Gender variables in friendship: Contradiction or not?When I think of my good friends, I see them in cinematic terms.The camerawork is entirely different for men and women.The "movie" memories I have of female friends are open and intimate.We are talking, interested in each other in a magnetic sort of way.They look straight into my eyes, sensitive to my feelings, listening to me with deliberate attention.In comparison, memories of male friends are in an entirely different film altogether.An action or adventure movie! Not much in the way of dialog.The ritual of motion, or the sequence of action, makes up for the deficiency of dialog and honest narrative.My mind retreats back to my earliest childhood friend, Donald.I was still living in Europe at the time, and near my house was an old German truck left abandoned after the war.No wheels. No windshield. No doors. But the steering wheel was intact.Donald and I continuously "flew" to America in that truck, our "airplane".Even now, I remember our daily ritual as we flew along, across Europe, across the Atlantic, on a mission of mercy.
