Who counts as a significant other?

What It Covers

TED Radio Hour examines how people redefine significant relationships beyond traditional marriage, exploring intense platonic friendships, customized partnerships, single-by-choice lifestyles, and the role of dogs as emotional companions in modern life.

Key Questions Answered

• •Platonic life partnerships: Journalist Rhaina Cohen lives with her husband and two close friends by choice, not financial necessity, demonstrating how friendships can occupy space traditionally reserved for romantic partners with equal commitment and daily integration.
• •Relationship customization: Therapist Stephanie Yates-Anyabwile helps couples reject societal norms causing friction—one couple called off their wedding then thrived after moving apart, spending weekends together while maintaining separate households, improving communication and individual relationships with children.
• •Single-at-heart identity: Psychologist Bella DePaulo's research shows single people maintain more friendships, stay closer to siblings, and provide more community support than married couples, who become more insular regardless of having children, challenging loneliness epidemic assumptions.
• •Historical friendship models: Ancient Rome used phrases like "half of my soul" for friends, sworn brotherhood ceremonies formalized platonic bonds across cultures, and century-old portraits show physical closeness between friends—all demonstrating friendship's historically central role before modern romantic primacy.