We’re In A Relationship Recession. Is Single The New Power Move?

I'm saying, you can say that you're a hero.

“You're a master of the club, right? But you don't understand.”

Exactly, it's just a challenge. You're just a master of the club. You're just a master of the club. And if you work, you're a coach. - That's right? - Safe. You're a master. - You're just a master of the club. - Now you're a master of the club. - What? - A book? A book? What is it?

- A hotel? - A hotel? It's a bit of a shame. We're the first women in our bloodline to be single at this age. And living alone. Is the most rebellious archetype that we have today, the successful single woman,

over the last 10 years, the number of single people around the globe have increased by over 100 million.

That is a staggering number. I don't even know what to do with that. So the pandemic is responsible for the decline and quality of men. Is that what we're saying? I'm going to be taking you through how a recession works and how society's work, so that you actually don't have to be depressed about the fact that we're in a relationship recession.

You really are the biggest nerd. I'm Shuri. I'm Jean. And where are the tiger sisters? We are your Wall Street and Silicon Valley big sisters. And we're a top business podcast on Spotify.

Bringing you late night sister talk meets boardroom strategy.

This is the first time in history that there are more single people than ever.

Yeah, we are in a relationship recession. There are so many single people. I'm one of them. In today's episode, we're going to investigate this relationship recession.

“Like we are more financially free than ever before as women. But are we happy?”

Mm-hmm. And we're going to give you tools so that you can decenta romantic relationships in your life and actually live your life fully and freely without being an appendage to a man. Let's get into it. According to the economist, among Americans ages 25 to 34, the proportion living without a spouse or a partner has doubled in the last five decades,

250% for men and 41% for women. That's insane. That's insane. As women, we have more financial freedom than ever before. But the question is, are we happy?

Because in history, there's always been this archetype of how a woman should be.

There's been like the housewife, the original OG housewife, the counterculture, hippie, also recently the girl boss, which we know all too well. And most recently, we've like circled back to Tradwife. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to push back a little bit on that because I think, yes, they're all these sort of different sort of brief archetypes.

But I think there's one underlying archetype that has always existed in history and it's kind of like always expected of women. And that's to be the mother, the stay-at-home mom, this sort of nurturing presence in everyone's life. I mean, like the emotion that I'm having right now is like one of anger.

Like I just feel like pissed off because when you think about the archetypes that a woman has, it's like what you just named, but then when you think about traditional archetypes for men, they are, you know, the provider, they make money. But like making money in this day and age, like men and women can make money. But then the responsibilities that you named, like a lot of like child care,

child rearing, literally birthing a child, like that's still biologically. Like the onus is on the woman. But now she also needs to balance that with all the other responsibilities of making money and providing

“as well. Exactly. So that's why the phrase like having it all is always”

applied to women instead of them because women have multiple requirements to have it all. Versus to be the archetypical, super successful men, all you have to do, not all you have to do. But yeah, all you have to do is be really successful. Yeah. Versus for all, many have to be really successful and all these other things. And a fabulous mother. Yeah. Yeah. So like look, I'm pissed because like that kind of comparison

feels unfair. But these days, I'm like kind of relieved and so grateful because more than ever, women have financial freedom and financial freedom affords way more opportunities. So women can make their own choices. They don't have to feel stuck in a situation that they're like forced into or have to stay in. So like while I am kind of pissed, I'm also like super grateful. Yeah. I mean for the very first time in history, we actually have the legal rights and

abilities to not adhere to that longstanding archetype. Today's episode is presented by Sophie, the all-in-one finance app that helps you bank, borrow, and invest your money in one place. Okay, guys. So it is the season of love. Okay. Valentine's Day. If you guys haven't seen, I'm shocked because if you walk into any drug store or pharmacy, there are Valentine's Day gifts and chocolates and everything everywhere.

Amy Polar's character in Parks and Rec as a day to celebrate your female relationships.

“What's Valentine's Day? Oh, it's only the best day of the year.”

