Divorce influencers and self-actualization

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive into the evolving landscape of Gen Z divorce, inspired by a trending New York Times article. They discuss how marriage and divorce are changing for younger generations, exploring topics like queer solidarity, polyamory, and the shifting meaning of marriage. The conversation covers the normalization of divorce, the influence of social media on relationship expectations, and the rise of non-traditional relationship models. Simone and Malcolm also reflect on personal experiences, societal trends, and the impact of cultural shifts on marriage, family, and identity. The episode is filled with insightful commentary, humor, and candid takes on what it means to be married—or divorced—in the modern age.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because we have come across more New York Times Gold, and if you did not happen to see this trending on X, then you might’ve missed it. We don’t want you to miss this because this is about Gen Z divorce at least the more fun parts of Gen Z divorce.

Malcolm Collins: I thought it was fascinating when you were going through it because it was. Oh my God. The que they’re like, well, you know, I had to have a sit down with his mistress before telling him, because, you know, queer solidarity. And it’s like, it is the most Gen Z, gen Z thing you’ve ever seen. I mean, it shows that the context of marriage is really changing for this next generation.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And if people think fertility rates are shot now, they do not know what’s coming. I’m gonna tell you what

Simone Collins: 100% Yeah. We’re, we’re in for it. One of the big complaints when this was discussed on, on X people were saying, this isn’t representative. This isn’t what Gen Z’s actually like. But the, the whole point is.[00:01:00]

What, what this article highlights is a a a specific ex extreme, just like any divorce lawyer is going to see a lot of specific extremes. And what’ll, and we’re, we’re gonna get into it with the article, but divorce lawyers are now this the matter having

Malcolm Collins: divorce lawyer, I got the impression

Simone Collins: right there, there were a couple that were interviewed.

But they’re seeing a distinct shift in the reasons why people are getting divorced and that shift is meaningful. But even though we’re looking at

Malcolm Collins: cases, but I, the genzer who are saying, this isn’t the Gen Z that I know I think what we’re, we’re actually seeing is a bifurcation and behavioral patterns with Gen Z with some becoming uber brain rotted, urban monoculture, and some moving away from the urban monoculture, and there’s less of a middle ground within that generation.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I agree. And, and the same people stick with the same people. The insane people, well, they cuddle together and talk about divorcing their

Malcolm Collins: ais.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Their AI boyfriends. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Alright, continue. Come on, start. Let’s, let’s go. [00:02:00]

Simone Collins: I’m so excited for this. In 2021, Kira Benson, a violinist. Living in Seattle knew it was time to get a divorce ending.

Their two year lavender marriage wasn’t an easy decision, but the musician had a supportive ally. If you have to dump your ex-husband, m Benson said go dump him with his mistress. Before the breakup, Mick Benson, 27. Who uses the pronoun? They checked in with her, their, sorry. Their therapist who said a divorce would be a good choice.

Out of queer solidarity. They informed their husband’s mistress. This was kosher and mixed Benson’s arrangement.

Malcolm Collins: Sure. Before we go further, can we start breaking apart everything that’s going on here? Okay, so first there in what she refers to as a lavender marriage which is a type of marriage that you get into as a woman if you are gay.

To try to hide that you’re gay. From the general public,

Simone Collins: it must have a different meaning. Now

Malcolm Collins: it, I, I, hold on.

Simone Collins: Okay. I

Malcolm Collins: will [00:03:00] explain why the term is being used. Okay. ‘cause clearly if you’re going by, they, you, you, you are not trying to hide anything. Like you are not living in an environment where you need to hide your sexuality.

Simone Collins: Exactly. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right. So. What she’s trying to do is make herself seem like more of a victim. It’s just a way to pretend like, well, as a, as a queer woman, I live in constant fear because I like guys and girls. You know, like I, you know, so

Simone Collins: should I just, like, if I, I just called our marriage, lavender marriage, I would get points in that

Malcolm Collins: realm.

Yes. Because you’re acting like you are a, it’s a way to remind people, Hey, I’m a victim.

Simone Collins: Yes. This is not a marriage. This is Anne Frank’s attic. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Right. The second, because the way she talks about it, it appears to be a, a real. Sexually active marriage. Right. Because she implies as well that she is sexually active with her husband’s mistress.

Which,

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: don’t know if

Simone Collins: that’s implied. I mean, it,

Malcolm Collins: I, I, we haven’t gotten to that part yet, but I remember in part of it I was like, [00:04:00] oh, but if

Simone Collins: your husband has a mistress. You know. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: I know why. I know why I took it as implied. Because she said out of queer solidarity, she told the mistress first, which implies that the mistress is queer.

Which, okay, the husband is sleeping with this woman. He’s married to this other woman who, who’s sleeping with both of them are also into women. And this, well, it’s really

Simone Collins: interesting though.

Malcolm Collins: Relationship was the, was the mistress than she did with the husband. ‘cause she told the mistress first.

Simone Collins: Could this be a sign also that polyamory branding is changing, like.

They didn’t wanna say secondary, they wanted to say mistress. Was this a condition of the mistress? Because it sounds kind of crappy to be a secondary.

