← Man of the Year - Champions of Friendship
Man of the Year - Champions of Friendship
#138 - Rhaina Cohen, author of “The Other Significant Others”
00:32:52
Journalist and author Rhaina Cohen joins us to talk about the evolution of friendship and her new book “The Other Significant Others.” manoftheyearpodcast.com
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- [01:12]
Matt Ritter
Man of the Year man of the Year man of the Year welcome to the number one friendship podcast in the country. I'm Matt Ritter.
- [01:21]
Aaron Caro
I'm Aaron Caro.
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Matt Ritter
Guys, go to manoftheyearpodcast.com to check out all of other stuff. We've got some merch. Got to get some of our merch. You got to rock some of our we should be friends shirts. You can go to our YouTube page. I'm excited because we have a very special guest today and I don't have to just be talking to Cairo, which is always great for both of us.
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Aaron Caro
But that's okay.
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Matt Ritter
No, you don't. You very, you're very happy about it, too. So we are delighted to have her here with us today. She is the editor of NPR's Embedded and she has a really cool book that we're going to get into that's all about friendship. It's called the Other Significant Others Reimagining Life with Friendship at the center, which challenges a lot of conventional norms we have about relationships. Welcome to man of the Year, Raina Cohen.
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Raina Cohen
Woohoo. This is a very fun introduction. You know, just keep pumping me up.
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Matt Ritter
Yeah, no, we listen, we are really, really excited to have you. I want to dive right into read your book and I found it fascinating. I want to dive right into the question because, you know, a lot of people seem to think that, like Fred, they don't need friends or, you know, friends are secondary. We always, we always say on the pod, friendship is the most underserved relationship. But it feels like, you know, you've Taken it a lot further than that and you've studied feels like this is a kind of a new dynamic or a new philosophy that we have that friendship isn't as critical. But looking back historically, it sounds like that's actually not true. Can you talk about that a little bit?
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Raina Cohen
This was one of the biggest revelations for me that the way that we think about friendship now is not something that has always been this way. And, you know, you can look back more than a thousand years and find that, that men would go through ceremonies in churches that were, you know, the equivalent basically to marriage ceremonies or making somebody a godparent where, you know, you would turn someone you are unrelated to into a familial relationship. It was called sworn brotherhood. So, you know, you, you have examples like that you have in, you know, religious texts like the Hebrew Bible, David and Jonathan's commitment to one another. You can fast forward to, you know, the 17th through the 19th century and you have really intimate same sex friendships that are called romantic friendships where, you know, friends talk about the, their, their heart beating for their friend. They would exchange locks of hair. You can look at portraits, especially of men. These are really interesting to see where their bodies are entangled with each other. There was much more physical affection and emotional intimacy. And friendship was not considered this kind of peripheral relationship, but one where you might find your deepest emotional needs met.
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Matt Ritter
So what happened? I mean, honestly, how did we get from there all this feeling that, you know, people just think of it as such an afterthought.
- [04:21]
Raina Cohen
So I think of them there being basically, basically these sort of two strands of reasons. One is that the expectations around marriage have changed a ton. So, you know, a few centuries ago, even more recently than that, in a lot of cases, marriage was an economic institution. It was very practical. You are basically gaining in laws, you're exchanging money, kind of like a treaty, you know, except between two families instead of two countries. And the idea that you would be madly in love with your spouse, that you, you know, would really connect deeply, was not expected at all. Stephanie Coons, who's a historian and has looked at this, said that it was new to have marriage be the basis rather than just a bonus for marriage. And you only see that in, in sort of the mid-1800s, that that's changing. And now, you know, you've probably been to weddings where people talk about their spouse as their best friend. That would have made absolutely no sense in, you know, 1801, especially when there's such inequality between men and women that like, how are you supposed to have a kind of friendship type relationship with somebody that you are completely unequal to, either you are their property or they are your property. So that the. And so now we are at this point where people really often expect their closest relationship to be with their spouse or their spouse to be their best friend. And that just doesn't leave very much room for friendship to be very significant. The other thing that goes on over the course of these, the last sort of century and a half is the ideas of homosexuality and heterosexuality that we have now. This, the idea that there is a heterosexual person and a homosexual person did not exist as we know it until about the turn of the 20th century. And that meant that there was a lot more freedom for both men and women to be, you know, emotionally intimate with each other, sometimes physically intimate, and for that not to turn them into a certain kind of person. And, and there wasn't the same kind of stigma attached to these behaviors. You know, there's a whole, like, side point about sodomy was still illegal, but it's kind of complicated in terms of how you, how this was sodomy was even defined. So, you know, side note, we can get into like, deep history there. But, but really the gist is that there was a lot more license from, for especially men, you really see this difference to be close. So then any kind of intimacy between two people of the same sex becomes suspect. And you, you see like, censorship of books where there had been, you know, emotionally intimate friendships. So you have these, these kind of twin trends of marriage taking up much more space and intimacy becoming really suspect because of the specter of homosexuality.
