TAKE THIS PERSONALLY: Friendship Just As Important As Romance: Rethinking Connections, Community & Living

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Bobby Bones Show — "TAKE THIS PERSONALLY: Friendship Just As Important As Romance: Rethinking Connections, Community & Living"

Date: December 14, 2025
Guest: Raina Cohen, author of The Other Significant Others

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, the host welcomes Raina Cohen to challenge how we view relationships—arguing that friendship deserves as much weight in our lives as romance. Drawing from her book The Other Significant Others, Cohen shares personal stories, historical insights, and practical advice about building, maintaining, and celebrating platonic bonds, even as mainstream culture places romance at the center of fulfillment and adulthood. The conversation also explores communal living, the undervalued role of friendship, and how to foster deeper connections in our everyday lives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origins and Motivation for Raina’s Book

[04:13]

• Cohen describes a close friendship that went beyond the term "best friends" as her starting point.
• She noticed that while such deep bonds felt unusual today, there was historical precedent for intimate, publicly acknowledged friendships.

Quote:
"We weren't even just best friends. Like that was too small of a term to describe how intertwined we were in each other's lives."
— Raina Cohen [04:18]

2. Friendship in History: A Lost Intimacy

[05:49]

• Sworn brotherhoods: Men pledging lifelong friendship in formal ceremonies, sometimes being buried together.
• "Romantic friendships" between same-sex friends were openly affectionate and not stigmatized.
• The 20th century's categorization of same-sex intimacy as potentially queer led to a narrowing of how friendships could be expressed.

Quote:
"Friendship... was publicly recognized, which we don't do now. And it was really treated with a lot of gravity."
— Raina Cohen [06:35]

3. Why Did Romance Eclipse Friendship?

[08:01]

• The invention of heterosexual/homosexual identities made close friendships suspect, especially between same-sex friends.
• Marriage evolved from a primarily transactional to an emotional union, absorbing the kinds of intimacy previously supplied by friendship.

Quote:
"If your spouse is supposed to be your best friend, that just doesn't leave a lot of room for your best friend."
— Raina Cohen [10:21]

4. Personal Experiences & Avoiding the "One Relationship" Trap

[11:29]

• Cohen recounts the pain of losing friendships to romance and intentionally builds her own partnership around community and independence.
• She and her husband avoid full relationship enmeshment, consciously make space for friendships, and practice “be individuals together.”

Quote:
"I didn't want the fragility of putting all of your eggs in one basket... those experiences made me really want to nurture friendships."
— Raina Cohen [12:24]

5. Communal Living: Practicing What She Preaches

[14:32]

• Cohen and her husband have lived with friends and their children in intentional communities, seeking to avoid isolation in parenthood and support all members.
• They hope to create a neighborhood anchored by multiple households of friends.

Quote:
"Part of that is there are several people who want to have children and want to do that in a way that doesn't feel isolating... we've seen people who have lived near their friends have much more support and much more fun."
— Raina Cohen [15:29]

6. Preventing the "Disappearing Friend" Phenomenon

[20:01]

• Cohen stresses recognizing the pain of losing friends to romance is valid and should be acknowledged.
• Advocates for honest conversations and intentional acts to keep friendships alive, even as life changes.

Quote:
"If someone is on the receiving end, where friends disappear—honor that it's difficult... then maybe open a conversation with a friend and not see it as inevitable."
— Raina Cohen [20:33]

7. Valuing Friendship for Singles and Couples

[23:26]

• Cultural messages dismiss single life, leading to internalized shame or the myth that life starts with romance.
• Research shows robust outside support networks benefit romantic relationships and personal well-being.

Quote:
"You can have a full life without a romantic partnership. You can also have a really sad life with a romantic partnership."
— Raina Cohen [23:50]

8. How to Be a Better Friend

[25:12]

• Erase rigid role distinctions; care based on need, not title.
• Prioritize frequent, regular contact—shared living or calendared meetups.
• Move through life together, not just narrate it after the fact.

Quote:
"Are you moving through life together or are you narrating life after the fact?"
— Raina Cohen [27:13]

• Celebrate friendships with rituals, create shared experiences, and make friends a visible priority.

Quote:
"Be more like a kid—go experience things together... celebrate the friendship, like we are used to celebrating romantic relationships."
— Raina Cohen [28:58]

9. Opportunities for Connection Often Hide in Plain Sight

[34:53]

• Being open to new interactions and taking risks (asking friends out, initiating gatherings) is as important for friendship as it is for romance.
• Technology can inhibit spontaneous connections, so intentionality is key.

Quote:
"One way to make friendship stronger is to take some of the expectations that come from the rewards and difficulties of the dating world and apply that to friendship."
— Raina Cohen [36:12]

10. Opposite Sex Friendships & Cultural Hangups

[41:43]

• Misconceptions about opposite-sex friendships persist, rooted in the idea that a romantic partner must fulfill every need.
• Conflating attraction of all kinds as inherently sexual limits potential for deep friendship.

