Brett Cooper

I think that small talk is how you build, have a good rapport, you make a joke.

Sometimes the small talk then grows into something else.

You kind of have to start with the awkward small talk.

Unfortunately, that is just a normal human experience.

Just

Gen Z, get over it.

Anyway, this is the same conversation, guys, that we have had about AI relationships, for example, like time and time again.

We are stripping the humanity out of our social lives.

This beautiful awkwardness, the learning curves, the necessary skill of dating and flirting and small talk, all of that, thanks to the internet, is gone.

You can live a life and have friends and talk to people without doing any of that.

And so again, I say like, how can you blame people?

Like when you live in a world that is as digital as ours, it makes sense that people retreat inwards, that they go online, that they choose the easier path.

That is just what human beings do.

So much of this, to Gen Z's credit, I'm giving a lot of grace here, obviously it is out of their control.

But, and this is the point of this episode, we are not completely off the hook.

Because it would be one thing if people were fine with the situation.

It would be one thing if we didn't care, if chatting online was a one-for-one replacement and none of us actually felt lonely or isolated, but that is not the truth.

I know it, and you know it.

Young people, both men and women, are lonelier than ever.

But the thing is, we have the tools to fix it.