- [07:10]
Matt Ritter
Fascinating.
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Aaron Caro
So like, there's this like, trend, I guess you'd say, of scholarship or, or amateur scholarship, that every historical figure was gay. Abraham Lincoln, Julius Caesar. Look at these letters, look at these things. And, and I, what I imagine you're saying is that like, no, they were just like, broing out, but that's how, how it was back then.
- [07:29]
Raina Cohen
Oh, I think the, the answer is something that's like, that's complicated. It's. We don't know. We don't. You know, it's really hard to look back at some of these cases and know for sure. And I think in some, in some situations there's you, you know, you're reading between the lines. And sometimes the reading between the lines is, you know, is more interpretive and, and sometimes it seems like it's, it's more clear cut. But, you know, I was just talking to a historian about this yesterday who. This is, you know, his whole area of expertise. And I think there's. There's a lot of good reason to want to look at, you know, to. To use the labels that we now have and try to see do people have them in the past, like, being queer, being, you know, like, homosexuality. I mean, I'm. I'm bisexual. Like, this kind of thing I'm invested in. But I also. I think that the. The problem is that if all you're trying to do is. Is see if people fit into a box that we have now, you're not asking the most interesting questions, which is, you know, like, what was different about these relationships? Why is it hard for us to wrap our minds around them right now? In what ways did these relationships actually kind of blur These. These categories that we now think of as being really separate from one another? So I think the reality is that plenty. These people, you know, likely did have sex, maybe today would have been considered queer. But by all, by no means. I don't. I don't think that that's everybody. And I also think that it kind of forecloses some of the questions we can ask that. That really encourage us to think a little bit differently about what we take for granted now.
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Matt Ritter
Yeah, it's amazing because we're, you know, we're coming at it from. We've had this podcast for now two and a half, three years, and, you know, mostly focused on trying to get men to be more vulnerable and more open with each other. And I. I definitely see now that a lot of that is based on social norms. Stifling social norms that, you know, men can't say I love you to each other. They can't, you know, be physically intimate with each other. They're certainly not, you know, sharing locks of hair, though Caro and I should definitely be at the level where we should be sharing.
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Aaron Caro
Except. Except that hair is getting a little gray.
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Matt Ritter
No, yours is getting. You're wearing a hat to cover. I mean, it's.
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Aaron Caro
No, no, no, no. I said short on the sides out of it. Short on the sides is the style has no other reasons.
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Matt Ritter
But I. But I digress. But so I, you know, I think what's fascinating about what you're saying is, like, we really do have a lot to learn. You know, there's a lot to be gleaned there potentially, and mind and. And, you know, maybe even just. There's definitely relationships that were maybe working a lot better. But I also. The other part, what I think you're also saying is that marriages have more pressure. So, like, there's also this other side of the scale that has now gotten really heavy. Right. We've lightened the load on friendship to almost make it not non existent for at least a lot of, you know, men. And then on the other side of the ledger now you have all of the weight on the marriages.
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Raina Cohen
Yeah. And it's also not good for the marriages. I mean, there's research showing that people are less happy in their marriages, you know, experience more stress when they don't have other people who they are close to outside of the marriage. So this is, you know, it is understandable that people are trying to find these needs met somewhere, but kind of going all in one place is one, relatively new and it's. And two, it's not necessarily serving most people.
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Aaron Caro
Yeah. Because our, me and Matt always say our number one incoming email is from a woman married to a man who's like, my husband has no friends or he doesn't ever see them. He doesn't get up the couch. He's so annoying. Like, please help him. And that actually surprised us. But it sounds like it doesn't really surprise you.