Amy Polar only our best friend and idol. Only our best day. Our fellow, she's our colleague. Our colleague, our fellow, had cast her. But that's when she was in Parks and Rec. Yeah. Leslie Nope, shout out. I love that we're talking about Valentine's Day and Valentine's Day because it takes fourth wave feminism to another level. And I have so much to say about that. We're gonna totally dive into that. And also it's like this idea that like Valentine's Day

is not only just for you and your partner. Now we have Valentine's Day where you're able to celebrate with your girlfriends and really have a bit of both. Okay. I have some facts about

the first and second waves of feminism. So first wave feminism, 1920 to 1940s,

we literally got the right to personhood. Crazy. Okay. Is that, can you believe? It's not even that long ago. Let's be serious. It's not that long ago. It's been a hundred years ago. So we had the right to vote. We had access to education and property rights. Yes. So thanks, I guess. I mean, I did do a project on the suffragettes when I was in middle school. Oh, wait, is that when you won the history fair? No, that was a different time, guys. But I did win my eighth grade history

fair in social studies, different project on child labor. But anyways, we'd like that. Anyways, okay, second wave feminism was from the 60s to the 80s and it focused on workplace discrimination, reproductive rights, and then basically the division of power and labor again in the workplace.

“Yeah, I think something crazy that comes to mind that I always remember. So I went to an”

all women's college, went to Barnard. And so this was very much for that. This was very much part of my DNA in college. But Barnard College is part of Columbia University and the reason why Barnard even exists is because women were not allowed to attend universities with men. It was not co-ed. It was only for men. So you had to make all women colleges. And it was in the 70s that Columbia University only started admitting women. It's wild. The 70s? It's wild. I know. I mean,

it's in many, many people's lifetimes. But yeah, it's in most people's lifetimes. And most people's lifetimes are alive today. Yeah, shit. So we've come, we've come a long way to where we are today.

Yeah. And so in second wave feminism, we actually have some really important figures to

think, such as Betty Ferdin, who wrote the feminine mistake. And her entire idea was the fact that it was really pushing back against this sort of cultural norm that women were most satisfied by being in the home and raising families. That's a crazy assumption. Now looking back on it. But I guess moving forward to the third wave of feminism. And this is in the 1990s to 2010s, where women now have basic legal rights and personhood in humanhood. But we're pushing against

this idea that there's one single archetype of what a woman is. And so bringing in things like intersectionality and also discussions around race, class and sexuality, gender identity. Like those all combined together makes up an entire woman. And then to wrap up our mini history lesson, that all brings us back to the original premise of this episode, the question of how now that we're in the fourth wave of feminism. And we can sort of choose our own archetypes or push back

“against the prevailing archetype. Is that something that is actually positive for us as women?”

Or does it just give us even more pressure? Because we're expected to be more than just, you know, what society has set us up to be. It's a complex issue. It's super nuanced. And we're so excited that you guys have tuned in, Tiger Fav, to talk about it. We do have a case study for you guys. Of an example we're going to dig into. But before we do that, we do want to kind of ask,

is this interesting to you guys? Like, do you like, you know, we're always doing experimentation

on Tiger Sisters? So this is another experiment where we're doing kind of more off-ed style episode where we are really challenging ourselves to bring more of our full selves to Tiger Sisters and kind of be just more candid and honest with our true opinions on a lot of different new topics. Yeah. So let us know in the comments what you guys think. Are you digging this topic? Are you digging this format? And we'd love to hear from you. Okay. So this next section is we're

going to talk about a case study. And that's of Whitney Wolf heard the co-founder and CEO of Bumble. And actually, I've seen her speak in person at Stanford GSB. She came into two things like one, I had a class where she was literally like 20 feet away from me. And she talked about the founding of Bumble and all the things that went into that. It was a very tumultuous journey in the beginning as all startups are. And then also she came for like a larger Stanford like auditorium discussion.

So it was cool seeing her in both forums. But Whitney Wolf heard some could argue,

because she not only brought her company public and is obviously extremely famous for that, but the way that she did it and the sort of visual of it is that when she rang the bell, like the Nasdaq Bell, right? She had her 18-month-old son on her hip. Yeah. So she was the world's youngest female billionaire and also the youngest woman to take a company public, which in and of

itself is obviously insane. Like an incredible accomplishment that is just first of its kind.

But I also think that the media really sort of like leaned into this idea of her and gave her so much attention because she still fulfilled the archetype of being an intelligent, beautiful woman who was also a mother. Yeah. And like she really showcased that in the public. She never hid that. She leaned into that identity very fully. Yeah. And I remember just being early in my career, like as a new grad, like seeing this happen. Yeah. And being like not only

just me, but other women at my tech company, where I was working at LinkedIn, we're all just like, "Oh my God, this is what it could be." Like you could be this beautiful. You could be this brilliant. You could be this entrepreneurial. And you have kids too and can do it all at the same time.

