S1E2: What is "The Third Thing"?

What if friendship isn't the supporting character in your life story?

What if it's one of the most important relationships you'll ever have?

In this episode, Michelle and Danyelle explore the inspiration behind The Third Thing and why they believe platonic love deserves far more attention than our culture often gives it.

Using their own 26-year friendship as a lens, they discuss how society tends to place romantic relationships at the center of our lives while overlooking the profound impact of friendship, community, and chosen family.

From childhood messages about love to the realities of adulthood, partnership, parenting, loneliness, and rebuilding community after the pandemic, this conversation is an invitation to think differently about connection.

In This Episode

•  The question that sparked the creation of The Third Thing
•  Why friendship can hold unique pieces of our identity 
•  The cultural prioritization of romantic love 
•  Disney, rom-coms, and the stories we inherit about relationships 
•  Relationship anarchy and expansive love 
•  Why one person can't be everything 
•  The impact of the pandemic on friendship and belonging 
•  The loss of third spaces and community gathering places 
•  Adult loneliness and social disconnection 
•  Building and maintaining your village 
•  The cost of deprioritizing friendship 
•  Why platonic love is a form of healing 

Concepts Discussed

•  Relationship Anarchy 
•  Chosen Family 
•  Community Care 
•  Adult Friendship 
•  Third Spaces 
•  Loneliness and Social Connection 
•  Expansive Love 
•  Interdependence vs. Independence 

Reflection Questions

•  If you woke up tomorrow with no memory, who would you trust to tell you who you are? 
•  How much time and energy are you currently investing in friendship? 
•  Have you unintentionally prioritized romantic relationships over platonic ones? 
•  Where might there be opportunities for repair, reconnection, or deeper intimacy in your friendships? 
•  What would it look like to intentionally build your village? 

Resources Mentioned

• Ray Oldenburg and the concept of "Third Spaces" 
•  Relationship Anarchy 
•  Community care and village-building practices 

Card Pull: The High Priestess

The episode closes with a reflection on the High Priestess tarot card—an invitation to trust your intuition, deepen your self-knowledge, and listen to what your relationships are asking of you.

Connect With Us

📸 Instagram: @thethirdthingpod

🌐 Website: TheThirdThingPod.com

🎧 Join our Patreon community for deeper conversations, monthly gatherings, workbooks, and early access to new episodes.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend, send a text to someone you've been thinking about, or leave a rating and review to help more people discover the show.

Transcript

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Danyelle 0:00

Welcome to The Third Thing, a podcast about friendship in all its fullness. The conflict worth repairing, the evolution worth honoring, and sometimes the letting go.

Michelle 0:10

Think of it as a kitchen table conversation with honesty, laughter, validation, and plenty of tea.

Danyelle 0:17

I'm Danielle, a therapist, healer, and hoodoo practitioner who's been thinking about the way we love each other for most of my life.

Michelle 0:25

And I'm Michelle, a life coach, facilitator, and a spaceholder at my core. I've spent a lifetime helping people communicate better and more honestly.

Danyelle 0:34

We've been best friends for 26 years and we've got the receipts. We've done the work and we want to share what we've learned. The tools, the hard parts, the things nobody taught us.

Michelle 0:45

There are a lot of people figuring out their friendships without a roadmap. So we're pulling up a chair. Number two.

Danyelle 0:58

Welcome back. We made it to two.

Michelle 1:00

We made it to two.

Danyelle 1:01

High five.

Michelle 1:02

We're doing a thing. You love a high five.

Danyelle 1:04

I love a high five. I do. I mean, how do you I love a high five? How do you not like a high five? Correct. Michelle Coughl.

Michelle 1:13

It's a little dorky.

Danyelle 1:16

Well, for somebody who has known me for 26 years, you would know. Said what I said. I am peak dork.

Michelle 1:25

Today we're excited to talk about the third thing, why we're here.

Danyelle 1:29

Why we're here.