Malcolm Collins: No. So there’s a few things going on here, I think. Okay. I think the reason she choose the term mistress instead of saying that they were polyamory, and this was a secondary, was because again, she wanted to frame herself as a victim and her husband.

Having a mistress is like a

Simone Collins: Yeah, but if you have like pizza parties with your mistress or queer solidarity with your [00:05:00] mistress.

Malcolm Collins: She’s trying to show that even though her husband takes her for granted in these ways, that, and I also think the term mistress sounds pretty cool. Like it, it sounds

really,

Simone Collins: oh, 100%.

I think secondary should be dropped. What’s the, what is the, what is the male equivalent of mistress?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, mis, I know because I read it in one of my Korean romance fantasies recently. Okay. So you’re gonna have to have a, I can’t remember this. This was for her, it maintain the title of Duke. She couldn’t get married, so she had to have a, and there was a term for it.

It’s called like a male consort or something.

Simone Collins: The auto complete for what is the male equivalent of is what is the male equivalent of a Karen.

Malcolm Collins: There art, because men don’t do that very frequently. But anyway you let me know when you find it out.

Simone Collins: Lover Mastress Boy, toy Gigolo or Par Paramore.

Paramore. It sounds

Malcolm Collins: good.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: There we go.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. Okay. So, but then the other thing is, is that she talks about this with her therapist before she talks about it with her husband.

Simone Collins: Do you want me to read the article or not?

Malcolm Collins: No. Hold on. We’ve got [00:06:00] to analyze what’s happening. Okay. Okay. Because this is important, right?

For, for audiences to understand how things are falling apart and looking for red flags. You know, if you’re Ian, you’re looking for a partner.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Oh, and actually, you know, on that front, this is interesting because this shows, and, and this is again, where I’m like, no, this is representative. This is not weird.

Because keep in mind the, the other woman who’s gone viral very recently who also consulted multiple therapists about her relationships and sex lives was the one who deluded herself into believing that her, that her psychiatrist, psychiatrist, psychiatrist was

Malcolm Collins: hitting on her,

Simone Collins: the one who prescribed her medications.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Psychiatrist and

Simone Collins: psych psychiatrist was. Yeah, seduced her. And she had this other older, like 63-year-old female therapist who she would talk to about this psychiatrist.

Malcolm Collins: She was the one psychiatrist and then another therapist for the [00:07:00] therapist because her relationship with the therapist was causing her problems.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no, she just saw the psychiatrist to get her A DHD medications prescribed. She also, however, sold coaching lessons for A DHD people. Anyway,

Malcolm Collins: hold

Simone Collins: on. She needed medication.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry. I need to unpack this other point here ‘cause it is an important point.

Simone Collins: Uhhuh,

Malcolm Collins: your marriage is already destroyed beyond help.

If you or your partner would go to a psychologist to talk about you, to talk about major decisions in your life and to be affirmed for those decisions before floating them with you. Because what that means is she’s really looking for, because as soon as that opinion or perspective of hers has been affirmed by the psychologist it’s very unlikely that the husband’s going to be able to talk her out of it.

Right.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Paid professional has already validated me. It’s like [00:08:00] the couple’s counseling and giving a one-sided story, but without the other partner getting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And the psychologist doesn’t care. They’re gonna keep getting her money either way.

Simone Collins: Well, they’re more likely to keep getting a client’s money if they affirm that client problem is too, people are also just turning to AI instead.

But I guess you get additional validation if it is a trained therapist or social worker or a psychologist affirms you. Yeah. So, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I, I actually think AI is much less damaging in this respect than a, than a psychologist would be.

Simone Collins: I’m just thinking of clips of what is it, Annie? The, the gr the Sexy Grok AI girl.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, is that already out? Should I try talking with that?

Simone Collins: I’ve seen people interview her and they’re like, my wife’s in the other room and she’s like, does she know about me? And they’re like yeah, she does. She, you know, she’s not a big fan. And she’s like, well, like basically implies you should leave her.

It’s, yeah. I don’t know if AI is always gonna give the best. Answers for

Malcolm Collins: marriage. I am all about [00:09:00] this. We, I I’m gonna do some Annie stuff. We should do an episode on Annie.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Has ai, has, has, has Elon doomed the fertility rate?

Simone Collins: I mean,

Malcolm Collins: he’s, I’m gonna, I’m gonna bet reality he’s, he’s creating

Simone Collins: the bottleneck that is necessary to create the, the types of people that, ‘cause you know, one of his big arguments is that he’s like, I’m really concerned about smart people not having enough kids.

Like that’s kind of one of his brands of Tism.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which I’m concerned about too.

Simone Collins: He is he’s not necessarily going to be hurting the birth rate of the people that he’s encouraging most to.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know about that. You know, I, I really like, you know, these, these chat bots and stuff like that. You know, there’s

Simone Collins: not, no, not the ones that are just like horny and that affirm you no matter what.

Malcolm Collins: Well, if you want a good AI wife who go to reality fabricator, yes. That’s, that’s where we’ve got the the best ones on offer. Anyway, continue.

Simone Collins: Oh God. Sorry words,

Malcolm Collins: but Grock is too restricted for me. You, [00:10:00] you can’t, you cannot even kill a bott. They, they, they freak out around death or anything that’s particularly.

