What Relationships Would You Want, if You Believed They Were Possible?
About this episode
Klein interviews author Rhaina Cohen about her book The Other Significant Others and the case for putting friendship at the center of life. Cohen argues contemporary society overloads romantic couples while undervaluing close friendship and chosen family, pointing to rising loneliness and declining friendship, especially among men, where cultural barriers block emotional intimacy. They discuss platonic life partnerships, friends who cohabit, co-parent, support celibate people, and care for one another — arrangements that law and social norms make hard to describe or protect, since institutions privilege marriage and biological kinship. Cohen contends friendship-centered networks can ease parenting strain, strengthen marriages, support aging, and diversify emotional support, though they demand communication and create competing obligations; she concludes people should choose the problems of community over isolation.