Access creates attachment.
Attention, consistency, vulnerability, and time can make something feel real — even when it has no definition.
Stranded by Karmen Michael Smith
Why Is Dating So Hard?
Because people are more connected than ever, but less clear than ever.
You can text every day and still not be building anything. You can go on dates, share secrets, meet friends, sleep together, pray together, plan trips — and still have no agreement about what any of it means.
That is why dating feels exhausting. It is not only rejection. It is ambiguity.
Featured on NBC 4 Washington · Author & Cultural Strategist
The problem is not that nobody wants love.
The problem is that too many people want access without agreement.
Dating feels hard because people can now create the feeling of intimacy without creating the structure of commitment. Someone can text you every day, share vulnerable details, give you attention, desire you — and still avoid defining what they are building with you.
This is the emotional trap Stranded names: access creates attachment, but agreement creates intimacy.
Agreement creates intimacy.
Intimacy requires clarity, care, responsibility, and mutual investment. Without agreement, closeness is not intimacy.
Closeness without definition can leave you stranded.
The emotions are real. The attachment is real. But the relationship has no structure — and that gap is where people get hurt.
The Book
Why Modern Dating Is Rigged and How to Beat the Game
Stranded — Karmen Michael Smith
Stranded is for people exhausted by situationships, mixed signals, emotional unavailability, dating apps, almost-relationships, and the quiet heartbreak of being close to someone who never clearly chose them.
This is not another book telling people to "just love yourself" while ignoring the game they are actually playing. Stranded gives language to what people have felt but could not name: being desired is not the same as being chosen, access is not intimacy, chemistry is not compatibility, and closeness without agreement can become its own kind of trap.
Available Now · $14.99 Buy StrandedThis book is for you if…
You are tired of situationships.
You keep getting attached to people who will not choose you clearly.
You are exhausted by mixed signals.
You are over dating apps but still want love.
You keep confusing chemistry with compatibility.
You are tired of being desired but not protected.
You want language for what happened — not just advice to move on.
You are ready to date with clarity, dignity, and strategy.
The ideas people remember
What Stranded names.
Access is not intimacy.
Being wanted is not the same as being chosen.
Being included in someone's life is not the same as being included in their future.
The confusion was not the connection.
The confusion was the absence of definition.
The confusion was the absence of definition.
Clarity is consent.
Speaking
Bring Karmen Michael Smith to your audience.
Karmen speaks on dating, emotional clarity, situationships, self-worth, faith, identity, LGBTQ relationships, and the new rules of intimacy in a culture built on access, performance, and avoidance. His talks help audiences name what they have been living through — and give them language for healthier connection and clearer standards.
01
Clarity Is Consent
Why relationships need definition — and what it costs when they don't have it.
02
Access Is Not Intimacy
The emotional cost of undefined connection and how to stop paying for something you never received.
03
Why Dating Feels Rigged
How to understand the game, stop losing yourself in it, and beat it on your own terms.
04
Situationships, Self-Worth, and the New Rules of Love
Language for the relational patterns that have damaged confidence, clarity, and dignity.
05
Dating, Desire, and Dignity in the Age of Mixed Signals
A new framework for what we owe each other — and what we deserve to receive.
Available for colleges, churches, conferences, corporate ERGs, retreats, podcasts, singles ministries, men's and women's groups, LGBTQ organizations, and media.
Request Speaking Info
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Media & Features
Featured on NBC 4 Washington
Karmen is available for interviews, panels, podcasts, expert commentary, keynotes, and cultural conversations about dating, relationships, and intimacy in the modern age.
Media InquiryPress Release
For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Ashley M · info@poorculture.com · 917-719-0261 · readstranded.com
Minister, Strategist, and Author Karmen Michael Smith Declares Modern Dating Isn't Broken — It's Working Exactly As Designed
New Book Stranded: Why Modern Dating Is Rigged and How to Beat the Game Offers a Framework for Liberation in a System Built to Keep People Searching
DALLAS, TX — Karmen Michael Smith, minister and cultural strategist, releases his third book in three years — Stranded: Why Modern Dating Is Rigged and How to Beat the Game — a provocative and deeply human examination of why good people keep ending up stuck in modern dating, and why that is not their fault.
