Progressive Identity and the Politics of Dating

Is having a boyfriend now considered “uncool”? In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into the cultural shifts around relationships, social status, and online identity—especially among urban, progressive communities. They explore why some women are now hesitant to share their relationships online, the rise and fall of trends like the “stay-at-home girlfriend,” and how social media algorithms and peer pressure shape what we see (and don’t see) about love lives. The conversation covers everything from viral articles and Reddit threads to the impact of influencer culture, parasocial relationships, and the new “flex” of being single. Whether you’re curious about the latest social trends, the politics of dating, or just want a fresh perspective on modern relationships, this episode is for you.

Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins (2): HELLOOOOOO SIMONE! I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be discussing. If having a boyfriend has become embarrassing or uncool specifically for urban monoculture, I really cannot describe this. Anything other than like upper middle class white women. Okay. Have begun to categorize.

Having a boyfriend or being in a relationship as a social taboo. There was a paper written on this then in in Vogue, which we’ll go over, which by the way, teen Vogue Vogue inspired all of their black employees. So that was fun. When they were trying to do like woke cleanup, they accidentally.

Simone Collins: No, I, I think it’s more, I think they were getting rid of unprofitable Teen Vogue by tucking it into Vogue.

Vogue. And they got rid of the, the politics team, which was just because obviously gay and not

Malcolm Collins (2): that also all the trans, no, no, yeah. Sorry. Not

Simone Collins: gay trans. Yeah, gay is like conservative. LGBT Trans is progressive Lgt. Yeah. Gay. Gay

Malcolm Collins (2): [00:01:00] is now conservative coded these days. Yeah. But anyway, so to continue here so they did an article on this and we’re gonna go through both their article and the article that they referenced, which I think is almost more interesting than their article itself.

And then we’re gonna dig, go through some reply articles to this and Reddit threads that we’re discussing this to sort of see how the general feminist community feels about this. Okay. But it does appear to be a real shift that’s happening online, which is really cool and interesting

Simone Collins: because cartoon hate her was kind of like.

Is this really real? This is actually just journalists making something up, but it’s no, I, I, I

Malcolm Collins (2): think it’s, well, when I look at the Reddit discussion of this, I think it’s real, and it also makes sense when you think about the wider cultural context that we’re in.

Simone Collins: Okay. Interesting. Let’s dive in.

Malcolm Collins (2): So if someone so much as says, my boy and, and they cut it off there, so they can’t even say, my boyfriend on social media, they’re muted.

There’s nothing I hate more than following someone for fun, only for their content to become quote unquote, my [00:02:00] boyfriend Defi suddenly, oh, this is probably because for so long it felt like we were living. In what one of my favorite subjects, hackers calls boyfriend land a world where women’s online identities center around the lies of their partners.

A situation rarely seen reversed. Women were rewarded for their ability to find and keep a man with elevated social status and praise. It became even more suffocating when this could be leveraged on social media for engagement and if you were serious enough financial game.

Simone Collins: So, oh yeah, right. There was the whole stay at home girlfriend trend.

Hmm. Of women just making their identities about the fact that they had a boyfriend who subsidized Alexa. And I wanna go into the

Malcolm Collins (2): article about that phenomenon, which preceded this phenomenon. Okay?

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins (2): Because she references another blog post here where they are talking about that phenomenon.

Okay? Now I’m gonna note here what you will actually, I’ll, I’ll get to it when we, when we get to the point of the article here. Hmm. But I, I, I, I also love like the horrible that [00:03:00] this woman. Is triggered by the fact that other women have partners, right? Like that this is a, a threatening thing to her to the extent that it appears to be emotionally damaged, like it, it appears to cause some form of emotional distress when she sees this.

I might ask her to meditate on why that may be. Is it that maybe you want a boyfriend and just aren’t putting in the effort or aren’t making the you know, bridging the ideological gap enough to actually find one? Right. So you. But no, uh uh, there is, there is no, no interest in, in bridging that gap.

So let’s go to this other article.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins (2): A few months ago at a literary event, I introduced myself to a writer whose book I love. She then did the Odds thing. She turned around and introduced her boyfriend and began to speak about his accomplishments at Links, despite her book being a book [00:04:00] Talk Darling, despite Good on

Simone Collins: her, because as we’ve just.

It’s pretty unusual for a woman in public to praise her male partner. Very rare

Malcolm Collins (2): in, in real world.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that on its, that’s on its own

Malcolm Collins (2): is notable, so, wow. Okay. But, but we’re now seeing partially why, despite being beloved by her community, despite being showered and praised by writers and fans alike, her first instinct was to talk about her partner for five minutes straight.

Oh. I thought, I see. Now I’m noting a number of things here. One is Simone, do I often praise you in public? When we’re talking to people to the extent that I, I feel uncomfortable because I’m like, no, we should be talking about you. This is a normal thing that people do

Simone Collins: with their look at your partner and you’re proud of him.

Like Eric Barwin talking about his, his wife on the red carpet, but then she off. She shouldn’t be proud of her though.

I don’t think you make it more silly than it is. I actually feel, I try. Oh, didn’t get that on the show. No, no. We just, we just cut all that part out. Cut me out. Cut you out when you’re trying to make it silly.

Malcolm Collins (2): She shouldn’t be proud of her. That’s a, that’s a [00:05:00] difference.

Simone Collins: A lot of kids together. That is like the one important point is that they have a big family. They’re like good on them. But yeah, I mean, I think it’s really important that you are highlighting here that.