Quote:
"We really conflate different forms of attraction and connection... there is this assumption that sexual desire underlies all forms of connection when actually it can be separate from those."
— Raina Cohen [43:20]

• The queer community offers a healthy model of cross-attraction friendship that straight culture still struggles to embrace.

11. Rethinking "Normal": The Importance of Asking What You Actually Want

[47:45]

• Encourages listeners to question social scripts—living alone, only with a partner, etc.—and consider who and what truly brings satisfaction.
• Non-judgment towards others' choices opens more possibilities for yourself.

Quote:
"Sometimes we operate on autopilot and we think that if we are not happy when we do the things that we are supposed to, that there's something wrong with us—but actually what might help is really first making sure that the thing we're doing is in fact what we want."
— Raina Cohen [48:09]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Raina Cohen on historical friendship:
  "The last pulsations of my heart will vibrate for you." [07:04]

• Host reflecting on friendship logistics:
  "As an adult, I never thought I'd have to use my calendar as a social calendar, but it's been really important to ensure that I am always there and I'm always showing up." [28:21]

• Raina Cohen on abundance vs. scarcity in relationships:
  "Having more people who you are close to is good for you as an individual. It's good for a relationship." [46:29]

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Important Timestamps / Segments

• [04:13] — Why Cohen wrote The Other Significant Others
• [05:49] — Historical precedents for deep friendships
• [08:01] — How romance replaced friendship at the center of life
• [11:51] — Personal choices to value friendship and community
• [14:32] — Experience with communal living
• [20:01] — Responding to friends who "disappear" for romance
• [23:26] — Pressure on singles; scientific evidence for friendship's value
• [25:32] — Concrete ways to be a better friend
• [36:12] — Friendship is built like romance: risks, intentionality, initiative
• [41:43] — Why opposite sex friendship remains stigmatized
• [47:45] — Final reflections: Question what you really want from relationships and life

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Closing Thoughts

Raina Cohen asks us to radically rethink what constitutes a "full life," advocating for deeper intentionality in forging and maintaining friendships. By drawing on history, research, and personal experience, she offers both validation for those who prize platonic bonds and practical advice for anyone looking to build a richer, more interconnected life. The episode is a call to value, prioritize, and celebrate friendship as an essential—not secondary—source of connection, support, and joy.

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Recommended Reading:

• Raina Cohen, The Other Significant Others

Listen to the full episode on The Bobby Bones Show podcast feed.

Transcript

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[Raina Cohen]

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[Raina Cohen]

Data because it's here, there and everywhere?

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[Raina Cohen]

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[Raina Cohen]

Lego Evil and Doug.

[Ed Helms]

Oh, what a horrible call.

[Raina Cohen]

Hey, ref.

[Ed Helms]

Open your eyes, ref.

[Raina Cohen]

You're really not gonna call that?

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Come on.

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[Raina Cohen]

I don't think you get what we're doing.

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[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Last week, I was talking to therapist Amanda White all about social media and the impacts it's been having on our real lives, including in our friendships and how we're interacting, or lack thereof, within our own communities. So I'm giving a totally opposite perspective this week with Raina Cohen. She's the author of the Book the Other Significant Others. And she walks the talk by communal living. And she's going to share how our romantic partnerships don't have to be the center of everything. She's giving perspective on the importance of friendship and platonic bonds, along with rewriting the script for how some things have been sold to us when it comes to partnerships and friends. Joining me this week is Raina Cohen of the book the Other Significant Others. Raina, how are you?

[Raina Cohen]

So glad to be able to talk to you.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

I'm excited to have you on because this book is really cool and I love anything that challenges a normal narrative. And I feel like your book is really doing that in trying to open our minds just that much further to say, hey, let's look at life a little bit differently. And one of the main things that this is focused on is friendship. So having this book and writing this book, I'd love to know where the beginning of this started and why you wrote the book.

[Raina Cohen]

It started because of a friendship that I have that really made me ask fundamental questions about what friendship even is and what it can be. So my friend, who I refer to as M, she and I, especially at the beginning of our friendship, felt like we weren't even just best friends. Like that was too small of a term to describe how intertwined we were in each other's lives. We lived right near each other, so we saw each other three, four or five times a week. We were really integrated into each other's day to day lives. But also the bigger things, we were often default plus ones to each other's events. And we, you know, we both had this period where we were like, what do we call each other and do we use a term like partner? And I knew of other people who had similar friendships. And then the big thing is that I knew that in history there had been more intimate friendships. So the combination made me want to find people who today have such close friendships and to kind of tie them to history as well. To see, does friendship have to be the way it is now? Has it always been the way it is now and what might be possible?

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah, and you mentioned history and I would just love to know some of those examples. I've seen you post some of them and talk about some of them before, but because again, I don't even think I know some of these things. When I saw your videos, I was like, wait, what? So some of those examples of things happening in history that maybe we didn't quite get the full story. Can you share some of those?

