You know what I noticed about Serena van der Woodsen? She somehow got princess treatment from douche bags on Gossip Girl in many cases when those same exact douche bags treated other girls superrrr shitty.

For some reason, they always treated Serena the best, and we saw it happen at least seven major times on Gossip Girl, and I want to break down every single example of what I’m talking about.

I know Serena also got her heart broken and dealt with shady BS from some of the guys she dated along the way, but I also find it wildly interesting and a bit remarkable that Serena still somehow pulled princess treatment out of douche bags on Gossip Girl who weren’t willing to treat other girls with any respect whatsoever.

Serena def isn’t my favorite character from Gossip Girl, but there must’ve been something undeniably magical and mystical about her that made so many guys drop the douchebag act while dating her.

I’ll start with her experience with Damien Dalgaard, since he treated Jenny Humphrey like trash, but he treated Serena like she was a goddess.

Damien / Jenny

The treatment Serena got from Damien Dalgaard versus the treatment Jenny got from Damien is a night-and-day difference. Serena got princess treatment from him, even though Jenny was treated like a piece of gum underneath his shoe. When Damian and Jenny dated, Damien made Jenny feel like the most irrelevant, immature, dumb little girl on his arm. He barely took her seriously since she wasn’t ready to go all the way in the bedroom, and he also put her future at risk when he encouraged her to sell illegal substances with him. It’s pretty obvious that Damien treated Serena a lot better than he treated Jenny. He was attracted to both blondes, so why did Serena get to see gentlemanly energy from him while Jenny never did? In my opinion, I believe the reason is that he thought he’d be properly rewarded for treating Selena well. He was convinced that being a gentleman with Serena would guarantee him a night of hot and steamy bedroom action. His memory of Serena from their boarding school days was full of crazy party nights when she was doing whatever she wanted with whoever she wanted sexually. Damien‘s perception of Serena was that she’d still be down for a sexy hookup with no strings attached, and he was unaware that Serena was doing her best to turn over a new leaf after leaving boarding school. So he treated Serena way better than he treated Jenny because he had expectations that he might get a chance to hook up with Serena. He was already feeling annoyed by Jenny’s lack of intimacy. Damien didn’t care about being sweet, gentle, or patient with Jenny because he wasn’t sure if those behaviors would actually lead to the tangible result of guaranteed sex. He did, on the contrary, believe he would have guaranteed sex with Serena. Therefore, Serena ended up getting treated better by Damien than Jenny ever did. He jumped at the opportunity to take Serena as his date to that Upper East Side event, even though the plan worked better with Jenny wearing the jacket that had the pills sewn into it. Jenny would’ve checked the jacket at coat check and allowed their plan to go off flawlessly, but Serena kept it on because she didn’t know better. If Damien hadn’t prioritized Serena over Jenny, that would have never happened.

Carter / Blair

When it comes to Serena’s relationship with Carter Baizen versus his relationship with Blair Waldorf, it’s obvious once again that Carter treated Serena way better than he ever treated Blair. This disparity happened for a much different reason than what we saw in the Damien/Jenny dynamic btw. Carter slithered into Blair‘s life in a moment when she was on a downward spiral. She was in her rebellious phase, feeling hopeless about her future, depressed about her circumstances, and full of angst to distract herself from all her troubles in the world. She turned to Carter to be her perfect distraction. And he fed into the darkness by allowing her to dive further into her downward spiral. He knew she wasn’t in a good way mentally, and he played into it and encouraged her to go deeper into darkness. In my opinion, Carter was a terrible influence on Blair, and I hate that he rode her wave of negativity at such a difficult time in Blair‘s life. In contrast, Carter’s treatment of Serena was 1000 times better. He gave Serena Princess treatment. He fell for Serena hard and placed her on a pedestal. He wanted to be with her more than anything, even though he knew his debts to the Buckley family were hanging over his head. He treated Serena really well throughout their entire relationship, and even spent time helping her track down her biological father. So while Blair never saw gentlemanly behavior from Carter, Serena definitely did.

[Check out the rest of the list in the video above!]