Speaker
Rhaina Cohen
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
The percentage of American adults who have never been married is at a record high, making the romantic-partnership-as-default model increasingly misaligned with reality.
In the US, about 30% of women over 65 are widows, illustrating that relying solely on a spouse for lifelong companionship is statistically unreliable.
Joy, who cared for her friend Hannah during a 6-year battle with ovarian cancer, was not entitled to family medical leave because their friendship wasn't legally recognized.
When Hannah died after a 6-year illness, her caregiver friend Joy was not entitled to bereavement leave because the two were considered legally unrelated.
Natasha and Linda became the first legally recognized platonic co-parents in Canada, illustrating that some legal systems are beginning to acknowledge non-romantic partnerships.
In ancient Rome, friends described each other as 'half of my soul' or 'the greater part of my soul' — language now reserved exclusively for romantic partners.
Across China, Jordan, and England, a practice called 'sworn brotherhood' involved male friends undergoing rituals to become brothers, showing deep platonic bonds are cross-cultural and ancient.
About a century ago, friends would sit for portraits with their arms wrapped around each other and bodies close — physical affection between friends that would now be read as romantic.
A man told his mother he had found emotional wholeness in his best friend — his 'platonic life partner' — who had moved across the country to live with him since high school.
Rhaina Cohen herself lives not only with her husband but also two of her closest friends, and is planning with about a half dozen friends to buy property together to raise children communally.
Government and workplace policies in the US do not recognize friendship, leaving close friends without legal protections like medical leave or bereavement leave.
A woman so close to her friend's children that she was given car seats for them, yet still sought a spouse because society hadn't validated that a friend could be 'enough.'
Justice Kennedy's opinion recognizing same-sex marriage speaks of marriage as a response to 'the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there.' But what does that say to the record number of Americans who have never been married? Rhaina Cohen points out that the most celebrated statement about human connection is actually a statement about exclusion.
Any one of us is statistically unlikely to have a spouse until our last breath. Rhaina Cohen argues this makes friendship not a backup plan but a necessity — a genuine 'other significant other' that modern culture refuses to validate.
Ancient Romans called friends 'half of my soul.' Sworn brotherhoods formalized platonic bonds across China, Jordan, and England. A century ago, friends posed in tender embraces for portraits. The language of deep love for friends is ancient — romance stole it from us.
A divorced woman had car seats for her friend's kids, spent most of her time with that family, and was deeply fulfilled. Yet she still searched for a spouse because she'd been told there was a hole. There wasn't. She had been happy all along — she just hadn't been given permission to believe friendship was enough.
We don't have to choose between romance and friendship — we just have to stop ranking them. Rhaina Cohen closes with a vision where no one calls out in loneliness unanswered, because we've given ourselves permission to build lives around spouses, siblings, or houses full of friends.
Rhaina Cohen's book began with a friendship she stumbled into — one where holding hands was a reflex, where they saw each other most days, where the boundaries between romance and platonic love blurred. She went out and interviewed dozens of people with similar friendships. What she found reshaped how she thinks about love.
Joy cared for her friend Hannah through six years of ovarian cancer — flying to New York for treatments, sleeping in hospitals. When Hannah died, Joy got nothing: no family medical leave, no bereavement leave, because the law doesn't recognize friendship. This isn't a gap in the rules — it's a statement about whose relationships count.
Rhaina Cohen doesn't just argue for friendship-as-life-anchor — she lives it. She shares her home with her husband and two close friends, and is conspiring with six more friends to buy communal property called 'The Village' where they'd raise children together. The future she describes already exists in her living room.
A man told his mother he had found emotional wholeness not in a romantic partner, but in his best friend — his platonic life partner — who moved across the country to live with him. His mother said she couldn't understand how you could be partners with someone you're not romantic with. That confusion is the whole problem.
Platonic co-parents in Canada. A man who got sober for his friend. A woman who flew across the country and watched her friend's chest rise and fall through the night. Rhaina Cohen's interviews reveal what friendship looks like when we stop limiting it.
Analysis
What they talk about
- Society & Culture 64%
- History 18%
- Government 9%
- Health & Fitness 9%