This woman praised her boyfriend and here she is being criticized online. I mean, it’s people, you know, we, we have normalized obviously the, as we covered in another episode, eye rolling wife, the sarcastic wife as sort of this endemic and, and problematic issue. But it’s not just the fact that the belittling your husband slash boyfriend trope is so pervasive and, and sometimes lauded.

It’s that women on the other hand are punished. When they praise and are supportive of their boyfriends and husbands.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yes. And then we’re seeing that right here. She is punishing. Yeah. And the woman above is punishing women for being supportive of their partners. Yeah. Which of course creates toxic relationships, right?

Yeah. When you’re in a relationship with these people. But I love that at first she’s like, I, I can’t be a fan of this person anymore. I can’t be around this person anymore because they are nice to their boyfriend. Right. God forbid you’re in a [00:06:00] functional relationship. She goes on TikTok. This interaction is the norm.

In December. I stared that. I stated that over half of the trends that go viral end up being co-opted by people showing off their mail partners. I made it a point to point out how few trends are men showing off their girlfriends or wives. 99% of the time it’s women showing off their boyfriends or husbands.

I was keeping a 2024 tally and I eventually just gave up sometime in March. At this point, the app was practically the patriarchy itself. And here I point out. Okay lady, because I’ve gotten sort of a feel of your personality from, from this stuff. What percent of the accounts that you follow are male, but if you’re gonna guess what percent of the, the accounts that this lady follows are male, I’m gonna guess I.

3%, if I’m gonna be generous, maybe 10%. So is there [00:07:00] maybe a reason you never see guys sharing their girlfriends on these accounts? Is it because you’re simply not following many male accounts?

Simone Collins: Actually, to be fair I, I can’t think of a single goal account where guys are extolling their girlfriends.

Really? Can you,

Malcolm Collins (2): I mean, I try to do it. I think that,

Simone Collins: yeah. Well, no, but no, you, you do it. We’re, we’re, we’re, we are unusual. I think that you’re so fun. Fridays, they are a loving couple that promotes each other.

Malcolm Collins (2): Say what about the Malcolm?

Simone Collins: But they’re very sweet to each other.

Malcolm Collins (2): No, hold on. So, if, the reason why I don’t have a lot of examples of this off the top of my head is because don’t.

Watch any type of social media that would have this anymore? Facebook. So no, there’s the, there’s some Mormon influencers

Simone Collins: who podcast together. There’s ex-Mormon influencers, there’s fun Fridays, there’s ballerina farms, then there’s all the Christian couples.

Malcolm Collins (2): There’s compass Rose, there’s Clownfish tv.

Oh, yeah. So there are a number, but, but Okay. We don’t hang [00:08:00] out on platforms where somebody might be doing this because we’re not really on Twitter. We’re not, we’re not on TikTok on Facebook. Yeah. We’re not on TikTok. And on YouTube, it’s just on a platform that is, you know, germane for doing this sort of promotion.

Fair. But I would guess the reason is is because she just doesn’t follow a lot of men. And so that’s why to her it feels like women are always doing this. And I’d also point out here. That I bet that this is the type of person who, when she does follow a man, is to goon over them. So she specifically is likely following men who are more likely to be single and who are more likely to hide that they’re in a relationship if they are in a relationship because their fan base is some sort of parasocial relationship with them for gooning purposes.

That’s on Tiger. Like, I mean, I figured that’s like his core audience is just women looking to goon. Because I can’t, he, he is not like, he doesn’t actually have ideas if you watch his show for a while which means that, and, and he cares a lot about appearance, having a, a big fluffy dog in the background looking buff all the time.

Mike, does he look buff? Oh yeah. Just [00:09:00] google a picture of him

. I guess you gotta hand Well, he wears

Simone Collins: clo. Yeah, I, I, I would, but no answer. Anyway.

Malcolm Collins (2): In my video I asked why men always, men only men get to behave atrociously and have millions of people rush to defend them. Hold on a second. Watch our video on snarky women, just to see that women do this.

Constantly in our society. Yeah. Men are

Simone Collins: thrown under the bus and everyone just watches, just watches the wheels turn over ‘em. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins (2): No, and like, nobody even cares. Like, it’s not even a scandal. Like women like actually physically abuse their, their husbands and boyfriends in public, famous women and just like, like, whatever,

Simone Collins: mcc Emmanuel Macron’s wife pushing him in the face as they exited an airplane

Malcolm Collins (2): and nobody cared

Malcolm Collins (2): .

Nobody does anything. It’s not a big scandal. And it is because this woman lives in delusion world. But I think that this helps get us in the mindset [00:10:00] of this is the way that urban monoculture women feel so we can understand how and why they begin to punish women for this behavior. In a video that went viral recently, a woman begs her father not to flip her over on her wedding day.

He does, of course. And she smiles lovingly in a chagrin manner. Thank you, Gillian Flynn. These comments were surprising. Women were giddy about the crossing of the boundary. All laughs and heart eye emojis. The way he tip tap of himself was one of the, comments that she was quoting there. The most insidious, and again, I keep in mind, I’m jumping around this article because I, I don’t want you guys to get all the boring stuff here.

The most insidious type of post is the one where there’s no boyfriend, but instead the poster is showing off their hot brother or dad. This is odd on two levels. Firstly, the awareness of the family members being attractive. Second, first of all, like you’re aware when your family members are attractive, right?