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Raina Cohen
Does not at all surprise me. Yeah, Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I would be interested in like, what. So you were surprised by that. But also like, it just, it seems like it's bad for both people. Like, aren't the men missing out on, on connections that can, can really matter to them? Surely, you know, one person is not going to share all of their interests or be the right person to talk to about every single issue. So there's a loss there on the men's side. And then for the woman, it means that there's pressure on her to always be the per, like the right person for her husband to go to and it's most likely not going to be reciprocal where she has other outlets, but he doesn't. So, you know, it's, it just is, is kind of a lose, lose situation that I, I find. I, I'm glad that you guys have the podcast that are like creating a model for men to, to have different kinds of friendships.
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Matt Ritter
Yeah. We're also trying to disabuse them of these lies that they're telling themselves. Right. So one of the big lies that the men are telling themselves is like, I'm fine, I'm a lone wolf. Like, I don't like, I mean, is that even like, I'm curious because you've done all this historical research, like, where did that come from? This notion that like a man can just be alone and not have any friends and My other question is, you know, I think we also have to tell women, like, you're wrong. This isn't just his problem. I think a lot of women are like, that's his problem. Like, he needs to get a life. Right. But I actually think. No, you're like, what you're saying, we also totally agree with. No, this is going to affect you. This is your life too. So you should maybe get involved if you can. Because a lot of times we're actually. We've been successful getting the women to actually help make the plans for the men and just, you know, even though it's like, oh, well, why is that my problem? We're like, well, because he's clearly not, like, capable at this moment of doing it.
- [13:08]
Raina Cohen
Yeah, I mean, I, I can. I completely understand women being like, why do I have to do this? Like, this is. The whole point is that I want to not be the one and only person who's being relied upon. I think it helps probably both the man and the woman to realize that the man's behavior is. Is. Doesn't come out of nowhere. It's not maybe purely out of laziness, but out of, you know, the accumulation of what culture has been telling him. And also, these are skills, like social skills are skills. And knowing how to, you know, pursue friendships and maintain them. A lot of it is. Is unspoken in, you know, you're just supposed to intuit it, but it's. It's not that does. It doesn't mean it's straightforward. And if you're not practicing it, those skills are never going to. They're either going to atrophy if they ever did exist, or they'll just never develop. So I think having some, you know, kind of compassion for the men who are struggling with this and also for them for men to not feel like they're. There's something wrong with them if they're having trouble with this. I mean, women also have trouble with making friends. I'm sure you have. You've heard that. I certainly hear that from where I'm sitting. But we're all supposed to treat it as, like, it's no big deal and it's easy.
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Aaron Caro
And not to get into the men are from Mars debate. But why do you think that women are so much better at friendship than men are? We usually ask everybody that question.
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Raina Cohen
This. It's. I, I would amend the question and say, why are women so much better at friendship now than men are? Because when I read texts from the past, they're, you know, you don't see that men are having a problem with friendship. And in fact, the first essay written was by Michel de Montaigne. And he argued that. That women were incapable of true friendship, that it was only men who were. Who were able to, because they, you know, women didn't have the right temperament. So, you know, and then you can look back at even older thinkers and they really saw friendship as something that happened between men. So the idea that men are bad at friendship is something that is extremely contemporary and that indicates that it is not some innate thing about men. And you know, I'm not going to go back to the reverse and say that women are incapable of friendship. I think like, the, the whole point is like, what is the role of. Of society and our culture in telling us what matters, what we're capable of? When are we practicing these things? A lot of men rely on the women in their lives to organize their. Their social. The social aspect of their lives. And that means that they're not practicing. And if they. You can look at rates of remarriage after divorce. Men are much more likely to get remarried than women are. I mean, they. Without a spouse, often men don't have anybody. And that's not necessarily the case for, for women. And I just think this is. That so much of this is about socialization. It's about the fear of being perceived as gay. That makes men unlikely to get too close to other men, whether or not they recognize that that's a factor. I mean, those are just some of the things that I think are feeding into these differences between men and women.
