Chris Duffy

They're like, I actually don't think it's possible for a person to have 10,000 best friends.

One time I got into an argument with someone and when I told them about it, their immediate response was, oh no, are they no longer one of your best friends and now they're just one of your very good friends?

Which I have to admit is an excellent roast of me, a very precise and cutting zing.

But it also taps into something sort of essential about me.

I have always cared a ton about friendship.

I'm really interested in how friendships work.

There's so much that I want to unpack and to understand.

What are the unspoken rules when it comes to friendship?

And should those be the rules or do we need to re-examine them?

We're going to be talking all about platonic relationships with Raina Cohen, an award-winning journalist and the author of The Other Significant Others, Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center.

To get us started, here's a clip from Raina's TED Talk.

Okay, I am so excited that we have Raina Cohen here with us today to dive deep into friendship and to explore the possibilities and potential of platonic relationships.

Let's start with what is friendship fidelity and how can that enhance our friendships?

Having that idea of like, you're a fair weather friend, but you're also a foul weather friend.

I feel like we often really prize that in romantic relationships, right?

Like if someone said, oh, my boyfriend left as soon as things started getting hard, they'd be like, what a monster.

But if someone said, oh, my friend is hanging out with me less because I've been having a really hard time, we don't have the same level of judgment, I don't think, for that person.

You talk in the book about how we have these very set ideas often about what a romantic relationship is, especially what a good romantic relationship is, and how sometimes that can be really positive to have like a set clear model.

But other times it can also lead to us being not actually aware of what each of us in the relationship thinks about the relationship.

You talk about how there's a couple who are in couples counseling and they're