In this heartwarming and personal episode, Malcolm and Simone celebrate their 7th anniversary by revisiting Malcolm's annual Facebook posts professing his love and admiration for his wife. Despite Simone's usual rule against public gushing, she allows Malcolm to share these touching tributes on their special day.
Malcolm reads aloud his posts from years past, describing Simone's superhuman work ethic, emotional self-control, methodical approach to life, and unwavering dedication to their shared goals. He marvels at her ability to continuously improve herself and push him to be a better person, even going so far as to jokingly suggest she should become the "iron-fisted empress of a world-spanning empire."
Simone reacts to each post with a mix of embarrassment and gratitude, emphasizing the importance of complementary skill sets in a successful relationship. She shares her own admiration for Malcolm's visionary thinking, creativity, and ability to make her childhood dreams come true.
The couple also delves into the story of their engagement, with Malcolm revealing the challenges of hiding the ring and surprising Simone, who remained blissfully unaware of his plans. They remind viewers of the importance of proposing privately before any public gestures to avoid emotional blackmail.
Throughout the episode, Malcolm and Simone reflect on the depth of their connection, their unwavering commitment to each other, and the joy they find in their partnership. They even discuss hypothetical scenarios of remarriage in the event of one's untimely death, showcasing their pragmatic approach to love and family.
Join Malcolm and Simone as they celebrate their extraordinary bond, share personal anecdotes, and offer insights into building a lasting, supportive, and deeply fulfilling relationship.
Simone Collins: [00:00:00] I'm not done. Oh God, don't do this to
Malcolm Collins: me. Which means I have an excuse to talk about how amazing she is. Oh boy. She has a strict rule against me gushing about her online under normal circumstances. I genuinely believe my wife is a penultimate manifestation of the human condition.
It is simply impossible for her to be better than she already is. She works without expectation of praise or reward. So long as it benefits our longterm goals. After all these years, she is still genuinely surprised when I voiced my appreciation for her contributions. The other day, I wanted to get her a treat so she could relax for half an hour, and she requested a pedicure, which I later learned she requested so she could keep typing.
Will you marry me?
Cool. I got you!. [00:01:00] One.
I'm gonna marry you! And I'm gonna have a child, I'm gonna love having you!
Would you like to know more?
Simone Collins: Can I start with a like public service announcement slash rant?
Yes. Okay. I've frequently heard about drama in couples resulting from someone forgetting someone else's birthday or the couple's anniversary or some important date when this, like one of the partners expected to be celebrated or given a gift or something of that sort. And the other partner, typically because they had much better things to do, or just honestly, they don't personally value that, you know, just didn't, didn't do the thing.
And I always found that to be really odd because if you want something, then you have to do it, that's your responsibility. So either partners have to say, okay, here's a really important thing. You ha I expect you to throw me a surprise party. Like, okay. It takes the romance out of it, whatever. Right.
But like, If that's what you want, you need to fricking communicate it. [00:02:00] You know what I mean? Obviously there are some spouses who just like doing stuff like that and they may do it and it all works out and you don't have to ask them, but like, if this is not natural to a partner, you have to do it. And I love the way we do it.
Can I describe how we do? Okay. We well, okay. I, I do all the logistics in the family. So I. Just keep everything in my calendar and I will just tell Malcolm and typically we won't do anything like our anniversary just was on Monday two days ago and I was just like, Oh, it's, it's our anniversary today.
And we talked about it a little bit, but we didn't get each other gifts or cards or flowers or anything because we've better shit to do. We're very busy. We're trying to save the world
Malcolm Collins: here. People there's chasing us. We don't have time for flowers this morning. You were commenting, we went to Trader Joe's and you were like, why are there always people buying flowers at Trader Joe's?
Like who can afford this romantic
Simone Collins: expense? Yeah. And every time we go to Trader Joe's, someone is buying flowers and I do not get it. I mean, obviously there's a bouquet of flowers behind me, but I [00:03:00] picked that with the kids out in our yard because you, romantically Malcolm planted flowers. You did the whole thing of don't catch a fish for a man, teach 'em to fish, and you just planted
Malcolm Collins: flowers.
I planted daffodils all over our property. I got what, like a giant sack of them, like I was like 50 or something. Mm-Hmm. . So know I've been free flowers. There are Zs everywhere, all over the place.
Simone Collins: So, but what we do is, is I, for major holidays birthdays and. Or the things like Christmas or future day I will just, I create a budget and I have everyone pays exactly the same amount and I buy the gifts.
So when your birthday rolls around, I buy you gifts. And then when my birthday rolls around, I buy myself gifts from you, which you pay for from your discretionary income, but in exactly the same monetary amount as your gifts. So no one ever spends more than anyone else. The same goes for our children.
Each child Gets gifts in exactly the same monetary amount. You and I get Christmas gifts and exactly the same monetary amount. And we budget for various people in [00:04:00] our lives. So we want to send gifts to, we have a budget for that every month and that's it. And, and it's like, I handle it because I'm the one who kind of enjoys that more and watches the calendar more and that's fine.