Michelle 1:31

One thing that came up, I love to say, I read it somewhere, but we all know it was on Instagram reels. Was if you were in a coma and you woke up with no memory of who you were or any of your past, who would you want to tell you who you are? And it's such an interesting question because of all of the close relationships in your life. Each person holds this different piece of you. Your mom knows you in a certain way. Your siblings know you in a particular way. Your partner who's with you every single day. But for me, it was this really I mean, it was pretty instant. I'm not gonna lie. I was like Danielle, my best friend, because you have not only known me for so long, which is very fortunate, but you have seen me and loved me through so many iterations of myself. And I have shared some of the more intimate corners of who I am in a way that you can't always share with a partner. And it is a big part of what got us talking about the third thing, this value of friendship, like the true value that if I didn't know who I was, who is the person who would tell me? Like that's that's really important.

Danyelle 2:53

Yeah. And she immediately sent it to me because it was on IG.

Michelle 2:59

It was. We do read. I do. I get the chronicle. Yes. Only on Sundays. It's a lot of pressure, but I'm working on it. Yeah.

Danyelle 3:08

And there's something about reading that question and being like, yes, of course. That same, not even getting like halfway through the question and being like, Michelle, correct? Correct. And what you're speaking to is the parts of myself that I let you in fully, that I open all of my doors. And as you were talking, you said, Oh, your mom, your siblings, oh my goodness, love you and how my life would be skewed if I left it up to them. My brother would have some things to say.

Michelle 3:50

You know, I feel really fortunate in that my sisters might overindex on how highly they esteem me. Don't get me wrong. We we had our affair of shit as any sisters do, but would they be as honest?

Danyelle 4:05

Yeah. And I think honest in the ways that actually feel authentic, not honest in the ways of how they want you to be. And for me, I think that's why it is you, because that authenticity is so at the core and center of our relationship. And you know, even when we've had these moments of weaving closer or farther apart, there was still this snapshot. There was still a connection. And so waking up and being like, Who am I? Tell me my life.

Michelle 4:42

And that safety that we've nurtured over the years to be able to reveal different categories and stories and dark corners, if you will.

Danyelle 4:54

The basement.

Michelle 4:55

I mean that part.

Danyelle 4:58

And you know, that again, that's what this show is about. We literally planted this seed after being together for an entire day. And and I should say we were together for the first time. You said maybe in years, maybe that it was just the two of us for consecutive hours. Typically, it's partners, kiddos, uh, you know, a party, other humans, and it was just us for hours all day. And I left feeling so full. And there was a remembering. And what it got me thinking about is how society has saturated the market or saturated our brains about romantic love and how romantic love is the peak, it's the pinnacle, it's the top of the mountain. Once you arrive there, you have made it. And it is at the expense of platonic love. I am guilty of that in relationships that I've had, and it comes at a real cost. Not valuing relationships across a spectrum, putting them in this kind of hierarchical way creates separation. It creates these moments where you are putting so much on your romantic partner. And that one person isn't supposed to be the person carrying everything, right? In the before times, we had villages, we had these deep communities where everybody held a little bit of you. And now we really do put it on that one person. As somebody who thinks of themselves as a relationship anarchist, being in a place where not ranking relationships has been work and learning that language. I think about this idea of big love, love being expansive, love not being a pie. And we grow up thinking it is. If I take a slice of your pie, it takes away from your wife, your daughter, and it it's this balancing of the scale or imbalancing of the scale. And we're really here to talk about the ways that we rebalance that scale and give platonic love its flowers.

Michelle 7:24

I also think in this context, it's important to mention familial love because that's often both the first kind of love that we witness between our parents and our siblings and even within their relationship. And maybe it doesn't get quite the attention as romantic love in terms of cinema, or uh, you know, you're not doing always doing date nights with a parent or a sibling and investing in that way. But there is this expectation that you will maintain those relationships and attempt to repair over time, regardless of what has happened. And with both, there's this real effort put into maintenance. I spend holidays with my family, I invite them to my graduation. There's this investment that's inferred through familial love that again we're just acknowledging that friendship love is getting, you know, pieces of this love and care. And we've both benefited from giving it more investment over time.

