We’ve been looking forward to a conversation on “chosen families” for a long time. The concept is especially meaningful to those whose relational support doesn’t take the shape of a traditional family, but who experience deep intimacy, growth, and loyalty within other “relation-shapes.” Historically, this has included LGBTQ individuals as well as the unmarried. As one listener recently said to us, “singleness allows opportunities to establish some of the best friendships-- so many of my best friends I've had along the way have been my fellow single ladies.”Yet there are many reasons the idea of chosen family receives pushback — namely, as we explore in this episode, the suspicion that if relationships are built on preference and positive vibes they will likely not survive the grief and interpersonal friction that family life requires. One writer even suggests that chosen family can scan as “another means of self-branding, self-curation, exclusion — a cynical shorthand for establishing worth through association, without the baggage or responsibilities associated with “real” family.” Thus, the question: can we really choose our families, or does real family depend on something beyond the scope of our choosing?

We dig into all of this with doctor and writer Samuel Brown, whose study of the restoration’s “adoption theology” insists that family must embrace both chosen and unchosen aspects of life. As he wrote in a 2013 article Believing Adoption, “Perhaps that sometimes desperate dance between the chosen and the inescapable is part of the work of making us divine.” This conversation of was a thoughtful and gritty deep dive into restorationist understandings of the family, ways we could better live up to its possibilities, and how to respond when family life takes us to our breaking points. We were also honored to hear Sam share about the harrowing grief following his wife Kate’s passing, which you can read more about from his piece in Wayfare.

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Subscribe to our new Substack!It’s just us this week—Mallory and Diana—for an introspective end-of-year conversation. We ask ourselves Where did the Soloists come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? and how we’ve changed since coming together to work on this project. We also share love from listeners: emails, DMs, and reviews that crack open what it means to live courageously with major parts of our lives unsettled.

If you’ve been listening a while, you’ll have noticed that the two of us love to discuss the experience of being on the margins of an already-marginal religion. In part this is because our religious identities profoundly shape our social and romantic lives and its useful to talk about. But its also because we believe that the places where we feel most odd, misunderstood, and rejected by the world also offer the keys to understanding, forgiving, and finding love within it.

Here, we discuss how we find Christ in the gritty, awkward experience of bearing a “mormon” identity in the world (which is the name many still know and call us by, despite the Church’s preferences.) Similarly, Christ can be found smack dab inside the sore spots of the soloist life.

Finally, we have an announcement! We just shifted platforms over to Substack where we can have more two-way conversations with listeners. You’ll here more about it in this episode. Subscribe to join us.

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This week, we’re joined by Candice Gutierrez, Dusty Hulet, and Cheryl Johnson to talk about The Art of Gathering, and how to plan parties that can genuinely change people’s lives. Candice says parties are about interpersonal alchemy; people come in feeling one way and leave feeling another way, and the way you design the event shapes this transformation. Cheryl believes gatherings can be a lifeline for those who live alone or without guaranteed social support in their day-to-day lives, and mentions how just seeing a party invitation in their inbox can remind a person that they matter. Dusty thinks that “the crushing weight of sobriety” forces Mormons to go out to the edge of creativity in how to get people to relax and have a good time at parties. This conversation was all parts fresh, funny, and wise, and we can’t wait to hear what you think.

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This week we teamed up with our beloved friend Rebbie Brassfield who runs the up-and-coming Mormons in Media Instagram (now a podcast!). As we enter another kind of "mormon moment" as the world fixates on Latter-day Saint lifestyle influencers, Rebbie leads the public in watching closely all the references to Mormonism in media, tracking where representation is going, and making a case for more diverse media portrayals. 

We also get into a fun discussion of Stehanie Myer's Twilight series, and how that shaped our perspective on relationships grow up.

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This week, we sat down to talk with our friend and writer Kristine Haglund about the envying lives we don't have, and particularly people whose family situations look simpler or more functional than our own.

Kristine has had a longstanding, studied fascination with Mormon mommy bloggers, the forerunners to today's Mormon lifestyle influencers--sometimes called "trad wives"--that have by now captured the world's attention. A student of American religious history, Kristine helps us set this in the context of the rise of television, print, and digital media that often does the thinking for us of what family should look like. Even the Church has leaned into producing images of the family that can obscure what family is about. 

How do we get past these images to remember the real purpose of family? How do we appreciate the friction and sometimes chaos that real relationships bring, and not feel discouraged if they don't look a certain way? How do we work through feelings of envy, and the illusory versions of family that social media can produce? 

We discuss this and more in this episode, and would love to hear what you think. You can email us at [email protected] with feedback or topic suggestions.