Scary.

Simone Collins: Lame. Lame. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: lame.

Simone Collins: Out of queer solidarity. They informed their husband’s mistress. This was kosher and Benson’s arrangement, which was not a legal marriage, but a domestic partnership about their shared partner’s troubling behavior. The night of the breakup, Ms. Mixed Benson and the mistress spent a cozy evening together.

We were eating a lot of comfort food, playing a lot of animal crossing. The senior most members of Gen Z are in their late twenties, old enough to have gotten married, but also old enough to regret it as this generation enter.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry, I, I need to interrupt you again. I’m imagining this scene of her with her husband’s secondary mistress, chilling out and eating comfort food.

So ice cream while playing, animal crossing, I guess in the same room. And that’s their idea of like an emotionally, you know, stressful day [00:11:00] for them. But if, if, you know, because this is true of Gen Z. Gen Z does not drink as much alcohol was in r gener. That’s

Simone Collins: that’s true. Yeah. Normally it’d be like over cocktails.

Like the classic sex in the city

Malcolm Collins: Exactly.

Simone Collins: Thing. Oh my goodness. Ice cream

Malcolm Collins: and animal crossing.

Simone Collins: Wow. Yeah, instead of getting smashed, we get fat. But now we have ozempic. So now they like sparingly eat ice cream and play animal crossing. I don’t even know. Maybe they’re too young to afford ozempic. Anyway, as this generation enters divorcing age, it’s finding little shame in the act, especially with a split like Miss Mixed Benson is motivated by prioritizing one’s mental health.

And rather than quietly moving on, younger divorcees are often highlighting this facet of their story, even after they’re in new relationships.

Malcolm Collins: What, once they gain a victim status, they cannot really, well,

Simone Collins: that’s true. You gotta catch ‘em all. It’s like getting Girl Scout badges like, I’m now divorced.

Malcolm Collins: I, and even when they’re remarried, they [00:12:00] still identify as a de divorce.

A, because a deforest A is a more victim status than a married person.

Simone Collins: That’s so amazing

Malcolm Collins: and that’s so funny that that status trumps because it is victimy God, continue.

Simone Collins: Michelle Jans a 28-year-old content creator in Oceanside, California is particularly vocal about being vocal about her divorce when she needs to prepare a synopsis of her videos for a channel description, a task that demands a squirm inducing combination of self-reflection and brevity.

Ms. Jans often goes with, I found love after divorce. It is one of the sentences that just summarizes the whole picture of what I’ve vlogged for over the years, she said. Mm-hmm. Ms. Jan said that even after she remarried last year, the identity of divorcee felt like it was an important part of, of who she is.

So yeah, they, they show a picture of this attractive young woman flogging and, yeah. [00:13:00] Looks normal

Malcolm Collins: to you. She’s, she’s,

Simone Collins: she looks normal. She doesn’t look misshapen like, honestly. If, if you show, if you were to show us a picture of her, we would probably tell you that she’s a conservative. So she doesn’t look.

Like a blue haired. Yeah, she is. She is dark blonde hair longer than shoulder length wearing,

Malcolm Collins: so she, she has a real honey trap,

Simone Collins: I guess. And

Malcolm Collins: meanwhile I choose you and like, you know,

Simone Collins: I know.

Malcolm Collins: What, what were you, what were you wearing back then? Like Durals,

Simone Collins: Durals and Raju. Go street fashion. Vintage round tda petticoat dresses.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You, you, you looked like maximal progressive maxing.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I did actually. So, don’t judge the book by its cover, judge the book by how obsessed it is with you and how willing it is to change its mind. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Were pretty obsessed with me in our early relationship, which really showed, and I appreciated.

You’re still pretty obsessed with me. [00:14:00] I’m, I’m going to be honest,

Simone Collins: more than ever. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You, you would, if, if you were the type of person to do this,

Simone Collins: sometimes I wonder if you bolt your door at night just ‘cause you don’t want me staring at you while you sleep.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You used to do that. I, I remember.

If, if you were the typing client to this, you would absolutely have like a room of like Malcolm memorabilia and like a little trying set up

Simone Collins: my Helga Pataki closet.

Speaker: 網膜センサー確認しました。いらっしゃいませ、キョウコさん。

Speaker 3: めたらいかがですか。おそらくこの恋は、

Speaker 4: どうしてそんな。実のお兄様が好きで何が悪いの?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That is, that is exactly your personality and I love it. Yeah. Hey,

Simone Collins: weirdly though, like having kids is like that. They are my Helga Pataki closet.

They are my shrine to you. So weird just storing

Malcolm Collins: our little Malcolm’s.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But also our kids are obsessed with you. They wanna just lie in [00:15:00] bed and stare at you?

Malcolm Collins: They do actually. But yeah.

Simone Collins: All of them,

Malcolm Collins: that, that was hilarious. When one night when he was sick, we let our kid sleep in my bed because he, you know, wanted to sleep in my bed ‘cause he’s feeling sick.