“Yeah. I think in the back of my head, we were like, that's incredible, but also like you good.”

Like that's a lot of responsibility in every single facet of your life. Yeah. She kind of set like the new bar for a lot of women. Oh, right. To be all of those things at the same time.

To be like the top 1% of like everything. Yeah. I mean, but what we'll never know

is her sort of like inner sentiment. Like, did she girl boss too close to the sun? Like back to your question, like you good? Like was she happy? Was she fulfilled? I wish we could ask her. Like are you happy with the way that everything kind of like should be? Yeah. Whitney, Whitney. Are you happy with how everything should look out? We'd love to know because you are from the outside. It's kind of like social media. You know, like you people look like they have amazing lives.

And you're like, wow, you know, it took this company public. It's absolutely incredible. And you see like the social media highlights. But I'm like, the behind the scenes like how was it really? And like, is it attainable? For like, should we all be aspiring to do this in the way that you are

doing it? Yeah. Because you are so happy and perfect looking. She set a new standard for women

around the world. Possibly unachievable. Possibly unattainable. Hmm. So, you know, it's complex. So what I think is really interesting. Like the idea of girl bossing too close to the sun. Like in the like 20, like 20, 10s to like 20, 20s. Like we were all working so freaking hard in our corporate jobs. You know, we're well educated. We're making money for ourselves. And we're just like pushing ourselves at at work. We're like going to work with a huge bag with like a change of

shoes in the bag. And then like, remember we had to wear like day to night outfits for like for work. But then you have to go out and remember those all those articles I was. Or like how to make those or rizzi a pants from daytime to nighttime. Molina. I mean, Molina. But also like those like a work pants. You know what I mean? Those trousers that people are wearing to work. But anyways, it's just like we were working so hard at our like day jobs nine to five that like a lot of people,

a lot of women burned out. And so like the question is is like it's kind of the pendulum is swing swung the other way. We were like we worked so hard. We were very successful doing that. And now it's just like I'm tired. I'm like so tired. Like I think a lot of women are exhausted.

“Yeah. I mean, and I think that's why we now have the sort of resurgence of this new archetype,”

which is the treadwife. Yeah. Like the coming of ballerina farm of Narasma. Narasma. Yeah. Like the idea that as a woman, like you can really control your your like homestead and like focus all your energy on that. That's like really coming to light again. Yeah. Or it's like being, I mean, going into more like of the traditional roles that like Betty Friedan was fighting against, right? But it's just like how to be in your feminine, how to

be in your softness as a woman because we were working so hard in our quote unquote masculine traditional role that like, you know, people are women are exhausted and they want to like make sour dough at home now. Yeah. Is this, is this six wave feminism? What's what's happening? Well, so I think what's interesting is that maybe it is the six wave of feminism or like the next wave where are we fifth wave? Anyways, the next wave of feminism that like we have the ability to choose.

“And I think that is like a really important like double underline is that like whether you choose”

to be a girl boss and you know work really hard because that's what you find fulfilling in your life. Or you choose to be a treadwife quote unquote because you find that fulfilling. You have the ability

Yeah. I think this is not a fully formed thought, but I think what's also interesting is that

“we're in this age now where everything you do is sort of projected to the world, right?”

Like very many very few people can live fully offline lives. So it's almost like whatever you opt into, you're you're projecting to the world. Yeah. It's not just like an internal state. It's very much an express state. Yeah. Because it becomes part of your identity. Yeah. And your identity is shown in what you wear, what you do, and all that stuff is then put on to social media in some way, shape, or form. And it's also who you surround yourself with too. Because

it can be really hard if you are the girl boss of your group. And that's your choice. But like the rest of your friend group does not subscribe to that. And so that there's like a tension of like, oh, you're working so hard. What is it for? Or if like all your friends are treadwives, then your girl boss friend is like kind of judging you. So I think it can go both ways. And so,

