The Other Significant Others

What if the deepest, most sustaining bond in your life looked like marriage—but wasn’t romantic or sexual? In Platonic, Rhaina Cohen investigates the phenomenon of people treating friendship as a central, life-organizing relationship rather than a secondary supplement to romance. Drawing from her own life with her friend M and dozens of intimate case studies, Cohen proposes that "platonic partnerships"—relationships rooted in mutual devotion, interdependence, and longevity—deserve recognition and structure equal to romantic unions. Through this lens, the book explores how culture, law, and emotion still prioritize marriage while ignoring forms of care that quietly sustain modern life.

Redefining commitment beyond sex and romance

Cohen begins with an observation many of us recognize: some friendships exceed what the word “friend” can carry. People like Andrew Bergman and Toly Rinberg, who met in high school and later co-founded a nonprofit, share homes, life choices, and emotional labor normally reserved for spouses. Cohen argues that the boundary between friendship and partnership is porous, and that our culture has been too narrow in granting adult intimacy legitimacy only through romance or sex. Borrowing from queer communities and asexual frameworks, she affirms that attachment and sexual desire run on different tracks—one built on care and continuity, the other on attraction and novelty. Passionate friendship can satisfy attachment needs without physical intimacy.

The one-stop-shopping problem of modern love

Cohen calls out what psychologists like Eli Finkel and Esther Perel describe as the “one-stop-shop” model of relationships: a romantic partner expected to fulfill every emotional, sexual, professional, and caregiving role. By redistributing those roles—what Finkel calls building “other significant others” (OSOs)—people make their social networks less fragile. The book shows how diversifying intimacy supports emotional stability and communal resilience. In a world where romance can end and family may live far away, friendship networks act as redundant systems of care.

Challenging norms and reviving lost scripts

Historically, deep same-sex or nonmarital partnerships weren’t aberrations. From medieval "adelphopoiesis" rituals to nineteenth-century Boston marriages between women such as Lucy Diggs Slowe and Mary Burrill, societies once found ways to sacralize chosen kin. Cohen recovers this lineage to argue that our current discomfort is cultural, not natural. She notes how modern masculinity, shaped by homophobic “homohysteria,” deprives men of emotional closeness that earlier generations took for granted. By restoring friendship’s legitimacy, Cohen asks readers to rebuild social permission for nonsexual love.

Why recognition and policy matter

In its second half, the book exposes how existing laws and cultural rituals fail people who live outside marriage. Thousands of rights—from hospital access to tax benefits—depend on marital status. Friends who act as caregivers must secure medical powers of attorney just to be admitted into hospital rooms. Yet models like Colorado’s designated-beneficiary agreement and France’s PACS demonstrate alternative ways to recognize nonmarital partnerships. Cohen argues that we must both reform policy and build new cultural frameworks—rituals, language, and visibility—that make such relationships legible.

A vision for interdependence

Ultimately, Platonic offers a hopeful blueprint for a future in which friendship becomes a valid architecture of adult life. Through stories of co-parents, cohabitants, and lifelong caregivers, Cohen shows that love—sexual or not—is measured in practical devotion. The question isn’t whether friendship can be serious; it’s whether society can catch up to the seriousness people already live. Her invitation is to build your life around the people who truly anchor you, with intention and public recognition, no matter how the relationship is classified.

Cohen defines a platonic partnership as a voluntary, persistent, high-investment relationship that organizes two people’s lives around each other—much like marriage does, but without sex as its defining trait. You see this through examples like Cohen and her friend M, whose lives intertwined through shared households, celebrations, and decision-making. Similarly, Andrew Bergman and Toly Rinberg moved across coasts together, became professional collaborators, and described their connection simply as being a “we.”

Practices that signal partnership

You can discern a platonic partnership not by words but by patterns: caregiving during illness, shared financial or logistical planning, and long-term co-living. These behaviors distinguish a life partnership from friendship of convenience. Cohen encourages you to track routines—voice memos, daily check-ins, and household rituals—as evidence of commitment, even if they never receive public labels.

The challenge of naming intimacy

Language both reveals and constrains recognition. Terms like “best friend,” “partner,” or “platonic life partner” either undersell depth or invite misinterpretation. Cohen finds language frustrating: “partner” clarifies seriousness but often implies romantic or sexual involvement; “polyamory” signals openness but misleads when sex is absent. For many duos, labels risk distortion, so they instead focus on acts that speak for themselves. Language, she concludes, should serve clarity, not taxonomy.

