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BFFs Through the Years

Soul sisters, BFFs or kindred spirits. Call them what you will, strong female friendships are important to the health, wellbeing and happiness of most—if not all—women. However, time, priorities and circumstances test the bonds of even the tightest of friends, writes Nirmali Nuss.

Women have a tremendous capacity to make deep, lasting and emotional friendships from a very young age. These non-kinship social relationships are a pivotal part of any society. Friendship on a basic level depends on honesty, trust and loyalty. It enriches our lives and forges warmth, confidence and reassurance. ‘A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud,’ declared Ralph Waldo Emerson, an eminent nineteenth-century American poet.Anecdotal evidence and peer surveys point to shifts, some minute and others seismic, in these personal relationships when friends take different paths in their lives. The closeness and intimacy of these ‘strong’ friendships are tested during transition stages such as when one party leaves for university, gets married, has children or gets a promotion.