And he got mad at me because when I went to sleep, I was, I was not facing him and he couldn’t stare at my face. And I was like, you are way too obsessed with me. Look at me,

Simone Collins: oh my God, our children. Anyway, whether it’s young divorce generally, or Gen Z, divorce specifically in 2025, splits often feel less like scandals and more like Rebrands.

Megan Wallace, a 29-year-old sex writer in London who reports on the mating rituals of Gen Z cites two divorce inspiration figures for this generation. The actress Sophie Turner and the model Emily Rogowski, who created divorce rings out of her engagement ring. According Tom Wallace, both Turner and Miss Ra Raki emerged from their [00:16:00] divorces as people newly and entirely themselves.

Jackie Combs. Oh my

Malcolm Collins: God, that is so okay

Simone Collins: to be a divorce influencer. What? You’re not into it.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. But think about the phrase they’re newly and entirely themselves. Mm. Like it’s bad or lesser to combine your identity with another person. And you are upgrading your identity by atomizing it. And I think, or

Simone Collins: almost like you’re, you’re, you’re a more of a person if you have.

Have combined your life with someone, consumed them, used them, and then emerged from the chrysalis of life with them as a stronger person.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: It’s kind of gross. Or predatory, I don’t know. Whatever.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, it’s gross and predatory, but I think the, the aspiration to not allow yourself to be subsumed into a more important identity, like the identity of the family or the identity of the married couple is one of the huge flaws of this generation.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And, and when I say this [00:17:00] generation, I mean our generation, I mean, I think that this reached its Venus within our generation and was in part of Gen Z is fixing and was in part of Gen Z is getting worse.

Simone Collins: Oh, interesting.

Malcolm Collins: But the part that’s getting worse is not having kids. Don’t worry, these people don’t have kids.

Or you’re not hearing any of them talk about what, what are we gonna do with the kids in these divorces or, or I guess we’ll see.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I haven’t actually read this whole article, so we’re, we’re discovering this as you do dear. Listener Jackie Combs, a family law and divorce lawyer who worked with Ms.

Raki maintains that the taboo of getting divorced is long gone. Individuals are more willing to consider this as just a transition in their relationship in a new chapter rather than feel the guilt and shame she said. Ms. Combs 37 has found that Gen Z tends to act hold

Malcolm Collins: you. You should feel guilt and shame about a divorce.

Just in case you’re wondering, by the way, like

Simone Collins: you, Malcolm, Malcolm, this is coming from a man who was pretty convinced that I was going to be your first wife.

Malcolm Collins: Right? Because I was in a [00:18:00] cultural context back then. That was a bad cultural context. I told her, well, at least it’ll be my first wife, right?

Because everyone I knew, like my dad had gotten married five times. Your dad had gotten married twice, right? You know. So, you know, you look at the boomer generation who started this idea that divorce should be an easy thing. That’s

Simone Collins: true. Yeah. It’s, yeah. This is, this is really not new. What’s different is the reasons for the divorce.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But the, the point I’m making here is. It had been normalized for me that divorce is just a normal part of life. And now that I’ve been able to study healthier cultures and learn how they relate to marriage and the other cultures that lead to better mental health outcomes, better life outcomes, et cetera, I’m like, oh, no.

Divorce really shouldn’t be an option. You shouldn’t go into a marriage thinking divorce will ever be an option for you.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Divorce is one of the, the, you know, sort of highest personal failings that you can have. And you can say, well, what if it’s their fault? And I’m like. What do they get? Brain damage or something?

I mean, you vetted them. You are responsible for that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, that’s [00:19:00] true.

Malcolm Collins: And then you, you know, you are responsible for making sure that they are not exposed to toxic influences.

Simone Collins: I think a lot of this though is downstream of marriage being turned into a purely. Legal logistical arrangement instead of it being a lifelong commitment to do a specific thing.

Marriage used to be a sacrament. It was about creating a family and a life together. Whereas now it’s like, well, I want visitation rights in the hospital and I want access to your healthcare. And, you know, there are things that it’s, it’s now just seen as this. Like trade off. You know, we, we have spoken with many people who are like, well, we’re not technically gonna get married because there’s no tax advantage to it.

Or like, I wanna maintain these specific services. So like, people have really divorced the concept of marriage from marriage. There’s, there’s, there’s not this, it, it doesn’t mean what it used to mean.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Well, and I mean, and it doesn’t even legally mean [00:20:00] what it used to mean, you know? Totally. As a society, we just

Simone Collins: need to then, with no fault divorce, I mean this is changing and we did that episode on men Ga, getting back more rights with divorce, for example, but still,

Malcolm Collins: mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Continue. Okay.

Ms. Combs 37 has found that Gen Z tends to act with decisiveness about ending relationships. They’re so much more transparent. She said they live in a world of social media and everything’s about storytelling, and so I think individuals are more willing to be open and honest about their lives and prior generations were.

This is a generation that can walk away easily, a function. Ms. Jens. Speculates of young people’s general sense of having endless options, how realistic those options are is another question. I feel like with social media at our fingertips, we are just so much more aware of all the lives we could be living.

Miss Jan said, we’re scrolling through our feed and we see this girl lives on a sailboat in Maine, and this [00:21:00] girl lives in a high rise in New York. You can just see firsthand all these different lives look like and it makes it so much easier to visualize a change or shift. Oh

Malcolm Collins: my

Simone Collins: God. Mx Wallace said that the young people today who come of age during the dislocations of the COVID pandemic and amid un uncertain economic landscape are inured to upheaval.