Like what? What? Secondly, [00:11:00] the recording and posting of the video in order to receive likes and comments about how hot your family member is. The worst part is, it’s not even implicit. Many of these posts have the original post. Liking comments, exing in their proximity to an attractive man. The TikTok brain Rott is so powerful that if you have a boyfriend simply standing near that man is enough.

I find it hard to overstate how much people love men on the app, and it’s like, well, what? Maybe because they’re women and they think. The hot men are hot, right? This reminds me of on like Reddit, where they post you know, a hot woman will post themselves doing something and they’ll just hit the top.

Of course she has no problem with this, right? You know, they’re in frame even though there’s no race. Look at the art I just made, you know? But what I find Flynn here. Is this idea that there’s this counter world and it’s a world that obviously I’ve never engaged with. ‘cause I don’t find TikTok at all enjoyable.

Mm-hmm. I don’t really find Twitter enjoyable either. I don’t find Facebook fun anymore. And [00:12:00] so there’s this other world and I assumed because when I was on Facebook, I never saw any posts like this. So I assume that this must be. The type of people that this woman already follows who are doing this.

And I think that what we were likely seeing here is within the urban monoculture, sort of an understanding. ‘cause I assume that these, these people who she’s following are urban monoculture people. For a while it was very high status to get a boyfriend because so few people had one, right? Yeah. But then, and, and so everyone was sort of showing them off for a period till it finally reached a level where women sort of collectively, the ones who were getting shown off too, decided.

Okay. We need to shame this behavior.

Simone Collins: Yeah. The, the take that I’m getting from some people on this, this subject, like from cartoons hate her, is that this is, this comes from a place of deep insecurity. I know because I, [00:13:00] before, you know, ever meeting you and before ever deciding I was gonna date or anything, you know, I was very boyfriend less and I had absolutely zero issue with people.

Being excited about their boyfriends, I just didn’t care. And if I didn’t care about the content, like I would just move on to something else. Keep scrolling. You know, like this is not hard to

Malcolm Collins (2): avoid. Yeah. Okay, so to continue here, and this is still the piece from the before time when this was common. I say all of this to hold up a mirror to society.

I understand that there are more women on social media than men, and that for a certain segment of society, having a boyfriend or a husband is quite literally the most important thing you can do. But the millions, millions of posts make me question what exactly is happening. TikTok content is mimetic.

When something performs well, people jump on the bandwagon and trends are born. Now, keep in mind this is performing well within your feed, which is based on what you are interacting with. [00:14:00] My bet is you’re likely leaving lots of hate comments on these, and TikTok is saying, oh, engagement.

Simone Collins: Exactly. No, that’s the thing is, is if you interact with something, even if it’s out of anger, you’re telling the algorithm to give you more of it.

So she’s probably seeing way more of this than anyone who just doesn’t care. Would see and Yeah, that’s right. I, I guess you wouldn’t get memes like this if you didn’t get algorithmic reinforcement. Yeah. Which we have so much more of now.

Malcolm Collins (2): But then she goes, and I love this as well, you want to, you wanna see how urban monoculture she is.

She goes but as someone with two degrees in sociology, I shudder a bit when I see the types of content that breaks through, it’s another to watch every trend boil down to Look at this man. Look at me standing near this man. Look at my man. My man, my man, my man. I love it lady. As a woman with two degrees in sociology, oh boy.

Anyone who has ever said that statement, get them as far away from me as possible. Oh, she’s,

Simone Collins: [00:15:00] she’s told us that all we all we need to know that, that now we, we know what we need to know now. That is, yeah.

Malcolm Collins (2): She’s the judge of society. And this was one of this other person’s favorite blogs, this Vogue Writer’s favorite blogs.

Okay. So you, you get the mindset of this vogue writer as well. Right. All right. So let’s go back to the Vogue piece. However, more recently there’s been a pronounced shift in the way that people showcase relationships online, far from fully hard launching romantic partners. Straight women are opting for subtler signs, a hand on a steering wheel, clinking glasses at dinner or the back of someone’s head.

On the more confusing end, you’ll have faces blurred out of wedding pictures. Or what professionally edited videos was a fiance conveniently cropped out of all the shops, women are obscuring their partner’s face when in the past as if they wanted to erase the fast that they existed without actually not posting them.

Is

Simone Collins: this like the new, or is this some version of the. I don’t know how you, there’s this big thing, [00:16:00] people being very political about not posting their kids’ faces, like either covering them with emojis or only showing the backs of their heads and photos online. I

Malcolm Collins (2): find right away I find that so cringe.

Simone Collins: I know it’s, it’s very annoying to us kids

Malcolm Collins (2): do online, but it’s just Is is hiding

Simone Collins: your boyfriend or husband or fiance, like now that equivalent, what’s going on?

You know, I, like, is it also political? Because I feel like people, people say they’re covering up their kids’ faces and stuff to protect their privacy. I think that that’s false. I think it’s partially political.

Malcolm Collins (2): I think people are afraid. Yeah. I think, I think it’s more

Simone Collins: political than it is actually like logistical and technical, but I

Malcolm Collins (2): think people are afraid of what other people, the way that other people will perceive them if they post anything with their boyfriend.

Simone Collins: 100. Yeah. But I think that’s, it’s the same about kids. I think that the reason why people. Cover up their kids’ faces is ‘cause they’re also afraid of that criticism. So I think that the, well, but I think this is the new version of that that’s really afraid your husband’s

Malcolm Collins (2): face out of wedding photos [00:17:00] or editing your husband out of, out of the wedding videos.

