First off, I cannot take credit for that title – I ripped it off from one of Sarah’s tweets. Thank you and I’m sorry, Sarah!!!!

One of the most curious hookups of the pandemic has been the sudden engagement of Shailene Woodley and Aaron Rodgers, who went from DeuxMoi sighting to engaged (with some Instagram gushing between them). On the surface this has very “theatre kid dates the head quarterback” vibe, which can be a very rom-com-in-real-life pairing, like Jenny Slate and Chris Evans.

But Aaron and Shailene probably had some common ground in that they both fancy themselves independent thinkers. She’s a pseudo-hippie wellness devotee and in that world, there is A LOT of overlap with antivaxxers, with wellness influencers who push and profit from many of thesame talking points as conspiracy theorists. They also seem to really like going for a specific narrative, like when she was on Jimmy Fallon and said she didn’t grow up watching “American sports.” She grew up in California.

When Aaron misled (or rather, lied) about his vaccination status and it became public, they BOTH went on the defensive, with her telling people to “calm the f-ck down” and taunting media coverage of it. That was in November and by December, there were reports that the two were “doing their own thing” which I assumed meant something along the lines of long distance with no chance to change it (or a hint that they were open). Then in January, there were reports that the two “agreed to disagree” on certain topics like politics, which seemed like a sign she wanted to distance herself from his PR issues (particularly as COVID protocols on productions are still a priority for most sets).

Just a few months later,they’ve agreed to agree on breaking up.

Shailene will benefit from a public relations perspective because some people will assume the breakup happened because of his opinion on vaccines or his political leanings. That won’t hurt her, but there’s nothing to back that up. Their entire relationship happened during COVID, so vaccines, masks, and politics probably would have come up pretty early on. The truth is probably closer to something more ordinary like distance, their busy schedules, and the reality of actually getting married set in.

InTouch wasthe first to report this story, which was referenced in PEOPLE’s story. InTouch is a very shaky source to be using, so PEOPLE wouldn’t have confirmed unless it was true. But how did InTouch break the story? Lucky guess? Or was it one side wanted this story out as quickly as possible and if so, why? Maybe one of them has already moved on or wants to. Aaron has dated a few famous women in a row, so chances are that’s the dating pool he’s going to stick with. He really seems to enjoy being surrounded by the Hollywood elite.