Talks on Love Playlist (5/5): Why friendship can be just as meaningful as romantic love | Rhaina Cohen
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
We tend to consider romantic partners and family ties to be our most important relationships, but deep friendships can be just as meaningful. In a perspective-shifting talk, author Rhaina Cohen introduces us to the people unsettling norms by choosing a friend as a life partner — and shows why we're all better off recognizing there's more than one kind of significant other.
This episode originally aired in 2024.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | June is LGBTQ Pride Month for many around the world. |
| 0:04.1 | It's a time to celebrate the fight for rights and the many forms love and relationships |
| 0:08.4 | can take. |
| 0:09.6 | In honor of this, today we're dropping five of our favorite TED Talks from the archive |
| 0:14.1 | on love and relationships. |
| 0:16.5 | Happy listening. |
| 0:20.7 | You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. |
| 0:26.5 | I'm your host, Elise Hugh. |
| 0:28.4 | We are so conditioned to think of our romantic relationships as central to our lives and the foundation of our families. |
| 0:37.9 | But journalist and author Raina Cohen is challenging that framework. |
| 0:42.0 | In her 2024 talk, she paints a picture of a future where friendship can be at the core. |
| 0:48.5 | We'll dive into this talk right after the break. |
| 1:01.5 | And now our TED Talk of the Day. |
| 1:06.5 | There is a Supreme Court case that you could mistake for a sermon. |
| 1:13.2 | It's the case that recognize that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. |
| 1:16.2 | Here's a sense of what Justice Kennedy wrote. |
| 1:25.4 | Marriage responds to the universal fear that a lonely person might call out only to find no one there. |
| 1:31.3 | He goes on to say that marriage offers care and companionship, and the decision argues that these are basic human needs |
| 1:36.3 | that everyone should have access to, |
| 1:38.3 | whether they're straight or queer. |
| 1:40.3 | Validating. |
| 1:42.3 | But what do these words say to you if you're single? |
... |
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