This becomes something quite different. This is, but we’re

Simone Collins: recording right now. Okay.

Malcolm Collins (2): I think it’s a way of signaling their politics to people a pretty extreme way. Agreed. And, and I think that it is because they saw, and I suspect for a long time, if I look at the tone of that first piece knowing that it’s a popular writer, that maybe women within. Progressive communities within urban monoculture communities that accidentally shared pictures of their boyfriends or husband would get a lot of negative posts.

Like, why are you doing this? Why are you showing a man? Why are you, Hmm. And if they’ve seen this happen, even just one or two times, you could. Pretty quickly, you know, one J jump on the bandwagon. ‘cause yet another thing you can tear down other women about. Two, a great way of make competition, you know, ensure that no other woman is dating to make it easier for yourself to date.

Right. You know, literally just shame women for being in a relationship.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people also point out again and again that [00:18:00] so many of these things are. Gatekeeping tactics that women use, whether it’s encouraging other women to not care about their appearance or weight or discouraging other women from being interested in men.

That enables women to experience less competition on dating markets theoretically. Yeah. So, yeah, that, that could also definitely be, so, so, yeah, this is about political fronting and this is about meat blocking essentially, right.

Malcolm Collins (2): So what gives, are people embarrassed by their boyfriends now or is something more complicated going on?

Hmm. To me, it feels like the result of women wanting to straddle two worlds. One where they can receive the social benefits of having a partner, but also not appear so boyfriend obsessed that they come across as quite culturally ish, they want the prize in celebration of partnership, but understand the norms of it says Zoe Zi writer and activist. Oh my God. In other words, [00:19:00] in an era of widespread hetero fatalism, women don’t want to be seen as being all about their man, but they also want the clout that comes with being partnered. First of all, I love the words that they’re using here.

Being partnered, right? Like, that’s the the fancy term for they were able to secure a male. And if you’re not familiar with the concept of hetero fatalism, it’s an interesting concept within urban monocultural with female communities where they’re sort of fatalistic and sad about the fact that they happen to be born hetero, right?

Like they see this as like a, a punishment or a bad thing. Actually, I would be interested to see, and I could totally see this happening, is a community begin to form. That’s dedicated to arguing that actually hetero women are more discriminated than gay or bi women. Oh. ‘cause they have to date men.

Simone Collins: Oh, I see.

Malcolm Collins (2): So actually it’s the gay and the bi women who are privileged. And the hetero women who are disadvantaged.

Simone Collins: Right, [00:20:00] right. Because they are. Forced through their, their sexuality to interact with, with an inherently problematic class of man or penis. Exactly. Yes. Right. Oh, wow.

Malcolm Collins (2): I

Simone Collins: could see it be done.

Malcolm Collins (2): I wanna, I wanna see that. I wanna see that happen. Give it time. If you have progressive watchers, you make that a thing. Yeah. Toss that ball.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You know what’s better than being a political lesbian, being an oppressed straight woman. Yes, who’s forced by her biology

Malcolm Collins (2): to want to engage with men. Amazing.

Wow. But it’s not all about image. When I did a call out on Instagram, plenty of women told me that they were in fact, superstitious. Some feared the quote unquote evil eye, a belief that their happy relationships would spark jealousy so strong in other people that it could end their relationship. Others were concerned about their relationships ending and then being stuck with the post.

I was in a relationship for 12 years and never once posted him or talked about him [00:21:00] online. Oh, I broke up recently and I don’t think I will ever post. A man says Nikki, 38. So she dated him from 28 to 38, basically her entire period where she could have gotten married and then broke up and had kids.

And had kids. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yikes. And I’d also, I mean that’s, that’s really kind of weird and sociopathic to be honest. And I also love that these women are afraid of other women seeing them in a happy relationship because that’s become coded and other people will note this later as Republican. Right.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: People really feeling like Taylor Swift, for example, was a traitor to their kind because she chose. To get engaged to the football star, even though in her earliest songs, it was all about dating the football star in this whole, like, like she, she hasn’t turned on anyone. This, this, well, well attested, but whatever.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s so sad that Taylor Swift came out, like right as it became uncool to [00:22:00] date, it became, you know, uh mm-hmm. I mean, obviously this means the urban monoculture is like extra cooked from where it would otherwise be. If women now think that having a boyfriend lowers their status in female communities, which is the core thing that women care about, it’s why they put on makeup.

It’s why they dress the way they do. You know,

Simone Collins: well, so here’s actually where, where I’m kind of seeing a confluence of things. ‘cause just this morning I was listening to Aspen Gold go over a bunch of screenshots specifically from UK men of women in the uk, basically asking for money and implying that in, in exchange, that there would be sexual access.

Like they’d hook up if a guy paid for their nails to get done, or paid for their hair, or gave money for, like, a lot of these were young, single mothers too. Or like literally pregnant. But they were also implying like, well, give me money and we’ll hook up. So just literally sex work basically, but with, with some additional theater.

To make it seem less like what it actually was, and I’m looking at all this [00:23:00] because we, what we first saw was the, the, the initial wave of trending tra wifes. Mm-hmm. From there we went to the stay at home girlfriends, which is a significant step down, right. It’s, it’s being a tra wife, but without any of the legal.