Danyelle 8:34

And you know, as you're saying that, I'm really thinking about how growing up, what we saw in media, what we saw on every television show was quintessential princess needing to be found and fixed by her prince. And every rom-com shout out to Fool's Russian. That was my that was nice. So good. So good, so good. And that that movie does not stand the test of time on multiple layers.

Michelle 9:07

Most of them don't.

Danyelle 9:09

And I say that because growing up, that's that's what I was looking for. I was looking for that type of love, that type of save me. I'm gonna put myself in a box so I can be loved, so I can have this romantic partnership. I think about, yeah, the Disney princesses. I think about the rom-coms.

Michelle 9:35

I mean, let's talk about our sweet friends Elsa and Anna. And how much, well, first of all, love that that ends talking about sisterly love and doesn't necessarily put romantic love at the forefront. But how much they might have benefited from having some communication skills that allowed them to be able to discuss what was keeping them apart instead of literally shutting out your sister for over a decade. Yes. Um, but I digress. My romantic comedy of choice was Pretty Woman and classic. Interesting that I'm just now thinking at the end she moves out from her best friend and moves sort of on to her new life.

Danyelle 10:15

Mm-hmm. It has been fed, ingrained, it's it's in everything that we do. You go to college and then you go to find a partner, you know? And again, we're here to say that friendships are deeply, deeply important.

Michelle 10:37

There's also this cultural moment happening where we experienced an insane pandemic in 2029 and are still in sort of the midst of what that created. It's not over necessarily, but we've just sort of adapted and integrated. Correct. But the erosion of third spaces, this sort of loneliness, both in we're not seeing our people as much, and also maybe we're not going into work in the same way, we're not having happy hours in the same way. And even just us as millennials, elder millennials, we're elder millennials blessings. Um that it's also that time of our lives where we may not be as active as we once were going out on a Saturday, et cetera. But then what is the impact if we're not then integrating and finding new ways to incorporate friendships and relationships and in real life? The difference of being able to experience energy together to give someone a hug and really just share space, which is what you were talking about in the beginning of the day that we spent together. We walked, we sat and shared a meal, we sat side by side in my living room and pulled tarot cards, and the magic that's created when you're in a physical space with someone. That's not to say that a phone call or a Zoom can't have impact, but sharing physical space is not only important, but I think we're getting less and less of that. And we're in this digital landscape where you're seeing what other folks are up to and back in the before times, as you say. If you went on a vacation with someone else, I wouldn't necessarily know. You would have to call me and be like, hey, I went on a vacation without you. Um, but that's not the reality that we're living in. And we've embraced this and incorporated it into our day-to-day lives, but we didn't necessarily grow the skin to be able to manage what that looks like when I am watching other social interactions but not getting to participate in them.

Danyelle 12:49

Absolutely. And I'm just also thinking about the loss of third space in not just this, you know, post-lockdown moment, but the more and more we get that we are connected via the interwebs, we we don't have physical third spaces. And we want to talk about Ray Oldenberg, who coined this term around a third space being neither home nor work. And historically, those were churches, barbershops, the front stoop, the markets. And we have really lost that. We went through a period of time where we couldn't be together. We physically couldn't be together. And I feel like we swung the other way, but missed the part of being together. We are a lot of us are back in a workspace commuting. We live farther away from each other. We live in the same city, and it takes me 30 to 40 minutes to get to each other because we live directly on opposite ends. On opposite ends.

Michelle 13:58

That's very rude.

Danyelle 13:58

Um, but again, we have really lost the ability to create together, to sit together, to just say, Hey, how are you? And to me, it's biological, right? Like that loss, the importance and the need as humans to be pack animals, to be in community, we don't have that as much. We have a lot of parasocial connections. And I see why Gen Z is really moving towards more analog IRL things, right? Because I miss you.