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Matt Ritter
So I just want to keep like, narrowing down on how recent this phenomenon is because I think that to me is the most shocking thing. I think I kind of had a sense. But you know, from, from reading the book too, like, we. And also some from some of our interviews, like we interviewed the rabbi of our temple and he was like, we had a 350 person thriving men's group 30 years ago. So I'm just wondering if, you know, you kind of can pinpoint, like, I think it's very recent, but I'm not exactly sure where and how it was like just this generation or like, because our. My parents, Aaron's parents, like, he's still has a lot of the same friends, right? Your dad has a thriving friend group. I'm just like, not sure when and how it happened.
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Raina Cohen
Well, yeah, I, yeah, it doesn't. I don't totally. Like, it's hard to know the exact answer to that question because I also, I don't know if your parents are like, you know, baby boomers. But my, certainly my parents and friends, like, they don't have. They don't have good friends. Like, it's. This is. It's not like 30 that they, you know, they would have. They would have been the kind of people who would have been in a. In a men's group 30 years ago, but they weren't in it. And so I'm. I see a lot of difficulties actually with, with people that. That generation. So I, I mean, I can speculate about the idea that, you know, the nuclear family is supposed to be the kind of be all and end all and maybe people who, yeah, don't really feel like you're supposed to invest elsewhere. But I think, you know, that you'd asked previously about some of these ideas about individualism. Like those, those were emerging in the kind of early 20th century. Like, Teddy Roosevelt was a kind of classic example of this, like, you know, rugged, you can, you can go it alone kind of person, but.
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Matt Ritter
Right. Rugged individualism, they called it.
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Aaron Caro
Right.
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Raina Cohen
Yeah. I mean, you know, other factors, you know, there's things like the, the whole bowling alone idea from Robert Putnam. I mean, he has pointed out the way that there's just been this erosion in kind of community organizations and people that he was tracking television, but now we have. It's not just television, baby, but other reasons why people aren't, you know, getting out of the house. But the I, you know, the specific idea of your spouse being your best friend, like that is very. That is just the last few decades that. That has. That has sort of taken off. So I would, I would say that that also is a factor that, you know, for someone of our parents generation, they probably would not have expected that and had other people around. But, you know, it's going to differ from person to person.
- [18:54]
Matt Ritter
I have, like, my personal take because my wife is, like, not into any sports stuff and like, we just have, like, separate interests. So I've never kind of even been on that line of like, oh, well, she fills all of my, you know, kind of like, needs anyway. So I've just always found that comical that just somehow it just became like, oh, well, my wife watches sports with me, so I don't need any. Like, I'm good now. You know, I just, I don't know. I just. I've always found that a little silly. But, like, now, like, after reading your book, I'm just like, oh, yeah, like, it's, it's a crazy notion, you know, and I'm glad That it's like, okay, historically, that made no sense, and now suddenly it's just something that people are deluding themselves about.
- [19:36]
Raina Cohen
And I think we're seeing some changes. Like, that was. You know, there's a. I, like, write a chapter on masculinity, and I feel like that's one of the encouraging things, like, seeing that one, you know, men are talking about. About friendship, that men are less. At least a lot of them are less concerned with, you know, what will people think if they. They get too close to another man. So I, you know, my. I. I have some shred of hope that we're. That. That there will be some recovery here, but I, you know, I think actually, like, looking to history can be really useful to say that it doesn't like, the way that we think things are now are not the way that they have to be.
- [20:13]
Aaron Caro
Matt, do you remember this is many episodes ago, we were talking about rugged individualism, and we coined the term rugged interdependence.
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Matt Ritter
Oh, yeah?
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Raina Cohen
What was it? How would you. How do you define the term?
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Aaron Caro
Well, it's. It's. It's flipping it on its head. Like, it's actually more masculine and healthier to have a lot of friends, have relationships, you know, be vulnerable with your buddies, count on them, and you could still be rugged and have a great, you know, social.
- [20:44]
Matt Ritter
Right. Right. We were like. I think it was also the same. I don't know if it was the same as we're talking about. Like, oh, no, it's. It's more manly and tougher to be able to say I love you to another man than, like.
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Aaron Caro
Right.
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Matt Ritter
Bottling it up.
