, you are allowed to want to find that. It doesn’t make you less because you want to find a partner. You want something that’s not here yet. Wanting to find love does not make you less of a badass, does not make you less of a feminist. It does not mean that you are less than or broken right now. It just means you want something. You don’t need to lose weight, be more in your feminine, or change yourself to attract love. This is what it’s like to be the main character.

to know that for the right person, you do not need to contort yourself to be attractive. They need you to show up boldly and as yourself so they can find you and you can find them. A relationship is not a marker of your value. You just want something that’s not here yet, so let’s fucking go. Rule number two, shoot your shot 100 % of the time. No passive likes, no waiting for a message.

send your qualifying, disqualifying question, and if they don’t answer within three days, bless and release. So I recommend, I’ve shared a lot on this podcast, that you get to open a conversation on a dating app or in person with an intentional question. You get to choose what it is, but I recommend something like, what’s brought you joy lately? Or what have you laughed hardest at lately? Or what’s your hottest opinion, right? Start the conversation intentionally and the right intentional people will meet you there. So.

The right person for you might just ask you a question first, but your job is to center yourself and keep it moving forward. Don’t center the people who are being passive by saying, everybody just doesn’t want to talk on a dating app or everybody, men, especially if you date men, like men don’t want to engage and they don’t say, the right man will, the right woman will, the right person will, you just haven’t met them yet. So have your boundaries, shoot your shot, see if they co-create and keep moving forward.

You need to center what you want and build rejection resilience to do courageous shit. That’s what rule number two, shooting your shot 100 % of the time is about. Rule number three, decenter men and all of the people who are wrong for you. Stop using exes, bad dates, and emotionally unavailable dynamics from your past as evidence about what is possible in the future. You have not met everyone yet.

You do not know everything. You have not tried everything yet. Your life is not over because you’re listening, you’re breathing, you are here. So more is possible than you currently realize. When you meet the people who are wrong for you, which you will because they exist all over, remember you’re for the few, not for the many, treat these people as data that you met the wrong person. Not that it’s impossible for you, not that nobody’s out there for you, not that it’s never gonna happen. Treat them as data that you met the wrong person.

and move on without negotiating with yourself or your preferences. This goes back to rule number one, be the main character, own what you want. Rule number four, don’t be chill, owned and ask for what you want. Now I’m gonna get really, really serious here because I do think that at some level this is about life and

Lily @ Date Brazen (08:52)

In an article from Time Magazine called Self-Silencing is Making Women Sick,

from October, 2023.

It states that, most jarringly, women’s self-silencing has also been linked to a higher risk of premature death. In one study, researchers followed nearly 4,000 people in Framingham, Massachusetts over 10 years. They found that women who didn’t express themselves when they had fights with their spouses were four times more likely to die than those that did. This was true even when factors such as age, blood pressure, smoking, and levels of cholesterol were taken into account. When women pushed their feelings down and cast their needs aside,

their health suffers, but it can be difficult for women to do otherwise in a culture that celebrates those self-silencing practices. I highly recommend this article. Just Google Time.com, self-silencing is making women sick.

Lily (09:41)

This is serious. You learning how to own what you want and ask for it without apology is a life or death issue when you’re talking about being with a partner, when you’re talking about choosing a partner.

Right? I want you to have the skills to settle proof your love life and choose the right partner. I want you to have the skills in fights with that future partner to be able to own what you want and stand firm in your truth. Right? The data shows that silencing yourself is an early indicator of death. And I want you to live a long, luxurious life as much as possible. Right? We don’t know what’s going to happen. And we do know that if you silence yourself, you will be miserable and also less healthy.

than if you learn how to open yourself up to being honest about what you want. Okay, this is very serious to me. Don’t be chill, own and ask for what you want. Ask yourself, what do I want with this rule? Like get to know it. This is why I want you to do your essence-based preferences. You can go to datebrazen.com slash workbook to get your hands on my free essence-based preference guide. I want you to know how you want to feel in the right friendships and in the right romantic relationship. Knowing and asking for what you want.

is a key indicator in whether or not you will find that what you want.

Rule number five, expect co-creation. So I’m asking you to shoot your shot 100 % of the time and I’m asking you to expect co-creation. It does not matter who asks you out first, it matters whether both people co-create the date and the future relationship. I don’t want you to muscle and do all of the work in project management. That’s not an equitable relationship. Begin how you would like to continue, right? If you want an equitable relationship in which

the person you’re with is a consistent communicator, they make plans with you, then expect co-creation from the first moment you start talking. Expect that they need to ask you questions back. Expect creativity in how they converse and like that they’re showing up and they’re not just doing the bare fucking minimum. Expect co-creation. Also on the other end, right, don’t muscle, don’t do all the work. You gotta co-create. So.