Or religious protections of being married so you’re even less secure. And then we just sort of went from that to not even being comfortable to posting about having boyfriends at all. One could even argue that this is in service of being able to. Pursue more of an OnlyFans kind of lifestyle or a modified version of it, as described by asthma gold recently with, with these women.

Basically like saying, Hey, like, Venmo me money. There wouldn’t be so many anecdotal examples of this, of women asking for money if it didn’t occasionally work. So this seems to be, at least in some sub communities, a pervasive behavior.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Meaning that basically women have gone [00:24:00] from. Depending on husbands for money to, depending on boyfriends for money, to now depending on sort of this network of men for money, more like an actual sex worker.

And I, I do wonder if part of this blurring out boyfriends faces is more of that, well, I have to maintain optionality because now I have so little commitment to and commitment from men in my life, my life, and yet I still want a life in which I. Utilize men for money that I need to have an identity that’s completely unmoored from them.

Mm-hmm. I, I, I just, it, it’s, it seems to me like sort of the completely debauched end state of the atomization of society when women cannot depend completely on the state for their support, where they still want to depend also on men or on some kind of pay pig. That they imagine

Malcolm Collins (2): if a man did this, by the way, like he went on dates with a woman and then he is like, here’s my haircut bills, here’s [00:25:00] my, you know, like,

Simone Collins: it’s bad.

It’s, it’s really bad. I think one of the, the examples that Asman Gold wrote off, I mean, I only listened unfortunately to like YouTube videos and stuff while also working, so I half listened to it, but a woman like texted a man being like, oh, I had a salad for lunch. And he is like, oh, what kind of salad?

Like, that’s nice. And she was like, what? You could have even just offered to pay for it. Like why didn’t you even offer to pay for it? Like what? Just really crazy stuff. Yeah, very. So I just it’s to me very strange behavior, but also it’s, it’s very, yeah, if a man did that, if a man did something like that, people would,

Malcolm Collins (2): I almost wanna be a man market just to like do this to women, to freak them out, like.

You could have offered to pay for it.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, what’s so interesting to me is, I mean, in the past there AB and even now, like there are absolutely men who, are kept men. It’s not unheard of. Even in media, for example, in breakfast at Tiffany’s Holly Go lightly has a love interest. The love interest is a kept man.

He, he calls himself an [00:26:00] author but he’s living in an apartment and paid for by a woman who’s married who keeps him on the side. These things, they happen. They’re just a lot less usual for men. So yeah.

Malcolm Collins (2): Anyway, to continue here. Yeah, but there was an overwhelming sense from single and partnered women alike that regardless of the relationship being with a man was almost a guilty thing to do.

On the Delusion Diaries podcast, fronted by two New York based influencers, Halle and Jazz. Oh my god, what names there? Halle and Jazz, the New York based influencer. There you go. They discuss whether having a boyfriend is quote unquote lame Now, quote, why does having a boyfriend feel Republican Republic?

Boyfriends are out of style. They won’t come back until they start to act right. In quote, read another with thousands of likes. In essence, quote, having a boyfriend typically takes hits on a woman’s aura in quote, as one commenter claimed. Funnily enough, both of these hosts have [00:27:00] partners, which is something I often see online.

Even partnered women will lament men and heterosexuality, partly in solidarity with other women, but also because it is now fundamentally uncool to be a boyfriend girl. It is not just in these women’s imaginations. Audiences are ed out by seeing too much boyfriend content.

Myself included, it seems as indicated by my liberal use of the mute button. When author and British Vogue contributor Stephanie Yba, hard launched her boyfriend on social media, she lost hundreds of followers. Whoa. Even if we are still together, I wouldn’t post them here. There’s something cringey and embarrassing about constantly posting your partner these days.

In quote, she tells me, adding that quote, there is a part of me that would feel guilty for sharing my partner constantly, especially when we know the dating landscape’s really bad at the moment. I wouldn’t want to be boastful in quote. I love, they’re acting like. Overly wealthy women not [00:28:00] wanting to like signal too much in like a drought.

Right. And of course what they mean by this, and all of these women are obviously very you know, progressive is that there are is one progressive male for every two progressive females. So if they’re out there dating Oh, requirement, which a lot of these women have

Simone Collins: That’s true. They, they, yeah.

Progressive women. That’s. Yeah. So do you think actually part of this is just, I need to be very protective of my boyfriend because women will chase after him.

Malcolm Collins (2): That could be a part of it. A fear of is he so

Simone Collins: rare? Yeah. To have a progressive boyfriend and also if you’re progressive, you’re way more likely to have to be, you’re, you’re accepted to maybe be more open to being poly or having an open relationship.

Oh, yeah. True. Let’s see if, if I’m a progressive woman and I manage to actually secure my progressive boyfriend, and I really like him. If I post him online, maybe women will be like, oh, like we should date, and then, and then if he gets a lot of inbound inquiries, he’s more likely to pressure me into opening a [00:29:00] relationship because obviously I’m open-minded and progressive, right?

Oh yeah. Hmm. Maybe who knows?

Malcolm Collins (2): Sophie Miller, a content creator also experienced people unfollowing her when she shared a her a romantic relationship quote, this summer, a boy took me to Sicily. I posted about it on my subscribe subscriber section and people replied saying things like, please don’t get a boyfriend exclamation mark.

She admits that her content perhaps becomes less exciting when she’s in a relationship. Quote, being signal gives you this ultimate freedom to say and do what you want is absolutely not every woman, but I do notice that we can become more beige and watered down online when in a relationship, myself included in quote, and I saw that.