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Raina Cohen
I mean, I also find the. I don't know, the rugged individualism thing, it's like, well, who's making you dinner? Like, you're dependent on someone. If you're like, you know, who is taking care of the children that you have. Like, it. There was a book that. I think it was something called, something to the effect of, like, who Made Adam Smith's Dinner? And it was about, like, how the, like, he was like, very totally. So Adam Smith, this, you know, economist who is now sort of held up by libertarians, but he was extremely dependent on his mother to kind of do everything for him. So.
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Matt Ritter
Yeah, that's Adam Smith's mommy.
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Aaron Caro
Yeah. It's called who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?
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Matt Ritter
Oh, that's awesome.
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Aaron Caro
I'm just curious because I, you know, I want to show the book here. We'll show it again at the end. You. You dug deep, you know, you Went. You went. You know, like, Matt, our audio does not have. Not gonna have footnotes like this. Any. Any, you know, historical stories or quirky things that made it in the book or didn't that you, you know, want to share with our audience that you were. That piqued your interest.
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Raina Cohen
Now I feel like I'm being quizzed. I'm like, do I know the answer to this? I'll. You know, I don't. I. Well, you know, maybe this is. This is more like a recent history example. There was a whole bunch of press when. I think it was in Saudi Arabia maybe when, When President Bush held the hand of a head. The head of state. It was. I think it was either Saudi Arabia or some other country in. In. In the Middle East. And there had to be. There were like, explanations in American newspapers about, like, this is a. This is a common thing of men holding hands. And that has been. That's true in many places in the world. In India and China. This has been changing over the last few decades. Like, I know, you know, people have said that they. A few decades ago it was extremely common. Now you still see it, but you don't see it quite as much where you. In. In societies especially that have been kind of more sex segregated that. And where, like, the idea of being homosexual is kind of totally behind like, or of being queer is totally beyond the pale, it sort of has given more room for men to express that kind of affection for each other and for nobody to think twice about it. You know, not suggesting that the world we move back to is where, you know, being. Being gay is. Is kind of a wild notion for people, but that it's. If people. If we can get to a place where people are less concerned about it because it doesn't really, you know, if they're not, there's no stigma, then. Then there would be more freedom there. What I was thinking of saying is, so I, you know, I talked like, I talked to men who had these sorts of friendships and, and the kinds of friendships actually that I look at are people who are close enough basically to be life partners. So they're like, really pushing at the edge of what a friendship can be. And I think one, like one of the men that I spoke to had a really telling story. Story about how he felt uncomfortable with his, you know, certain things that his best friend would do. And he, this guy Nick grew up conservative, grew, is a pastor, is in a conservative Christian congregation, and, you know, and kind of ended up creating this. This set of questions to evaluate what does he actually want so for, you know, to get. I think it was Matt maybe who said that a lot of men are like, I don't need anybody, or I don't, you know, I don't need this kind of closeness. It's like, well, I don't know, do you actually trust what you. What you think you want? So in this case, an example was that Nick felt uncomfortable with his friend putting his arm around his shoulder. And then his friend asked him, okay, let's like, go through the set of questions that they came up with, which is, what is moral, what is cultural, and what is personal? So they asked, okay, is Nick uncomfortable with this because it's morally wrong? And. And then they're like, no, the Bible has, like, men laying their heads on each other's bosom. Like, it's totally fine for men to touch each other. They asked if it was cultural. And Nicholas thought, well, you know, in his family, like, his dad never would sit next to him on the couch when he wouldn't, you know, hug him, didn't tell him he loved him. And he had a lot of sort of reasons in the broader community where it felt like it was wrong to become close to a man. But Nick didn't endorse any of that. And then the last thing was, was it like, is it personal? And Nick realized, like, he actually likes having his friend having his hand on his shoulder. Like, that sensation feels nice to him. And he was able to kind of disaggregate what everybody else was telling him from what he. He thought that he wanted. And I. For something as simple as, like, having a friend put your hand on your shoulder. But I think it really speaks to some of the things that get in the way of men being really close to each other. And, you know, you have to be really thoughtful to interrogate all of those things.
- [25:48]
Aaron Caro
By the way, that was President Bush holding King Abdullah's hand in 2005.
- [25:55]
Matt Ritter
I remember that scandal.
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Aaron Caro
Well, it sounds like scandal.
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Raina Cohen
It was just more like it needed. It needed context for American audiences because it was perplexing.