Michelle 14:42

And it feels so different, and it feels like pushing against the envelope. And we're like, no, we we know. We do know, but a good reminder to come back to it. And with that sort of insular move of taking it to the very nuclear family. I mean, even giving birth in August of 2020, it was just me and my wife in the room. And that's definitely not how I pictured it. I thought I would have my best friend, I thought I would have my mom, I thought I would have my sisters. And that's, you know, again, historically, childbirthing humans have had a village around them. But one thing that really stands out for me in embarking on this conversation together about friendship and the third kind of love is partners absorb so much responsibility. Not only are they meant to be your soulmate and love of your life, they're meant to be your best friend, you're sharing finances together, you're building a home together, you're doing errands, you're potentially raising children. They're great in bed and they keep it fresh. You know, maybe you work out together. It is truly a never-ending list, and it's so much pressure to put on a relationship. When Ashley and I got married, we very specifically did not have that part of the ceremony that's in a lot of modern weddings where you say, I'm marrying my best friend, which I mean, it's such a beautiful sentiment, but I already have a best friend. Yeah, and so does she. And it's very much we're coming to this relationship as full and complete people, or at least that's our goal. And let's not add that extra layer of I need to also rely on you for all of my friendship needs. So that was really important to us. I also just want to touch on this idea of the cost of community as being something that I think about often, and that unfortunately it's just not always convenient to watch somebody's kid for them or pick them up after school. Or I know that I got really sick during the teacher's strike and I had my kiddo at home, and I was also supposed to be at work, and I really needed to ask for help. And, you know, it's it's that investment that you make even when it's not the easiest thing in the world, but you know you're gonna get returns back for it. And it helps to build this village that we sort of have in our mind that you would have a friend that will come over and do anything for you and you would return the favor. And we've sort of gotten away from that, maybe. But I think that's part of what we're talking about here is investing in platonic relationships and friendships in this way that expands your village.

Danyelle 17:37

And so you're not left out in the cold, right? So when you're sick and you can't send your child to school, you have multiple people who can come and hold the burden of life for you.

Michelle 17:52

And with you.

Danyelle 17:53

With you, yes. And I I love seeing this around the interwebs. This idea of community is inconvenient because it takes work, it takes investment, it isn't surface level, it is diving in, it is showing up, it is being present, it is asking questions. And that to me is how we survive, you know, as elder millennials, living through our entire lives unprecedented, really ready for some times.

Michelle 18:28

Endless unprecedented times.

Danyelle 18:30

Really ready for some precedented times.

Michelle 18:32

Thank you.

Danyelle 18:32

Yeah, I think about the times that we all show up for each other, um, and being able to say, I'm so grateful for that. So, so, so grateful for that.

Michelle 18:44

On the flip side, I'm curious what has not investing in friendship cost you.

Danyelle 18:51

Yeah, at times a lot. I was in a 10-year relationship. Shout out to Kelly.

Michelle 18:58

Hey, Kelly.

Danyelle 18:58

Hey, Boo. And we were together for me, 22 to 32. And I did. I mean, I really thought we would get married, we would be together forever. We lived together, we were very domesticated together. And so for me, it was a couple of things that were happening. One, I was bringing her into my life, familial and platonic in my friendships, um, because I wanted my people to know who she was. And we were building together. So the deprioritizing of my platonic loves made sense in my head at the time, right? The information I had. I wasn't building a life in the same way with my friends. And so it was important for me to really put in, quote, the effort that it takes to build a life with somebody. And when that relationship ended, it was a lot of rebuilding. It had been a decade that I had been with this person and had moved my focus away from the people who then I was asking to hold me through this breakup.

Michelle 20:12

I think it's interesting too, because there's so many layers at play here. But when you were in a relationship in our later teen years, that was more of a heteronormative relationship. Still, we were at that age where we were going to parties together and the girls would hang out with the girls, and the guys would hang out with the guys. And then when you add a queer lens to it, all of a sudden it's you and me plus your girlfriend in the dressing room together getting ready for a New Year's Eve outing. And it's that reminder that yes, integrate your relationships and your friendships, regardless of queerness, need some individual time and investment as well to keep their strength and continuity. Um, yeah, just an interesting way to look at it. Yeah.

