Stop Treating Friendship as ‘Plan B’: Why All Relationships Count скачать в хорошем качестве

Stop Treating Friendship as ‘Plan B’: Why All Relationships Count

If you don’t find a romantic, sexual partner, you will be alone forever.” That’s the story many of us are sold: if you’re not in a couple, you’re failing at connection. For David Jay, it was more than a fear — it felt like a guarantee. As an asexual person, he couldn’t see himself in the scripts our culture hands us about love, partnership, and family. Today, he’s living a life his younger self didn’t think was possible: co-parenting in a three-parent family, raising two kids, and building movements rooted in human connection and collective care. In this conversation, Dr. Payal Beri sits down with David Jay — founder of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) and author of Relationality: How Moving from Transactional to Transformational Relationships Can Reshape Our Lonely World — to rethink what counts as a “real” relationship. They dive into why we treat romantic love as the only path out of loneliness, how capitalism and tech have turned connection into a transaction, and what it would look like to normalize all forms of love: platonic, communal, familial, interdependent. If you’ve ever felt “behind” because you’re not partnered, wondered if you’re “the problem” for not fitting the couple script, or craved a life built on chosen family and community — this episode offers a different map. 🔍 In This Episode, We Talk About: “I will be alone forever” David’s early years realizing he was asexual, and the terror of believing partnership was impossible for him. The message our culture gives: if you’re not in a romantic, sexual partnership, you are alone — and why that story is both recent and deeply harmful. How intentional conversations with friends led to an invitation to co-parent, buy a home together, and raise two kids as a three-parent family. Why “I don’t need anyone, I can do this alone” is celebrated — and how that story fuels burnout, isolation, and the loneliness epidemic. Why so many people treat community living or chosen family as failure instead of a valid, equal way to build a rich, connected life. Collective care → collective power From Dr. King’s church to social movements: how bringing each other food, rides, and support becomes the infrastructure for real political change. The difference between having followers and having relationships that actually change you — and why most platforms optimize for the wrong thing. Why AI companions worry David, and how technology could instead help us find and sustain real-world communities and recurring spaces of care. How elite networks (Ivy Leagues, MBA programs) use relationships as power, while poor communities get shamed for relying on each other. Seeing loneliness not as a personal defect, but as a lack of visible places to show up — and how to start finding (or creating) those places. From game nights and taco runs to recurring meetups: small, repeatable actions that turn strangers into real relationships over time. ⏱️ Timestamps / Chapters 00:00 – Cold open: “If you don’t find a partner, you’ll be alone forever” 01:41 – Show intro: Reframing Perspectives with Dr. Payal Beri 02:08 – Setting the stage: status labels, loneliness & relationship boxes 02:31 – Meet David Jay: asexual movement builder & author of Relationality 03:01 – Why redefining relationships is urgent in a lonely world 09:21 – How their co-parenting structure actually works day to day 10:10 – “Am I the problem?”: shame, queerness & reframing the issue 12:17 – From shame to anger to movement: “Why did the world require us to be lonely?” 15:05 – History lesson: couple-centric living is recent (and not going well) 16:09 – Individualism, capitalism & why we buy back what community once gave 17:53 – Friends who want kids but resist community as “Plan B” 26:26 – “Buy everything, need no one”: why that model leads to loneliness 55:41 – Practical reframes: it’s not about fixing you, it’s about finding the right places 🔗 Links & Resources (you can paste below description) Connect with David Jay: Book & contact: relationalitybook.com (as mentioned in the episode) Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN): asexuality.org Connect with Dr. Payal Beri: 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/dr.payalberi 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@payalberi?su... 🌐 RK Empathy: rkempathy.com 💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/payalberi 🎤 Book a Talk: payalberi.com 🎙 Podcast by MicMoguls.com #ReframingPerspectives #Leadership #EmpathyInBusiness