And it actually is really fun because then you also seem to really enjoy seeing what you got me because it's a surprise. And I really like what I got me because I know I like it. So everyone wins. And I'm just saying, I love the
Malcolm Collins: people who like follow the prenatalist movement. And they're like, I am so afraid of you guys breaking up because it would be such a damaging thing to the movement.
Some people have talked to me about this and it's, it's actually, you know, I understand the fear. I see a lot of our friend group is, is going through divorces and stuff like that these days. And I say this all with the caveat that I'm about to undertake the one thing I'm not allowed to do in our marriage.
I'm pretty much allowed to do whatever I want, but only on anniversaries do I really get an excuse to unequivocally praise my wife. Oh, I
Simone Collins: thought you were gonna say you're allowed to do everything you want, except you're not allowed to get married. Fat per our fat class.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, well, that's, that's [00:05:00] true. But I don't want
Simone Collins: to be like, Oh
Malcolm Collins: my God, I want to do.
And so, you know, Facebook recommends old posts and recently it's been recommending my one day a year when I'm allowed to praise my wife on our anniversary. Of, of, of, you know, how long have we been together now? 12 years, 12 years. One day a year when I'm left to praise my wife, all these gushy posts I've posted about her.
I am going to read them to you and she is going to comment on them. And you are going to see, I remember we got one comment that was like, Malcolm, I'm really concerned that you are being too Nice to Simone these days and, and praising her too much. And she's not praising you as
Simone Collins: much. And this is now going to make the problem get so out of hand because that is not.
Okay. I heard actually that love languages were widely denounced and largely don't actually make sense that everyone just likes expressions of love equally. And it doesn't matter. My love language is not. [00:06:00] Saying, I love you. It's not buying gifts. It is through doing work for you that is meaningful and making your life materially easier.
And then when people watch our podcast, they don't see everything that I do. So they think that I'm this heartless refrigerator mom. Oh, just like your mom did. Who's incapable of love.
Malcolm Collins: My mom said that, well, Simone being autistic is incapable of love, but I'm sure you can find it through your kids. And I'm like, I don't think that's how autism works, but okay.
Simone Collins: Well, apparently YouTube thinks that too, though. YouTube thinks I, you know, and I'm just not good at it.
Malcolm Collins: Start with something that you say to me, because it's not just like being the perfect woman. It is that you make me a better man and you are always pushing me towards who I want to be. So this is a WhatsApp conversation I'm going to put on the screen that I screenshotted.
Go back to the polo club and network. Seriously, no more whining. And I say, the Wi Fi need. Then Simone says, I love you, and I want the world for you. [00:07:00] So I'm not gonna let stupid shit stop you, including your own stupid human emotions, for which I have zero respect. I respect you, your intellect, Your vision and your potential, not your emotions.
I love you so much. Now go network, make an impression on high potential people, and for the love of God, also have some fun.
Simone Collins: This is me. Now people are really going to think I'm the worst wife ever. No, that is an
Malcolm Collins: amazing, every guy wants that voice in their head. They are stressing out at a networking event or something like that, and everyone there is a bigger deal than them, or you know, somebody challenges them or insults them and they want to like, you, you are the voice in every man's head that he needs.
I love and respect you, but I don't love and respect your weak emotions. Get in there and do your shit.
Simone Collins: I actually feel like that's a more traditional and common wife view [00:08:00] than you might expect.
Malcolm Collins: Well, here's something that you said about me because you were afraid that I wouldn't say anything that you had said to me.
Aw. Do you want me to read a post you wrote about me here? Okay, yes. You know that scene in the gladiator in which Maximus finally quote unquote comes home? If you know, he actually died to his
Simone Collins: wife. Spoiler alert. Hello. Anyone
Malcolm Collins: who hasn't seen the gladiator like screw you. It's an amazing movie. You deserve to
Simone Collins: have it spoiled because you haven't seen it.
You bastards.
Malcolm Collins: To his wife and child in the countryside. Malcolm Collins makes every day feel like that scene. I can't understand how Malcolm succeeds in making family life so idyllic, while also inspiring us to reach so high and dream so big. He is willing to fight the most daunting battles, while simultaneously demonstrating the capacity to fully enjoy perfect, simple moments.
I could not dream of a better father for my children. Happy Father's Day, Malcolm.
Simone Collins: That is totally how I feel. And it's, I mean, it's such [00:09:00] a romantic feeling, but at the same time, it's also a Terrifying. I think I might have died feeling because it's
Malcolm Collins: yeah, you included a scene of like me playing in our field with the kids because you know, we live next to a state park.
And so it's just like this endless field and the kids are all running in it.
You
Simone Collins: Yeah, it's well, I mean, come on, cut to the gladiator scene hand over the wheat. You know? Yeah.
 Just, oh, have I been brutal killed because I think
Malcolm Collins: maybe, yeah.