Gen Z just imagines they will have three marriages because life is prolonged. They’ve seen so much rapid social change. If it’s not realistic to be with one person, the whole thing. Mix. Wallace said,

Malcolm Collins: I, I love that she’s saying this was a presumption that they’re not gonna have any kids. Right? Like, you can’t easily be in three marriages if you have kids with one of the first marriages.

Right. You know?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Just a degree to which they do not care, and they do not see marriage as about producing offspring.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Marriage is about self-affirmation, personal, it’s

Simone Collins: about the, the cortisone that you’re living with for. Seven years until they get boring. I don’t [00:22:00] amuse you anymore.

Malcolm Collins: Right. And then you have other cortisol, your mistress. Right. You know?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Primary.

Malcolm Collins: Interesting to comment on how they’re looking at people on social media and they are mm-hmm. Visualizing the life on the boat, the life on the island, the life on the, mm-hmm. And this is so, like, I think, toxic because one, these lives are often not very good lives.

I

Simone Collins: don’t wanna live on a boat.

Malcolm Collins: I would hate that. Yeah. I follow a

Simone Collins: lot of the people who live in Highrises.

Malcolm Collins: I have lived on a boat. I’ve actually, I’ve probably spent about half a year of my life living on a boat.

Simone Collins: Collectively.

Malcolm Collins: Collectively, yeah. So, you know, I’ve lived on a boat for quite a bit and it is not fun unless you’re on like a super yacht or something like that.

Even if you’re on like a fairly decent yacht, it is not that nice an experience. Which, which important to note for like the way Greta Thornberg’s probably living these days. But, I think we need to get better at a a, you know, in terms of the way we communicate with younger generations you know, that like beaches are boring, right?

[00:23:00] Like they’re, they’re hot. There’s not a lot to do. The water is gonna make you all sticky and feel dirty. Like you could get on a surfboard, but you could do that in a VR simulator without all the negatives. Right. You know, why, why are you going out? You do that at the local waterpark or something, right?

You, you could go

Simone Collins: look at fish. Well, and if you’re at any place with a decent break that’s not super isolated, even if like everything’s perfect, you’re waiting your turn. Yeah, catch a good wave too.

Malcolm Collins: Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. There’s a bunch of other surfers out there and you’re, oh, okay. And you know, like you try to catch your wave and then finally, you know, you’re in the right position, but then you don’t catch it and, oh God, like it’s, it’s just not.

Malcolm Collins: It’s not us. Yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You, you can tell she’s the surfer of the two of us.

Simone Collins: Mm. I, I tried, I was obsessed with surfing videos. You were

Malcolm Collins: text with surfing guys, I think.

Simone Collins: No, no. Actually I really wasn’t. I, I, I wasn’t, it was, it was, there was this whole genre. Surf videos [00:24:00] like way downstream of endless summer like often associated with Jack Johnson, like thicker than water September sessions.

And what was the amazing music?

Malcolm Collins: What

Simone Collins: happened to you? And all of it was was just, just people surfing and good music. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t understand myself. And you

Malcolm Collins: watched them and not do anything else

Simone Collins: again and again and again and again. And I had the albums, oh my God. Obsessed, obsessed.

I was obsessed.

Malcolm Collins: Did you have. A sea shell necklace,

Simone Collins: a puka shell. Of course, I had a puka shell necklace. I was. Yes. And my billabong shorts, of course. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Those are cute on girls though. I I, I

Simone Collins: know. They’re

Malcolm Collins: the, the the board shorts are very cute on, on girls.

Simone Collins: Maybe this dates, this. So Dates us though.

We’re we’re girls. I know

Malcolm Collins: we are. People are like, what’s a pca? Shell necklace. Like this is like a cool thing for a while.

Simone Collins: Although, you know what, the nineties are coming back. I like Gen Z has discovered. Clueless, apparently. And they’re like, damn. Like this is so memeable they, they’re really [00:25:00] into it. So

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: Let’s go back to the article. New heading, irreconcilable. Sorry. Irreconcilable vibes. If the stereotypical divorce of yesteryear was caused by infidelity, the impetus for a Gen Z divorce tends to be more subtle. I’ve heard about people having different love languages, which isn’t something I’ve heard of other than for the past few years.

Said Grant Mower 50, a lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia, who’s written about Gen Z divorce trends for his firm’s blog. Mr. Mower said he had seen infidelity cited as the reason for divorce much less frequently among Gen Z couples compared with older married people. He noted this might be because affairs tend to start further into a marriage.

Rather emotional wellbeing as many young people’s, many a young petitioner is North Star. Also he’s

Malcolm Collins: emotional wellbeing. I love, you know, if you search for emotional wellbeing, nothing will get you less emotional wellbeing. Like, emotional.

Simone Collins: Actually, we No, no, no. Studies. Joan, when men and women get [00:26:00] divorced, on average, men experience a drop in emotional wellbeing.