“I don't know. It's really complex. But I think it's amazing now at this point that women”

have the ability to choose and should always have the ability to choose. Like get your own

bag and make your own decisions. And that sort of independence is liberating. We talk a lot about money and tech on Tiger Sisters. And obviously crypto is a huge part of both of those worlds. And my secret claim to fame is that I've actually held Bitcoin since like 2012 or 2013. Okay, Flex. Is that why you're excited about today's sponsor? Yes. So if I crypto, the first and only national chartered bank where retail customers can buy sell and hold

over 25 cryptocurrencies. And all in a federally regulated platform with the safeguards of a bank. I like it because your crypto doesn't need to live on a separate app. It can be situated with all your other finances in the SOFI app. Same dashboards, same login, same clean experience. Just go to SOFI.com/tigercrypto. That's SOFI.com/tigercrypto. And now back to the show. I totally agree that having the freedom of choice is overall positive

for women. But I think a really interesting, almost like societal side effect of all of that is that because so many women are putting their energy into developing their careers or like whatever archetype they choose, there's actually a lot more single people than ever before. Because this sort of focus on relationships is not as heavy as it was in previous generations. So that brings us back to this idea of the relationship recession that we're currently in.

And like sort of this question I have in my head where I'm like, is the most rebellious archetype that we have today, the successful single woman? And last week, we even talked about the male loneliness epidemic, which is an offshoot of this topic. And so the numbers don't lie, let's go through some of them. So Michael Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Stanford, actually found the reduction in dating was due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And it produced

13.7 million more singles in the US in 2022 than if the single hood rate had stayed at the level

of 2017. So just one more thing to blame on the pandemic. Yeah, basically, the pandemic was not good for anything. So the pandemic is responsible for the decline and quality of men.

“Is that what we're saying? That's what Michael Rosenfeld is saying. All right, Michael, take”

you at your word. I have another step. So this is sort of a study in the economist from last November that reported on singles across 14 countries. Okay. And so when pulled, only 40% said that they're not interested in being in a relationship. And 27%, said that the reasons include being too busy, too old or because no one wants to date them. So the takeaway there is that the majority of majority of people still want to be in relationships. Yeah, I like that your stat is global

because this is a global issue. Yeah, a generational issue. A global audience. Well, so it really affects everyone. So the last stat I want to add is that over the last 10 years, the number of

single people around the globe have increased by over 100 million. That is a staggering number.

I don't even know what to do with that. 100 million. Yeah, so my man is out there. Oh, yeah, your man and your single man is out there. My man's is out there. Yeah, man's is out there. My man's is out there. This is one in 100 million. Yeah. What's the, what's the deal? That's a lot of dates. We could go on potentially. A lot of first dates you can go on. Oh, my god, imagine. It's like chip away at it one by one. Yes, you got this. It's like what do they say? They're like

a marathon starts with the first step. There you go. So I really don't know what to make of that 100 million stat because it's kind of confusing because in pop culture recently in October, there was an article that came out by Vogue that declared it was embarrassing to have a boyfriend.

that's like, it's embarrassing to be partnered these days, especially if you're partnered with someone who is also embarrassing. So like, there's a lot of single people, but it's also embarrassing to have, you know, a boyfriend. So what do we do? Yeah, I mean that article, it popped off so hard. It was like

“everywhere for three months. Yeah. Is it embarrassing to have a boyfriend now? And I think a big”

part of that, though, is kind of societal because over the last 10 years, the number of women who have higher education degrees has increased to over 50%. And the number of men who have higher education degrees is sort of like, middleing our stuck at 39%. So I think, you know, typically, women want to marry people who are sort of like at the same level of education as them. And there's just not that equilibrium in all of society today. Yeah, I think that's stat on education

is really staggering. And just like quite honestly, I just know personally, I want to marry someone at my level or better than me in education, in hobbies, in everything. And like, I love learning from my partner. And so I just want them to be better than me and every single regard, the same more better than me. Yeah. I mean, you want to be with someone that you respect that I respect and I can learn from. And so I don't know what to do with that. I think it's really hard. Also,

the pandemic was challenging because you know, in those like two or three years, especially

“during and after, it's just like, people weren't socializing. And like, what do we do?”

Dating apps are hard. I think people are perhaps like, very, very picky on dating apps. shallow. I will speak from my own experience, you know, height filters. That's not cool.

But so like, I think all these things, shallow, shallow, shallow. That's all. Never mind. The Lady Gaga

sounds like a lucky Lady Gaga. Um, editor, please, the Lady Gaga song. Just getting a place instead. Um, so I think, like, just so many factors put together. Like, it makes it really hard when we want to date up. And I think oftentimes a lot of the men or the the pool that we're looking at, it doesn't really meet the mark. I want to do something really nerdy here and actually take the word's relationship recession and actually dig into, okay, I was an econ major, guys.