[Raina Cohen]

Yeah, well, I guess one thing is like, let's start with how we think about friendship now. And we think of it as this secondary relationship that is behind marriage. It's not kind of your most emotionally intimate relationship and it's often temporary. And that was not the way things necessarily were in the past. So one example that I find kind of incredible is this, this process called sworn brotherhood where across the world men would go into churches and they would be blessed by a priest and put, when they would put their hands on the Gospels and they would pledge to, to a friend, a male friend, to become brothers for life. And some of those men ended up being buried together. And there are versions of this all across the world. And that was a form of friendship that was publicly recognized, which we don't do now. And it was really treated with a lot of gravity. And you know, the other example, which is the one that I had known a little bit about at the time when M and I were trying to understand the nature of our friendship is called romantic friendship. So these lasted from, you know, 17th, 18th, 19th century. You would see these very intimate same sex friendships both between men and between women. And there is a level of gushing is one way to put it, and open heartedness that I think would strike a lot of people as today in a place like the US Is quite remarkable, especially when you see it among men. One of the lines that I remember from a letter exchanged between two men is this man saying that the last pulsations of my heart will vibrate for you. And this was no big deal. He just put it in a letter. And one of the kind of issues today, and that happened around the turn of the 20th century, is that any kind of same sex intimacy has been coded as potentially queer, like as homosexual desire. And that was just not the case for centuries and centuries. It created more opportunity for both men and women to have intimate same sex friendships without there being any kind of suspicion or consequences or stigma attached to it. So friendships got to flourish more.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

When you say that and you're talking about these things in history that obviously were way back when, why is it now that we're so focused on our lives centering around a romantic partnership being out of the center, what changed?

[Raina Cohen]

I kind of imagine two lines crisscrossing where you have friendship is diminishing in its importance as the closeness in friendship becomes suspect that you have all this. The basically the invention of homosexuality and heterosexuality around the turn of the 20th century. Like we think of those things as always existing, but they didn't in the way that we now think of them as, as identities. So friendship is on the decline. And marriage, which used to be a really transactional bas relationship that's basically like an economic trade where families are getting new in laws and there's a kind of exchange happening between husbands and wives. Then we start to think about love as being not just a bonus in marriage, but actually something that's foundational to it. And if you fast forward to the last few decades, it's not just that we expect marriages to be filled with love, but also that person is going to be your best friend. We've really like, eclipsed the role of friendship and made that part of what a romantic relationship is. See the way that marriages and friendships have changed as happening in tandem or very connected to each other, because the larger the role that marriage plays, the less role there is for friendship and vice versa.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

And do you think it's because we've really intertwined the two that it has had such an impact on us? Thinking, okay, once I find this romantic partner, then I don't need friends or I don't have time for friends. Has that been that change that you've studied and experienced of, I have this now. I don't need this when I know personally that's not the case. Those things are not interchangeable.

[Raina Cohen]

The kind of underlying logic that there is this one person who is going to make you fulfilled, who will turn you into a successful adult. I think it's very rare that for if you're hanging around, let's say you're at like a big family reunion, are people really going to ask about who are your closest friends these days? Are you like feeling fulfilled in your friendships or will see being fulfilled in your friendships as a mark of a good life? Even though when you actually ask people about who matters to them, they will probably talk about the friendships in their lives. So I think there is a bit of a disconnect between what a lot of people experience and what we are told matters. And if your spouse is supposed to be your best friend, that just doesn't leave a lot of room for, for your best friend. And if your spouse is supposed to be the person who you share everything with, then the idea that you go off and have other hobbies with friends or that there are other things that you really connect to other people over, then that might be seen as a problem to connect with people who are not your spouse in a way that really matters. And that's where you get sort of things like an emotional affair or I think possessiveness is also connected to this, that people expect their partners to be the one and only person and that they should have access to them at full, at all times. That there's like competition for anybody else who might grab their attention.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

So I'm curious because you writing this book and you talking about this, how did you make sure you didn't fall into this trap? I don't want to call it a trap because some people might be super happy, but for lack of a better term, trap, where we fall into the same experience that we've been conditioned to believe is the only experience. How did you not fall into that? You live a lifestyle that is very much. You're practicing what you preach.

[Raina Cohen]

Yeah, I mean, I think of a couple of early memories. One that really set me on our trajectory, I think to be very intentional about not letting a romantic relationship be the only relationship that really mattered in my life. When I was a teenager, I saw a relative end up in a long romantic relationship and it ended kind of surprisingly. And he, after those years of being with that partner, didn't really have anybody else because he'd put everything into that, that one relationship. And then, you know, when I was in college, a friend I was very close to basically disappeared as, as a friend when she entered into a romantic relationship, which I found hard. And then subsequently, anytime we spent together, she would bring her partner. And so I thought with those two experiences, one, I didn't want the fragility of putting all of your eggs in one basket. And then the flip side, I didn't want to do to other people what I had experienced being done to me, which was being basically demoted. And I didn't necessarily think that was great. It wasn't great for me, and I didn't necessarily think it was great for the friend. So. And this all predates working on the book, but those experiences made me really want to nurture friendships. And I always cared a lot about. About friendships. And then I think with the man I ended up marrying, we had really similar values. And one of the things that drew me to him from the get go was how close he was to. To his college friends and how much work he put into those relationships. And we made a point like we didn't spend every night at each other's apartments. Like we had time for ourselves and have adopted a. A principle from other people. We know that's be individuals together and to nurture our community. So our romantic relationship is structured around having other people that we are close to and cultivating and encouraging those relationships with one another or encouraging each other's relationships kind of beyond our. Our marriage.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah. And you mentioned this. And because you guys even went a step further than that. You were doing this in the beginning stages of your dating. You guys got married and you live with some of your friends and their kids, and you're experiencing communal living, which is out of the ordinary to most people when they hear it. So you guys really adapted this entire lifestyle change that you're preaching genuinely. And I'm so curious what that experience has been like for you to do it, because I think talking about it is how we open up minds and people start to understand and see what their options could be.