Watching the scene. Again, really highlights for me how sort of sick, both the progressive idea that I'm not going to have kids and I'm going to stop the great game of civilization because my [00:10:00] life is marginally harder than the life of my parents. When you consider how brutally hard. People lived in the past and what their conception of heaven was. And on top of that. This idea of the progressive heaven, where like you get as much pleasure as you want whenever you want it. When historically that would have been seen as. Obviously not the goal, heaven was too. Create a life with a family on a farm, and they will never experience these emotions and that in many ways they have created their own hell. Which they live in every day on earth. People who live for pleasure can never find peace.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. So here's a piece from me that I wrote. This one. Yeah. This was around Christmastime, one of the years a while back.
My wife, Simone, found a stocking from when I was a kid. Now, every morning when we wake up, she throws a big fit about how Blitzen has broken into our house and hid more presents in it for me, [00:11:00] often complaining that we need to move to a safer neighborhood. Usually, the gift is some sort of unique specialty food from another country that only I would like.
This last morning, it was ghost peppered flavored chips. A tier wifing. I really need to up my husband game with some equally, in some equally creative way, but how?
Simone Collins: But isn't that more of a sweet thing about your mom? Because your mom bought that stocking in the first place, saved it, and then gave it to you.
No! You, this is why you're such a
Malcolm Collins: good wife! You don't even take credit for how amazing
Simone Collins: you are! But, and then she introduced to me, through her amazing Christmas traditions, which, You know, I, we didn't do this in my household, the, the Christmas pantheon where gifts were not just given from Santa, but from Frosty the snowman and the various I was going to say unicorns, Santa's various reindeer.
And that all came from her. So that's your mom. You can't even take
Malcolm Collins: credit. I love it. This is why you're so amazing. Okay. I'll read another one. This one is after the autism [00:12:00] diagnosis. After learning more about my wife's recent autism diagnosis, I've realized common traits associated with autism in women are things that any nerdy guy would want in a wife, less likely to get emotional, likes a rigid routine, is not interested in indulgent socializing, isn't suspicious of others intentions, exhibits a quote unquote overly logical approach to life, has a closer than normal attachment to closest friends.
their partner, has an intense focus on weird, interesting topics, etc. I wrote a book on relationships and now it seems like part of my secret to having a satisfying relationship without drama was being married to an autistic woman. Also, what Simone didn't share in the post In the below post, this was the post where you talk about your diagnosis.
During the diagnosis, they gave her an IQ test that she took at the end of the day on a Friday while feeding and changing an infant, so hardly ideal conditions, and scored [00:13:00] higher than 99. 7 percent of the population. Simone, you are like, shockingly smart.
Simone Collins: I think you know very well from living with me on a day to day basis.
It's true. I mean, remember last night where I, insisted that there were waffles in the freezer and they were not because I left them on the table because my brain doesn't work. But yeah, I, I'm so glad that you are, not many people can deal with autistic partners and many people complain bitterly about autistic partners.
And you are the first person I've met actually, who frames having an autistic partner As being a benefit, everyone else
Malcolm Collins: should only source autistic partners. We need to make all our daughters autistic. Cause that is the type of woman that men want these days. I'll tell you what high quality men,
Simone Collins: actually is, is truly where I hear people complain about autistic partners is typically women because they feel, I [00:14:00] don't know like they're not emotionally validated enough or something of that sort.
But then when I, I I've been watching for the first time to wind down And failed to sleep each night, the original Pride and Prejudice TV show. And I I've read the books too, and I've seen other movies, but I didn't realize until watching it now, a lot of us watching Batman, that The lead romantic male in this book and in these shows and movies is Mr.
Darcy. He's almost certainly autistic. He is a very socially awkward. He is very systematic about what he does. Like he just shows all sorts of weird autistic traits. And. I think women may be more into autistic guys than they want to admit, but there's this feeling of social license to instead use a spouse's known or expected autism as a source of complaint.
And you are so amazing and that you can see people's. [00:15:00] What one, what one group will see as a shortcoming, you will see it as an amazing asset and something that you really, really love. And I think that's amazing about you. It's one thing, one thing that's
Malcolm Collins: my brother, we did one day where we went around and listed the things that we appreciate about other family members that were unique about them.
And he's like, Malcolm somehow you always end up loving wherever you are, whatever choices you've made in life. Yeah,
Simone Collins: wherever you are is the best place that's ever been. When we were in Peru, you, you insisted that Peru is the best. Lima is the best city ever in terms of the combination of cost of living plus the quality of what you've got with the money you spent and the food scene and the environment.
And then you move here to Pennsylvania. You know what though? You never thought that Florida
Malcolm Collins: was okay. No, Florida was always garbage. I know when I'm living in a trash pile. No I thought Dallas was fine.
Simone Collins: Dingleberry. Yeah. Poor, poor Florida.
Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. [00:16:00] Okay. Now I'm actually here going to go one that I just found when I was searching through our Facebook history that I love so much that people believe this.
So I'm going to put a picture on screen and people need some context for this. Oh, this is a, a thing that we had to do where we had to weigh our child.
