Raina Cohen

How does the state define what an important relationship is?

So basically, it started from this personal place, but all these bigger questions came up for me that I wanted to tackle in a book.

No, absolutely not.

I mean, I try to be really careful in a number of ways to say that it's not either or.

I think that would be kind of using the same logic that I am trying to push against, the idea that there is one right way to live.

I think currently the message we get is that the right way to live is to find a romantic partner, maybe have kids, to not be alone.

And I don't want to say that that one right way is wrong, but I have found the other one right way.

I think the bigger point is that there are a variety of ways to live deeply meaningful lives and that building your life around a friendship or many friendships or some other kind of combo of things can be really important.

And in fact, there are people who I profile in the book who have both a romantic partner

and this really close friendship and i explore the ways that those those different types of relationships can actually complement each other like it can make a romantic relationship stronger to have a really close friendship like this in your life so i definitely don't see it as either or hearing all of the things that you've researched and all the people you've encountered it's it's it feels like you have just sort of this treasure trove of learnings and

A really big lesson I got interviewing many dozens of people was that life takes you by surprise.

And if you only have one,

one way that you are told is possible to live your life and to be happy, it's just not that resilient to all of the things that can come up, which range from wanting a romantic partner and not being able to find one, to

having a romantic partner and splitting up uh to having a kid with serious disabilities um i mean there's sort of any number of things that i saw people struggle with and what made them be able to move into a life that felt really full to them was being open to the possibility that a friend could

could be there, could be the backstop when things went wrong.

You know, one, I mean, I write about women, a woman who was dying of ovarian cancer and her friend was really her primary caretaker.

And, you know, her husband was not kind of in the position to help, especially with the kids.

It's like having a wider safety net when, whether it's something that's acute or, you

is just like your life didn't quite fit on the train tracks you expected.

It's just this great way to still find a lot of meaning.