That’s really interesting as well as sort of how they’re contextualizing this. They’re contextualizing it in a few ways. They’re saying, one, they expect to get unfollowed if they post pictures of their boyfriend accidentally. So this is like a. Community [00:30:00] behavior that’s evolved.

Simone Collins: Well, and they’ve, they’ve actively seen people get unfollowed when they do post content.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yes. Yeah. And they have a a fear that what was I gonna say? That, that they will look less free if they have a boyfriend. They’ll look less wild. Which, I mean, of course you are. If you have a boyfriend and you get married. Many of the things that we associate with a. Free and wild lifestyle just become pointless, like, not just going to nightclubs or going to bars. Like why would you do that if you have a partner? Right? Yeah. But, but that’s what being wild is in these people’s minds. But more than that you’ve got you know, going on a trip to Greece, right? Going on a boat, going on a, like, if you have a partner, you’re significantly less likely to do these types of expensive and pointless recreational activities that are often associated with clout within an online sphere.

Simone Collins: I think some of this is warranted. People like to follow influencers in, in many cases who are very different from them, but also in many cases who share their lifestyle. [00:31:00] And many people, for example, more commonly bemoan losing their friends to parenthood. Like, nah. Now suddenly, like they only wanna talk about their kids, they’re schedule totally changed.

They’re never available anymore, right? Like depending on your relationship status and family status, you can become quite uninteresting to both friends and followers. I, I don’t. I don’t wanna discount that here. I do think that if, if you’re following this single life like. Lifestyle and, and, and you want to follow people who extol that it’s gonna suck when they get boyfriends.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. So that’s not, so to tie this up here for my conversations, one thing is certain the script is shifting. Being partnered doesn’t affirm your womanhood anymore. It is no longer considered an achievement. And if anything is becoming more of a flex to pronounce yourself single As a straight woman, we’re confronting something that every other sexuality has had to contend with.

A politicization of our identity.

Edward’s sexuality has long been purposely

Simone Collins: [00:32:00] yeah. Close the door buddy. Yay.

Malcolm Collins (2): Hello? It’s becoming more of a flex to pronounce yourself single as a straight woman, we’re confronting something that every other sexuality has had to contend with. The politicization of our identity, heterosexuality has long been purposely indefinable, so it is harder for those within it outside of it to critique.

However, as our traditional roles begin to crumble, maybe we’re being forced to reevaluate our blind allegiance to heterosexuality. Of course, you knew that’s where she was going, was this. Okay. Which actually makes sense given how few guys fall into this sort of urban monocultural, ultra progressive worldview as they f face a dra a drought of those guys.

You know, they’re now beginning to be like. Well then it’s a good thing to be single. It’s a good thing to not be with a guy. In fact, that is the harder road to travel. That is the more honorable road to travel. I’m not failing. I’m not bad. I’m actually doing it right. And it is these women with partners [00:33:00] that are doing it the wrong way.

There was a Reddit thread on Ask Feminist that was discussing this, and one of the things that a lot of people mention to begin with, which I think is likely absolutely true, is they’re like, well, you do realize that a lot of these people have parasocial followers that are men and are gooning over them and are going to unfollow the moment.

It looks like they have a boyfriend. Yeah. Sort of the

Simone Collins: Korean pop star. Dynamic where they’re not allowed to have boyfriends because they would lose followers. They would lose their, their fans.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. Well, like even early in our relationship, I don’t think we posted about it much because you had sort of an online thing.

Octavian I did. Are you my boyfriend? Yeah, I was tiptoeing.

You were tiptoeing. But I heard you and I think the fans heard you. I see. I, he’s the boy and he’s my friend. Are you my [00:34:00] friend buddy? Yeah. All right. So they were pointing out that a lot of these women might, might have like character followers and their boyfriends might as well.

Right.

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins (2): another thing that people noted is that not sharing content that shows you have a boyfriend is a very good way to cheat on a partner. Because then the, the partner themselves and a lot of, I guess. Progressive guys in sort of like open relationships and stuff like that. Probably don’t want it to be known that they’re dating people because they pretend on early dates that they don’t already have a primary.

Simone Collins: That’s another really good point. Yeah. We, we don’t know the extent to which boyfriends are actively asking to be excluded from girls’ social media posts.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. And now girls are trying to normalize it. You know, if I was, if I was like a, a man sled out there on the market right now, I’d be like sharing this with girls and be like, well, don’t you know, it’s not cool to post pictures.

And then the girls are trying to just

Simone Collins: frame it as their decision. Like, I’m just trying to be independent. But really they’re both, yeah. I’m just trying to help you stay independent. [00:35:00] Oh my gosh. Yeah, but you could see like a, a guy, a boyfriend who’s progressively coded really successfully, both sleeping around and, and, and having a lot of side girls, or like, literally, like, actually I, I don’t know if you remember

Malcolm Collins (2): when Andrew Huberman

Simone Collins: got in trouble for having a lot of.

Girlfriends all at the same time, and they didn’t know for a long time. You just had different girls in all these different places.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah.

Why are you laughing? Yes. Can you, can you go outta the room, please? Is this a teddy bear? Okay. Anyway, so the New York Post had a response to this, which is typically pretty conservative.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins (2): Where they go. To me personally, all this article indicates is that there is a shift in romantic relationships being the ultimate status symbol, platonic connections, family, career, and hobbies and hitting financial milestones are now in the mix. Therefore, being signaled does not make you incomplete.