Following the critically acclaimed Holy Queer and The 4 Laws of Disruption, Smith turns his analytical lens on one of the most universal human experiences: the exhausting, disorienting, and often demoralizing landscape of modern love. The result is not a self-help book. It is a diagnosis.
"The system is not broken," Smith writes in the book's introduction. "It is functioning exactly as it was designed to function."
"People are not failing at dating. They are succeeding at being kept in it."
— Karmen Michael Smith, Stranded
What the Book Argues
At forty-three, after the end of a thirteen-year relationship, Smith stepped back into modern dating and found himself in a landscape he did not recognize. Conversations disappeared without explanation. Connections formed and dissolved without resolution. What had changed was not the people — it was the system around them.
Stranded argues that dating apps are not built to help users find love efficiently. They are built to maximize engagement. Engagement requires ambiguity, sustained possibility, and just enough chemistry to keep users searching. Clarity shortens the cycle — and clarity is what the marketplace does not reward.
The Maroon Dating Framework
The book introduces Maroon Dating — a framework named deliberately after the Maroons, enslaved people who escaped not just physically but structurally, building free societies on their own terms. Maroon Dating is not a set of rules. It is a reorientation.
"Access is not intimacy," Smith writes. "Repeated access creates attachment whether you consciously decide to attach or not. What determines stability is not how intense the access feels but whether there is shared clarity about where it is going."
Who This Book Is For
Stranded is written for the person who has done everything right — built a career, cultivated a life, shown up with care and intention — and still cannot understand why love remains elusive. It speaks with particular power to Black communities, LGBTQ+ readers, and anyone who has navigated dating without seeing their experience centered in the dominant cultural narrative.
About the Author
Karmen Michael Smith is a minister, strategist, and author based in the DFW area. He is the author of Holy Queer, The 4 Laws of Disruption, and Stranded: Why Modern Dating Is Rigged and How to Beat the Game. His work sits at the intersection of faith, cultural analysis, and human behavior. As seen on NBC4 Washington.
Media Contact
Ashley M · info@poorculture.com · 917-719-0261
Questions people are really asking
Why is dating so hard?
Why is dating so hard?
Dating feels hard because people can create connection without clarity. Someone can text consistently, spend time with you, desire you, and share emotional intimacy while still avoiding commitment or definition. Stranded argues that the exhaustion many people feel is not only from rejection — it is from ambiguity.
Why do situationships hurt so much?
Situationships hurt because they often contain real closeness without real agreement. The emotions are real, the attachment is real, and the memories are real — but the relationship lacks structure. That gap can leave people grieving something they were never allowed to fully name.
What does "access is not intimacy" mean?
Access is the ability to reach someone — to talk to them, see them, spend time with them. Intimacy requires trust, agreement, care, responsibility, and mutual investment. Someone can give access without offering intimacy. Stranded gives language to that difference.
What does "clarity is consent" mean?
Clarity is consent means people deserve to understand the relational context they are participating in. When intimacy grows, clarity matters — because people make emotional, physical, and life decisions based on what they believe is happening. Withholding definition is a form of withholding consent.
Is Stranded only for women?
No. Stranded is for men, women, and LGBTQ readers who are tired of unclear dating dynamics, emotional unavailability, mixed signals, and undefined relationships. The patterns Stranded names don't belong to one gender.
Is Stranded for LGBTQ readers?
Yes. The dynamics of access, attachment, and undefined relationships appear across all relationship types. Karmen is a queer author and pastor who writes from experience and care for LGBTQ readers.
Can Karmen Michael Smith speak at my event?
Yes. Karmen is available for keynotes, panels, workshops, interviews, podcasts, church events, colleges, conferences, retreats, corporate ERGs, and relationship-centered conversations. Use the speaking form above or email info@poorculture.com.
Where can I buy Stranded?
Stranded is available now at karmenmichael.gumroad.com for $14.99.
Stranded by Karmen Michael Smith
Stop calling it confusion
when it was the absence of clarity.
If dating has left you tired, attached, disappointed, or unsure how something that felt so close never became real — Stranded gives you language, strategy, and a way forward.