Danyelle 21:03

The platonic love needs space, it needs air, it needs to breathe. And so often it gets snuffed out because of the ways we place romantic love on this pedestal.

Michelle 21:24

I think it's really important to call out that Danielle and I are really fortunate. I don't want to say lucky because we've put a lot of work into it over time, but acknowledging that not everyone has a best friend of 26 years. Um, and that we've done a lot of growing apart and coming back together. But there may be people listening who are wanting that kind of friendship or who are curious about reinvesting now that they're at a certain phase in their life, or building anew, whether that's because you've moved geographically or you're ready for a friendship. And relationships that meet you where you are now. And I think that there's something for everyone, and you're welcome here. And also, our thesis is really that friendship love is healing, that this idea of a third thing is how we care for ourselves and for each other.

Danyelle 22:20

I'm so glad that you said that because we want to let folks know that everybody is welcome. Whether you mirror us or you're in a place in your life where you are rebuilding and everything in between, behind and forward of that, there is hope in this conversation around building, around being together, around what it means to be in community in an intentional way. We do hope that in hearing our stories, our wins, some of the things that didn't go as well for us over the last two plus decades. You're getting something to apply in your friendships, in your community with your Platonic beloveds.

Michelle 23:09

Is there anything that's percolated or bubbled to the surface for you this episode?

Danyelle 23:14

Definitely. And it is this idea of hope. I am a Sagittarius son. Yes, you are, and also a Cancer moon, and this kind of duality of holding hope as Sagittarians do, but feeling things very deeply, feeling the energy of the world in this moment, and also carrying hope. I want to bring that to this space. And what really came up for me as we were talking today is how beautiful it is to hold hope in connection, to hold hope in the blossoming of. And I hope that I can do that for all of you.

Michelle 23:54

For me, I think it's this idea of the rejection of the status quo. Yes. You mentioned it with the Gen Zers sort of rejecting this digital landscape that they were born into and really adopting a more analog in real life kind of experience. And to me, it feels like the rejection of this moment is a return to the before times where we were able to lean on each other and cultivate community in a way that upheld a way of life that is joyful and connected and supportive, and rejects this idea that success can only come from doing something alone, that you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and that doing something by yourself is the only way to achieve success. So I'm excited to explore that together.

Danyelle 24:44

I love that so much. And I'm hearing this like, it's not weak, you know? It's so often seen as weakness to be in community, to receive that support and how strong we are together in community, not just for the two of us, but the ripples effect of everybody else that we connect with. Will you pull a card for us? We've got the high priestess here. And I love this card so much. It is a major arcana. It is the third card in the entire tarot deck. And it is really about self-trust, self-knowing, and intuition. And what's coming up for me around this idea of the third thing is one, our intuition, our ability to trust ourselves so much that we can say things to each other. And when I think about this for the broader community, it is an invitation to trust yourself, to know what you need within your platonic loves, to trust when it doesn't feel right, trust when it feels really good, and allow yourself to be really open to what's what's kind of lingering in the in-between.

Michelle 26:06

And I love this invitation. And I'd like to offer an invitation to our listeners to take an inventory. Where are you at with your third thing, with your platonic friendships? And where might there be space for growth, for repair, for deeper connection? And where are you or could you be building more community around that?

Danyelle 26:30

Yeah. And maybe think about sending a text, picking up a phone, writing a letter, and how that might feel for the person receiving it. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next week. If today's episode meant something to you, share it with a friend.

Michelle 26:49

Find us on Instagram at the Third Thing Pod, and everything we're building lives at www.thethirdthingpod.com. Episode notes, our workbooks, all of it.

Danyelle 27:00

And if you're ready to go deeper, real community, monthly events, early access, and to join the group chat, we're on Patreon. The link is in the show notes.

Michelle 27:10

If you're loving the show, a rating and review genuinely helps more people find us. It takes two minutes and it means everything.