A01=Rhaina Cohen
adult friendship
all the single ladies
Author_Rhaina Cohen
big friendship
book club nonfiction
call your girlfriend
Category=JHBK
Category=VFVN
eq_bestseller
eq_health-lifestyle
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
female friendship
friendship book
galentines
galentines day
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how to make friends as an adult
loneliness
loneliness epidemic
open marriage
partnership
platonic
platonic partners
podcast book
poly
polyamory
queer relationships
unmarried companion
what are platonic partners
what is polyamory
Product details
- ISBN 9781250843487
- Weight: 388g
- Dimensions: 234 x 155mm
- Publication Date: 21 Jul 2025
- Publisher: St Martin's Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Why do we assume romantic relationships are more important than friendships? What do we lose when we expect a spouse to meet all our needs? And what can we learn about commitment, love, and family from people who put deep friendship at the center of their lives?
In The Other Significant Others, NPR's Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people - spanning age and religion, gender and sexuality and more - who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner. Their riveting stories unsettle widespread assumptions about relationships and reveal how freeing and challenging it can be to embrace a relationship model that society doesn't recognise. And they show that orienting your world around friends isn't limited to daydreams and episodes of The Golden Girls, but actually possible in real life.
Based on years of original reporting and striking social science research, Cohen argues that we undermine romantic relationships by expecting too much of them, while we diminish friendships by expecting too little of them. At a time when many Americans are spending large stretches of their lives single, widowed or divorced, or feeling the effects of the 'loneliness epidemic,' The Other Significant Others challenges us to ask what we want from our relationships - not just what we’re supposed to want - and transforms how we define a fulfilling life.
RHAINA COHEN is an award-winning producer and editor for NPR's documentary podcast, Embedded. Her work, often focused on social connection, has aired on numerous podcasts and radio shows, including Hidden Brain, Invisibilia, and All Things Considered, and her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, friends, and her friends' children.