[Raina Cohen]

So, yeah, my husband and I have lived in communal setups for, I guess, four years now and in a couple different configurations. So for three years, we lived with two close friends. And they're initially one kid, and then they had a second child while we were living together. And we knew that was a kind of limited time situation because our friends were going to have to leave for their jobs eventually, which they did. But we still have a group chat that we were all texting in, and we're going to stay with them in a couple of weeks, and we're getting dispatches about the kids. And we really loved that experience and wanted to continue living with close friends if we could, and basically recruited a friend of ours to come and move to D.C. and move into the house that we've been in. And then we had another. Anyway, it's just grown and now we have two more friends all living together. And then we've continued to enjoy the experience. And now our in a group of people, including my current housemates, who are looking to create a sort of, I guess, community, or I was gonna say compound, but that makes it sound maybe a little crazier than it is. They're a group of us who want to live together and then also be a sort of anchor for a neighborhood where we could get more friends to move very close by. And part of that is there are several people who want to have children and want to do that in a way that doesn't feel isolating. And parenthood is one of the hardest times to maintain friendships. And we've seen how people who have done a lot of work on the front end to live near their friends have had much more support and much more fun in what can be a kind of isolating time of life.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah, for sure. I think it's so cool what you guys are doing, and I think it's awesome. That you can share your experiences and people can feel more comfortable about making choices that are different than what we are used to. And that's how we change normal. That's how we change this definition of well, this is normal and that's not normal. So I think it's really cool. That's awesome.

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Hey audiobook lovers. This week on the podcast I'm Sitting down with musician, producer and walking encyclopedia Questlove. We're talking about Mark Ronson's memoir, Night how to be a DJ in 90s New York City. All right, like we talked about before, Mark Ronson found sanctuary in the DJ booth. What's a tool or piece of equipment in the studio or on stage that gives you the most control?

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So I have two microphones on stage. We have the microphone that you hear as the audience. Then we have a second microphone in which we communicate with each other. I feel like that second microphone kind of saved all of our friendships. No band likes each other after 20 years or 25 years. The Beatles broke up in seven and a half years and we're going on 35.

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Listen to Irsay the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

I'm curious your thoughts for those people who say you, you had the experience with your friend where they got into a relationship and you never saw them again, or they had kids and they never saw you again. How do people avoid that happening in their friendships and relationships? And why is it necessary to avoid that happening?

[Raina Cohen]

You can't control other people's behavior if they disappear. But I think what you can do is take seriously what you feel, and that's not necessarily going to be kind of endorsed by the world around you. But what I found when I was talking to people who had experienced losses in friendship, whether it was a falling out or like a friend falling off the face of the earth when with a romantic relationship, is that they were not getting from the world around them any kind of recognition that the loss really hurt and it was hard for them to appreciate how difficult it was and that they sort of felt like I've just got to get over it. And that makes the whole situation worse. So I think if someone is on the receiving end, where friends disappear to honor that, that's difficult. And once you do that, it becomes possible then to maybe open a conversation with a friend and not see it as inevitable. And let's say it's the situation where there's a romantic partner who comes in and you can say, I'm excited for you. I know there's this really thrilling honeymoon period, but I also think our friendship is really important and I want us to maintain it. And I want you to understand where I'm coming from. And I'm saying this because I really care about our friendship. So I think in order to ask something of someone else and to tell them that you are having A hard time. Like you need to tell yourself that it is okay to be having a hard time and that it's not just the way things have to be. And then if you are in the position where, let's say you enter a romantic relationship, you can choose not to isolate yourself and you can make choices to nurture friendships, you can make it a value within the romantic relationship that you are going to have other people in your life who really matter to you, that it is also good for the relationship. There is research on this that romantic relationships are stronger when people have other close friends that they can turn to. Diversify your portfolio in all areas of life. So those would be some of my recommendations so that people both don't kind of undermine their friendships and don't undermine their own experiences of hardship in friendship because it really can be difficult.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

I'm so curious the studies on this because I'm 31, I'm now in a relationship, but I wasn't for a really long time. And I struggled a lot with the fact that I had so many friends who really saw their relationships as the end all, be all and their life couldn't exist without it. And I was just sitting there like, well, we have a lot of fun, we do a lot of cool stuff. I don't understand why this is just the end all, be all kind of thing. So I always did have this different mindset of, well, it'll happen when it's supposed to happen and until then and after then I will be just fine and I will have all the things that I have right now. But that's not a very common mindset to have. And I'm curious one on the research of making sure it's important for your relationship to continue these things because I feel that way. But I'm also just curious your thought process for all of my single people out there who may have been in a similar set of shoes that I was in. And I really struggled with that because nobody was understanding me, which is also how and why I stumbled on you. I was like, I need to bring her on to have this conversation.