Yeah. Women do an increase, experience. An increase. No. I definitely have seen people divorcing for reasons that are more mental health focused. He said adding that pop psychology terms of art have a way of creeping in. I hear gaslighting a lot. I also hear narcissists to describe behaviors that are probably just garden variety.

Selfish when it comes to the division of assets. Mr. Moer pointed out. There’s often little property to split again. Even the oldest Gen Z divorcees are only in their late twenties, though there’s a good deal of student debt and for digital currencies like Bitcoin to contend with. He added that most of his Gen Z clients come to him before they have children.

To your point, Malcolm and both Mr. Mower and Ms. Combs, were quick to note that Gen Z prioritizes fast, efficient divorces. They do not want to drag things out, and that’s the one smart thing we’ve read so far. Nicole Mitchell, a 26-year-old podcaster in Nashville who married at 18 and divorced about a year and a half later, [00:27:00] objected to the idea that if a relationship isn’t serving you, it isn’t perfect.

Just leave that I don’t necessarily agree with. She said. I just look at the generation on social media and that narrative that’s pushed, it’s gotten a little sad. That’s that it’s all about just feeling good. I don’t think that you find the most meaningful things by just doing what feels good. Hmm. Signs of Promise, Malcolm.

But I mean, she was also like, this is probably a more based girl anyway, because she married at 18. So

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: Ms. Mitchell’s committed to retaining her divorcee identity, but she says it’s not one to seek lightly. It would be more comfortable for me to pretend like it didn’t exist, she said, of her divorce.

But I choose to continue to be open about it because I want people to see, and I want people to know that they’re not alone in it. A huge, huge deal. According Tom Wallace, many members of Gen Z, even the newly married, see marriage as a commitment that is neither final nor exclusive. The rise of non-traditional relationship models reshaped expectations for married life, and when [00:28:00] non-monogamous options are on the table.

Some of marriages stricter requirements are defanged.

Malcolm Collins: Is it the end of three?

Simone Collins: No, they’re just showing like a, a, a clip of probably a TikTok video that’s captioned. Get yourself a baby daddy that still hypes you up. Jamie Spiker, who divorced after five years of marriage scoffs at the idea that divorce is the easy way out.

Get yourself a baby daddy that just, okay anyway, to be able to explore your personal autonomy through sexual experiences, solo or as a couple. I do think that makes it much less frightening. Mix Wallace said while members of Gen Z aren’t universally opposed to marriage, of course many simply refuse to be trapped by it.

It’s a generation accustomed to all sorts of relationship structures and divorce can be presented as an option like any other Jamie Spiker. 25 of Harrisonburg, Virginia, who works in marketing and admissions for a cosmetology school, divorced a few years ago after [00:29:00] five years of marriage. She also balks at the suggestion that divorce is the easy way out.

I think people are just really quick to say, oh, this is gonna make me a better version. I don’t wanna put the work in to try to make this marriage work. To the young divorcees themselves. It can feel as if there’s an impression from the outside that if marriage isn’t as big a deal anymore, then neither is divorce.

But even for those who aren’t ashamed of their divorces, they don’t make light of the process because it is a huge, huge deal to go through. Ms. Chance said it is irreversible. So expensive. It’s messy. Everything about your life will change, give or take. Well,

Malcolm Collins: that’s, they’re, they’re accurate there. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They, they packed the beginning of this article with all the most crazy people.

Simone Collins: With all the most crazy people. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Is that the end of the article?

Simone Collins: That is the end of the article. I think I, I, I think that this is not that poorly represented one because Gen Z isn’t really getting married that much, [00:30:00] so.

Yeah, maybe this isn’t representative of most of Gen Z because they’re not having sex, they’re not dating and getting married. Are you kidding? Like these are the unusual ones, probably the more impulsive ones. So is it so strange that they wouldn’t also get divorced for more impulsive reasons?

Malcolm Collins: Can you see comments on this?

Like what are, what are New York Times readers singing about this sort of stuff?

Simone Collins: So, because I used an archive dot. I, yes. Like,

Malcolm Collins: because we’re not using the real site.

Simone Collins: Do Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You can look it up on Reddit. See the Reddit thread that’s talking about it. ‘cause somebody almost certainly posted it to Reddit.

Yeah,

Simone Collins: let’s do that.

Malcolm Collins: But I, I mean, I, I like this that they microcosm of like, these marriages don’t even matter, right? Like, they’re not a marriage in a meaningful sense. They’re not. And I think this is where you can get. Conservatives who grow up in this culture and understand that it’s bad. And then it’s like, okay, so I’m gonna put a lot of value on marriage.

And then they act in a way because they could only [00:31:00] simulate from like a simul locker room of older conservative cultures. They end up mis simulating what you need to make a marriage actually work. And, you, you know, I think the, the crowder marriage that we talked about in a recent episode was a very good example of that.

Right. Where I think some guys began to pick up that acting angry and aggressive was what was masculine. Mm-hmm. And so they did stuff that, no, you know. Man historically that, that anybody would respect would do like, you know, yelling at employees or something like that. Like, that’s not a normal thing to do.

Yelling at your wife is not a normal thing to do. But it, it, it, you know, in, in their minds it, it becomes normal because it’s seen as a, a masculine thing to do. And, and so they’re trying to recapture something that they understand that was lost, which was masculinity. When misunderstanding that the, the ideal masculine historically was the, the gentleman, right?