Simone Collins: No, no, no. I think it had more to do with his total mass or something. I can't remember. Whatever.
Malcolm Collins: But I, I realized that it looked like it could be like a freezing pot.
Okay. So I go, you know what? I'm going to make a face post Facebook post. Implying that and a lot of people actually believed we were doing this Infant not like like a newborn kid not like like an embryo or something. Okay
Simone Collins: Actually, I think it was fat content because I saw it done again on one of those Password nation style documentaries.
Yeah
Malcolm Collins: having octavian [00:17:00] with us
Having Octavian with us this last month has been a lot of fun, but after talking about it, Simone and I decided that having a child around was mildly inconvenient, so we snapped a few final Instagram pics and took him back to the lab to have him put in a pod and frozen. We plan to pick him up again in a few years when we have some more time to dedicate to his social media feeds.
We understand infant freezing is a delicate issue these days, but I hope through posting We are seen as the heroes I know we are. It is a great way to get all the affirmation that comes with having a child without having to worry about the effects a child can have on your career. Moreover, despite what you may have heard, there is absolutely no proof freezing pods cause discomfort.
Most Freeze Inc. TM technicians agree the wild screaming is [00:18:00] merely reflexive.
Simone Collins: Oh my god, I
Malcolm Collins: completely forgot. There's also a bit of a take off of late stage abortions and stuff like that. Like third trimester abortions, you can see the kid screaming and everything like that. Like this shit should not be legal. And yet people are like, oh yeah, sure. But I, I thought, I just love how many people were like Malcolm, I am not sure that I haven't seen the science around this Malcolm, but I think that this might actually be harming your child or like, I don't know if the thawing process is going to work as well as you think it's going.
So really people, I,
Simone Collins: I, a
Malcolm Collins: number of people totally believe this.
Simone Collins: I'm looking at the photos that I have on Google photos now of Octavian and their Yeah. It really looks like a freezing.
Malcolm Collins: Really believed it. They were like, whoa, parent in the piece about like selfish [00:19:00] Instagram parents. I don't know if you've heard about the parents who like adopted kids.
Oh,
Simone Collins: and then send them back because they couldn't post about them on social media. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Mm hmm. They're like, well, I was adopting kids for you know, photo reasons. Yeah, it is wild that people will like adopt children for social media posts. They're like, okay, I need an ethically diverse child and I need him to be very low effort. This is for social media. And then I'm concerned. How do these people often have bigger social media media followings than us?
Simone Collins: I think they start young and they're really. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think they just spent more time, honestly.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, we really didn't start until after we didn't have to worry about money that much anymore.
Simone Collins: I don't know, we still worry about money.
Malcolm Collins: Obviously still, I mean, functionally, you get what I mean.
Yeah. Okay, now I'm going to do the post that you've been dreading. Oh. The big one, the real one.
[00:20:00] Today has been seven years since I met Simone. So this was five years ago that this came up. Oh gosh. Which means I have an excuse to talk about how amazing she is. Oh boy. She has a strict rule against me gushing about her online under normal circumstances. I genuinely believe my wife is a penultimate manifestation of the human condition.
It is simply impossible for her to be better than she already is. She approaches life with a methodical mastery, giving her the ability to extract every valuable moment. For example, every morning she exercises for three hours on an elliptical she modified so she could type from it to ensure she is always fit, but never lets it get in the way of productivity.
In the same vein, she keeps a file of all the new experimental psychology studies that come out and sends me summaries of Any she feels were well conducted, not only keeping her mind sharp, [00:21:00] but also helping me keep up with her. Her work ethic is superhuman. I can't even conceive of a person being able to work at full capacity for as long as she does on a regular basis, even better.
She works without expectation of praise or reward. So long as it benefits our longterm goals. After all these years, she is still genuinely surprised when I voiced my appreciation for her contributions. The other day, I wanted to get her a treat so she could relax for half an hour, and she requested a pedicure, which I later learned she requested so she could keep typing.
That's so, that's so you, Simone. She is one of the only small handful of people I would ever consider as smart or smarter than myself. The few small domains I consider myself an expert was in, but more than that, , she has more emotional self control than any human I have met by a significant margin.
I genuinely can't remember ever [00:22:00] having seen her get mad. She has complete mastery over her emotional state while still being capable of Feeling and indulging in emotions when it is productive. I cannot think of a single physical feature of hers I would change if given the choice. And she is one of those rare instances of a person who has become more attractive as they age.
So she doesn't have the emotional hang ups of someone who grew up super hot. But seriously, compare her early Facebook pictures with her modern ones. This is striking. Actually, recently you sent me a picture. And just so our audience knows this, you were like, Oh, I look so old. I look like the Curb Keeper.
I look fucking
Simone Collins: awful. Why haven't you told me about this? I have ozempic face, but I don't have ozempic. Why, why is this
Malcolm Collins: happening? You look like the perfect farmer's wife. Look, you, you, you may not look like a teen anymore. I agree with that. But you look the perfect iteration of what a mom should look like.
