Chris Duffy

I can have a real conversation and she's not also like, hello, like I don't want that at night.

And then a more serious piece for me is my wife and I do different things.

And so it's really helpful to me to have friends who I can have serious, long ranging conversations about career goals who really totally get it.

And then I'm not frustrated when she doesn't totally understand all the ins and outs of exactly what my career is.

And I know it's the same for her.

She gets plenty of pieces fulfilled by people who are not me.

But sometimes that feels weird.

I think your book clarified for me that like there is this very real kind of stigma to getting that from a friend, to having a super close friendship when you're in a romantic relationship.

If you'll indulge me to like read to you from your own book, I thought this was really kind of profound.

It's like the final paragraph of the book.

You said experiencing a friendship like Andrew and Tali's or witnessing one can sharpen our vision, allowing us to notice the trellis, as Art and Nick put it, that had been directing our path all along.

An encounter with just one of these friendships can dislodge fixed ideas about who and how many people we can spend the rest of our lives with.

The trellis may be ideally suited to some of us in its use by so many others a source of meaning and its preset structure reassuring.

But for those who have doubts or are curious, these friendships can give us the nerve to detach from the trellis and grow towards the light.

I imagine anyone who heard that is going to be convinced by that.

How do you how do you figure out what it is that you really want?

Personally, one thing that I really want is for us to talk so much more about all of this.

But my bosses also want us to have a quick break for podcast dance.

So we will be right back after this.

We're talking with Raina Cohen, author of the book, The Other Significant Others, Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center.