I Love My Friends!

Lest you think I'm a sentimental tree-hugging romantic. One who will buy Forever Friends bears for every friend's birthday.

Nope, I'm so not.

On the contrary, I'm quite a cat. And I thank the deities that my dearest pals take my affectionate, albeit naughty, nips and scratches (figures of speech, not literally!) with plenty of tolerance and huge doses of humor. It's these people I safely call my friends who are good enough to take my crap. Not just any crap. Real intense crap.

Friends, to mean that special circle of four, a clique we call it The Support Group. And friends we've been for a good two decades (close!) : HF, XF, YB and myself, not really by choice, but more by natural default due to frightening similarities in our beliefs and personalities.

Oh, and before I offend the other darrrrlings whom I failed to mention, you do not qualify mainly because unlike us fabulous foursome, you are either married and therefore too busy to spend time bemoaning little absurdities with us, or you are out there spending too much time trying to get married, therefore resisting any force that may somehow land you in The Support Group. (You should get an inkling of how the group works by this far... not unlike Alcoholic Anonymous...)

Yes, we are helpless feminists.

A paradox, you'd say, but nevertheless real. This is how: one of us is a walking magnet for undesirable foreign men. Another one has the hots (OK, maybe just innocent admiration) for mature, married but unavailable men. Yet another has her undying love pledged only for The Man with the Guitar and the Beer Bottle. As for the last one, gee, I don't know... she never figured it out.

And so it goes... we strong, independent females spend weekends together doing nothing but fretting over our men, real or not. It's slightly depressing, but actually very therapeutic to be just sitting around over tea and desserts while we ponder who's next to leave this oh-so-exclusive group.

Girls, what do I do without you! I might have never said it, but I really love all of you very very much, and I'd rather be with you gals than anywhere else on a Saturday night! But, ahem ... it's just that maybe, we could do this WITH the guys instead? Let's really try...

Before then, here's to the power of four!