“Our commitment was borne out by how we acted in moments when it could have fallen away.”

—Andrew Bergman, reflecting on friendship tested over time

Lessons for your own relationships

If you suspect you already have—or want—a partnership like this, examine how you show up. Do you co-organize life logistics? Share crisis care? Plan for legal or financial protections together? Cohen’s message is that partnership is made in daily mutuality. You don’t need an institution to validate devotion, but recognizing its structure can deepen and protect the bond you already live.

Cohen challenges the assumption that sex is the foundation of intimacy. Drawing from psychologist Lisa Diamond, she separates lust (an androgen-driven system oriented toward newness and procreation) from attachment (the oxytocin-based system that relies on comfort and security). Many deep, enduring bonds occur without erotic desire. Cohen weaves stories like Stacey and Grace—two women identifying on the asexual spectrum who describe themselves as “same soul” partners planning a shared household and potential co-parenting—to illustrate that partnerships thrive when built around shared purpose and care, not sexual obligation.

Decoupling sex and meaning

Cohen uses queerplatonic and asexual communities as models for this decoupling. In those circles, people design relationships that center interdependence—joint finances, caregiving, public commitment—without assuming sex must be part of love. It’s a pragmatic expansion of attachment theory, not its rejection. Passion can exist in friendship; it just manifests as fierce loyalty and shared ambition instead of arousal.

Why this matters for everyone

You don’t need to identify as asexual or queer to learn from this. Cohen invites all readers to ask: what functions do I actually want from partnership? When you separate attachment from convention, you can shape bonds that better match your capacities and values. Love’s legitimacy should depend on what people build together, not what they refrain from doing.

Part of why friendship feels secondary today is that culture has rewritten intimacy scripts, especially for men. Cohen uses the story of Nick and Art—roommates whose closeness drew suspicion—to examine how "homohysteria," the fear of being perceived as gay, restricts male affection. Where nineteenth-century men openly embraced and wrote romantic letters to one another, modern social norms penalize those same gestures as suspect. The cost is measurable: men now report fewer confidants and greater loneliness than women.

Unlearning restriction and rebuilding trust

Cohen frames progress not as revolution but as habit: small rituals like Nick and Art’s Friday coffee, affectionate check-ins, or explicit conversations about comfort can reopen emotional space. She reminds readers that discomfort often signals learned norms, not moral boundaries. Practicing closeness despite stigma reclaims an older, freer emotional vocabulary for men and anyone constrained by gendered scripts.

(Note: Scholars like Eric Anderson corroborate Cohen’s claim that societies with higher homophobia show narrower male emotional behavior. By contrast, lower-homohysteria cultures report more tactile, supportive male friendships.)

Cohen’s middle chapters show friendship transforming into full-function family, especially in adulthood and aging. Through Barb and Inez’s partnership—two women who share one home, handle medical crises together, and co-manage finances—you see how friends become de facto spouses and caregivers. Their relationship sustains them socially and economically, and later expands to caregiving for friends like Ann during illness.

Caregiving as friendship’s evolution

For Barb and Inez, care doesn’t arrive all at once. It emerges from hundreds of small decisions: accompanying one another to appointments, granting medical power of attorney, installing a bedside bell after a fall. Cohen shows how such measures build “functional family” bonds that law and policy rarely anticipate. She notes that nearly one in five older adults risks being “kinless,” making intentional caregiving networks not just tender but essential.

Balancing devotion and realism

Cohen acknowledges friendship’s limits: heavy physical care and legal recognition remain complex. Yet she insists intentional planning—joint finances, written agreements, backup networks—can extend autonomy while giving meaning to late life. If you plan for aging without assuming marriage or children will anchor you, friendships can become the architecture of security and joy.

(In spirit, this mirrors recent gerontology work by Marc Freedman and Susan Golombok: structure matters less than stability and affection.)

When Cohen introduces Natasha and Lynda, you see friendship stretch into the realm most people assume requires romance: raising a child. Natasha conceives via donor sperm, and what begins as Lynda being a birth coach becomes daily co-parenting. Lynda learns infant care, attends medical appointments, and eventually gains legal rights through a declaration of parentage. Together, they prove that parenting anchored in friendship, not romantic coupling, can be both stable and nurturing.