So like, I want to dig into like, okay, what is the actual definition of a recession and how does that apply to the concept of a relationship recession? This is absolutely so nerdy and I'm excited for you to do a supply and demand chart and show us the curves of the chart. I don't know. Well, let's get into it. Okay, guys, I'm going to be taking you through how a recession works and how societies work so that you actually don't have to be depressed about the fact that we're

in a relationship recession. So what is a recession? So by definition, it means that demand collapses,

“confidence drops, and people stop investing in their futures. So then what's the goal here?”

It's to get people to spend again, take risks, and start investing again. Okay, that all sounds good, but then how do you apply this to relationships? Well, since today, there are fewer people pursuing relationships, we actually have a bit of a confidence crisis on our hands.

In addition to confidence crisis, there's two other terms. The first one is rising costs,

which in this case, when you're having a relationship recession, means emotional labor, there'll be speak dating burnout, and the second one is capital hoarding. So in this case, that means people are guarding their hearts, they're guarding their bodies, they're kind of guarding their time more. Yeah, capital hoarding. Like, it feels like a very like technical term, but basically the way that I think about it, it's like yes, people being guarded, but like

those Friday or Saturday nights, where you would be going out on a date, you're capital hoarding, if you're like, oh yeah, it would feel so much better to light a candle, put on my PJs and watch a movie, because you're being very protective of your time, and being like, oh, I don't want to waste it, going on in, you know, a nothing date, but then I just want to watch a movie by myself, which is so comfy, and so hard to break out of. Yeah, or for you, go to the sauna or something. Oh yeah,

I can go to the sauna and get him a sad. So nice. Go to the spa. Yeah, I'd be hoarding that capital. Okay, so then just to put a little bow on it, in a financial recession, borrowing money is too risky, but in a relationship recession, emotional vulnerability is too risky. Yeah, and that's where the situation ship comes in, because at that point you're noticing, you're micro dosing,

vulnerability, you're not truly opening up. And so if there's never been like a good

outcome from situationships, like, what do we do to fix this story? Okay, so once again, we look to economics, and we think about what are ways that governments and societies in the past have addressed recessions. So there are three monetary easing, fiscal policy, and structural reform. You really are the biggest nerd. So let's get into the first one. So monetary easing is where

So in relationships, this would be something like normalizing low stakes honesty, like really

being able to communicate what you feel and what you want with like lower stakes in your own mind. Yeah, like you don't have to wait for like the perfect moment to say the perfect thing and like build it up in your head. No, it can be something like, hey, like, I really like you, but I'm really scared or like, hey, like, where do you think this is going? Like, I would love to have like, you know, a chat about it. It doesn't have to be this like giant thing where you're like trying

to say, like, I love you and like build it up in your head at the very end. Or even like smaller ways

“that you could do it before you've been getting to that level of the conversation. And I think that”

when you do that, it invites the other person to respond in kind. Yeah. Also, it's just like,

it's just like lower doses of like being honest and communicating so that you don't have to

build it up to be a giant thing, which is very scary. Yes, quantitative easing, just kidding. That doesn't work. And all of this is better than ghosting because ghosting just adds to the problem. So then fiscal policy is when the government uses its own money to stimulate demand. Yeah, I think a good example applying this to the relationship recession is like, can you build community like using your own power to organize and it doesn't have to be like this giant thing

where it's like, oh my god, there's so much pressure on like coupling up. No, like, organize like a group dinner and then invite a friend and have that friend bring someone else. I think creating those environments where you can meet more people really helps stimulate this recession. So then the last one, structural reform is all about instituting change to the longstanding rules, structures and institutions of an economy. Yeah, I love this because

it brings us full circle back to like the Valentine's Day Valentine's Day conversation we had at the beginning where it's like historically, it's been Valentine's Day right like the coupling, but like let's bring in Valentine's Day, like let's change our mindset, let's decent our men and put the emphasis on ourselves, on our really fruitful relationships with our girlfriends and build ourselves up and our communities up. Yeah, the idea of loving relationships

can come in many different forms. They don't have to be romantic and they don't have to be partnered and they all deserve to be celebrated equally. Okay, so you just nerd it out on your Econ lesson and I'm going to turn us to a framework that you can use right after you watch this episode and it's based on something in tech that we called pattern in her option. And so you know, all these tech companies are creating these behavioral patterns that you kind of get sucked into,

“right? You're like scrolling for hours at a time sometimes, like how do we break that pattern?”