[Raina Cohen]

There's a way that American society really belittles single people and treats them as not quite full adults. And that your life will arrive once you have found a romantic partner. And that is a terrible. Is a terrible way for society to view you people. And then inevitably you internalize some of it. Like what is wrong with me? Or my life hasn't really started yet. I just think a really unfortunate and unfair way for single people to have to live. It's just wrong. Like, you can have a full life without a romantic partnership. You can also have a really sad life with a romantic partnership. I think there's the focus on quality rather than, you know, do you check this box? Is probably a wiser thing to do. And then in terms of people who might benefit from thinking a little bit differently about the role of a romantic partner in their life, there is research, for instance, showing that people who have kind of robust support networks outside of their marriage are happier in their marriages than those who do not have those support networks. There's also research that, like, checked how stressed people got in marital conflicts. And people who had these other close relationships in their lives experienced less of a spike in cortisol, the stress hormone, than people who did not have those sorts of robust support networks. So it's not good to expect that one person is going to be everything. And I think that if people recognize that about their. Their own romantic relationships, it might help them not belittle the people who are not in romantic partnerships and provide so much sustenance to their lives.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah, for sure. And so it leads me into this next moment of how do we become better friends? How can we show up better? How can we be the friend that we wanted to have that you and I are speaking on experiences of we wish we had a better friend that moment. How can we ensure we are being.

[Raina Cohen]

That friend sort of related to what we've been talking about? I think one thing that's really helpful is not to create these really strict lines between what does a romantic partner do, what does a friend do, what does family do? And to really to think about. I have friends going through some very difficult things at the moment. And instead of trying to figure out, like, what is the role that I should play according to my title, and it's more, what is it? What do these people need and do I care about them? And what can I do that I have capacity, reasonable capacity to do, to support them and not treat friends like, well, somebody else who's closer to them should figure it out. Like, being a friend means being there for the difficult times as well as the good times. I also think being a good friend means making time like that is where what you put on your calendar, I think, is where your values are. And I have found it is much easier to become close to people and therefore know what is happening in their lives when you have regular contact. And one way to do that is just to put regular time on the calendar with people. I mean, this Sounds extremely simple, but it makes a difference between actually being a part of someone's life or having them be intermittently involved. And the distinction I like to think of is are you moving through life together or are you narrating life after the fact? So either frequency or just making decisions about how you spend time together, like you're going to go on grocery runs or you're going to do things where you're out in the world spending time together, where you're going to have experiences that you will recall and you get to sort of be entangled in the day to day versus every six weeks we're going to have coffee and we're going to tell us, tell each other what happened in the last six weeks rather than experiencing something in an active way.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Oh, I love that saying that you just said. That hits home because there are some friendships where you recall and it's so beautiful, but you aren't connected in everyday life and there are these different experiences that you're having. And I think it's really awesome that we as people can choose to have this ability to show up in the ways that we need to. Like you, you ultimately get to make the decision and the choice of how you're going to show up for people. And you just reiterated that and that saying really did that. And I also noted for myself because me and all of my friends on a day to day basis, when we catch each other on a phone call or a text, we're like, okay, put it in the calendar. When are we seeing each other next? Like, put it in. We're not. I don't care if it has to be two weeks from now. Put it in and then it's in. And we can't go back on that. Like it's in the calendar. It means it's happening. And it's funny because as an adult, I never would have thought I'd have to use my calendar as a social calendar as well, like physically social calendar. But it's been really important to ensure that I am always there and I'm always showing up. Even when I do show up in other ways and in the normal moments and talking to everybody each day or interacting with them, it's. No, put it on the calendar so I make sure I see you face to face no matter what. And that has made a significant difference for me in being able to show up as my whole self and for them to show up in a way. So it's funny that you mentioned the calendar.

[Raina Cohen]

The, the other kind of suggestion I would have is be more like, like a kid in how you approach friends. One thing that is, I've described already one part of this which is go experience things together rather than talk about it after the fact. I mean, so many of my friendships as a kid was like coming up with games together or like going on adventures. And then another part of it I think maybe especially for girls might, you know, they might have had experiences with is really like celebrating the friendship in the way that we are used to celebrating romantic relationships. People celebrate anniversaries. There are rituals around romantic relationships and as kids there often are rituals around friendship again and probably more so for girls than for boys. But like friendship bracelets, you know, there might like secret handshakes, other kinds of playful ways that kids will come up with. And I think bringing some of that, that ceremony and that sort of excitement about the friendship as an entity that you want to talk about and preserve is also a really great way to, to enrich a friendship as an adult.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

I just had some of my best friends visiting who we all now live in different cities and we were sitting at dinner and talking about the sisterhood of traveling pants. And we were like, what can be our pair of jeans? What can we start sending to each other and sending back and forth and it be this very exciting. You get snail mail every so often and it's this, this thing that we're passing back to each other to stay close. And we had just talked about that. And that movie is such a good example of finding ways to connect even if you can't connect in the most normal, everyday ways.