- [26:06]
Aaron Caro
I think some of it was also that it was holding a Saudi Arabian King's hand after 9, 11 or something like that. We don't. We don't have to get into that.
- [26:14]
Matt Ritter
That was before they all put their hands on the orb together. Every man's hand on an orb.
- [26:21]
Aaron Caro
Yeah, that. That's less homosexual, right?
- [26:24]
Matt Ritter
Yes.
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Aaron Caro
My. So, Matt, our. Our friend Shane, you know, he's from, you know, Vermont or whatever. He's not waspy, but he's I don't know, whatever.
- [26:34]
Raina Cohen
Whatever.
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Aaron Caro
People were not Jewish or. I don't really understand in. But he's basically like his dad has never hugged him.
- [26:39]
Matt Ritter
Right?
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Aaron Caro
And I'm like, that's ridiculous. I don't believe. He's like, no, he's never. I'm like, when I meet your dad, I'm getting a hug out of him. Like, I will extract a hug. And he's like, you never will get. I'm like, if I get a hug, you're taking me to dinner. So his dad is actually visiting LA for the first time in a couple weeks. And that's Operation Hug Dad.
- [26:57]
Matt Ritter
Wow.
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Raina Cohen
Wait, do you have like a method? Do you have a. An opera? Like what you're gonna go.
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Matt Ritter
Bring it in, big guy.
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Raina Cohen
Bring it in.
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Aaron Caro
No, I'm gonna be. My. One of my skills ran is woo woo. Winning people over. So I'm just gonna, you know, talk to him, hang out with him, bro out with him and just honestly probably annoy him, break him down and then get that hug.
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Matt Ritter
I don't know if it's gonna happen. I don't listen, you know, I don't know if you know this. My grandmother never hugged me. She was not a hugger.
- [27:27]
Aaron Caro
Well, that's because you're too clumsy.
- [27:29]
Matt Ritter
That was why I spilled things a lot. But no, I think, you know, just some people are. Have a lot of walls built up about that stuff and, you know, it's. It's hard for them to just like suddenly overcome it, you know, I mean, we.
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Aaron Caro
Oh, sorry, Randy, you go.
- [27:43]
Raina Cohen
No, I just. I wonder with your friend whether as a very young kid, his dad like hugged him but stopped at a certain point.
- [27:49]
Aaron Caro
Oh, interesting. I mean, maybe when he was like a little like a. A baby, but I don't. I don't think. I bet you. I'll ask him about. You said he's. I bet you said never. I bet he never got.
- [27:59]
Matt Ritter
It's funny we're talking about this now because my. My dad has passed away, but when he was alive, we would hold hands. And then I just like at some point as a teenager decided I didn't want to do that anymore. And every time he tried to do it, I like, pull my hands away, you know, And I just was thinking about that recently and all this on the pod, you know, I'm like, oh, man, I wish I didn't do that. But it's also like, well, that was society influencing. I wish I had taken that quiz.
- [28:25]
Aaron Caro
Right, right. We can't all be like Tom Brady and kiss Our kids in the mouth or whatever he did.
- [28:31]
Matt Ritter
I. I didn't see that one.
- [28:32]
Aaron Caro
What? Are you kidding me?
- [28:33]
Matt Ritter
That. Was that a big thing?
- [28:34]
Aaron Caro
This is like five years ago. There's, like, a video of Tom Brady is getting, like, you know, he's getting worked on, and his kid comes in, he's like, hey, you didn't say goodbye. And he comes over and kisses him on the lips. I mean, whatever. They love each other, so that's fine. We shouldn't make fun. Obviously. That's.
- [28:48]
Matt Ritter
No, that was the whole SNL sketch of, like, people think that's weird. So they did. I don't know if you've seen that recurring SNL sketch where a friend comes over the house and everybody's kissing on the mouth.
- [28:58]
Aaron Caro
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [28:59]
Matt Ritter
Comes this, like, elevated thing. But, yeah, it's. It's. It is interesting. We just have all of these norms, and I think other countries, you know, not just historically. Right. I think we didn't even get into the fact that other countries have, you know, wildly different norms about friendships and relationships and. And I think the nuclear family, you know, that we didn't really touch on that much. I do think that that hasn't had a big influence on. Because, at least from what my. My thesis is kind of like, a lot of men of our generation just think their. Their role was, like, to get a good job, you know, make money and get married and have a family, and then they're set. Like, that's the whole, like, circle of success.
