Hello everyone, I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us.

Today is November 11th, which is Veterans Day here in the U.S., but globally it is also known as Singles Day, which is a huge shopping holiday, particularly in some Asian countries.

So we're going to talk about Singles Day and the rise of the singles economy, and here to make us smart about this is Peter McGraw.

Now, many of you may remember Peter from a panel conversation I led in Denver last year called Party of One, the Economics of Being Single.

Peter is a behavioral economist at the University of Colorado Boulder's Lead School of Business, host of the podcast, Solo, the Single Person's Guide to a Remarkable life, and author of the book, Solo,

Building a Remarkable Life of Your Own. Welcome to the show, Peter. Kimberly, it's great to see you

again. Thanks so much for doing this. Likewise, although I'm sad that you don't have your

amazing hat this time. I almost wore it, but it felt weird being in my closet wearing my hat.

Well, first, can you explain what you mean by solo and why you prefer that term to single?

Yeah, certainly. So single is a moniker about relationship status. And I like to use the word solo because I think it says much more.

It's more about a mindset. And that mindset is someone who sees themselves as a whole person,

not half waiting to become a whole. And so as a result of that, it opens up a lot of other possibilities,

especially this notion of you're not waiting around for Mr. or Ms. Wright. And there are more and

more people who are single and there are more and more people who are going solo in this way.

What do you think it means to kind of identify yourself as a solo in, particularly in the United States right now?

Well, I think a lot of it is a reorientation from what I call peak marriage in 1960-ish, where nearly everybody got

married.

They did so on average by age 21, and they followed a very prescribed course, a very traditional course, usually,

you know, family, house, car, you know, those kinds of things, American Dream, as it was sort of laid out.

Yet we're seeing more and more people questioning, is that the right path for me?

Some unfortunate souls having trouble making that happen. And so when you identify a solo,

which by the way does not mean you're not interested in a relationship, does not

...