How to Make "Life-changing" Friendships (and why they matter) | Rhaina Cohen
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if your closest friendships were just as significant as your marriage? My fascinating guest Rhaina Cohen, author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center, reveals compelling research on how profound platonic bonds can provide the same fulfillment and devotion as romantic ones.
Tune in to hear Rhaina's eye-opening stories that reimagine social connection. We explore how to nurture deeper intimacy in friendships and move beyond limiting cultural biases. Discover practical tools to cultivate lifelong platonic partnerships that are just as central to living a good life as romantic love. This surprising conversation will transform your understanding of relationships.
You can find Rhaina at: Website | Instagram | Episode Transcript
If you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Kat Vellos about how to plant the seeds of grown-up friendship.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I want to be super clear that I'm like a pluralist about this. |
| 0:03.2 | People can have romantic partners and platonic partners or can have several people who provide that |
| 0:07.7 | kind of like anchoring connection for them. |
| 0:10.3 | There are many kinds of wonderful love and support that we can get. |
| 0:14.0 | There are more ways to find fulfillment and more ways to feel loved and connected and that someone's |
| 0:21.8 | going to be there for you, then just one type of relationship. |
| 0:24.6 | Okay, so trick question for you, who matters more to your happiness and well |
| 0:31.1 | being and well, your life life a romantic partner or close |
| 0:35.4 | friends okay so we all know it's not really an either or thing but we tend to |
| 0:40.1 | place those intimate romantic relationships on the good life pedestal like that's |
| 0:44.7 | the ultimate aspiration and we treat good friends more as kind of nice to have well what if that |
| 0:51.5 | were completely upside down? |
| 0:53.8 | What if your closest friendships were just as significant, if not more, as your relationship |
| 0:59.4 | to your partner? |
| 1:00.8 | Even if and when you do find that romantic love, what if there was still room for |
| 1:05.9 | your chosen family-level friends? And what if? It wasn't actually about swapping one out for the other, |
| 1:11.6 | but rather it was a yes and thing. |
| 1:14.0 | My guest today, Rayna Cone, reveals groundbreaking research showing that for many people, |
| 1:19.4 | their most significant and fulfilling relationships are not actually with their romantic |
| 1:23.8 | partners even when they have them but with profound platonic friends. |
| 1:28.3 | Rina is an award-winning producer and editor for NPR's documentary podcast Embedded and the author of the |
| 1:34.4 | insightful new book The Other Significant Others |
... |
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