- [29:38]
Raina Cohen
And arrived.
- [29:39]
Matt Ritter
You've arrived, and friendship is nowhere, even in the circle. So that, of course, it's natural for them to be like, I'm good. I did it. You know, Then suddenly they wake up around 35 or 40 with this, like, nagging itch to build friendships again. And it's like, I don't know what to do.
- [29:56]
Raina Cohen
I mean, you know, I've seen this happen both with men and women. I can think of specific. Like, a specific conversation I had with someone who is like, I don't have time for friends. I, you know, I have a kid. I've got my family, I've got work. Like, that is more than enough. And then found herself going through a hard situation and being able to, like. Like wishing that she had more. More people around, more friends around her, that she was less isolated, especially in parenthood. So I. I do think that we're kind of sold a bill of goods, that just having a few people is supposed to be, you know, maybe just having a spouse alone. That. That's Supposed to be enough. And, you know, in fact, I'm going through a process of trying to build basically, like, a friend compound type of space situation with. With some friends. And we went and visited a house that we were considering buying. And the. The. The real estate agent was, like, so confused because there were like six or eight of us adults, and he was trying to figure out who to live here and asked if we wanted to have kids. And we talked about, yeah, that's like, one of the main reasons, like, several of us want to have kids. And then I could just, like, see him have an epiphany in real time where he was like, oh, like, I have. I have, you know, several kids, but my. You know, you could just have the kids entertain each other and then you hang out with each other. And he said that his, you know, he would try to hang out with his friends, and they would say, like, aren't your wife and kids enough? Or, like, don't you love your wife and kids? And that. That it was such a. I thought. I found that sad that that's how his friends responded to him. And also that, you know, it had never occurred to him that it was okay to have friends be more involved in his life. He wasn't. That wasn't sort of the thing that he was told was even on the. On the table.
- [31:46]
Matt Ritter
Yeah, it's amazing. I. I just rented a. An office space, and just because they're not, like, used to having, you know, people do with their friends and their wives and their wife's friend. So I just release. I just was like, let me just do lease. And then, like, it was me and a buddy, and sometimes my wife comes sometimes his wife comes sometimes, and our kids comes. And the guy was immediately like, what's going on in here? What kind of game are you trying to run? I'm like, no, this is just like our. Our situation, you know? So he was like, all right, well, you just gotta. You just gotta reserve the conference room if people are gonna be in it. Like, I could tell he wasn't, like, really upset about it. He was just. He couldn't conceive of what we were. Like that, oh, I'm renting an office and my buddy's using it and my wife's using it and his wife's using it and, like, all this stuff.
- [32:31]
Raina Cohen
Too many. Too many people. Keep it simple.
- [32:33]
Aaron Caro
Yeah, yeah, I'm on the landlord side, like, at offices for work. Like, why are your friends there? Why are your kids there?
- [32:39]
Matt Ritter
Grow up now. Grow up.
- [32:46]
Aaron Caro
Matt does not like an ad hominem attack. Reina is where can we find you? Where can our listeners find you? Or find the book?
- [32:53]
Raina Cohen
So you can find the book wherever books are sold. It's called the Other Significant Others Reimagining Life With Friendship at the Center. I also write periodically for the Atlantic in addition to my NPR work. And, you know, if you listen to Embedded, you'll hear stuff. I, I'm. I'm on the other side of the audio. I'm, I'm. I edit and produce there and then my. You can find me on substack and on Instagram. My name is. First name is spelled unusually, so I'm easy to find. R H A I N A.
- [33:23]
Matt Ritter
Well, thank you so much. This was enlightening. I highly encourage people to read the book because I think, think it'll blow your mind and just kind of change your entire conception of, you know, what friendship is and what relationships are supposed to be based on historical precedent. So thank you again, Reina.
- [33:43]
Raina Cohen
Reina.
- [33:43]
Aaron Caro
Thank you so much. Guys, buy the book. I'm holding it right now. Thank you so much for listening. Always remember, be good to yourself. Be good to your friends. Hey, Matt. I love you, buddy.
- [33:52]
Matt Ritter
Love you, buddy.