You, you look hard [00:23:00] working and, and stern and frugal and with, with, with a high amount of austerity. It's just all conveyed by your face, this emotional control and I love it.
Simone Collins: Well, I think this is more indicative of how I'm not done. Oh God, don't do this to
Malcolm Collins: me. Her minimalist frugality, combined with Terminator like drive to her goals, without allowing herself to to indulge in emotions forces me to better myself when I reflect on how short I always fall in contrast.
She approaches her goals with dispassionate computer like logic, never caring what others think of her or what society programmed her to care about. She defines her goals then executes on them with ruthless efficiency and without distraction. I have never, heard her once distressed over another person's perception of her, which is a cause of some [00:24:00] consternation to me because I regularly fail to control the impulse to quote unquote show up people who thought I would fail.
In another Facebook comment recently I was reminded of something she told me once she, once that shook me. One day I asked her how she managed to always work at full capacity and never succumbed to the desire. for trivial frivolities, she explained that she believes the continuity of consciousness was an illusion created by the way humans contextualize something that changes incrementally over a long period of time as being the same thing.
An illusion our ancestors likely evolved to more easily relate to the world, As it is a useful way to contextualize objects. To her, the reality Was that she was about to cease existing. The entity that was at that point in time could only exist for a few brief moments and she needed to make [00:25:00] those moments matter rather than spending her only chance to exist masturbating a shallow emotional pathway.
How can a person with such self control exist? For decades, she has been living an existence in which every moment she was alive was lovingly crafted to be the perfect sacrifice to the incremental march of humanity. How can a person live life like that? How could a person with such self control and such lucidity be able to do that?
Display such constant admiration of a wacko like me. Another time I remember asking her why she would open a pocket watch. I bought her and set it in front of her while she worked. She explained to me, it reminded her how little time she had left to live a life worthy of me. Well, worthy of my ideals. She always reminds me that is not me she loves, but rather what I stand for.
Do I live up to such lucid dedication? This [00:26:00] perfection is beginning to become a problem for me. Given that she regularly makes it clear that my core value to her is that I help Simone improve as a person. Yet there is so little left for her to improve.
How could she be better seven years from today than she is now? And somehow, despite her incandescence, she still regularly expresses affection and admiration for me. Having these thoughts expressed to you so genuinely by someone who is so clearly flawless is devastating and reminds me how far I have to go to live up to the example she sets.
I guess what I am trying to say is even though she is too humble to admit it, my wife needs to become the iron fisted empress of a world spanning empire with vast cloning blocks slowly replacing a species unworthy of her transcendence with iterations of her.
Simone Collins: Well, I guess we are kind of aiming for that with our kids, but even better [00:27:00] because why clone when you can combine with someone you love as deeply as we love each other.
But I want to
Malcolm Collins: hear your, your thoughts on this. Seven years ago, I wrote five years ago. I wrote, how could you keep improving? Genuinely? Have you kept improving? Have you improved over the last five years or has it been steady state? I think you've improved dramatically. I actually think you've improved more over the past five years than you improved in the first seven.
Yeah.
Simone Collins: I have improved incrementally, but I have a long way to go. I, what I think about when I hear you read that post is the value in couples who have complimentary Skill sets, because when you marry someone who can do all the things that you do, then they seem so much less interesting and valuable and powerful.
And all the things that you think are so remarkable about my work ethic and. frugality, whatever it may be, [00:28:00] are just natural traits that I don't work at. Whereas the thing with, goes with You're
Malcolm Collins: naturally perfect is what you're
Simone Collins: saying. No, I'm naturally incapable of relaxing.
Malcolm Collins: You're naturally, so her family was Okies during the Dust Bowl and they stayed in Oklahoma.
They were not one of the people who left. They left after that period. That is the, the mindset I see in you. This absolute steadfastness and, and just, I'm marching forwards. But then you also have this hope for the future that is just so Overwhelming and inspiring.
Simone Collins: Yeah, but I feel the same way about you.
I feel the same way about your vision and ability to see things that I could never comprehend your ability to across domains, make sense of things and make connections that I would never think to make, that you can look at an issue that thousands of people have looked at and have a fresh take on it [00:29:00] and come to a new conclusion.
And contribute to domains that you, you know, previously know nothing about. And then you look at all the academic literature, you look at everything that people are saying in books and on YouTube and in public discourse and in the political sphere, and then come up with a totally new take and. I just, I so deeply admire that you, it's very uncommon to come across someone as learned as you are, who doesn't just regurgitate other people's ideas, if that makes sense.
So you have both the understanding, the history and the background, which a lot of very educated people have, but you also have those really creative hot takes and interesting remixes, which typically more uneducated people have, because once they become too educated, they just Get trained to regurgitate other people's philosophies and ideas and I can't do that.
I can't do that I can't be creative like you are I can't Not just dredge away at things in a way that would allow me to be more creative and to think in, in very [00:30:00] disruptive
Malcolm Collins: ways. What's so special about you from a perspective of a husband is you come and you're like, Oh, we both bring different things to the table.