The article [00:36:00] is sparked Much Debate Online was brilliant, hilarious single women celebrating being unbound from this idea that their lives are sad because they don’t have a man. Mm. Shameless media’s Ruby Hall posted on TikTok dancing to Taylor Swift. The fate of Ophelia was the caption. Apparently it’s chic to be single now.

Fellow TikTok user, Lydia posted a clip of herself waving and blowing kisses to George Michael’s father figure. Thank you British Vogue for making all the girlies that have been single their entire lives feel very powerful right now. A well-deserved win for us, Lydia said. Meanwhile, Lulu Davidson, a pr posted a similar clip to the Mama Mia movie version of the Winner Takes all how it feels to be single.

After British Vogue declared that having a boyfriend is embarrassing. I’m always ahead of the trends. She said, Abby Beov. Who has 1.3 million followers shared a video of herself also celebrating the news while dressed up in the nines, British Vogues comes out declaring that having a boyfriend is embarrassing.

What a time [00:37:00] to be alive and single ladies. And so I love this. First of all, by the way, all of these women who are just so excited to share this news and try to notify this cultural trend, right? Then we have somebody saying, I think the article is less about women rejecting men and more about women rejecting dependency decades.

Being someone’s girlfriend was treated like a personality. She told news au Now we’re swinging the other way. Building entire online identities rather than real identities. I know you that say I choose me. That’s progress. But I can also tip into performance. But it can also tip into performance.

She also said it’s residue from what influencer Tinks called Boyfriend Sickness. When her friend gets into a relationship and disappears. Now it’s also shifted to the online world. Miss Buzz, there was definitely a shift. To celebrating being single. But there was a big shift between I’m single because I’m growing and I’m single because [00:38:00] men suck with only the first being an empowering move.

The real flex isn’t being single or taken, it’s being secure either way. And there are just tons of folks here I could go through of women like agreeing with this, but I wanna get your wider take on this.

Simone Collins: I think this is, like I said earlier, a a a product of sort of the end, end product of atomization of.

Women’s support, both from the state and from men in this case.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Where we’ve

Simone Collins: gone from, if you want support from men, it’s gone from support, from husband to support from boyfriend, to now support from broad network of male supporters, either like literally through OnlyFans or just through some broad network of hangers on who you text and occasionally ask for money on Venmo.

Venmo, and, and like hook up in exchange for. Vague bits of support, which ultimately aren’t, it’s not enough. It’s, it’s not gonna support their lifestyle. So they’re ultimately doing worse than if they just got married and, and, and [00:39:00] got support from men through that pathway. I also do think that this could have to do with the fact that the dating pool for progressive women is indeed so small that either they just have to normalize the fact that they’re not going to date men at all.

And so a lot of this is sort of social pressure of just like, Hey. I mean, look at the way that people are approaching capitalism now and, and this concept of like home ownership and being financially independent. People now, especially younger generations, understanding that they’re never gonna have access to it are, are now highly critical of the concept of capitalism and possibly even the concept of fiat currency.

And we’re seeing maybe something similar with Okay, well if, if, if having a progressive boyfriend or husband is also so. Unachievable. We need to start questioning whether or not we want it at all. You know, what’s, what is the point? You know, we, or we should also condemn it. You know, this is the, this is the relationship version of Eat the rich or billionaires should be taxed more.

Where [00:40:00] we have to shame anyone who has. This very limited resource that ultimately is aspirational. But we now have to pretend that it’s not because it’s not accessible to everyone. And we have this very inbuilt idea of fairness, which seems to be even stronger in women of this feeling of injustice if things aren’t quote unquote fair.

So I, I think that that’s also a factor.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah, that makes sense to me. I think you, I, I mean, I’d be interested to see if this trend spirals more.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins (2): Like, well, how,

Simone Collins: how can it get worse? How can it get worse than women literally disavowing any sort of romantic male commitment. And also at the same time that you didn’t cover it as much demanding essentially micropayments from men in exchange for small sexual, how

Malcolm Collins (2): could it get worse?

It could become seen as like more of an active, bad thing for progressives to date men at all. Think of like polyamory, except how, how is that bad?

Simone Collins: It just eliminates that from society then, you know. Well, I mean,

Malcolm Collins (2): over the long term, but I mean, I, I [00:41:00] could totally see this happening as we move from polyamory being normalized in these communities.

From having nothing but casual sex, and if you’re doing anything other than just casual sex, that’s seen as like a betrayal of the progressive cause.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, that’s very brave new world that in, in, in Alta Huxley’s Brave New World, there’s this, there’s a lot of catchphrases that are a little programs into all of the people in society.

One of those catchphrases is everybody belongs to everyone else, and it’s actually considered. Quite socially, socially questionable. If you start having sex with only one person consistently, at that point, your friends start to sort of pressure you to like, yeah, you should, you should probably start sleeping around like with someone else.

You know, you should, you should not be so exclusive and perhaps we’re, we’re just getting to that point.

Malcolm Collins (2): All right. So it’s already brave New world. That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. Thank goodness.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. All

Malcolm Collins (2): right. Love you Simone.

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins (2): love you. Did you wanna record another one or just one [00:42:00] today?

Simone Collins: I’m up for recording the Johannesburg one that I outlined.

Okay, great. If you can get just take a break to get Octavia set up with his, I’ll get it, I’ll get it

Malcolm Collins (2): thing set up.