I think that there are some people that say, ⁓ I want my hands completely off the wheel because especially for women who date men, the sort of prevailing wisdom is like, let the man show you that they’re interested by sending the first message, asking you out, planning the date, paying for the date. And I just think that that is such that approach.

has such a lack of ⁓ nuance in terms of all the different ways that co-creation takes place when you are building a connection with someone. I also don’t think that any of those moves in isolation means everything. But the problem in my opinion, with that ⁓ sort of perspective of if I’m a woman who dates a man, I need them to do all of the work to prove their interest, it’s sort of a test because

of the fear of being with the wrong person, and you’re asking them to prove themselves by following a rigid framework, which is fine, you get to want what you want. But I think a more effective framework to measure against is, they co-creating? If I imagine that my date planning skills are like, I shoot my shot, I send the first message, co-creation is I throw that ball up in the air, and they respond with a great message, thoughtful message back with a question back, a thoughtful question back. Great, they’ve co-created once.

then I co-create, I answer their question. Then we co-create a conversation for a few messages or a few days, what have you. When it comes up to a point where I want to go on a date or ask them out or whatever, I don’t wanna talk any, I don’t wanna chat, chit chat anymore, I don’t wanna pen pal, I wanna get to it. I can say, so I’ve really enjoyed chatting with you, wanna take it IRL. Not co-creating would sound like them saying great without any action, without any planning help. That would be a blessing release.

Co-creation in that scenario would sound like you saying, I’d love to take an IRL and them saying, amazing, how about next Tuesday? And you saying, Tuesday doesn’t work for me because of a work thing, but how about next week, I’m totally free. Amazing, I can do Wednesday, how’s this neighborhood? Amazing, how about this time? Co-create a date. On the date, you’re gonna co-create the conversation. I don’t fucking care who pays. That’s up to you and what you want. I do not think that one inflection point of who pays means everything.

I think that it’s data, how they treat money, how they treat a connection. You know, with Chris on our first date, I offered to pay, I think, or I offered to split the bill, I don’t remember exactly, but I offered to pay. And he said, no, I’ve got this, I’d love to treat you. And then I said, great, I’d love to treat you on our second date, sort of flirty. And I did, I ended up treating him on our second date and we navigated money in a co-created way, then up until now, right? Co-creation.

is important. It is not about a rigid set of they must do X, Y, Z to prove to me that they’re interested. The right person will prove to you that they’re interested by fucking co-creating epically, being enthusiastic about the time they make for you, being enthusiastic about following up and asking you deeper questions. Co-creation is key when you’re talking about meeting the right person and building the right relationship. Number six, stop doing unnecessary emotional labor.

If you’re managing the vibe, asking all of the questions or carrying the conversation, that’s not chemistry, it’s labor. That is unnecessary in the right co-created dynamic. The right person is an adult who can communicate. I’m gonna repeat that, because I really want y’all to hear it. The right person is an adult who can communicate.

If you are doubtful that the kind of person that you want to be with exists, just want you to know that you really haven’t met everyone yet. And there are so many emotionally mature adults who are pursuing their own growth seriously. I’ve met a lot of them. Many of my clients have ended up in epic relationships with them.

whether they are men, women, non-binary folks, like they exist, you just haven’t met the right person yet. So stop doing unnecessary emotional labor to try to make up for or compensate for the fact that someone is not right for you,

Emotional availability here shows up as curiosity, consistency, care, and shared effort. You don’t need to perform or take the lead every time.

or over function to make a connection happen, it will be co-created.

Rule number seven, drop the shoulds, question the script you inherited. This is about examining your biases that you learned in childhood or from your family of origin or from socialization. Many of us were taught what relationships romantically were supposed to look like from our parents’ relationship or from the relationships we viewed around us long before we were able to choose anything that we wanted for ourselves. Feminist dating.

means noticing which beliefs came from gender roles that were put onto you as a young person. Media, religion, survival. And this is about piecing through what actually serves you now. What do you believe now? It’s about choosing alignment over inherited rules. As an example, one of my clients came to me and said, I want somebody with a master’s degree. And I said,

Okay, amazing, you get to want what you want, tell me why. And we discovered through this loving interrogation process that she had this preference because her dad had this preference for her. Her dad was like, you need to be with a man who has a master’s degree because that’s how he’s gonna prove that he values education. She realized that she had inherited this script from someone else what she should want and that script didn’t fit her anymore.