Like I just do all the work and you're the strategy guy. Everybody wants to be the strategy guy, Simone. No. Everybody wants that. Do you think most women actually just want to work for someone they respect?
Simone Collins: Probably. I mean, I think that there are averages. I think that women are much more likely to be very good.
Repetitive work style, people workhorse style, people like I am, and that men are much more likely to be. And we've talked about this. It's probably like an evolutionary basis here. I mean, this, the testosterone that that men have in higher levels than women is much more likely to make them more reactive.
Take big risks and do things that could lead to absolutely nothing or death and could lead to really, really big payouts. Whereas women are much more likely to cluster at the center of the bell curve, to not really be outliers, to not be exceptionally dumb or exceptionally smart, but just kind of to trudge away in a very consistent fashion.
[00:31:00] So I do think that on average, men and women are more like that. But what I do see in modern society is people moving in a more atomized direction where. Men are expected to be a little bit more like women. Women are expected to be a little bit more like men. And then they end up just bringing the same thing to the relationship.
No wonder we see more couples breaking up. We're seeing people our age reaching their divorce era because. They both bring something either very similar to the table or they just don't really see what the other person can do or bring and bring to their lives that they couldn't themselves bring or buy.
So I'm really glad that I'm naturally comfortable and good with things that you would struggle to do on your own and vice versa, because it makes us deeply in love with each other. And appreciative of the things that we
Malcolm Collins: do on each other. I love, I love to see this idea of codependency, right? It's like, no, I'm definitely codependent on my wife.
I could not emotionally [00:32:00] exist without you anymore. I completely rely on you. I am completely leaning against you. We are back to back against a hostile world. And I don't protect my back at all. If you turned around and stabbed me, I wouldn't see it coming.
Simone Collins: Yeah, well, except probably you would because you can actually model people and I wouldn't because there have been multiple times where you've tried to surprise me with things and been, you know, Utterly successful despite many close.
Malcolm Collins: I was so one time when I really had to lie to her a lot was when I had the engagement ring and I was hiding it so that she wouldn't find it. She lacks a single suspicious bone in her body. The, the, the, the things that we had to do to get this engagement ring to her were just so, so, so obvious.
Simone Collins: wasn't obvious to me at all.
It was my
Malcolm Collins: brother gave me a sock at a meal that we had to like go through a parade to get. So like, remember it was like incredibly hard to meet him for this meal. And [00:33:00] then I'm carrying a, like a single sock back to the car. Why?
Simone Collins: Why? I don't know. You fricking leave. I was like, this is very consistent. You, you leave clothes all over the place.
It wouldn't surprise me. At all, that you might have left a sock at their place. So, I just assumed he was returning your sock. There was nothing weird about that to me. I think you guys were way more subtle about it than, than you thought. Well, and then you went to go
Malcolm Collins: wash the sock, and I grabbed it from you all of a sudden.
Like, like, angrily, and then hit it in a, like, bin. I don't know if you remember, I remember all of this, like all of the various times you almost found your engagement ring before I proposed.
Simone Collins: Oh God, imagine if I like washed it and the ring got lost in the wash. I'm glad I didn't.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, or the day when I was going to propose to you, when I did all these nice things.
Oh, that's true. The whole day, extra nice. And I couldn't afford back then, I got you a massage. But I couldn't afford a massage for both of us. So I sat in the car while she was getting a massage that day. And you didn't think anything of it. You're like [00:34:00]
Simone Collins: really confused that whole day. You were like, well, no, we have to get your favorite food.
And then I'm going to take you to a massage. And I'm like, okay, you're coming in soon. You're like, no. I'm going to be out, just outside, just the whole time. And I was really freaking confused. I was so freaking confused that entire day. So I was like, Oh, well, let's just skip this. You know, let's just do, you know, whatever.
And you're like, no, we have to do this. But yeah, I, I legit never thought
Malcolm Collins: that it was, you know, We'll see if we can find the old proposal video. Cause a lot of people don't know. I actually proposed to her before the Reddit thing.
Will you marry me? Oh my god. Three
I will marry you, Malcolm Collins. [00:35:00] You could be a shiny thing. It is mine now. Cool. I got you! Oh
shiniest thing I've ever seen. Look at how perfect it is. Oh, it's so much, it's so much more perfect than I one.
That's a shoe! That's a shoe!
I'm gonna marry you! And I'm gonna have a child, I'm gonna love having you! Oh my god! Do you see this? Do you see this? Oh, you just kept surprising me today with ridiculous things. I was [00:36:00] like, I don't know if I can handle this. I don't know if I can.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Cause
Simone Collins: I wanted a private proposal and I wanted to, no, you didn't want to
Malcolm Collins: press you.
You were okay with the Reddit one, but like, obviously you'd have to be absolutely stupid to propose to someone. You didn't know the answer to in a public context. After I knew that I would get a yes. And that had already been emotionally handled. Because to not know her answer when you're proposing in a public context is to publicly blackmail her.
