The sluttiest mile on the West Coast
Marina Green offers sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Marin—and, apparently, some of the city's hottest singles.
Hey, I’ve renamed The FLD to Love Noted. I hope you like it 🤎
What’s the sluttiest mile where you live?
In San Francisco, it’s Marina Green—the 74-acre waterfront between Fort Mason and the Presidio—according to creator Violet Witchel. The mile-long stretch is one of the city’s most popular to run, walk a dog, or catch up with a friend, coffee in hand. It’s also where eligible singles go to scope out their next meet-cute.
Witchel, 25, is a SF native known for her cooking content, specifically her dense bean salads, which catapulted her to internet stardom in 2024. In her viral TikTok posted Monday, she likens Marina Green to the West Side Highway in New York City, a dating app IRL, and the Bridgerton promenade—a place to see and be seen, she says.
“If you go at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning, be warned!”
Earlier this week I met up with Witchel at the Green to learn more. She was dressed head-to-toe in athleisure and a high ponytail—very slutty. I was in a sweater and jeans, hair flapping in the wind.
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Here are items that didn’t make it into the story but are worth pondering.
San Francisco has a strong “date to marry” culture—that is, people date with the intent to get married. “It’s very much a marriage town in my experience,” Witchel told me. She herself got married at 24—an age other big cities might describe as “a child bride,” she admitted. “When you go out, a lot of people have engagement rings on.”
Isn’t that the point of dating? You may ask. No. Go date in LA or New York. It’s a sport. I dated for six years in LA and left at 28—tarnished! There are exceptions, but I do agree SF is more “hon” than “fun.”
UC Boulder was cited as a classic alma mater of the Marina Green archetype. The editors cut it out, but left in UC Irvine. I wish they’d cut Irvine and kept Boulder. (Witchel said Boulder second after Cal Poly.) Other traits: white, mid 20s to early 30s, walking a 35-pound Goldendoodle, has familial ties to the Bay, works in tech, sales, marketing, or finance and earns between $90,000 and $250,000 a year.
The Marina is like a Hillstone restaurant. “The Marina doesn’t have the best food in San Francisco. The Mission arguably does. There are parts of the city that are more culturally interesting or have more affordable places to go out,” she said. “The Marina is like a Hillstone—you know what you’re gonna get, and it’s gonna be good enough. It’s not gonna blow your mind, but the spinach artichoke dip is always great.”
North Beach and the Castro are also slutty, but the Marina is sluttiest (at least for straight people). “If you wanted to have a one-night stand, you could get it done here easily,” Witchel said. The Marina Safeway—also known as “Dateway”—is an especially slutty coordinate in the city, as I learned from interviewing her, talking to people on the Green, and reading comments on social media. There’s a lot of “lore” around it, but it’s basically been a popular meeting spot for locals since the ‘70s.
One man I spoke to (Lorenzo, 31, single, 6’,7”) said putting certain products in your shopping cart lets others know you’re looking. When I asked him what exactly, he said “I can’t remember off the top of my head. It’s not swinger stuff—like pineapples.”
Noe Valley is the least slutty neighborhood, says Witchel. Not sure I agree with that one given its proximity to the Castro and easy access to the South Bay and the Peninsula.
If you’re not getting hit on—at the Green or elsewhere—you might be too hot. “Sometimes men won’t hit on you because they’re intimidated. I have the most gorgeous friends and pre–glow-up, their DMs were full, they were constantly getting hit on. And then they got hotter, and now they’re so hot that they’re unapproachable,” Witchel said. “No one wants to shoot a three when there’s an open layup.”
Approaching someone in real life is hot not cringe. “It’s cool to have confidence and go up to someone like, ‘Hey, do you want to go on a date?’” Witchel said. “What’s gross is being insecure. As long as you’re respectful about it, I think it’s awesome.”
“We need more people to, like, ask people out,” said another young girl I spoke with.
“I KNOW! PUT THAT IN THE ARTICLE,” shouted her friend.
In this Note: The horned up women on testosterone, a $40k-a-year AI primary school, Love is Blind S9, and how to push through hard times like the “five-year itch.”
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Women are happier being single than men. One reason being: men believe a romantic relationship will reduce their household burden, whereas women expect it will increase theirs, according to Geoff MacDonald, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and “scholar of singlehood.” (That’s terrific.) Another reason is that women, on average, are better at filling their cup through friends and family. Other insights from the interview:
A high income is unrelated to satisfaction in singlehood. Having money makes life easier in some ways—you can travel freely or hire someone to clean your house. But a more comfortable life often makes people want to share it with someone else.
MacDonald speculates 15% of people are genuinely happy being single.
A happy single person is more likely to be older than 40 and queer. “From an emotional level, people just get happier as they get older. You make peace with your circumstances,” MacDonald says. As for the queer community, some speculate there is less pressure to be partnered.
