We're very different: She's blond and pink-faced, I'm brunette and freckled. She's an incurable hypochondriac who keeps the business cards of all 26 of her specialists in her wallet; I hate doctors and -- despite a condition I'm supposed to monitor -- haven't been for a regular checkup in years. Her job is to kvetch at me to go to a doctor; mine is to soothe her through her cataract scares and MRIs. She's quick to fight with strangers, I'm quick to fight with friends. So I dissuade her from street brawls with Yankees fans and she talks me down from my bouts of social pique. For two such high-octane people, we've had an amazingly peaceful run. We've argued about things like how she woke me up early on a Saturday morning to pick up a rug; how she took so long to cook her hash browns that my scrambled eggs got cold; about which of us was righter about when our friends would get engaged. We are like two aging drama queens, relieved to step off the stage and relax together with a beer and a cigarette.

Sometimes we are each other's "plus one" (media parlance for "date") at dress-up parties, where we eat and drink and gawk at Liv Tyler for free. But mostly, we have kept our old social calendars with our separate groups of friends intact. Sara and I meet for nightly wrap-up sessions in Brooklyn bars where we can violate the smoking ban. We trade in theories, stories, jokes and endless, endless analysis. We are as likely to discuss our weird rashes as we are orgasms. We know all of the other's office gossip. We watch awards shows and post-season baseball and have served as a two-woman communications headquarters during this election, juggling our mothers and our editors on phone lines, monitoring responses and cracking jokes about candidates. In short, we are a boring couple who have had fun discovering our own bifurcated independence. By leaning just a little on each other, we learned to stop worrying and love our lives.

I've learned a lot about the nature of adult relationships from this one. For one thing, I have been disabused of the notion that no man I meet at this stage of my life will ever be able to understand me without having known me for years. It took Sara about three weeks to figure it all out. It was easy, how quickly we explained and understood each other's full and meticulously drawn-out histories.

Since we've been close, Sara has had a couple of relationships; I've dated as rarely as humanly possible -- too pleased with my impervious shield of post-heartbreak self-sufficiency to risk weakening it. None of the guys she dated ever diminished the tenor of our friendship. When she met Matt, a year and a half ago, it was clear that he was good people; I approved. He was around for only three months before dispatching for his new job in Boston. I don't think I realized it then, and long-distance has been hard for her, but as far as our friendship went, this was the perfect arrangement. She was in a happy romantic relationship. But she didn't have to say goodbye to her independence. When it became clear that Matt would not be returning to New York, I was enthusiastic about her moving to be with him. This guy seemed worth a try.

There is little dithering frippery about Sara. She isn't big on the "Do I look fat in this?" school of femininity; she knows what she knows. When she tells me that a spider bite on her wrist is surely shooting poison to her brain, there is no question in her mind that it's true. So it has been grim, watching her wrestle this question to the ground: What sacrifices are worth making? What chances are worth taking? How do you balance scales when your job, your home, your friends and your city are on one side and a man you love, a relationship you want to work, is on the other?

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