It's emotionally a shitty thing to do. It's like proposing to someone in a stadium or something like that. Like, don't do that unless you know, it's okay to do that after you have proposed in private and you know what they think and blah, blah, blah. Right? Like, but Anyway,
Simone Collins: gotta be careful. I, I'm just really glad that I met you.
I was saying to you the other night, cause we've both been thinking about our anniversary a lot that I talk a lot about how Malcolm has made [00:37:00] my dreams come true. Like even arbitrary, stupid stuff that isn't related to our goals. Like I always wanted to live in a beautiful Martha Stewart style farmhouse and now we do.
And I always wanted. to have chickens that laid blue eggs. And now I do. And it's all because of Malcolm. Your dreams are remarkably
Malcolm Collins: easy to fulfill, by the way.
Simone Collins: Blue eggs, I thought were impossible, like for normal people. And well, I guess no, we're not normal, but for non insanely wealthy people. And I, I also loved this one fictional character named Case Pollard from one of my favorite William Gibson books.
And then someone described. Mary Harrington is being like her. And that was like a dream come true. And all this is newspaper
Malcolm Collins: article written about us. She was described as being like this obscure character that she always told me she had based her life around and wanting to be
Simone Collins: like her. I wanted to be like her.
And I was, yeah. And like, you've, you've made all of this possible. And I always tell Malcolm about this. Like, I just can't believe you've made this possible. Our lives are so [00:38:00] amazing, but then I don't tell him about the fact that I'm just so thrilled to be with him. Because I didn't really dream about that as a kid, but it's not because I didn't want it.
It's because I thought that someone as amazing as him, who could also possibly deign to even find me tolerable to look at, would ever exist on this planet. And the fact that you do, I'm still You know, you know, it's a good couple when you feel like,
Malcolm Collins: so we never posted the video of who got the better deal.
Because it was too harsh on our followers, which is like, you deserve not finding a partner if you don't have one. But I, I actually want. You know, in the comments who got the better deal and, and one thing I'd remind you in contextualization,
Simone Collins: you're clearly got the better deal guys. Clearly, you know, how loving you just saw all of his loving Facebook
Malcolm Collins: posts.
I will provide a few pieces of context here. Okay. I don't think you're allowed
Simone Collins: to praise me anymore. I have to let the audience decide for themselves. I
Malcolm Collins: know. No, no, no. When I met Simone, she was a 22 year old [00:39:00] virgin and had only kissed one person. 24. 2420 sorry, 24 that significantly rises your value in terms of like a marriage prospect that makes it hard to find someone like you among some when you met me I was a guy who had previously slept around a ton, but wasn't doing it anymore.
Wha had a undergraduate degree from St. Andrews and a graduate degree, an MBA from Stanford. You had a. undergraduate degree from GW. We graduated valedictorian, but still it's not that good of school. You hadn't gone to Cambridge yet. You hadn't gotten your graduate degree yet. Yeah. You were a better deal.
Simone Collins: And
Malcolm Collins: I was a student at the, well, at the MBA program at Stanford. You were way out of my league. And I'll post pictures of us at that time period so people can see who's, who's at a who's league, but who has bamboozled who I think you, I think you have been bamboozled.
Simone Collins: That's not true. I mean, I, I, I, but I do know that I provide like a shit ton of financial [00:40:00] value because I, I handle.
Our finances, payments, travel. I clean all the interior of the house every week. I gestate children, which is really expensive if you're going to pay for it separately. So I know that financially,
Malcolm Collins: What would you, what would you if you were going to leave me, who would you leave me for? Nobody.
Simone Collins: Nobody. My standard, again, my plan was to live alone forever.
because someone as amazing as you, someone who I actually would want to even consider dating, not, not just Mary, but like even consider dating. could not have possibly existed, period. Like there were times when people had crushes on me when I was younger and, you know, they would kind of even insinuate that we could possibly be together and it would make me sick to my stomach, the very idea that, that someone else would associate with me.
Malcolm Collins: People would send her love letters and she would put them in the sink and then pour lighter fluid on them and light it on fire.
Simone Collins: It was the only way to cleanse myself of the. Great [00:41:00] discomfort. So I mean, my, I was very happy to be alone forever. I was very reconciled to it. And then obviously if, if you had not existed or I never had met you or you had married someone else, I definitely would still be alone.
Like just, I know, like, I've no question about this,
Malcolm Collins: I
Simone Collins: know myself. I know. I was
Malcolm Collins: very insulted. You were so scared that that would happen when you met
Simone Collins: me? I was, well, because you're too tempting and I probably would, but that would really suck for me. So to all the side chicks out there, really sorry. But also I can understand how you'd get in that position.
And I, yeah, I would definitely be alone if anything were to happen to you, but that's not possible because if you do die, I will revive you and then kill you because you're not allowed to die. I would definitely never marry again. It's not, there's, there's no dis, I hate people. Oh, you
Malcolm Collins: would, you would, I hope you would marry again for the sake of our kids.