[Raina Cohen]

I think there's like a kind of exuberance about friendship that you see in like among adolescents and like young kids too, that maybe it doesn't feel like as okay to express as an adult. And yeah, if you love your friends, like love your be clear about that and spend a lot of time on it and come up with ways to feel connected and come up with things that feel special between the two of you or the group of you.

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[Sophie Cunningham]

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[Ed Helms]

Hey everyone, Ed Helms here and hi.

[Kal Penn]

I'm Kal Penn and we're the hosts of Irsay, the Audible and I Heart Audiobook Club.

[Ed Helms]

This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Jenny Garth, host of the iHeart podcast. I choose me to discuss the new Audible adaptation of the timeless Jane Austen classic Pride and Prejudice. This is not a trick question. There's no wrong answer. What role would I play?

[Sam, CEO of Manifest]

You know what?

[Raina Cohen]

I can see you as Mr. Darcy. You got a little Colin Firth.

[Ed Helms]

Okay, that's really sweet. I appreciate that. But are you sure I'm not the dad? I'm not Mr. Bennett here, listen to earsay the audible and I Heart Audio Book Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

And speaking of connection, I had seen you say opportunities for career and connection are often hidden in plain sight and that really resonated with me. So I'd love to have you expand on that a little bit more, because I do often think, much like we always say in romantic relationships, you'll find somebody when you're not looking, I do think similar things happen when it comes to other aspects of our life.

[Raina Cohen]

Well, what this makes me think of is, like, one, on Saturdays, I take off from technology. I don't use my phone, and it makes me a little bit of an observer of the rest of the world, where I just see everybody head down, looking at their phones, and not interacting with the people around them. So, I mean, one obvious thing is if you are getting out of your house, which I hope people are spending time, not just in their homes all day, there are people that you can interact with, who you can chat up, and it's certainly an opportunity to get to know people. But I think there's a chance not just to meet new people, but to have closer friendships than maybe we have been told. And that involves taking some risks and maybe inviting people to spend time together or doing things basically to escalate the friendship that might get you rejected. And we know that rejection is part of the process for romantic relationships. But we're not really, like, given the same expectations. I think, about friendship that you have to make overtures. I think if someone came to you and said, I really want a romantic partner, but, like, nobody's asking me out. No one's approaching me, you'd probably say, like, well, are you getting out of dating app? Are you asking anybody out? What are you contributing? But I have heard for friendship, a lot of, you know, well, nobody. Nobody talks to me or, like, nobody's asking me to hang out. And it's like, well, what are you asking people to hang out? Are you setting up gatherings? Are you taking risks? So I actually think that one way to kind of make friendship stronger is to take some of the expectations that come from the rewards and difficulties of the dating world and applying that to friendship.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah, that's really good. And so much of what you're talking about, too, just reminds me a lot of my friendships and how they have formed over the course of time. One friend formed because I started talking to her. She was a trainer at a gym I started working out at. And we just slowly kept having more and more conversations. And one of my best friends that I've known for over 17 years is somebody who we were dating the same guy, and then we teamed up, and we're like, yeah, we don't need this guy. We've been best friends ever since. And all so many of my friendships have similar stories of that, where they were just coming from unexpected places. And had I not been open to the idea of just accepting a new person. And these were all different phases of my life. None of them were one in the same. They weren't all. When I was a kid or in college or now as an adult, they're all over. And had I been just closed off to so many of those experiences as a human being, I wouldn't have these incredible friendships who have gotten me through so much of my life.

[Raina Cohen]

Well, yeah, I mean, I love the two. Two women dating one man. And they're like, yeah, let's throw this one out.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah, it's our funny friendship story that we still love telling to the state because we're like, had we both not dated a really stupid idiot, we would not be best friends. And honestly, that's just meant to be for how life works out sometimes. So it is one of our favorite stories. And I just. I love this importance of friendship and so much of what you're focusing on, because truly, I do look at my friendships, and there are so many parts of my life that I don't know that I would have genuinely made it through had I not created and fostered and really supported those friendships. Even when I'm super busy, there's still moments of my life where I. I'm like, how do I check in? How do I show up? Even if I can't show up in a way that I really want to, how do I make sure this person knows that I'm always here and I'm always going to support them? And that's been such a big piece of who I am as a friend that. And people will ask me all the time on social media, how do you do it? How do you make it all the time? How are you doing this? I'm like, I have to. These people are a priority for me. And if I don't do this, I would be lost without them. And I think that's pretty uncommon for a lot of people to say about friendships.

