On Female Friendship

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This is my first post for ForbesWoman, so it would seem right to devote it to manifesto-like things. To say that I am here for this or that reason, I am going to write about this and so and so, etc., etc. But when given ruled paper I ignore its lines by instinct. That is why today I would like to write not about “the clever” but the eternal. Namely, about female friendship that is considered to be rara avis in terra (a rare bird on the earth – Latin).

The topic was inspired not by tomorrow’s “highlight in the calendar” – the eighth of March – but by another holiday, near and dear. Today, on the seventh of March, is the birthday of my closest friend and my sworn sister, my business partner and my guardian angel, Tania Legoida. Our mothers had been friend before we were born, we married a week apart and defended our PhD theses a day apart. No man has become an apple of discord for us, no problem at work or at home has caused a quarrel between us. We have not practically parted for the last 20 years – we studied together, settled down to married life together, established a business together and it has been working productively (keep your fingers crossed) for ten years now. And the main thing – we have never betrayed but always backed each other in the eternal fight called “life”.
We are often asked (out of sheer curiosity, with friendly or hostile envy, or secretly trying to challenge our alliance): what is the secret of these relations and how do you manage to maintain them for so many years? As a rule, I answer by telling a Caucasian joke: “Grandpa, have you ever wanted to divorce Granny? – Divorce? Never! But to kill her, yes, I have!”

I wouldn’t like to give advice or recipes like in “self-help manuals on happiness”. Probably our launch environment is somewhat ivory for Tania and me – absolute psychological compatibility, “a second-generation friendship”, lack of competitors represented by blood brothers or sisters, an approval from our husbands. But I am absolutely sure of one thing: women are capable of being as loyal, close and true friends as men can be. You only have to see a person, not a female rival, in each other. That is a featherless biped, in Plato’s apt words, with their virtues and shortcomings, perks and tsores, phobias and manias. Then everything gets much easier and there arises Friendship in your life.
 

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