Art of friendship

Life changing friendship had a rocky start

Women would feel the need to unite for self-protection and more respect. Like in the "War on Women" of Santa Barbara college student Elliot Rodger. The 22-year-old virgin vowed to "punish all females for the crime of depriving me of sex", and killed six people and himself in seaside California.

But between women, even friends, there is jealousy, anger and backstabbing. Male friends backstab and occasionally physically kill each other, of course. But women have more subtle feelings.

Chinese psychologists compare Chinese women with Western ones. They say the former tend to be more sensitive, less confident, more likely to make comparisons and get jealous, and to blame themselves when they shouldn't. These traits hurt relationships, with either the same or the opposite sex.

I had a best friend who called me several times a day to talk about the funny things she saw or the frustrations she felt. I did the same with her.

No man has the patience to receive such calls even for a week. Only a girlfriend can do it for a decade.

Only years later now, I understand how precious it is to have a go-to person. But at the time, we both had boyfriends and were somehow unhappy that the men were occupying our time. Then one of the girls she grew up with came to the city and I became very jealous.

The worst thing was that we used to work together. Working relations are cruel. Conflicts at the workplace easily got personal, and the friendship turned sour. We stalled all contact for a year, and meet about once a year, usually with a large bunch of people.

We both made hard efforts to renew the relationship, but the feelings can be awkward. I don't understand how men and women fall in love with their exes, but it seems to prove difficult to restart a broken friendship between two women.

I think of this girl quite often and notice her status when I open my instant messaging service. But I rarely think of an ex-boyfriend. I throw away used stuff, and I am not the nostalgic type.

Maybe, we human beings are more sophisticated animals than we know. So things that happened, even as weird as the "doll" in the box, can all be somehow understood.