And so now applying this pattern in her option framework, I have some ideas of how you can break out of this relationship recession. So TLDR humans run on patterns. We love routines in our life, but interrupting it sometimes wakes our body up and it can like jolt us with something new and surprising. Okay, okay, and so you know bringing us back to dating apps, I did say before like, you know, we are shallow, I think as humans, especially dating apps are built for shallowness,

like you see a photo of a person and you're like, okay, hot or not, and you can swipe based off of that. So my pattern interruption technique is to swipe on people who may be different than you're like typical type. And one of those like things you can do, like there's a height filter, you know, if you're filtering for like six feet in above, I'm sorry, but you're taking out like really potentially like awesome people in the candidate pool based off of something incredibly

“superficial. So I think that's something to consider. 5/11, where's two guys? So it is 5/10,”

you know, you guys only know where your preference is live, but I mean, I think about Charlotte

in Sex and the City, you know, she and Harry are very different, and she would have never

considered marrying him before, but it was the happiest love of her life after Tray McDougle. She's going deep in the lore. Anyways, if you guys watch Sex and the City, you understand, if not, please do watch. And then another very tactical thing you can do, which sounds scary, but I think it's great, is asking your friends to set you up, and even better, if it's a blind date, what I mean is do not do a background search on the person that you're about to go on the date

with. I'm guilty of doing it, like going as far and as deep as looking at their LinkedIn. Which is not great. It kind of takes the romance. It takes the chemistry out of it all. So like, if you can ask your friend to set you up, because your friend knows you, your friend knows the other person. There's more social accountability. Perhaps they know a little bit more about if your chemistry would be good. I think setups are wonderful. And then also do not

research the person you're about to go on a date with. I sort of did this. Yeah, that's true, recently, right? Yeah. Well, so a friend of mine, like, connected me and this guy who's a really good friend of hers, and he message me, and I saw that he followed me on Instagram, but I did not

want to have too much information about him. Right. Because I don't really want to have a preconceived

notion. Right. Because when they're like, oh, yeah, my first job out of school was working at this

place. You're like, I'm so surprised. I did hit no that. Okay, to be fair, I did look at his LinkedIn.

“What? No, but just to like, you need to have some sort of like, I don't want to be like,”

he's a real person. Yeah, I want to be like, okay, this is like a real person. Like, he actually, you know, she's like, oh, he like did all these things that I'm like, did he really? So, but I guess I, I'm on your side, just like, don't go as far to know where his like Aunt lives. Yeah. Yeah. And also like, it's different because LinkedIn is supposed to be more objective. It's supposed to be all like facts versus Instagram is everything that you submit and it's how you

perceive yourself, right? It's like how you want to bring show yourself to the world. So I'm like, okay, let me stick to the facts. People only have a little bit of things on LinkedIn too. Girl, don't kid yourself. No, I didn't click into any articles or anything. Okay, good. Get out of here. Yeah, and I don't know how tall he is. Or anything else like that. Well, no, we'll see if he's even happens. I'm proud of you. We'll see if it even, TPD,

a date on the next episode. Stay tuned. See you guys. I'm like doing the things that are in the frameworks. I'm happy. And guys, we would love to hear from you. You heard an example of a very personal one from June. So please let us know in the comments below. If you guys are trying these things,

“have tried them already. We'll try them in the future. I think they're just like simple,”

like easy frameworks that you can bring into your life and make it very tactical after this episode. Maybe if you're also watching this and you are partnered or you have like something in mind for your friend, like set your friend up. I think people really, really respond to that. Yeah, and also should I follow him back on Instagram and when? Because I'm new to this whole world, right? Like, I was actually surprised that he even had followed me before we didn't know.

That was a very dangerous thing. Like, do you think he like that fingered it? Or he was just like, maybe he's making a statement. Maybe he's like, follow. Well, he was because it's my profile's

public for the first time. Right. So like, he didn't even need to follow me to see my profile.