[Raina Cohen]

I do think some people feel this. I certainly know that people believe their friendships, especially if they talk to, like, people who are older, who they. Who really live through a lot of life, like, they have deep appreciation for their friendship, but the messaging out in the world does not align with the experience that so many people have. So then for those who aren't, who maybe personally have not had such close friendships, then it's confusing to them. And it feels like an outlier. But we aren't necessarily widely talking about how much our friends mean to us. And you just sort of get locked into these cycles. Like, when you are catching up with somebody, do you ask them about their romantic partner, how they're doing? Probably. Do you ask, like, how their closest friends are doing? Maybe, like, in my life, I do. But I think for a lot of people, it wouldn't necessarily occur to them that knowing about their platonic social life is an essential part of understanding where that person is at the moment, what matters to them. And if you're not asking the questions, you're not getting that information, and you're not necessarily understanding what other people's experiences might be, and that maybe you should go out and try to invest more in the friendships in your life. And I can see how people might be surprised because we don't really have the conditions to see if this is a relatively common thing.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah, and you say that. And it's funny, the friend that I was mentioning and telling you the story of how we met, dating the same guy. Every time that we talk to each other, we don't live in the same city, but every time we're like, okay, well, how's your family? How is so and so. And we'll mention each other's friends that live in those cities, what's going on with them? And until you just said that in this moment, I didn't realize that wasn't normal. I thought we were supposed to talk about what was going on in each other's lives. And part of that is your friendships.

[Raina Cohen]

Yeah, I think some people do. It's like, if you. But it's not necessarily an instinct for everybody. And there's certainly people in my life who are very maybe centered around their romantic partnerships, and they would ask about a partner or are you dating and family and work, like, that's the trifecta. And it wouldn't necessarily occur to them. I mean, at this point, people know friendship matters to me, but, like, I know for some people just. It just wouldn't rise to the surface. And again, like, they're not necessarily getting depictions in pop culture that. That say to. To have a good life, like, you really need to be paying attention to your friends, or your friends are an essential part of your life. Or when you think about where you're going to live, you don't just think about your job and your family, you can also think about where your friends are. It's kind of coming through different channels. We're not necessarily Getting the reinforcement that this is a really essential part of a good life.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah, for sure. And I thought of something as you're sharing this, and I would just love your take on it. Based on this entire conversation, there's obviously this really bad narrative around opposite sex friendships and people not being able. Like boys and girls can't be friends. They can't just be friends. What are your thoughts on that? Because that's a hot topic that a lot of people just really love to nail in the coffin. Yeah.

[Raina Cohen]

Wasn't When Harry Met Sally like 30 years ago, and we're still having this conversation. One of the piece of feedback or outreach I've gotten very commonly after the book came out was like, do you have stories of opposite sex friends who have this kind of really intense friendship, which is like the focus of the book? And I do. I have examples. But I think what people are particularly interested in are like, friendships between a straight man and a straight woman and how those fare. And. And some of the messages I've gotten from people or people coming up to tell me stories are like, I have this really close friendship, but other people don't understand it, or the wife was jealous and we had to scale back or whatever the case is. So it's been a little shocking to me that this is still such a big issue. And it feels kind of inextricably connected to the idea that your romantic partner should be your everything. Because it creates a sense of competition that, let's say there's a husband is jealous of a wife's best friend who's a man, that if you didn't have this idea that they're. That you're failing as a partner if you're not everything to them, that it might not be seen as so threatening to know that there's somebody else that they're close to. And the other thing is that I came to understand in working on the book is that we really conflate different forms of attraction and connection. And I learned this from the talking to people in the asexual community. So people who don't experience sexual attraction, that they really have this language to disaggregate what sexual attraction is. Romantic attraction, which might be more like the, you know, flutters that you feel, which I feel for friends often. But it's not necessarily attached to sexual desire that you might have. You might be intellectually attracted to a friend or like emotionally attracted to somebody. And so I think one of the things that it gets in the way when you have straight men and straight women and who are really close. And the sort of judgment is maybe coming from the outside is that there is this assumption that sex underlies every everything or sexual desire underlies all forms of connection when actually it can be separate from those. And then I think there, that's kind of the outside judgment. Some people might not end up in these friendships because they buy into these ideas themselves that they're inviting trouble or they don't trust the other person. But I think the, like, queer community really shows that people who are of sexual orientations that are attracted to each other can be close friends. And this is sort of straight people issue that continues. I'm like, amazed. And in 2025, we're still trying to grapple with this, but for some people it remains an issue.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah, yeah. This is why I wanted you to hit on it because unfortunately that's still a very hot topic. And it's a. Heck, you can go in comment sections on videos and it's still being used, so very prevalent.

[Raina Cohen]

And it's also sad that you would cut off half the population basically, or a huge portion of your potential friends. You're like, nope, not considering them because, like, this will threaten my relationship. It'll threaten their romantic relationship. Maybe they'll come on to me that, like, I don't think it's a healthy thing to. To sort of ward off so much of the population and to sort of slap on these assumptions about how things are going to turn out rather than respond to the individual person. The line that comes to me, some of my best friends are men. Which sounds kind of ridiculous, but it's like, my life would be much, much less rich if I didn't have those close male relationships. And yes, men and women can be friends. And to those who have trouble with it, we gotta, like, rework our ideas about what romantic relationships should look like and what attraction involves.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yes, we definitely do. And I'm with you on that train. I believe it. I see my boyfriend has lots of female friends and I'm always like, okay, how can I become friends with them? You're friends with them. I want to hang out with them.