And so she was able to say, ⁓ I actually want intellectual curiosity and a value in education, whatever that means and however that person shows up in the world, I wanna meet them, right? So this is about dropping the shoulds. This also includes ⁓ getting curious about your sexuality. If you have had this like heteronormativity thrust onto you,

get curious about it if you’re already curious. Give yourself permission to explore. My client Liz came into Main Character Dating, my program, and she came from a really conservative religious background that was deeply homophobic. And through the process of…

using this rule number seven to drop the shoulds and question the script that she inherited, she realized getting in touch with her deeper preferences that she wanted to be with a woman. And so she was able to, through her own self-inquiry and self-permission, discover her identity and discover her truth, and was able to meet her amazing girlfriend on an app a few months later after

shedding the shoulds and stepping into her truth. So examine your shoulds, right? And this just goes for being a feminist in the world who is engaged in growth in general. This is the work that is human work that we will always be, I will always be doing, especially as a white woman with a ton of honor and privilege. It is my job to constantly be questioning my bias and constantly be learning from people who know more than me, who have been doing this work far before.

⁓ I have and who have a different lived experience than I do so that I can better be of service, be in community and meet people who are also in alignment with my values in general. So number seven, drop the shoulds, question the script you inherited.

Number eight, don’t play games and don’t put up with games. Okay, a lot of hot takes here. Block more people. This means block more people who are wrong for you, who keep coming back. Block them with all the love, bye. This is about love for me, not about anything to do with you. Bless and release the wrong people with more swiftness. You can trust what you want, right? There’s a difference between, and you can feel it, right? This like rigidity from a place of

fear of vulnerability, self-protection, you shall not pass, I don’t wanna try because it’s too vulnerable. There’s a difference between that and knowing what you want and knowing when somebody doesn’t meet the mark. Even if somebody’s really nice, but you’re just not attracted at all, right? You get to be attracted to the right partner for you. Even if somebody’s super hot and attractive and emotionally, the connection isn’t there. You know what you want, bless and release the people who are not right for you. Let them find the people that are right for them, okay?

Leave the date when you’re done. This is a practice of releasing people-pleasing. If you’re done after 30 minutes, I would challenge you to go to the bathroom, take a deep breath, say, I’m gonna do something scary and I can do it. Go to the table, say, I’ve actually gotta go. Have an out plan with a friend. You can call a friend and say, hey, I need you to call me or whatever. like leave dates when you’re done. You know when you’re done. You need to leave dates when Don’t play games, don’t put up with games.

Stop trying to force yourself to be someone you’re not. The right person wants you. Don’t play games. The right person isn’t looking for the perfect feminine energy version of you. They are looking for you. Bless and release the roster. I do not believe in the roster. And if you like the roster, again, take what you need to leave the rest here.

But if you’re holding onto the roster for scarcity reasons, if you’re afraid that nobody else is out there for you, so I don’t wanna leave the roster because what if I have, I don’t need all these options, the right person is the right person is the right person, okay? If that’s a game that you’re playing with yourself to mitigate scarcity, check on it, clean it up. Stop playing the numbers game and going on all the dates. It’s exhausting, it’s depleting your self trust. You know what you you are for the few, not for the many. If you wanna go on a date because it sounds fun,

Be in your self trust, go on that date that sounds fun, even if you know that they’re not right for you long term. But don’t play games as in like trying to force yourself into something that you’re not, or trying to be someone that you’re not, or trying to go on dates to prove that you are worthy of a date or worthy of a relationship. That’s a game, don’t play those games.

Don’t wait to be direct. You cannot say the wrong thing to the right person. Don’t play the game of hedging or beating around the bush. Be direct. Practice being direct. You can’t say the wrong thing to the right person.

Consistent communication or you’re disqualified. Okay, you need to expect consistent communication or they are disqualified. Don’t play games. If they don’t want what you want, the relationship style that you want. If you’re poly and they are monogamous, or if you’re monogamous and they’re poly own what you want, bless and release. Say, ⁓ God, this person has so many things that I like and value and want in my future relationship and I can trust that I get to want what I want.

if they have a family desire that you don’t want, they want to have a kid and you don’t want to have a kid, you get to want what you want. Keep it moving, It’s a game that you’re playing with that scarcity version of you, forcing yourself into something that you don’t want. And I’ve been there, I’ve forced myself into boxes that I did not want to be in to try to prove to myself that a relationship is possible. I’m here to tell you a relationship is possible when you start owning what you

unapologetically. You want something and it’s not here yet.

