The Odd Couple

Phil is my good friend. I’m trying to figure out why. We do have a few things in common. We live a few houses from one another; we were born only six days apart; we both married women with four letter names beginning with the letter “J”—Joan and Jane; and we both have a son and a daughter. That’s about it for the superficial commonality.

Our differences abound. Phil is a Methodist, and I’m a Jew; Phil is a conservative Republican, and I’m a bleeding heart liberal Democrat; Phil lives to eat, and I eat to live; Phil likes green hot sauce with breakfast, and I think the sale of green hot sauce should be outlawed; Phil reads the Wall Street Journal, and I read the New York Times; Phil loves cars and their engines, and I don’t know how to open the hood of my car; Phil has lived his entire life in California, and I lived the first 69 years in Jersey, etc., etc. 

You get the point. We are as different as Felix Unger and Oscar Madison in “The Odd Couple.”  So what makes our friendship work?  I think I finally got the answer.  We both love to laugh. We see the humor in almost everything. We have each other’s back. We share many of the same values -- love of family, respect for hard work, integrity, loyalty.

But opposites can also attract. We are not threatened by our differences.  We are stimulated by them. We grow because of them. We learn by hearing the other’s point of view, but we don’t need to convince the other I’m right and he’s wrong.  So, as the French are known for saying, “Viva la difference.”