ñýíêñ çà èíôó!…

áëàãîäàðþ….

Another thoughtful post. I will limit myself to a couple quick reactions.

First, as you know from our own long history of friendship and mutual friends, you girls have no monopoly on drama. Guys may be worse, given how comparatively taciturn we are with emotions. But the complicated nature of female friendships begs for more writing and thought from you. I agree it’s fascinating stuff.

Secondly, perhaps you’re onto something about your big boots providing false cover from the drama that happens between people.

It reminds me of an old friend who called today, talking about how he always thought, given the nature of his work, he was insulated from office “politics” until recent changes at his agency. We laughed about how naive that sounded. What are office “politics” but the messy and inevitable stew of human emotion, much of it unpleasant: jealousy, competitiveness, distrust and fear? Who among us gets to stomp blithely without dealing with that? Likewise, your notion of drama. Your instincts to avoid it are laudable and perhaps natural to your disposition, but sadly that doesn’t exempt you from it. And yes, trying to be above it sometimes prevents you from dismantling it when it festers…

As it may have with the lost Babe-O. I have no idea what happened there. You guys all seemed genuinely befuddled over a decade ago when you married Dash and she had fallen out of the picture. I have not talked to her since then, but we recently connected over Facebook. It was one of many of what I call “silent handshakes”, reconnections with people without any actual conversation. We exchanged a note when she posted about a business trip to NYC, but were unable to meet in person.

She seems to be doing very well and I have no idea if she thinks about the Babe-Os or what those feelings are. I hesitate to speculate too much but will say this: sometimes people pull away from those intense friendships after school because they have an urgent need to redefine themselves away from the people they were so close to. So I agree with your thought that this is usually more about the person who chooses to pull away than the people they pull away from.

And if it was a misunderstanding, well after all this time, even the hardest feelings soften. The thing that keeps the estrangements alive is more awkwardness about breaking them then hard feelings.

What I’m saying is that I’m sure, even without having talked to her in a dozen or so years, the lost Babe-O has warm and deep feelings for the Babe-Os she’s not in touch with. And if you or any of the other girls reached out to her, I bet everyone would be grateful.

PC