So I would stop talking about dating is trash. If I were you, I would stop doing it. I think it’s a game that people are playing to try to like make sense of the dating world. And there are a lot of people who are wrong for you. And there are a lot of really shitty experiences that you might go through in your dating life. But consistently saying dating is trash, people are trash, this is trash, trash, trash. It’s not actually serving you. It’s just playing a game of a social norm for people who are dating. So what if you…

decided that you were going to pursue what you wanted and you were gonna be honest when something sucked, you’re gonna have compassion for yourself through that, but that you were also going to practice the narrative that you get what you want, that it might be possible that you haven’t met everyone yet, that, God, that was the wrong person for me and I get to keep it moving.

Rule number nine, make single friends who support you. Belonging is a subtle proofing force. Community care and mutual understanding are game changing for your dating life. If you don’t currently have a single friend, then it’s time to make a single friend. That’s why in main character dating, which opens next week, we have a whole coven of cheerleaders who are beside you, supporting you.

helping you settle proof every decision that you make, every move that you make in your dating life. So that from the moment you start dating anew, whether you’re a first timer or you’re a reentry dater after a breakup or a loss, that you can date with power, with more confidence, more belonging, and more clarity than you’ve ever had before to move forward toward the right relationship faster. We go faster together in community. Dating is not a solo sport or it doesn’t need to be.

if your status quo is isolation, then your body and brain is more likely to make decisions that perpetuate that status quo because your brain wants to be right over learning something new. It feels really safe to be right. And so if you’ve been stuck in like, I’m alone, I’m the only one who’s going through this. I don’t know anybody else who’s going through this. I’m alone, I’m alone. You’re more likely to settle. You’re more likely to feel dissatisfied. You’re more likely to feel miserable.

Doing this in community with other single people who have your background, who are on the same page with you, is a life-changing force.

Rule number 10, 10th and final feminist dating rule. Fuck the timeline, you’re not too late. For most of history, women could not choose singlehood without serious economic or social consequences. So dating and marriage was about survival, not necessarily about desire. And we were taught in this patriarchal,

culture Shrink and do or make it work. So this is a call to you stepping into the light, stepping into your own liberation in your love life.

Your timeline isn’t a sign that you’re broken. It’s just a sign that you haven’t met the right person yet. It’s a sign that you haven’t dated in a way that is feminist as fuck yet in a way that actually feels good in a way that magnetizes the right partner yet. Right? So let’s fucking go.

Fuck the timeline, you are not too late. The timeline is a construction by the patriarchy. Let’s fucking go. I get it, you wanna find the right partner and you haven’t yet. And maybe there’s yearning there, maybe there’s grief there that you haven’t had the life that you wanted or expected yet. That’s okay, we get to honor that and care for that version of you with compassion. Both and, I’m gonna repeat, fuck the timeline. You are on your timeline and it’s right for you.

It is not a sign that you’re broken. It’s a sign that you get to date in a way that is in alignment with your values, that is more powerful than you’ve been taught how to date before. And let’s fucking go. I hope you enjoyed these 10 feminist dating rules. I know I loved coming up with them and I cannot wait to continue on this journey with you. I’m so excited to bring you more episodes, more unapologetic feminist dating advice.

that helps you ⁓ build belonging, build community, and build momentum toward the right partner to make that right partnership inevitable while feeling amazing about yourself. As I mentioned, my program, Main Character Dating, opens next week on February 9th at my upcoming live training called How to Attract the Right Partner if you’re 30 plus and never had a partner or if you’ve never had a good one. It is totally free to join this live training and you can sign up right now at datefrazen.com.

In this live training, I’m gonna teach you my three tools that all of my clients have used, whether they feel like a late bloomer or a reentry dater, to find the best relationships of their lives. And you’ll be in a coven of cheerleaders who have your back in that room, and you’ll learn what it’s like to be in main character dating. So go to datebrazen.com to learn more. We open our doors to main character dating on February 9th. We close on February 16th, 2026. And I would love to be your dating coach officially. Okay, y’all.

I will talk to you next week. Bye.