Simone Collins: No, dude, they're gonna be fine with me. Well,
Malcolm Collins: am I allowed to
Simone Collins: remarry again if you die? [00:42:00] Obviously you're gonna remarry because you need someone to do all the admin and shit, but you have to, like I said, marry someone who loves the kids and who the kids love. Like you, when you marry again, you are marrying for the kids.
You are not marrying for yourself.
Malcolm Collins: Period. Obviously there's, there's four of them and one of me.
Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah. So you already have yourself duplicated once, you know, you have one, two whole Malcolms. Two whole Malcolms in our kids. Get precedence over you, the original the OG. So yeah, you are 100 percent when
Malcolm Collins: she dies, she won't even let me marry for sex.
Simone Collins: I feel like I was, yeah, not for you. Well, cause also you should probably marry someone and you know, you should be allowed to sleep with whoever you want. In addition to being married to them. But there was a historical couple where the wife was dying and she [00:43:00] insisted that her husband that she approve of whatever her husband would marry.
So he found someone before she died and she gave her approval, which I'd never heard of before. But that is like actually really sweet. And I bet it would, you know, make things easier for the second wife because she knew that this was a fully endorsed marriage. And also like, we've met people who've lost their wives and who just will never shut up about them.
And they're like dating other women, right? You know, they're dating really great people. But they won't shut up about their dead wife. And I think that it's super important that you like, let that,
Malcolm Collins: I don't know. I'll ever be able to, you're amazing. So don't die. That's the key.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, as long as you don't die, I won't die if you don't die.
Well, actually, no, we can't have both of us die at the same time. The suicide pack. No, because our kids need someone. So [00:44:00] I dunno, all I know is I really, really love you. And I'm so glad that I met you. And from the moment I met you, I knew my life was going to change forever. And it did.
Malcolm Collins: And what do you mean by that?
Like you met me and you were like, Oh, he's,
Simone Collins: it was like, I mean, it was a mixture of probably a lot of different hormones, but there was definitely a lot of adrenaline in there because I just, you were so, so different and you were so, what I, Always dreamed could exist as a person, but I couldn't like, okay.
Once when I was in college, I had this really stupid web comic that hopefully is completely scrubbed from the web and it completely fell apart because I tried to write up a romantic arc. Because obviously the female protagonist in this stupid comic was probably some kind of write in for myself. And then as soon as is this, this write in for myself character in the web comic.
Encounters what is supposed to be her love interest. I just couldn't, [00:45:00] I couldn't articulate what I had. Lacks the creativity to describe this
Malcolm Collins: love interest had
Simone Collins: you basically, but I didn't know how to draw or write or describe you because you're Just too amazing and transformative. And you're definitely not human.
You're more than that. And I, I, I literally lacked the creativity and mental capacity to imagine someone as amazing as you. And then, so of course, when I meet you on our first date, how could I not be like overwhelmed with adrenaline and just completely overtaken by the fact that you exist and the only reason I didn't completely go insane for you is because I was also very convinced that you would, Never stay with me that I would never be a serious prospect for you because you were so profoundly out of my league and everyone I think in the comments will agree that you are, I mean, look, you do all the podcast editing, you [00:46:00] do most of the interesting talking.
I just say like, Oh, I'm, I agree. Or like, what about? And
Malcolm Collins: I don't think our audience will see it that way. They'll be like, Simone is bringing the heat. She is the fire that fuels all your
Simone Collins: ideas. Well, prepare to be humble, but also please stay married to me. Cause that's important. So audience, please also tell him too.
I love you to death Simone. Oh, and audience. For those who are watching and who've made it through this incredibly cringe fest and I'm sorry, and Malcolm, you know that the rules, you're not allowed to talk about me, so I don't know, I don't know what you're doing here. Except on my anniversary, when I'm allowed to.
Well, it was two days ago I don't know, maybe you missed your chance, maybe this is, well, you know what, it's not in the marriage contract though, so technically you're allowed to do whatever you want, right? It's not in the
Malcolm Collins: contract. Yeah, you gotta put it in the contract, no gushing over me in public.
Simone Collins: But what we would also really appreciate it if you have made it through this cringe fest is if you would like and subscribe on YouTube and or because this is entirely impossible to us go to the link [00:47:00] Apple podcast page on your phone and leave us a five star review.
Malcolm Collins: Well, the thing we need most, most, most, most of anything is a Wikipedia page. Why don't I have a Wikipedia page yet? I've been, we were in the Rolling Stones recently. We've been front page of the Telegraph, front page of the National Post, Vice documentary. We have all of the sources that have described us at pragmatistfoundation.
org. So if you're looking for like a source list of like impressive sources on us, just go there. And remind me to add the Rolling Stones source. Cause I haven't done that yet. But you can use that to build a Wikipedia page. It'd be cool to have a Wikipedia page. I don't know where we don't have one yet.
It's shocking to me, but whatever it's, it's, you know, woke as hell. I love you.
Simone Collins: I love you too, Malcolm.
The 1 Time a Year I Am Allowed to be Honest With My Wife