Simone Collins: And would you mind closing the door to the master bedroom I’m in? ‘cause he opened it and didn’t Hey,

Malcolm Collins (2): Octavian. Octavian, come here. What do you wanna say to the subscribers? What do you want to, are you gonna get a mommy one day?

One day? Are you like gonna get married? Yeah. And why, why, why do you want that? Because I wanna ring like, because you wanna ring. Mom has like, I’m like, dad, married mom, right there Like this? Yeah, right there. You see what I’m pointing to? Oh, like she has a ring and you wanna ring like that? Yeah. So, or do you wanna ring more like dad’s ring?

Yeah, like a lot more, like dads a lot more. Okay. Okay. So you wanna get married so you can get a ring. You might be surprised that a lot of women actually feel that way. Octavia. Yeah. That’s why they they wanna get married. And what are you gonna do with your wife? I’m gonna do in wife. [00:43:00] I’m gonna find the let her go.

The helicopter me. Guess what? If you like, and you and I see that, find the person he up and fire to my. President. So he thinks we voted today, and so he thinks he’s gonna become the president. And we talked to him about how the president gets like Air Force One. And so what he’s saying is that if you like this video, he’ll go back after he becomes president and send a helicopter to your house and fly you to the White House.

Is this for real? Are you lying? No, I’m not. No, I’m not. Tonight. Tonight, tonight. The night. If you text, if like, call me about that. Go away. I’m falling apart. They, if they like the video at, at 3:00 AM in the night, you’re going to send a helicopter to their house. [00:44:00] Yeah. And so they’re gonna wake, they’re gonna be woken up by a helicopter landing, but what if it’s dark?

There’s where to be a camera and knife fits in. Oh, so the helicopter people are gonna have night vision? Yeah. Yeah. He’s,

Simone Collins: he’s basically gonna send a SWAT team to people’s house, drag them out of their homes.

Malcolm Collins (2): This is what happens if you like and subscribe. Yeah, this is, you also need to vote

Simone Collins: Octavian in, but I’m sure that’s trivial.

Oh, so they gotta

Malcolm Collins (2): call you, but do you have a phone number? What’s your phone number? They, you can just call the phone number of the White House. So call the phone and I, and they would just, yeah, so they’ll, they’ll handle it. The White House knows he’s gonna be elected. So they’ll just handle all of this for you, him, right.

So you just call the White House [00:45:00] and say, I liked and scribed, so send the helicopter to pick me up at 3:00 AM in. Yeah. And if you keep liking discretion to the videos, if I see, if you do it in early in the night, Ima, when you have to go home, then you could just stay with me. If I keep seeing you do it.

If you don’t see it, if I don’t see it one single day, then you’re gonna kicked out forever. For real. I’m talking forever real. You know how to YouTube buddy. That’s some, that is some making. They have to kick kicked out for only one day. That’s not that much. Oh, okay. Baby. Only one night, once day and the nighttime then they can come back As long as they give me the address.

Yeah. If you don’t give the address, if you show me it, then I’ll not know where you. Don’t get to come to me if you tell me that. So make sure, make sure, make sure. Okay, mixer, [00:46:00] make sure you heard

Simone Collins: it here first. Ladies and gentlemen,

Malcolm Collins (2): do it. Ow. Just do it. Okay buddy. Get up. We’re gonna go find that computer.

Okay, great. My bye. Bye. Love you,

Malcolm Collins: Simone. I love you too.

Malcolm Collins (2): Bye.

Simone Collins: Especially now. I, I’m not Mr.

Malcolm Collins (2): All right. You ready to go? I am sir. How, how are you feeling this morning?

Simone Collins: Good. We, we voted, we got insane amounts of. Holy basil. Oh, it’s so pretty cool because

Malcolm Collins (2): we’re to store it en mass by freezing it, which I didn’t know you could do. And so now it’s just like, oh, we’re gonna blend it, make a sauce, and I would freeze it with an amount of water and an amount of oil [00:47:00] maybe.

The water is

Simone Collins: not advised, just oil. Just cover it with oil. Once it’s minced,

Malcolm Collins (2): just cover it in. What type of oil are we getting is olive oil, I guess. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then freeze it and then we’ll have holy basil all the time because it’s so hard to get Thai basil or holy basil fresh. So we have to drive to the Asian market to get it.

And what’s the other thing? I was telling Simone that our fab is, we’re in the final stage development now for the chatbot feature. So if anybody wants to do testing and like dedicate a certain amount of time a day to testing let me know and I can get you free tokens. And that’s the way that we’re gonna handle that.

So we’ll just adjust your token amount, sort of like paying you. And you could play with chat bots and look for bugs. A good chat bot.

Simone Collins: And it’s paid for, which is, if you’re into that, then you’ll get why that’s valuable.

Malcolm Collins (2): I, I used to spend so much money on chatbots before this. I I literally would spend like a hundred dollars every three weeks, I wanna say.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So basically if you’re a power user type, you will see the [00:48:00] value in what we are offering. Mm-hmm. Because it is better than the even top drawer or chat bot platforms, but. We will cover the cost if you give us some feedback.

Speaker: You look like mommy? Yeah. Does it hurt to walk like that?

No. Do you like looking like mommy? Yeah.

So you wanna be just like mommy one day? Yeah.

Speaker 3: A bouncy castle. Yes.

Whoa. I I felt that like you did. Mommy falls down all the time. Right. She’s kind of cl

i I I love that you associate that with [00:49:00] her.

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