Legal and moral implications

Their case exposes how family law lags behind lived reality. Most jurisdictions still define parenthood through marriage or biology. Cohen cites Ontario’s All Families Are Equal Act and similar reforms as rare recognition. For children, studies show what matters is consistent, caring adults—not whether those adults are married or lovers. Lynda’s frustration (“How could we have such an irrational test for parenthood?”) encapsulates the injustice of systems that disregard care work in favor of paperwork.

If you’re building family outside traditional boundaries, Cohen urges preparation: legal consultation, explicit agreements, and clear documentation. But her deeper argument is moral: caregiving itself should define family status.

Cohen calls the existing system “marital supremacy”—a structure that grants thousands of rights, from inheritance to hospital access, exclusively to married couples. While same-sex marriage equality was a major civil rights achievement, it also reinforced marriage as the only legitimate gateway to security. This leaves devoted friends, co-parents, and caregivers in precarious positions.

Policy innovations that break the monopoly

The book highlights viable alternatives. Colorado’s designated-beneficiary agreements let any two adults assign rights à la carte; France’s PACS serves millions as a semi-marital registry used by both romantic and nonromantic partners. Similar municipal models—in Somerville, Massachusetts, or in Alberta, Canada—prove that localization can pioneer reforms even without national overhaul. Cohen’s pragmatic tone invites policymakers to “unbundle” marital benefits: attach rights to caregiving and economic interdependence rather than the marital label.

Shifting from private fixes to public solutions

Friends today often rely on private contracts (wills, powers of attorney) that only work when someone believes the paperwork. Cohen calls for accessible, affordable systems so that friendship-based interdependence gains equal legal footing. The goal isn’t to abolish marriage but to democratize security.

Cohen doesn’t idealize friendship; she explores what happens when it changes or ends. Through the story of Joy mourning her best friend Hannah, she examines disenfranchised grief—sorrow society refuses to legitimize because the relationship wasn’t family. Joy receives no bereavement leave and is told to “move on,” despite acting as a primary caregiver during Hannah’s illness. To heal, Joy invents her own ritual: baking the Mexican chocolate cake Hannah once loved. Cohen argues that grief needs not only love but witnesses—and friends deserve that recognition.

When friendships fade but don’t die

Cohen’s own experience with M illustrates ambiguous loss: when a friend still exists but the closeness diminishes. Taking cues from theorist Pauline Boss, she calls this “frozen grief”—both mourning and waiting. The solution lies in renegotiation, not despair. You can accept friendships as dimmers, not switches, and design new forms—quarterly visits, scheduled memos—to preserve their value.

Together, Joy’s and M’s stories remind you that friendship, like family, evolves. To love well within it, you must mourn honestly and adapt creatively.

Cohen shows that the rise of friendship-based households stems from both practical necessity and spiritual desire. Examples stretch from Barb and Inez’s shared home to co-housing experiments like the author’s “Kibbutz D.C.”—a four-person household mixing couples and single friends. Across cases, motivations align: affordability, companionship, and intentional community. The pandemic and housing crises only accelerated interest.

Making co-living work

Cohen demonstrates that success depends on negotiation and ritual. Clear financial plans, shared calendars, and pre-move “premortem” conversations surface tensions before they become rifts. The book catalogs everyday logistics—bill-splitting systems, guest policies, parenting norms—to show that friendship as co-living isn’t informal chaos but structured companionship. Privacy trade-offs exist, but they buy a richer web of mutual aid.

If you dream of living with friends, Cohen’s rule is simple: intention beats assumption. Co-living succeeds when treated as a real partnership requiring governance, empathy, and flexibility.

The book culminates in a call for visibility—both cultural and legal. Cohen profiles Joan and Amelie, who publicly declare themselves “non-romantic life partners” at a museum event. The applause proves the act’s power: people must see alternative relationships to believe they exist. Cohen urges us to invent rituals—annual friend anniversaries, household vows, commemorative gatherings—because recognition generates legitimacy.

From paperwork to public witness

Where law recognizes through forms, culture recognizes through storytelling. Cohen envisions media depictions and creative ceremonies that honor friends with the same gravity society grants weddings. If work policies expand bereavement leave or visitation rules to chosen family, it will be because visibility normalized those expectations first.

Her closing argument is hopeful: being seen makes a movement possible. When you name and celebrate the people who anchor you, you’re not only affirming your own life design—you’re expanding what intimacy can mean for everyone.