Wait, so then now I don't know. Guys, I don't know. Like, is it offensive to him that I haven't followed him back? Like, we, is it some mind game? Isn't it like indicate interest?

“I think so. He's hitting on us and asked me out. But he's hitting on you.”

Via the follow. Guys, this was a pretty dense episode, including the craziest metaphor I've ever made in my life. But, you know, the takeaways are pretty inspiring. I would say. Yeah, this was such a fun episode because it was really complex, but we really broke it down. My biggest takeaway is that multiple things can be true at the same time. I think going back to that vogue article

is it embarrassing or cringe to have a boyfriend? Like, the article is interesting because like, you can want to be in a partner relationship and still want to be incredibly empowered. And these days, we have more freedoms as women than ever before. And when we decenter men, we have the ability to focus on ourselves, focus on our own pursuits and really choose what we

want to do. We can choose to be single and powerful or we can choose to be partnered or we can

choose to be in an unconventional type of relationship as well. Like, everything is autonomy and freedom of choice. But that can only come when we as women have the ability to build ourselves up financially, get our own bag, so that all the decisions that we make are made with a clear head and know other factors or, you know, forces are forcing us into a single type of archetype. I feel so happy, truly, that like, we as women just have freedom of choice. That is really powerful.

Yeah, I mean, it is true. Like, if you look at, you know, through the fullness of history, even having freedom of choice when it comes to sex, when it comes to relationships, when it comes to autonomy as a woman, is something that is very recent in history. Yes, and that's crazy. I mean, also something insane. Like, let me just put it this way. We are the first women in our bloodline to be single at this age and living alone, the first women ever. And we are at a time in history

where, for the most part, we can do that and still feel empowered. Of course, there's like, still different parts of the world and Western society. Yeah, in the US, I like, looks down upon that. But at least, like, bringing us back to, when he will have heard in the beginning, like, we can see women who are high-powered doing something that's very different than typical archetypes. Mm-hmm. So my final thought throughout this whole episode is that, you know, this whole

episode, we're talking about the idea of a relationship recession. But I think to be more specific, it's a romantic relationship recession. And the sort of countervailing force is that there is a resurgence of platonic relationships. And I think that's very necessary in society so that we still

whole idea behind Galantine's Day, right? Like building up these relationships that are outside of the heteronormative relationship norms so that you can have a full and beautiful and fun and fulfilling rewarding life outside of just a partnered relationship. Yeah, I love that because another way that we can really center ourselves and also our girlfriends and the

amazing relationships we have in our life that are platonic is doing it with a celebration cake.

So I saw this on a TikTok recently and we haven't done it yet, but I really want to too. It's where, like, you buy, like, a little tiny cake and then you put in little pins and, like, with, like, post-its on it, like, little flags that are celebrating the wins in your life. Because I feel like we don't do that enough. We don't celebrate our wins and we don't

“celebrate our girlfriends. But I think Galantine's Day is a great opportunity to do that.”

Right, exactly. Because I think society pushes you to celebrate wins that are all about

the traditional archetypes, right? So, like, getting engaged, getting married, having a baby, these are all built-in celebrations. What about all the other things that we achieve throughout the course of our lives that are not these specific items? So, like, passing the bar exam, getting promoted, buying a house. One of my really good friends just bought a house in the palaces and we all went and celebrated it together because that's incredible. That's worth

celebrating. And that's not something that's like a partnered thing. Yeah, actually bought it on her own.

“She bought it on her own. Okay, so I think the main takeaways from this episode is to”

focus on yourself, decent or men, and build communities that celebrate your wins. And as always,

sure, get that bag. Please let us know what you think about this episode in the comments, whether you agree with us, disagree with us, you have a differing opinion. Please let us know in the comments, Gene and I read every single one, and we'll pick out some two respond to. And don't forget to subscribe because that is totally free and is one of the most important ways that you can support us and keep Tiger Sisters alive. Thanks, guys. We'll see you next time. Bye!

Please double check that you're subscribed to Tiger Sisters on YouTube and following Tiger Sisters podcast on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Subscribing and following are completely free

“and are genuinely so important for the survival of Tiger Sisters. It helps us keep making the show,”

improving it, and growing it so we can reach and help more people. And if you're already subscribed, thank you, truly. It means you're not just watching this episode, you're part of this community, and you're part of this journey with us. We don't take that lightly, and we are so grateful that you're here.