There are internal and external benchmarks for spending money. If you buy a bigger house to host more friends and family who bring you joy, those friends and family are internal benchmarks. If you buy a bigger house because you think it’ll impress your peers, that’s an external benchmark. Both are natural, but “we overestimate how much strangers are paying attention to us,” says Morgan Housel, author of the new book The Art of Spending Money. “The truth is, most of the time they’re thinking about themselves.”
People with no sense of humor are upset with Kristen Bell. The actress shared a photo of her and husband Dax Shepard on social media with the caption: “Happy 12th wedding anniversary to the man who once said to me: ‘I would never kill you. A lot of men have killed their wives at a certain point. Even though I’m heavily incentivized to kill you, I never would.’” Some viewers said Bell’s post was “tone deaf” and making light of domestic violence.
More people are entering “lavender marriages,” or mixed-orientation marriages, or any marriage that veers away from conventional romance. Gay men are marrying straight women. Straight women are marrying gay women. Asexual best friends are getting hitched. These set ups appeal to individuals who don’t want to pay the “single penalty”—higher rent, bills, not qualifying for tax breaks—and spend their life with a person whom they love, even if only platonically. The Guardian’s writeup dives more into why people are past treating marriage as “a property-based transaction and patriarchal institution” and choosing to broadcast their decision online.
Testosterone is giving women their sex lives back. Women in their 40s and older are taking testosterone to boost their energy and revamp their libido—and it works! There is no F.D.A-approved cream, patch, pill, or shot for women, like there are for men, but that hasn’t stopped ambitious parties from getting their hands on it from nontraditional venues: med-spas, wellness centers, lenient physicians. Possible side effects include hair loss on the head; hair growth in less desirable regions like “upper thighs”; acne; and a lower, raspier voice. But the benefits are clear: the sexual appetite of a teenage boy, which is helping some marriages, and “orgasms for the first time in years” said one single mother.
Don’t abandon the tipping screen at checkout. Otherwise a “tipping Robin Hood” behind you might select an amount, usually 20%, for you. This is bad. Do not do this, especially if you’re genuinely trying to help the barista as impacted customers usually blame and take action against against the establishment, not the stealthy tipper.
Alpha School, grades K-8, costs $40k a year and promises to teach students 2.6 times faster by leveraging AI. Founded in Austin, it now has 15 campuses from Scottsdale to San Francisco. Students focus on topics like entrepreneurship and developing a “growth mindset.” A second-grader, in order to ascend to third, “must complete a checklist that includes running five kilometers in 35 minutes or less; delivering a two-minute TED-style talk with “zero filler words, 120–170 [wpm] pace, and 90% confidence.” Ironically, parents who’ve been lapping the achievement track their entire lives now believe—due to AI—that knowledge is out, and skills like high agency, creativity, and social capability are in. Read if you’re into elitist tech bubbles, “lifestyles of the rich and famous,” or want to consider the legitimate question: “What might the future look like, and how can I best prepare my children?”
Women from their late 20s to 50s and up are dating younger men and having a pretty good time doing it. Comedy legend Kathy Griffin, 64, published a tell-all, shared on Substack, about her year-long rendezvous with a 23-year-old.
Prioritize your friendships because our phones are “flattening” them. The excess of content, news, and entertainment on the same device that holds our conversations with friends and family isn’t good for our social lives. We’re not texting people back. We’re not engaging with friends on social media because no one’s posting anymore. (Kyle Chayka argues that society is experiencing “posting ennui.”) Even our group chats are becoming low-lift. We’ve all ‘reacted’ to a text message instead of replying it, or felt less pressure to respond because of the “diffused responsibility of having several people in the conversation.”
Not one couple on Love is Blind Season 9 tied the knot. It’s a first in the show’s 10 year run, but series creator Chris Coelen doesn’t view the outcome as a failure at all. “At least one member of each couple felt their love was not strong enough to overcome the challenges of the real world, and they chose not to get married,” he said. “That’s exactly how the experiment is supposed to work, so I would say not only is the experiment working, I think it’s working better than ever.”
The F.D.A approved a second generic form of mifepristone, the first of two drugs typically used in a medicated abortion. By the end of 2024, one in every four abortions in the U.S. was done with pills. The manufacturer, Evita Solutions, expects it to be available to the public in January 2026. Conservative activists and lawmakers are predictably outraged.
Working through feelings of desolation, or the emptiness that follows an initial high, can be integral to finding fulfillment later on. Marriage or a new job are good examples. Spouses are happiest the first few years after the wedding, but incidence of divorce peaks at five years, then declines until one spouse dies. Similarly, people are happiest in the first three months after starting a new role, then hit a wall at the one-year mark and begin questioning if it was the right decision after all. Nearly half of employees are in in the same position for four years though. For one-quarter, it’s 10 years or more. Data suggests that staying the course has its benefits, and social scientists have identified three steps to turn tough times into learning opportunities: 1. Accept your emotions (“desolation cannot be denied or avoided”) 2. Get on the same side (of your partner or professional goals) and 3. Do the work (counseling, coaching, “patience alone isn’t enough”).
