The Other Significant Others | Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center
Friendship is not a “nice-to-have” but a core, potentially transformative human connection. Rhaina Cohen, author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life With Friendship at the Center, joins us. Highlights of our conversation include:
The “friendship recession” and how modern culture undervalues friendships compared to romantic or family ties;
Historical and cross-cultural insights into how friendship has been understood and prioritized in different societies;
Stories from Cohen’s book about people redefining relationships, including platonic co-parents and friends who live together as chosen family;
The legal and cultural barriers to elevating friendship as a socially sanctioned form of kinship and how policy reforms could better accommodate diverse relationships;
Cohen’s personal experiences with an intense friendship that reshaped her understanding of love, intimacy, and societal expectations.