[Raina Cohen]

What.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

What are they like? It's more of a. I want to know what that's like and let's invite them in further. And I do think so much of it is also attached to insecurities of our own and our own experiences that have created a specific narrative that it can exist. So. And there's plenty of movies and stuff out there too that show us this is a. Yeah, a storyline.

[Raina Cohen]

But it keeps sort of coming back to this idea of, like, competition and scarcity versus a mindset that's much more centered around abundance and that having more people who you are close to is good for you as an individual. It's good for a relationship. And I think people should be concerned if they either have a romantic partner that's trying to narrow down the number of, you know, close relationships in their lives and saying people are off limits to and. Or if you have that impulse that, you know, it's worth asking, where is this coming from? And is it. Is trying to control the other person really the right way to address whatever kinds of fears you have? And are there other ways to. To address those fears that don't make another person's life have to shrink?

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah, that's a really important thing, and I'd love to end on that. But that's not how we end this podcast. How we typically end it is that I want you to share something, whether it's a piece of advice or inspiration or something that maybe we just didn't get to that you feel is super important.

[Raina Cohen]

But I loved that.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

That was really good. So we're still going to end, though, on something that you want to. So I just give the floor over to you and you share whatever you want in this moment of time.

[Raina Cohen]

Well, something I was thinking of earlier in the conversation when you were saying, like, changing our idea of what normal is. You know, to me, this whole project, it is about friendship, but it is also about trying to ask ourselves, what is it that we want? And maybe you have never asked yourself the question, who do I want to live with? You've maybe just thought, obviously, I will live with a romantic partner, and if I can't do that, I'll live alone versus, like, I having the moment to stop and ask, like, what actually fits for me might end up leading you to make decisions that surprise you and make you much more satisfied. I think of a friend of mine who got her own apartment because she was like, this is. She wasn't in a romantic relationship and was like, this is what basically the next step is as an adult. I, like, live alone. Right. And was unhappy pretty quickly and realized that, no, actually I really like coming home to people and loved living with friends and upended her life to make that happen. And I think sometimes we operate on autopilot and we think that if we are not happy when we do the things that we are supposed to, that it means that there's something wrong with us. But actually what might help is really first making sure that the thing we're doing is in fact what we want. And that is really hard in a world that tells you there's a certain set of things you want and there's a certain sequence in which to get those things. But I have just found by talking to people who have really unconventional friendships and unconventional ways of living that asking those questions and sometimes fielding the confusion of other people is so, so worth it.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

Yeah, well, that's an even better thing to end on because that's a great question for people to start asking themselves, because it is. I don't know that I've ever ask myself that, but I'm also super happy and I love living with my dog and cat and fostering animals, which is a whole nother zoo situation that I bring on to my world. But I think that's a really great self reflection piece to make sure that you're living your life as full as it could possibly be instead of maybe not doing it just for the sake of others thoughts and feelings.

[Raina Cohen]

And maybe the one thing I would add on to that because I always like to think about it from your vantage point and also, what are you experiencing and then also, how are you seeing the world? If there were people who you are inclined to judge because they're doing things differently, just take a moment to ask, why are they doing this? And is there anything that I could learn from it? Is there anything worth admiring here? Is there anything to be curious about? I think that when we are less inclined to judge others, we might also become more open ourselves to doing things that don't necessarily feel like they are endorsed by the world around us. But we, again, like, might actually like if we gave ourselves space.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

See, this is why you're an author, Raina. This is exactly why you're sharing the things that we need to be hearing. And I'm so happy that you came on just to share your story and share why you wrote the book and everything. If you need something to try or want to open your mind a little bit, I definitely suggest her book, the Other Significant Others. Raina, thank you so much for being here.

[Raina Cohen]

Yeah, thanks for the conversation.

[Host of Guaranteed Human]

I've got another holiday episode coming up for all of you guys. If you have holiday struggles to share or things that are hard in this particular season, I want you guys to send them my way. I'll post on the podcast socials and you'll send in a voice note that I'll play back during the episode. It's one you guys loved last year, so making it happen again and then some episodes all about babies and motherhood with the help of my sister, a new mom, that's Taylor. So like and subscribe because that also helps me out and you won't miss those episodes. Happy that you're here. Thanks for spending an hour with me. I'll yap with you guys about the holidays next week.

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[Kal Penn]

Hey audiobook lovers, I'm Cal Penn.

[Ed Helms]

I'm Ed Helms.

[Kal Penn]

Ed and I are inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with our new podcast, Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

[Ed Helms]

Each week we sit down with your favorite iHeart podcast hosts and some very special guests to discuss the latest and greatest audiobooks from Audible.

[Kal Penn]

Listen to earsay on America's number one podcast network, iHeart Followersay and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

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[Kal Penn]

All.

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[Sophie Cunningham]

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[Host of Guaranteed Human]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.