And, and a gentleman is just a, a, a, a gentle [00:32:00] man, right? Not a, not a you know, you know, the foaming at the mouth, whatever. So, so what’d you find here, Simone?

Simone Collins: Nothing on Reddit. Nothing really. On X It’s interesting. Aside from some people, oh my God, sorry. Aside from some people arguing that it’s not representative and other people saying it’s, it’s just rage bait, but I actually think it’s pretty.

It’s indicative,

Malcolm Collins: it, it aligns is what I’ve seen in, in communities I have some visibility into.

Simone Collins: Agreed.

Malcolm Collins: And I don’t know if the New York Times really produces rage bait. That doesn’t seem to be, I mean, I,

Simone Collins: I don’t know. I feel like they’ve learned something from that article in viral about the woman who just really wanted,

Malcolm Collins: the, we, we did an episode on it, how feminism ruined her life, and that’s like our most popular podcast. Not, not, not YouTube episode, but somehow that podcast episode has gone viral.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don’t know how that happened,

Malcolm Collins: On Substack or whatever. ‘cause we, we regularly get like, likes on it every day if [00:33:00] you and I, that that doesn’t happen for most other old episodes.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So, yeah,

Simone Collins: whatever, you know.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, I love you. I love you too. When are we gonna get divorced?

Simone Collins: Never. Sorry.

Malcolm Collins: You know why we don’t get divorced? Because we don’t go into the same room. You see, that’s why we film

Simone Collins: his room ‘cause he bolts his door at night. Ladies and gentlemen, the, the number of times I.

Get a little frisky at night

Malcolm Collins: and

Simone Collins: you come and he’s already asleep and I’m like, like straining at his door.

Malcolm Collins: You were like, I don’t know if I wanna tell this story.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: But

Simone Collins: God,

Malcolm Collins: I’m, I’m a unfortunately, very deep sleeper, so I don’t,

Simone Collins: you’re a very deep sleeper and you watch a lot of like real crime shows or like, you’ll go through stints of it and then you’re like.

I, I, I will always know that you’ve been listening to a lot of Mr. Ballin or something like that because your door will be bolted very consistently at night, and your giant hammer will be [00:34:00] next to it, and all the guns will be next to you, just like, I’m ready. I am ready. The rest of the house will be slaughtered, but you’ll be okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I’ll need it for my second family. Not a de divorcee.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But a widower.

Simone Collins: Oh, see? Yeah. It’s very hot. Men, widow men. Something about them.

Malcolm Collins: Widower men. Yes. Well, you know, he’s been married before. So that’s why he’s still on the market, right? Mm-hmm. Because he was married to someone and it was working and then they died.

So that’s the, yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Highest quality. Like if you are 30 plus getting, getting married, you’re looking for a widow, or we’re gonna wear, that’s highest quality find.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You know, dating platforms should allow for filters for that to make them easier to find.

Malcolm Collins: Only widow our, yeah, that’s, that would be what I’d go for.

Simone Collins: But then men would just start, I don’t know, murdering their. Deadbeat wives to just, you know, get a really good next one. I don’t know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It’s because everyone’s like, well, you know, it’s a, if it’s a widow or you’re in for,

Simone Collins: what’s [00:35:00] funny though is that when it comes to serial killers of spouses, that’s, that’s really the domain of women historically speaking.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Some really famous ones, prolific ones, and those are the ones that get caught. And, you know, women really

Malcolm Collins: often didn’t get caught historically.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You

Malcolm Collins: know

Simone Collins: well, and there’s, I mean, when, when you live privately with someone. And they don’t suspect that you’re out for them. It’s actually pretty easy.

I think there, there are quite a few ways that you could

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Without, without being caught.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So anyway,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, we know that the ones who were caught, they would do like seven or eight people before they were caught. So there must

Simone Collins: a lot of people doing it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: it was just so suspicious. Like how did all past eight of your husbands die?

And he is also sometimes remarkably similar scenarios.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Love you to death, Simone.

Simone Collins: Love you too. Gorgeous . Ian, that if he was a good big brother, he would get the video game balloon [00:36:00] because you know, the moment he saw those, he was like, why are there balloons here? Why do I not, why

Malcolm Collins: don’t I have one?

Simone Collins: Yeah. There was a, you know, the universe was not okay, so,

Malcolm Collins: oh, you wanna hear about the universe being out of swords?

Did you see what I sent you that my classmate who just started her podcast? Is already in the top 50 podcasts on Spotify. She

Simone Collins: interviews famous people. Like that’s,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. She used to work for a very famous podcast, so I, that’s how she has all these connections. I can’t remember the one that she worked with.

She, she has the podcast, if you wanna check it out. Smart girl. Dumb questions. Was Nahim Raza,

Simone Collins: does she ask dumb questions?

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know. I would, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve tried to watch a few of them. To me, it reminds me uncannily of the podcast voices from Google Notes.

Simone Collins: That is, yeah. I, I mean, and, and she’s doing that.