BTW, Kristine sent over a book recommendation for anyone who wants to dig deeper into these questions: "Till We Have Faces," by C.S. Lewis. Kristine says, "It's completely unlike his other books, and touches on questions of beauty, ugliness, envy, and idolatry. If I had to name one book that has shaped my understanding of faith most profoundly, this might be it."

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"Dating is the only thing... that gets harder with practice." This is how Faith Hill, writer for The Atlantic, summarized modern romantic pursuits in the August 2024 article, "Should I Quit Dating?" This week, Mallory and Diana chat with their friend Haymitch St. Stephen about this article and another one from The Cut, entitled, "How Much Work Should Dating Be?" Listen in to hear how we approach dating at this point in our lives, and how to value yourself and stay close to your values even as you put yourself up for public scrutiny. We hope you enjoy. 

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We told you we wanted to talk about sex on this podcast, and this is where we wanted to start -- with a talk about not having sex. 

We had a conversation with with Fr. Patrick Briscoe, a Catholic Dominican Friar, and Sara Perla, a single Catholic woman, about the purpose of celibacy for Catholics and how they support a large group of adults committed to it. Catholics take as doctrine Jesus’ statement that “at the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage” and thus that singleness allows one to live as Jesus lived, and as all of us will live in heaven. Following the Apostle Paul, they consider marriage a holy vocation but acknowledge that it requires one to care for “things that are of the world.” Singleness, meanwhile, allows one to care with an undivided heart for “things that are of the Lord.” 

Celibacy isn't considered easy for Catholics, but it is deeply meaningful: it's an opportunity to channel one's individual  passions into a universal, Christlike love, and to share that with the world.

Single Latter-day Saints do not take vows of celibacy so much as vows (or covenants) that imply celibacy, given marital status. The Church’s teachings simply demand “sexual relations to be reserved for marriage between a man and a woman.” Almost nothing is said about erotic and sexual desires prior to marriage. We don't see a distinct theological purpose to nor do we seem to think seriously about how to provide practical, communal support people who live this way.

What would it look like to see singleness, and celibacy, not as a sad circumstance of not ever having married, but as a dignified life path? What if we saw, in restraint around sexual and romantic relationships, an opportunity to deepen our sensitivity to the unending loneliness of humanity? Has our pro-sex, family-centric theology caused us to overlook the ways we might care for each other through non-family structures? 

We can't wait to hear what you think. Email us at [email protected] or join our conversation on instagram @the.soloists

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In this episode we brought on political scientist and philosopher Ryan Davis to talk about his muse and favorite teaching resource: the one and only Taylor Swift. Ryan believes that Taylor's discography, more than  a catalog account of her romantic failures, is an evolving exploration about what it means to be good. Though she may have hoped her life would follow the trajectory of the song "love story", instead she's allowed her romantic disappointments to turn her into a philosopher. Each experience gives her more to learn from and to turn into beautiful music, which is part of how she redeems them. Ryan also took some time at the beginning to ask some questions about what we're going for with this new project, the Soloists. We hope this conversation helps you articulate and find meaning in some of your own wild trajectory towards love and—what might be even higher for Taylor Swift—goodness.

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This wild, funny, and revelatory episode felt like  an off-road excursion from Ted Talks in India to the vortexes of Sedona, Arizona and places in between. The topic is interfaith marriage: we sat down with McArthur and Ved Krishna to understand how a Latter-day Saint woman living in Washington DC and an Indian man living in rural India ended up marrying each other. We hit all the questions you'd expect on this topic: how did they get the courage and confidence to enter an unconventional marriage? How did they decide to raise their children? How did they bring their separate cultures and religions together? But this is also a conversation about the insights, growth, and even miracles that come from listening closely to what God, or the universe, has to teach us. We hope you enjoy and can't wait to hear what you think!

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In a recent interview with The New York Times, Actress Chloe Sevigny said, "I think aging is really one of the worst things of all time." In this episode, we chat with our guest Lisa Valentine Clark about the inevitable loss, grief, and change that aging brings. We know though, that the joy of the gospel comes from being anchored in our present reality. How do we stay anchored in reality, and anchored in joy, as we live in a culture that celebrates youth and fears aging? 

Lisa is an actress, comedian, and host of the funny, warm, and upliftingThe Lisa Show. She is also a widow who lovingly cared for her husband of 25 years during the last years of his life as he suffered from ALS. She talks to us about what it was like to pop into the hyper-visible spotlight of the dating market at an age and stage of life when many hope to have put dating far behind them. Her late husband's challenge to her resonates with this question of age: we honor life not by clinging to what is gone, but by moving on and embracing what we have. 

We were so honored to spend time with Lisa, and love her advice that we should live full, gorgeous lives and "invite others to the party."

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