She, I, I presume she’s trying to adopt that professional podcast voice and [00:37:00] it’s like this very distinct accent just in that same way that there’s that in, in Parks and Rec whenever, what’s her face went on there. Equivalent of NPR. She adopted the NPR voice, which is also such a thing.

Malcolm Collins: But I mean, good for her.

I mean, she doesn’t have the most popular podcast in our class. There was another guy, another two groups have have more

Simone Collins: popular That’s not, no, he doesn’t have a podcast call. It is a YouTube channel. That’s, that’s

Malcolm Collins: we, no. Oh, I wasn’t even thinking about college. No. You, there’s a podcast that interviews famous business people.

Oh,

Simone Collins: them? Yes. And

Malcolm Collins: she, I remember, like he, he put one thing that was an entire stadium he had filled it was his interview with Mark Zuckerberg.

Simone Collins: Yeah, mark Zucker. I mean, come on. You can’t,

Malcolm Collins: You can’t. And then another one of my classmates has a podcast where he discusses finance that is apparently very popular.

So lots of this is, this is my Stanford GSB class. So you,

Simone Collins: that’s, it’s really telling though, that like they are GSP grads. They could be going into venture capital, they could be. [00:38:00] Hired by any company. You know, like they have the sort of the IT degree. It’s harder to get into Stanford than Harvard. They wanna be content creators.

Malcolm Collins: Who doesn’t wanna be a content creator? I wanna be a content creator. I mean, that’s what I’m doing here. Right. You know, take, take.

Simone Collins: Our kids want to be content creators. Yeah. Our kids

Malcolm Collins: wanna be content creators or everybody wants to be a content creator these days.

Simone Collins: I’ve freed it. He’s gonna get, if he’s a good big brother, he’s gonna get his video game controller.

He, when he was going through the Amazon catalog of gifts for kids, he kept calling every single game game console a Nintendo Switch. And I’m like, buddy,

Malcolm Collins: oh, so he doesn’t know what a Nintendo

Simone Collins: Switch is. That’s not a Nintendo switch. That is, you know, like an Xbox. That is a PlayStation. That is we, we need to educate our son.

This is embarrassing. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But and all day I’ve been working on improving our fab. So we’re gonna have some major improvement soon, which I’m very excited about. But what I’m really, [00:39:00] really excited about is this autonomous model feature. I’m about to start working on building.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because this is quite an undertaking, but I have a feeling I can get it done soon enough.

It, it seems. Like all the individual parts of it seem practical to create AI that are persistently sort of alive. So you can have like an AI companion that when you’re not there interacting with it, it’s on Reddit, it’s applying for jobs, it’s doing whatever, and it has a distinct personality and it can interact with your web, your, your, your, your computer.

It can code things for you, it can blah, blah, blah, like a real. Wife or husband you know, just to make sure that I curb stomp the fertility rate personally.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No longer is she just an AI yfu? She’s, she’s an AI yfu breadwinner, and you can be. Stay at home

Malcolm Collins: if, if you do any good enough job structuring her.

Yeah. And we’re gonna give

Simone Collins: Stay home dad to my stay at home AI children with my [00:40:00] wife,

Malcolm Collins: stay at home. AI children

Simone Collins: who goes out and works. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Hmm. But I’m so excited ‘cause I like, I’ve saw through it and I practically have, I’ve been working on all the, the parts and how they’re gonna work.

Simone Collins: No mic jostling.

Oh, this mic. It’s really bothering people. So either you have to put it down on the desk in front of you somewhere.

Malcolm Collins: I will, I will hold it right here. Okay. Or I need a, a mic mount actually.

Simone Collins: Yeah, you do. And you have multiple, so

Malcolm Collins: no, none of them. Get the mic close enough to me. I need like a standing mic mount.

Simone Collins: That’s the time.

Malcolm Collins: I’ll get one of those.

Simone Collins: You’re gonna have to do it my friend. Sorry.

I am just opening a tab to do it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I don’t forget. So you guys will not get any more jostling and, and you let me know if I’ve ever jostled in a piece so I can rerecord it. Okay. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it happened, it happened a lot on the last one. So we got our work set out for us, but. Oh, [00:41:00] well anyway, I’m ready to go.

I just, I just needed to get this for Octavian ‘cause I promised him and I promised Torsten.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you do not have the

Simone Collins: a blue one

Malcolm Collins: article open. I was gonna have you read it because you were

Simone Collins: so angry. Oh, you said you wanted to select very specific parts of it, but I’m

Malcolm Collins: happy. No, no, because when you started reading it I was like, this whole thing is gold.

When you said it was short. Short. Anyway. It

Simone Collins: is. Okay, so let me,

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, this autonomous AI thing, I think I might be able to have the first version of it working maybe within the month, within like a month. So, that’s, that’s, that’s really exciting.

Simone Collins: All right, so then I will introduce us ‘cause I’m reading presumably.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Speaker 7: I get Yes. Oh, is it so great? Dirty Peanut?

Speaker 9: They’re they’re, they’re pumpkin seeds.

Speaker 5: What is it? What is it? Show me. Oh my gosh. You know what this does? Yes. You can make a bracelet with this. Yeah. Are you excited?

Speaker 6: [00:42:00] Okay.

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